From the old man by the buffet, who had stood spellbound during this ghastly scene, there broke at last an anguished cry.
"Mercy, my lord, mercy!" The Governor of Cesena straightened himself from his task, pulled the pike from the flames, and restored it to the man-at-arms.

Then turning to Mariani: "Fetch me wine," he bade him curtly, as he seated himself once more upon the chair from which he had risen to perform that deed of ghastly ruthlessness.
A torch spluttered suddenly in its sconce, and the fierce hissing of the fire--like some monster licking its chops over a bloody meal--were the only sounds that disturbed the stillness that ensued.
Every man there, including Ramiro's table companions, was white to the lips; for accustomed though they might be to horrors in that brigand's nest, this was a horror that surpassed anything they had ever witnessed.
The silence irked Messer Ramiro.

He looked round from under his shaggy brows, and he spluttered out an oath.
"Will you bring me this wine, pig ?" he growled at the almost senseless Mariani, and in his air and voice there was a promise of such terrific things that the old man put aside his horror to make room for his fears, and mechanically seizing another flagon he hurried forward to minister to the wants of his fearful lord.
Ramiro eyed him with cynical amusement.
"Your hand shakes, Mariani," he derided him.

"Are you cold?
Go warm yourself," he added, with a brutal laugh and a jerk of his thumb towards the fire.
My eyes have looked upon some gruesome sights, and I have heard such tales of ruthless cruelty as you would deem almost passing possibility.
I have read of the awful doings of the Lord Bernabo Visconti at Milan in the olden time, but I believe that compared with this monster of Cesena that same Bernabo was no worse than a sucking dove.

How it befell that men permitted him to live, how it was that none bethought him to put poison in his wine or a knife in his back, is something that I shall never wholly understand.