Benvenuto returned to his abode with Ascanio, somewhat ill at ease, not because of the three wounds he had received, which were all too slight to occasion him any anxiety, but because of the possible results of the affray. Six months before, he had killed Guasconti, his brother's murderer, but had come off scot free by virtue of the protection of Pope Clement VII.; moreover, that act was committed by way of reprisal, but now Benvenuto's protector had gone the way of all flesh, and the prospect was much more ominous.
Remorse, be it understood, did not disturb him for one moment. But we beg our readers not for that reason to form an unfavorable opinion of our worthy goldsmith, who after killing a man, after killing two men perhaps,—indeed, if we search his past very carefully, after killing three men,—although he had a wholesome dread of the watch, did not for one instant fear to meet his God.
For this man, in the year of grace 1540, was an ordinary man, an every day man, as the Germans say. Men thought so little of dying in those days, that they naturally came to think very little of killing; we are brave to-day, but the men of those days were foolhardy; we are men grown, they were hot-headed youths. Life was so abundant in those days that men lost it, gave it, sold it, nay, even took it, with absolute indifference and recklessness.
There was once an author who was calumniated and abused for many years, whose name was made a synonym for treachery, cruelty, and all the words which mean infamy, and it needed this nineteenth century, the most impartial since the birth of humanity, to rehabilitate that author as the grand patriot and noble-hearted man he was. And yet Nicolo Machiavelli's only crime was that he lived at an epoch when brute strength and success were all in all; when folk judged by deeds, not words, and when such men as Cesar Borgia the sovereign, Machiavelli the thinker, and Benvenuto Cellini the artisan, marched straight to their goal, without thought of methods or reasons.
One day a body was found in the public square of Cesena, cut in four pieces; it was the body of Ramiro d'Orco. Now, as Ramiro d'Orco was a considerable personage in Italy, the Florentine Republic sought to ascertain the causes of his death. The Eight of the Signoria therefore wrote to Machiavelli, their ambassador at Cesena, to satisfy their curiosity.
But Machiavelli made no other reply than this:—
Benvenuto was an exponent of the theory enunciated by the illustrious secretary of the Florentine Republic. Benvenuto the genius, Cesar Borgia the prince, both considered themselves above the laws by virtue of their power. In their eyes the distinction between what was just and what was unjust was identical with the distinction between what they could and what they could not do; of right and duty they had not the slightest conception. A man stood in their path, they suppressed the man. To-day civilization does him the honor of purchasing him.
But in those old days the blood was boiling so abundantly in the veins of the young nations that they shed it for their health's sake.
They fought by instinct, not for their country to any great extent, not for women to any great extent, but largely for the sake of fighting, nation against nation, man against man. Benvenuto made war upon Pompeo as François I. did upon Charles V. France and Spain fought an intermittent duel, now at Marignano, and again at Pavia; all as if it were the most natural thing in the world, without preamble, without long harangues, without lamentation.
In the same way genius was exercised by those who possessed it as an innate faculty, as an absolute royal power, based upon divine right: art in the sixteenth century was looked upon as the natural birthright of man.
We must not therefore wonder at these men who wondered at nothing; we have, to explain their homicides, their whims, and their faults, an expression which explains and justifies everything in our country, especially in these days of ours:—
That was the fashion.
Benvenuto therefore did simply what it was the fashion to do; Pompeo annoyed Benvenuto Cellini, and Benvenuto suppressed Pompeo.
But the police occasionally investigated these acts of suppression; they were very careful not to protect a man when he was alive, but perhaps once in ten times they showed a feeble desire to avenge him when he was dead.
They experienced such a desire in the matter of Pompeo and Benvenuto Cellini. As the goldsmith, having returned to his shop, was putting certain papers in the fire, and some money in his pocket, he was arrested by the pontifical sbirri, and taken to the castle of San Angelo,—an occurrence for which he was almost consoled by the reflection that the castle of San Angelo was where noblemen were imprisoned.
