Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 2.djvu/39

Rh friend and Ascanio's enemy, called out: "What is Ascanio crying for? Perhaps his father is dead; I mean that father in the castle! "Ascanio answered on the instant: "He is alive, but you shall die this minute." Then, raising his hand, he struck two blows with the scimitar, both at the fellow's head; the first felled him to earth, the second lopped three fingers off his right hand, though it was aimed at his head. He lay there like a dead man. The matter was at once reported to the Pope, who cried in a great fury: "Since the King wants him to be tried, go and give him three days to prepare his defence!" So they came, and executed the commission which the Pope had given them.

The excellent castellan went off upon the spot to his Holiness, and informed him that I was no accomplice in the matter, and that I had sent Ascanio about his business. So ably did he plead my cause that he saved my life from this impending tempest. Ascanio meanwhile escaped to Tagliacozzo, to his home there, whence he wrote begging a thousand times my pardon, and acknowledging his wrong in adding troubles to my grave disaster; but protesting that if through God's grace I came out from the prison, he meant never to abandon me. I let him understand that he must mind his art, and that if God set me at large again I would certainly recall him.

The castellan was subject to a certain sickness, which came upon him every year and deprived him of his wits. The sign of its approach was that he kept