The little spark that she had so bravely fanned to life had been quenched almost as soon as it had shown itself.
"Now, Federigo," said Ramiro grimly, "I am waiting." The executioner resumed his work, and in an instant I stood stripped of my brigandine.

As the fellow led me, unresisting, to the torture--for what resistance could have availed me now ?--I tried to pray for strength to endure what was to come.

I was done with life; for some portion of an hour I must go through the cruellest of agonies; and then, when it pleased God in His mercy that I should swoon, it would be to wake no more in this world.

For they would bear out my unconscious body, and hang it by the neck from that black beam they called Ramiro del' Orca's flagstaff.
I cast a last glance at Madonna.

She had fallen on her knees, and with folded hands was praying intently, none heeding her.
Federigo halted me beneath the pulleys, and his horrid hands grew busy adjusting the ropes to my wrists.
And then, when the last ray of hope had faded, but before the executioner had completed his hideous task, a trumpet-blast, winding a challenge to the gates of the Castle of Cesena, suddenly rang out upon the evening air, and startled us all by its sudden and imperious note..