But another thought that was no less efficacious in bringing consolation to Cellini as he entered the castle was this,—that a man endowed with so inventive a mind as his need not long delay about leaving it, in one way or another. And so, when he was taken before the governor, who was sitting at a table covered with a green cloth, and looking through a great pile of papers, he said:—
"Sir Governor, multiply your locks and bolts and sentinels threefold; confine me in your highest cell or in your deepest dungeon; keep close watch upon me all day, and lie awake all night; and yet I warn you that, despite all that, I will escape."
The governor looked up at the prisoner who addressed him with such unheard of assurance, and recognized Benvenuto Cellini, whom he had had the honor of entertaining three months before.
Notwithstanding his acquaintance with the man, perhaps because of it, Benvenuto's allocution caused the worthy governor the most profound dismay. He was a Florentine, one Master Georgio, a knight of the Ugolini, and an excellent man, but somewhat weak in the head. However, he soon recovered from his first surprise, and ordered Benvenuto to be taken to the highest cell in the castle. The platform was immediately above it; a sentinel was stationed on the platform, and another sentinel at the foot of the wall.
The governor called the prisoner's attention to these details, and when he thought that he had had time to digest them, he said:—
"My dear Benvenuto, one may open locks, force doors, dig out from an underground dungeon, make a hole through a wall, bribe sentinels and put jailers to sleep; but without wings one cannot descend to earth from this height."
"I will do it, nevertheless," said Cellini.
The governor looked him in the eye, and began to think that his prisoner was mad.
"Why, in that case, you propose to fly?"
"Why not? I have always believed that man can fly, but I have lacked time to make the experiment. Here I shall have time enough, and, pardieu! I mean to solve the problem. The adventure of Dædalus is history, not fable."
"Beware the sun, dear Benvenuto," sneeringly replied the governor; "beware the sun."
"I will fly away by night," said Benvenuto.
The governor was not expecting that reply, so that he had no suitable repartee at hand, and withdrew in a rage.
In good sooth it was most important that Benvenuto should make his escape, at any price. At another time he would not have been at all perturbed because he had killed a man, and would have been quit of all responsibility by following the procession of the Virgin in August, clad in a doublet and cloak of blue armoisin. But the new Pope, Paul III., was vindictive to the last degree, and when he was still Monsignore Farnese, Benvenuto had had a crow to pluck with him, apropos of a vase which the goldsmith refused to deliver until paid for, and which his Eminence sought to procure by force, the result being to subject Benvenuto to the dire necessity of using his Eminence's retainers somewhat roughly. Moreover, the Holy Father was jealous because King François I. had commanded Monseigneur de Montluc, his ambassador to the Holy See, to request that Benvenuto be sent to France. When he was informed of Benvenuto's imprisonment, Monseigneur de Montluc urged the request more strenuously than before, thinking thereby to render the unfortunate prisoner a service; but he was entirely unfamiliar with the character of the new Pope, who was even more obstinate than his predecessor, Clement VII. Now Paul III. had sworn that Benvenuto should pay dearly for his escapade, and if he was not precisely in danger of death,—a pope would have thought twice in those days before ordering such an artist to the gallows,—he was in great danger of being forgotten in his prison. It was therefore of the utmost importance that Benvenuto should not forget himself, and that was why he was determined to take flight without awaiting the interrogatories and judgment, which might never have arrived; for the Pope, angered by the intervention of François I., refused even to hear Benvenuto Cellini's name mentioned. The prisoner knew all this from Ascanio, who was managing his establishment, and who, by dint of persistent entreaties, had obtained permission to visit his master. Their interviews, of course, were held through two iron gratings, and in presence of witnesses watching to see that the pupil passed neither file, nor rope, nor knife to his master.
As soon as the door of his cell was locked behind the governor, Benvenuto set about inspecting his surroundings.
The following articles were contained within the four walls of his new abiding place: a bed, a fireplace, a table, and two chairs. Two days after his installation there, he obtained a supply of clay and a modelling tool. The governor at first declined to allow him to have these means of distraction, but he changed his mind upon reflecting that, if the artist's mind were thus employed, he might perhaps abandon the idea of escape, to which he clung so tenaciously. The same day, Benvenuto sketched a colossal Venus.
