cabinet with the silver necessary for his table, and gave orders for his
supper to be prepared, as he had done the night before. Meanwhile, night
had come on, and he shut himself up in a private chamber, where,
stripping off his cardinal's costume, he put on a groom's dress. Thanks
to this disguise, he issued from the house that had been assigned for his
accommodation without being recognised, traversed the streets, passed
through the gates, and gained the open country. Nearly half a league
outside the town, a servant awaited him with two swift horses. Caesar,
who was an excellent rider, sprang to the saddle, and he and his
companion at full gallop retraced the road to Rome, where they arrived at
break of day. Caesar got down at the house of one Flores, auditor of the
rota, where he procured a fresh horse and suitable clothes; then he flew
at once to his mother, who gave a cry of joy when she saw him; for so
silent and mysterious was the cardinal for all the world beside, and even
for her, that he had not said a word of his early return to Rome. The
cry of joy uttered by Rosa Vanozza when she beheld her son was far mare a
cry of vengeance than of love. One evening, while everybody was at the
rejoicings in the Vatican, when Charles VIII and Alexander VI were
swearing a friendship which neither of them felt, and exchanging oaths
that were broken beforehand, a messenger from Rosa Vanozza had arrived
with a letter to Caesar, in which she begged him to come at once to her
house in the Via delta Longara. Caesar questioned the messenger, but he
only replied that he could tell him nothing, that he would learn all he
cared to know from his mother's own lips. So, as soon as he was at
liberty, Caesar, in layman's dress and wrapped in a large cloak, quitted
the Vatican and made his way towards the church of Regina Coeli, in the
neighbourhood of which, it will be remembered, was the house where the
pope's mistress lived.

As he approached his mother's house, Caesar began to observe the signs of