Before I could get ready I received three passes, which, had I worn a doublet instead of that mailed corselet, would certainly have run me through.

At the fourth pass I had regained my strength and spirit, and closed with him, and stabbed him four times in the head, and being so close he could not use his sword, but tried to parry with his hand and hilt, and I, as God willed, struck him at the wrist below the sleeve of mail, and cut his hand off clean, and gave him then one last stroke on his head.

Thereupon he begged for God's sake spare his life, and I, in trouble about Bebo, left him in the arms of a Venetian nobleman, who held him back from jumping into the canal.' Who this Venetian nobleman, found unexpectedly upon the scene, was, does not appear.

Nor, what is still more curious, do we hear anything of that Martelli, the bravo, 'who kept his sword for the defense of Lorenzino's person.' The one had arrived accidentally, it seems.

The other must have been a coward and escaped from the scuffle.
'When I turned,' proceeds Bibboni, 'I found Lorenzino on his knees.