All this of itself was no great matter; but in conjunction with imagination, patience, and energy, it was much.
On a certain very cold day in December, when the fire was lighted on the hearth, the servant changed the sheets on his bed and left the soiled ones upon a chair. As soon as the door was closed, Benvenuto made one bound from the chair on which he was sitting to the bed, took out of the mattress two enormous handfuls of the maize leaves which are used to stuff mattresses in Italy, stowed the sheets away in their place, returned to his statue, took up his tool and resumed his work. At that moment the servant returned for the forgotten sheets, and after looking everywhere for them, asked Benvenuto if he had not seen them. But he replied carelessly, as if absorbed by his work, that some of his fellows doubtless had taken them, or that he carried them away himself without knowing it. The servant had no suspicion of the truth, so little time had elapsed since he left the room, and Benvenuto played his part so naturally; and as the sheets were never found, he was very careful to say nothing, for fear of being obliged to pay for them or of losing his employment.
One who has never lived through some supreme crisis can form no idea of the possibilities of such a time in the way of terrible catastrophes and poignant anguish. The most trivial accidents of life arouse in us joy or despair. As soon as the servant left the room, Benvenuto fell upon his knees, and thanked God for the help He had sent him.
As his bed was never touched until the next morning after it was once made, he quietly left the sheets in the mattress.
When the night came he began to cut the sheets, which luckily were new and strong, in strips three or four inches wide, then tied them together as securely as he could; lastly, he cut open his statue, which was of clay, hollowed it out, placed his treasure in the cavity, then spread clay over the wound, and smoothed it off with his finger and his modelling tool, until the most skilful artist could not have discovered that poor Venus had been made to undergo the Cæsarean operation.
The next morning the governor entered the prisoner's cell unexpectedly, as he was accustomed to do, but found him as usual calm and hard at work. Every morning the poor man, who had been specially threatened for the night, trembled lest he should find the cell empty; and it should be said, in justice to his frankness, that he did not conceal his joy every morning when he found it occupied.
"I confess that you make me terribly anxious, Benvenuto," said the poor man; "however, I begin to think that your threats of escape amount to nothing."
"I don't threaten you, Master Georgio," rejoined Benvenuto, "I warn you."
"Do you still hope to fly away?"
"Luckily it isn't a mere hope, but downright certainty, pardieu!"
"Demonio! how will you do it?" cried the poor governor, dismayed beyond measure by Benvenuto's real or pretended confidence in his means of escape.
"That's my secret, master. But I give you fair warning that my wings are growing."
The governor instinctively turned his eye upon the prisoner's shoulders.
"'T is thus," continued Benvenuto, working away at his statue, and rounding the hips in such fashion that one would have thought he proposed to rival the Venus Callipyge. "Betwixt us there is a duel impending. You have on your side enormous towers, thick doors, strong bolts, innumerable keepers always on the alert; I have on my side my brain, and these poor hands, and I warn you very frankly that you will be beaten. But as you are a very clever man, as you have taken every possible precaution, you will at least, when I am gone, have the consolation of knowing that it is through no fault of yours, Master Georgio, that you have no occasion to reproach yourself at all, Master Georgio, and that you neglected nothing that could help you to detain me, Master Georgio. And now what say you to this hip, for you are a lover of art, I know."
Such unblushing assurance enraged the unhappy official. His prisoner had become his fixed idea, upon which all his faculties were centred. He grew melancholy, lost his appetite, and started constantly, like one suddenly aroused from sleep. One night Benvenuto heard a great noise upon the platform; then it was transferred to his corridor, and finally stopped at his door. The door opened, and he saw Master Georgio, in dressing-gown and nightcap, attended by four jailers and eight guards. The governor rushed to his bedside with distorted features. Benvenuto sat up in bed and laughed in his face. The governor, without taking offence at his hilarity, breathed like a diver returning to the surface.
"Ah! God be praised!" he cried; "he is still here! There's much good sense in the saying, Songe — mensonge " (Dream—lie).
"In God's name, what's the matter?" demanded Benvenuto, "and what happy circumstance affords me the pleasure of a visit from you at such an hour, Master Georgio?"
