His fears were that I might have read it, but never a suspicion crossed his mind of such a trick as I had played upon him.
So I sped on, the gigantic Ramiro blundering after me, panting and blaspheming, for although powerful, his bulk and the wine he had taken left him no nimbleness.

The distance between us widened, and if only Mariani would have the presence of mind to wait for me at the mouth of the passage, all would be as I could wish it before his dagger found my heart.
I was assuring myself of this when in the dark I stumbled, and striking my legs against a stair I hurtled forward.

I recovered almost immediately, but, in my frenzy of haste to make up for the instant lost, I stumbled a second time ere I was well upon my feet.
With a roar Ramiro must have hurled himself forward, for I felt my ankle caught in a grip from which there was no escaping, and I was roughly and brutally dragged back and down those stairs; now my head, now my breast beating against the steps as I descended them one by one.
But even in that hour the letter was my first thought, and I found a way to thrust it farther under my girdle so that it should not be seen.
At last I reached the hall, half-stunned, and with all the misery of defeat and the certainty of the futility of my death to further torture my last moments.

Over me stood Ramiro, his dagger upheld, ready to strike.
"Dog!" he taunted me, "your sands are run." "Mercy, Magnificent," I gasped.

"I have done nothing to deserve your poniard." He laughed brutally, delaying his stroke that he might prolong my agony for his drunken entertainment.
"Address your prayers to Heaven," he mocked me, "and let them concern your soul." And then, like a flash of inspiration came the words that should delay his hand.
"Spare me," I cried "for I am in mortal sin." Impious, abandoned villain, though he was, he said too much when he boasted that he feared neither God nor Devil.