As well might he have sent him a hundred figs wherewith to pelt the army of Valentino! Disaster swooped down swiftly upon the Lord of Pesaro.

His very people, seeing in what case they were, and how unprepared was their tyrant to defend them, wisely resolved that they would run no risks of fire and pillage by aiding to oppose the irresistible force that was being hurled against us.
It was on the second Sunday in October that the storm burst over the Lord Giovanni's head.

He was on the point of leaving the Castle to attend Mass at San Domenico, and in his company were Filippo Sforza of Santafior and Madonna Paola, besides courtiers and attendants, amounting in all to perhaps a score of gallant cavaliers and ladies.

The cavalcade was drawn up in the quadrangle, and Giovanni was on the point of mounting, when, of a sudden, a rumbling noise, as of distant thunder, but too continuous for that, arrested him, his foot already in the stirrup.
"What is that ?" he asked, an ashen pallor overspreading his effeminate face, as, doubtless, the thought of the enemy came uppermost in his mind.
Men looked at one another with fear in their eyes and some of the ladies raised their voices in querulous beseeching for reassurance.

They had their answer even as they asked.