I'll keep your secret," laughed the bravo offensively, shouldering his partisan and resuming his sentinel's pacing.
Gonzaga sought his bed.

A fierce joy consumed him at having so consummately planned Valentina's ruin, yet he did not wish to face her again that night.
But when on the morrow the herald wound his horn again beneath the castle walls, Gonzaga was prominent in the little group that attended Monna Valentina.

The Count of Aquila was superintending the work to which he had set a half-score of men.

With a great show, and as much noise as possible--by which Francesco intended that the herald should be impressed--they were rolling forward four small culverins and some three cannons of larger calibre, and planting them so that they made a menacing show in the crenels of the parapet.
Whilst watching and directing the men, he kept his ears open for the message, and he heard the herald again recite the terms on which the garrison might surrender, and again the threat to hang every man from the castle-walls if they compelled him to reduce them by force of arms.
He brought his message to an end by announcing that in his extreme clemency Gian Maria accorded them another half-hour's grace in which to resolve themselves upon their course.

Should the end of that time still find them obstinate, the bombardment would commence.