"Jésus Dieu! it's nothing at all, and I am quit of it this time for the fright. Did I not dream that your accursed wings had grown,—huge wings, whereon you tranquilly hovered above the castle of San Angelo, saying, 'Adieu, my dear governor, adieu! I did not wish to go away without taking leave of you. I go; I pray that I may be so blessed as never to see you more.'"
"What! did I say that to you, Master Georgio?"
"Those were your very words. Ah, Benvenuto, you are a sorry guest for me!"
"Oh! I trust that you do not deem me so ill-bred as that. Happily it was but a dream; for otherwise I would not forgive you."
"Happily it is not true. I hold you fast, my dear friend, and although truth compels me to say that your society is not of the most agreeable to me, I hope to hold you for a long time yet to come."
"I do not think it," retorted Benvenuto, with the confident smile which caused his host to use strong language.
The governor went out, cursing Benvenuto roundly, and the next morning he issued orders that his cell should be inspected every two hours, night and day. This rigid inspection was continued for a month; but at the end of that time, as there was no apparent reason to believe that Benvenuto was even thinking of escape, the vigilance of his keepers was somewhat relaxed.
Benvenuto, however, had employed the month in accomplishing a terrible task.
As we have said, he minutely examined his cell immediately after he was first consigned to it, and from that moment his mind was made up as to the manner of his escape. His window was barred, and the bars were too strong to be removed with the hand or with his modelling tool, the only iron instrument he possessed. The chimney narrowed so toward the top that the prisoner must needs have had the fairy Melusine's power of transforming herself into a serpent to pass through it.
The door remained. Ah, the door! Let us see how the door was made.
It was a heavy oaken door two fingers thick, secured by two locks and four bolts, and sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by nails at the top and bottom. It was through that door that the escape must be effected.
Benvenuto had noticed in the corridor, a few steps from the door, the stairway leading to the platform. At intervals of two hours he heard the footsteps of the relieving sentinel going up, then the steps of the other coming down; after which he would hear nothing more for another two hours.
The question for him to solve, then, was simply this: how to reach the other side of that door, which was secured by two locks and four bolts, and furthermore sheathed on the inside with iron plates kept in place by nails at the top and bottom. The solution of this problem was the task to which Benvenuto had devoted the month in question.
With his modelling tool, which was of iron, he removed, one by one, the heads of all the nails, save four above and four below, which he left until the last day: then, in order that his work might not be detected, he replaced the missing heads with exactly similar ones, modelled in clay and covered with iron filings, so that it was impossible for the keenest eye to distinguish the false from the true. As there were, at top and bottom together, some sixty nails, and as it took at least one hour, and sometimes two, to decapitate each nail, the magnitude of the task may be understood.
Every evening, when everybody had retired, and nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the sentinel walking back and forth over his head, he built a great fire on the hearth, and piled glowing embers against the iron plates on his door; the iron became red hot, and gradually transformed to charcoal the wood upon which it was applied; but no indication of the carbonizing process appeared on the other side of the door.
For a whole month Benvenuto devoted himself to this task, as we have said; but at the end of the month it was finished, and he only awaited a favorable opportunity to make his escape. He was compelled, however, to wait a few days, for the moon was near the full when the work was done.
There was nothing more to be done to the nails, so Benvenuto continued to char the door, and drive the governor to desperation. That very day the functionary entered his cell more preoccupied than ever.
"My dear prisoner," said the worthy man, whose mind constantly recurred to his fixed idea, "do you still propose to fly away? Come, tell me frankly."
"More than ever, my dear host," replied Benvenuto.
"Look you," said the governor, "you may say what you choose, but upon my word, I believe it's impossible."
"Impossible, Master Georgio, impossible!" rejoined the artist; "why, you know full well that word does not exist for me, who have always exerted myself to do those things which are the most impossible for other men, and that with success. Impossible, my dear host! Why, have I not sometimes amused myself by making nature jealous, by fashioning with gold and emeralds and diamonds a flower fairer far than all the flowers that the dew empearls? Think you that he who can make flowers can not make wings?"
