With such thoughts as these he occupied himself so deeply that his eyes were seldom raised from the ground on which he trod. At length, however, he looked up toward the windows; and there was one in which the lights still burned, while figures might be seen, from time to time, passing across.
"That must be his chamber," said Ramiro to himself. "I fear the blade was poisoned, and that it has had some effect. I must go and see. 'Twere most unlucky such a chance should escape me. Let me see; where is that snake-stone I had? It will extract the venom," and, entering the house, he mounted the stairs rapidly to Lorenzo's chamber.
He found him sick indeed. The whole arm and shoulder were greatly swollen; and while the old count stood beside his bed with a look of anxious fear, a servant held the young man up to ease his troubled respiration. Lorenzo's face seemed that of a dying man--the features pale and sharp, the eye dull and glassy.
"Send for a clerk," said the youth; "there is no time for notaries; but I wish my last testament taken down and witnessed."
"Cheer up, cheer up, my good young friend," said Ramiro. "What! you are very sick; the blade was poisoned, doubtless."
"It must be so," said the young man, faintly; "I feel it in every vein."
"Well, well, fear not," answered Ramiro; "I have that at hand which will soon draw out the poison. Here man," he continued, speaking to one of the attendants, who half filled the room, "run to my chamber. On the stool near the window you will find a leathern bag; bring it to me with all speed. You, sir, young page, speed off to the buttery, and bring some of the strongest of the water of life which the house affords. It killed the King of Navarre, they say, but it will help to give life to you, Lorenzo."
"The bottigliere will not let me have it, sir," replied the boy.
"Here, take my ring," said the old count; "make haste--make haste!"
The boy had hardly left the room, when the servant first despatched returned with the leathern bag for which he had been sent. It was soon opened, and, after some search, Ramiro took forth a small packet, and unfolded rapidly paper after paper, which covered apparently some very precious thing within, speaking quietly as he did so:
"This is one of those famous snake-stones," he said, "which, when a man is bitten by any reptile, be it as poisonous as the Egyptian asp, will draw forth the venom instantly from his veins. Heaven knows, but I know not, whether it is a natural substance provided for the cure of one of nature's greatest evils, or some cunningly invented mithridate compounded by deep science. I bought it at a hundred times its weight in gold from an old and renowned physician at Padua; and it is as certain a cure for the case of a poisoned dagger-wound as for the bite of a snake. Ah! here it is! have bare the place where the sword entered."
"Pity it came not a little sooner," said Lorenzo's servant, taking off some bandages from his master's shoulder; "physic is late for a dying man."
Ramiro d'Orco gave him a look that seemed to pierce him like a dagger, for the man drew back as if he had been struck, and almost suffered his master to fall back upon the bed.
"Hold him up, fool!" said Ramiro, sternly; and, holding the wound, which had been stanched, wide open with one hand till the blood began to flow again, he placed what seemed a small brownish stone, hardly bigger than a pea, in the aperture, and then bound the bandages tightly round the spot.
"That boy comes not," he said; "some of you run and hasten him."
But ere his orders could be obeyed the page returned, with a large silver flagon and a Venice glass on a salver.
"Now, Signor Visconti, drink this," said Ramiro, filling a glass and applying it to his lips.
Lorenzo drank, murmuring,--"It is like fire."
"So is life," answered Ramiro; "but you must drink three times, with a short interval. How feel you now?"
"Sick, sick, and faint," replied Lorenzo. But some lustre had already come back into his eye; and after a short pause, Ramiro refilled the glass, saying,
"Here, drink again."
The young man seemed to swallow more easily than before, and, in a moment or two after he had drunk, he said in a low voice,
"I feel better. That stone, or whatever it is, seems as it were sucking out the burning heat from the wound. I breathe more freely, too."
"All is going well," replied Ramiro. "One more draught, and, though you be not cured, and must remain for days, perchance, in your chamber, the enemy is vanquished. You shall have cheerful faces and sweet voices round you to soothe your confinement; but you must be very still and quiet, lest the poison, settling in the wound itself, though we have drawn it from the heart, should beget gangrene. Bianca, your dear cousin, and my child Leonora, shall attend you. Here, drink again."
Lorenzo felt that with such sweet nurses he would not mind his wound; but the third draught revived him more than all. His voice regained its firmness, his eye its light. The sobbing, hard-drawn respiration gave way to easy, regular breathing; and, after a few minutes, he said,
"I feel almost well, and think I could sleep."
"All goes aright," said Ramiro; "you may sleep now in safety. That marvellous stone has already drawn into itself all the deadly venom that had spread through your whole blood. Nothing is wanting but quiet and support. Some one sit by him while he sleeps; and if perchance he wakes, give him another draught out of this tankard. Let us all go now, and leave him to repose."
"I will sit by him, signor," said the man who had been supporting him; "for there be some who would not leave a drop in the tankard big enough to drown a flea, and I have sworn never to taste aqua vitæ again, since it nearly burst my head open at Rheims, in France."
Before he had done speaking Lorenzo was sound asleep; and while the servant let his head drop softly on the pillow, the rest silently quitted the room.
CHAPTER VIII.
A few hours earlier on the day of which we have just been speaking, a gallant band of men-at-arms rode forward on the highway between Milan and Pavia. It consisted of nearly four hundred lances, that is to say, of about eight hundred men. Had it been complete, the number would have amounted to many more, for the usual proportion was at least three inferior soldiers, esquires, or pages to each lance; but the eagerness of the young King of France to achieve what he believed would be an easy conquest had hurried his departure from France ere his musters were one half filled.
A short repose in Milan had sufficed to wipe away all stains of travel from his host; and the band of the Lord of Vitry appeared in all their accoutrements, what Rosalind calls "point device." It is true, the day had been somewhat dry and sultry, and some dust had gathered upon splendid surcoats, and scarfs, and sword-knots; and the horses, so gay and full of spirit in the morning, now looked somewhat fatigued, but by no means jaded.
At their head rode their commander, a man of some thirty to two and thirty years of age, of a fine, manly person and handsome countenance, although the expression might be somewhat quick and hasty, and a deep scar on the brow rather marred the symmetry of his face. By his side, on a horse of much inferior power, but full of fire and activity, rode a man, not exactly in the garb of a servant, but yet plainly habited and nearly unarmed. Sword and dagger most men wore in those days, but he wore neither lance nor shield, cuirass nor back-piece. He carried a little black velvet cap upon his head, with a long feather; and he rode in shoes of untanned leather, with long, sharp points, somewhat like a pod of mustard-seed.
"Are you sure you know the way, Master Tony?" asked De Vitry.
"I know the way right well, noble lord," replied the other; "but you do me too much honour to call me master. In Italy none is master but a man of great renown in the arts."