| Show loeve or A eath U ff rafael sabatini A service 0 oo axy THE STORY CHAPTER L I 1 in the town of urbino italy when it was waa under the control of cesare borgia famous military commander as well as great statesman a certain messer corvinus us arrant rogue Is flourishing as a fortune teller caster of spells and dispenser of 0 poisons to those nho can afford to pay for them to him comes in great secrecy the lady blanca do de Flora fioravand vand beautiful daughter of the rich and powerful lord of the castle of san leo which Is holding out against the power of even cesare borgia in the act of entering the girl li in astounded by the appearance of what she h takes for or an apparition but who turns turn out to be human as herself and 1 ente enters re with alth her blanca bianca asks the sorcerer er r f or an elixir which w will ill compel 00 love and mentions men ions the name of the man she desires to conquer lorenzo castro caro serving under cesare borgia corvinus tor for a largo large sum of money gives her a potion with directions 1 and the girl departs when she bho I 1 leaves the apparition appears before 1 corvinus he Is the much dreaded cesare 0 1 himself bim self borgia learns that Cory corvinus inus has a OU substance which he declares will restore the dead to life he then accuses the man of spreading the report that the sultan daem had been destroyed ly by the holy father through a subtle poison which corvinus had supplied corvinus denies it but admits he h has a binns ta deadly poison cesare forces him to drink it and restore himself to life the sorcerer secures an emetic and saves eaves himself CHAPTER ir II at a council at which castrocaro Castro caro Is present the duko duke Is assured by his officers that the castlo castle of san leo Is practically impregnable and can only be starved out this will take more time than cesaro cesare Is willing to devote to the task castrocaro Castro caro tells the th duke he has frequently scaled the mountain on which the castle Is situated with a subtle purpose and b believing 0 Is not so insensible to blancas beauty as the girl supposes he sends him to her with a mes sage age that her father fathel Is sick in san leo the young officer returns from the visit asking the duke to allow blanca bianca to visit her father borgia refuses but secretly gives orders that the she Is to bo be allowed permission to pass through the besieging lines it if she makes the attempt he then accepts Castro caroa caros aid and makes castrocaro Castro caro an offer of the governorship of the place it if through his efforts it Is taken of course a misstep or capture Is certain death but the young man dan accepts the offer isomo tomorrow arow night since sanc e YOU ou have resolved see that you rest betwixt this and then to fit you ton for the fatigue ot of such an enterprise and so sirs let us hope that we have at last a solution to this riddle of san leo chapter III you see I 1 hope what messer cas did not yet see nor for that matter ever saw knowing nothing ot of what had happened on the night when the duke visited messer corvinus you see in the dukes choice of him for this enterprise an instance of that fine discrimination cesare picked his instruments Macch lavell who studied the duke at close quarters and who worshiped him as the very embodiment of 0 all the virtues of was no doubt inspired by the dukes unerring wisdom in the choice of ministers to devote to the subject a chapter of his the prince Irl nce the first conjecture made of 0 a prince and ot of his intellectual capacity should be based upon a consideration of the men by whom he surrounds himself and when these are faithful to him and sufficient for his occasions lie Is to be accounted a wise prince for having chosen them sufficient and kept them faithful Macch lavelli writes thus no more than cesare might himself have written had he theorized upon instead of practicing it indeed it Is upon cesare Bor borgias glas practices ns as Macch lavelli halt half admits in one place that the florentine founded his theories so that it Is hardly an overstatement to say that whilst macchia neill wrote the prince cesare bor gla bla was its real author since his were the conceptions and actions that mae mac ch favelli converted into precepts cousee him here selecting tor for this task one who although the youngest among all his captains was yet undoubtedly the most sufficient for his particular need and observe the quality of his sufficiency in a measure it was adventitious depending upon Castro caros chanco chance acquaintance with that back way up the rock of san leo but in a still greater measure it was the result ot of cesares clever manipulation of circumstances it if that Is not yet quite clear to you it sho shall 11 become abundantly so ere all Is told but do not tall fall into the error sis of supposing that anything that befell g was the result of chance from now onward all happens precisely as ce ik sare had designed ne he had dincov t t ered certain forces and he had liari hari hessed them to his needs setting betting them upon a charse course by him predester mined and marlieb out continued latif iwed next week |