"May God help me!" said the governor; "with your insolent assurance you'll make me lose my wits! But tell me, in order that these wings may sustain your weight in the air,—a thing which seems impossible to me, I confess,—what form shall you give them?"
"I have thought deeply thereupon, as you may well imagine, since my safety depends entirely upon the shape of my wings."
"With what result?"
"After examining all flying things, I have concluded that, if I wish to reproduce by art what they have received from God, I can copy the bat most successfully."
"But when all is said, Benvenuto," continued the governor, "even if you had the materials with which to make a pair of wings, would not your courage fail you when the time came to use them?"
"Give me what I need for their construction, my dear governor, and I'll reply by flying away."
"What do you need, in God's name?"
"Oh! mon Dieu! almost nothing; a little forge, an anvil, files, tongs and pincers to make the springs, and twenty yards of oiled silk for the membranes.
"Good! very good!" said Master Georgio; "that reassures me somewhat, for, clever as you may be, you never will succeed in obtaining all those things here."
"'T is done," rejoined Benvenuto.
The governor leaped from his chair; but he instantly reflected that it was a material impossibility. And yet, for all that, his poor brain had not a moment's respite. Every bird that flew by his window he imagined to be Benvenuto Cellini, so great is the influence of a master mind over one of moderate capacity.
The same day Master Georgio sent for the most skilful machinist in all Rome, and ordered him to measure him for a pair of bat's wings.
The machinist stared at the governor in blank amazement, without replying, thinking, with some reason, that Master Georgio had gone mad.
But as Master Georgio insisted, as Master Georgio was wealthy, and as Master Georgio had the wherewithal to pay for insane freaks, if he chose to indulge in them, the machinist set about the task, and a week later brought him a pair of magnificent wings, fitted to an iron waist to be worn upon the body, and worked by means of an extremely ingenious arrangement of springs, with most encouraging regularity.
Master Georgio paid his man the stipulated price, measured the space required to accommodate the apparatus, went up to Benvenuto's cell, and without a word overturned everything therein, looking under the bed, peering up the chimney, fumbling in the mattress, and leaving not the smallest corner unvisited.
Then he went out, still without speaking, convinced that, unless Benvenuto was a sorcerer, no pair of wings similar to his own could be hidden in his cell.
It was clear that the unhappy governor's brain was becoming more and more disordered.
Upon descending to his own quarters, Master Georgio found the machinist waiting for him; he had returned to call his attention to the fact that there was an iron ring at the end of each wing, intended to support the legs of a man flying in a horizontal position.
The machinist had no sooner left him than Master Georgio locked himself in, donned the iron waist, unfolded his wings, hung up his legs, and, lying flat upon his stomach, made his first attempt at flying.
But, try as he would, he could not succeed in rising above the floor.
After two or three trials, always with the same result, he sent for the mechanic once more.
"Master," said he, "I have tried your wings, but they won't work."
"How did you try them?"
Master Georgio described his repeated experiments in detail. The mechanic listened with a sober face, and said, when he had concluded:—
"I am not surprised; as you lay on the floor, you hadn't a sufficient quantity of air under your wings. You must go to the top of the castle of San Angelo, and boldly launch yourself into space."
"And you think that in that way I can fly?"
"I am sure of it."
"If you are so sure of it, would it not be as well to make the experiment yourself?"
"The wings are proportioned to the weight of your body and not of mine," replied the machinist. "Wings to carry my weight would need to measure a foot and a half more from tip to tip."
And with that he bowed and took his leave.
"The devil!" exclaimed Master Georgio.
Throughout that day Master Georgio indulged in various vagaries, which tended to prove that his reason, like Roland's, was penetrating farther and farther into imaginary realms.
In the evening, just at bedtime, he summoned all the servants, all the jailers, all the guards.
"If," said he, "you learn that Benvenuto Cellini is intending to fly away, let him go, and notify me, nothing more; for I shall know where to go to capture him, even in the dark, since I am myself a veritable bat, while he, whatever he may say, is only a false bat."
The poor governor was quite mad; but as they hoped that a night's rest would have a soothing effect upon him, they decided to wait until morning before advising the Pope.
Moreover it was an abominable night, dark and rainy, and no one cared to go out in such weather; always excepting Benvenuto Cellini, who had selected that very night for his escape, in a spirit of contrariety doubtless.
And so, as soon as he heard the clock strike ten, and the footsteps indicating that the sentinel had been relieved, he fell on his knees and offered a fervent prayer, after which he set to work.
In the first place he removed the heads of the four nails, which alone held the iron plates in place. The last yielded to his efforts just at midnight.
He heard the steps of the sentinel going up to the platform; he stood with his ear glued to the door, without breathing, until the relieved sentinel came down, the steps died away in the distance, and silence reigned once more.
The rain fell with redoubled force, and Benvenuto's heart leaped for joy as he heard it heating against the window.
He at once tried to remove the iron plates; as there was nothing to hold them, they yielded to his efforts, and he placed them, one by one, against the wall.
He then lay flat upon the floor, and attacked the bottom of the door with his modelling tool, sharpened like a dagger, and fitted to a wooden handle. The oak was entirely changed to carbon, and gave way at the first touch.
In an instant Benvenuto had made, an aperture at the bottom of the door sufficiently large to allow him to crawl through it. He reopened the belly of his statue, took out the strips of linen, coiled them around his waist like a girdle, armed himself with his modelling tool, of which he had, as we have said, made a dagger, and fell on his knees once more and prayed.
Then he passed his head through the hole, then his shoulders, then the rest of his body, and found himself in the corridor.
He stood erect; but his legs trembled so that he was compelled to lean against the wall for support. His heart was beating as if it would burst, and his head was on fire. A drop of perspiration trembled at the end of each hair, and he clutched the handle of his dagger in his hand, as if some one were trying to tear it away from him.
However, as everything was quiet, as nothing was stirring and not a sound was to be heard, Benvenuto soon recovered himself, and felt his way along the wall of the corridor with his hand, until the wall came to an end. Then he put out his foot and felt the first step of the staircase, or, more properly speaking, the ladder, which led to the platform.
He mounted the rungs, one by one, shivering as the wood creaked under his feet, until he felt a breath of air; then the rain beat against his faee as his head rose above the level of the platform, and as he had been in most intense darkness for a quarter of an hour, he was able to judge at once what reason he had to fear or hope.
The balance seemed to incline toward hope.
The sentinel had taken refuge from the storm in his sentry-box. How, as the sentinels who mounted guard upon the castle of San Angelo were stationed there, not to inspect the platform, but to look down into the moat and survey the surrounding country, the closed side of the sentry-box faced the top of the ladder by which Benvenuto ascended.
The artist crept cautiously on his hands and knees toward that part of the platform which was farthest removed from the sentry-box. There he securely fastened one end of his improvised rope to a jutting projection some six inches in length, and then knelt for the third time.
"O Lord!" he muttered, "O Lord! do Thou help me, since I am seeking to help myself."
With that prayer upon his lips, he let himself down by his hands, heedless of the bruises upon his knees and his forehead, which, from time to time, rubbed against the face of the wall, and at last reached the solid earth.
When he felt the ground beneath his feet, his breast swelled with an infinitude of joy and pride. He contemplated the immense height from which he had descended, and could not avoid saying in an undertone, "Free at last!" But his joy was short-lived.
As he turned away from the tower, his knees trembled under him; directly in front of him rose a wall recently built, and of which he knew nothing; he was lost.
Everything seemed to give way within him, and in his despair he fell to the ground; but as he fell, his foot struck against something hard,—it was a long beam; he gave a slight exclamation of surprise and delight; he was saved.
Ah! no one knows what heart-rending alternations of joy and hope one short minute of life can contain.
Benvenuto seized the beam as a shipwrecked sailor seizes the spar which may save him from drowning. Under ordinary circumstances two strong men would have found difficulty in lifting it; he dragged it to the wall, and stood it on end against it. Then he climbed to the top of the wall, clinging to the beam with his hands and knees, but when he arrived there his strength was insufficient to raise the beam and lower it on the other side.
For a moment his head swam; he closed his eyes, and it seemed as if he were struggling in a lake of flames.
Suddenly he remembered his strips of linen, by means of which he had descended from the platform.
He slid down the beam to the ground once more, and ran to the spot where he had left them hanging; but he had fastened them so securely at the opposite end, that he could not detach them. In his desperation he raised himself from the ground by hanging to them, pulling with all his strength, and hoping to break them. Fortunately one of the knots slipped at last, and Benvenuto fell to the ground, grasping a fragment some twelve feet long.
This was all that he needed; he rose with a bound, and, filled with fresh vigor, climbed up to the top of the wall once more, fastened the cord to the end of the beam, and slid down on the other side.
When he reached the end of the cord he felt in vain for the ground with his feet, and, upon looking over his shoulder, saw that it was still some six feet away. He let go the cord, and dropped.
He lay still for an instant; he was completely exhausted, and there was no skin left upon his legs and hands. For some moments he gazed stupidly at his bleeding flesh; but five o'clock struck, and he saw that the stars were beginning to pale.
He rose; but as he rose, a sentinel whom he had not noticed, but who had undoubtedly witnessed his performance, walked toward him. Benvenuto saw that he was lost, and that he must either kill or be killed. He drew his modelling tool from his belt, and marched straight toward the guard, with such a determined expression that worthy doubtless realized that he had not only a powerful man, but a deathly despair, to contend with. Benvenuto was determined not to give ground, but suddenly the soldier turned his back upon him as if he had not seen him. The prisoner understood what that meant.
He ran to the last rampart, and found himself some twelve or fifteen feet above the moat. Such a trifle was not likely to stop a man like Benvenuto Cellini, in his present predicament, when he had left part of his cord hanging from the top of the tower, and the other part attached to the beam, so that he had nothing left with which to lower himself, and there was no time to lose. He hung by his hands from a ring in the masonry, and, with a mental prayer, let himself drop.
This time he fainted outright.
An hour passed before he came to himself; but the coolness which is always noticeable in the air as dawn approaches, revived him. He lay for an instant with his mind in confusion, then passed his hand over his forehead and remembered everything.
He felt a sharp pain in his head, and saw blood upon the stones where he lay, which had trickled down from his face. He put his hand to his forehead a second time, not to collect his thoughts, but to investigate his wounds, which he found were but skin deep. He smiled and tried to stand up, but fell heavily back; his right leg was broken three inches above the ankle. The leg was so benumbed that at first he felt no pain.
He at once removed his shirt and tore it into strips, then put the ends of the bone together as well as he could, and applied the bandage, binding it with all his strength, and passing it under the sole of his foot now and then, in order to keep the bones in place.
Then he dragged himself on all fours toward one of the city gates which was within five hundred yards. After half an hour of atrocious suffering, he reached the gate only to find that it was closed. But he noticed a large stone under the gate, which yielded to his first attempt to remove it, and he passed through the hole left by it.
He had not taken twenty steps beyond the gate when he was attacked by a pack of famished dogs, who were attracted by the odor of blood. He drew his modelling tool, and despatched the largest and most savage with a blow in the side. The others immediately threw themselves upon their defunct comrade and devoured him.
Benvenuto dragged himself along to the church of La Transpontina, where he fell in with a water-carrier who had just filled his jars and loaded his donkey. He called him.
"Look you." he said; "I was with my mistress; circumstances compelled me, although I went in at the door, to come out through the window. I leaped from the first floor, and broke my leg; carry me to the steps of Saint Peter's, and I will give you a golden crown."
The water-carrier, without a word, took the wounded man on his shoulder, and carried him to the designated spot. Having received his pay, he went his way without so much as looking behind.
Thereupon Benvenuto, still on all fours, made his way to the palace of Monseigneur de Montluc, the French Ambassador, who lived only a few steps away.
Monseigneur de Montluc exerted himself so zealously in his behalf, that at the end of a month Benvenuto was cured, at the end of two months he was pardoned, and at the end of four months he started for France with Ascanio and Pagolo.
The poor governor, who had gone mad, lived and died a madman, constantly imagining that he was a bat, and making the most violent efforts to fly.