must assure you----'

'The young lady,' interrupted the Signor, with a faint smile, 'is not
your own niece, Senator, but the daughter of your late wife's brother.'

'No matter!' cried the Senator. 'Do you mean to imply, sir, that my late
honoured wife would have been capable of demeaning herself with----'

'Heaven forbid!' ejaculated the other, interrupting again. 'You might as
well suggest that Eve was herself a murderess because one of her sons
killed the other. I suggest nothing, Senator--certainly nothing in the
least derogatory to the honour of your house.'

'What do you advise me to do?' asked Pignaver, suddenly appeased.

He had changed his tone and spoke almost calmly, for his anger, like
most things he did, was a matter of acting. The Signor understood, and
again he smiled faintly. Before he answered he carefully snuffed and
trimmed the three wicks of the tall brass lamp on the table. It had a
big metal shade in the shape of a butterfly, which he turned so that it
screened the light from his eyes and reflected it into his visitor's
face.

'You will naturally wish to avoid a scandal,' he said, watching the
Senator. 'Yes, I thought so. Very well, if Stradella has carried off
your niece, as I am almost sure he has, they are beyond pursuit by this
time. They have reached the mainland and are riding away as fast as they
can towards the frontier. There is not the slightest chance of catching
them. You must say that you have sent the young lady to the country for
her health.'

At this Pignaver made a dramatic gesture. He raised both his hands on
each side of his head, clenched his fingers, turned up his eyes, and
pretended to be trembling with almost uncontrollable fury. The Signor
knew his weakness and looked on with quiet amusement.

'I will have the city thoroughly searched during the next few days for
two persons resembling your niece and the woman,' he continued. 'But if
they have already fled, and if you insist upon finding them, you will
have to employ private agents.'

'Yes, yes,' answered Pignaver thoughtfully. 'That will be best. Can you
recommend any person to undertake such a delicate business, sir? I
suppose that, in your position, you are acquainted at least with the
names of some such men.'

The Signor, who was an amiable man, smiled pleasantly now.

'The truth is,' he said, 'we have some of them under supervision, and I
chance to know of two who would suit your purpose well, and are
unemployed at present, and badly in need of money. I have no doubt but
that they will be glad to serve you. They have earned the reputation of
being conscientious in carrying out their engagements, and intrepid in
danger.'

Pignaver had listened attentively, and at once asked for the names and
the address of the Bravi.

'They are known as Trombin and Gambardella,' said the Signor; 'they are
now in Venice, and are generally to be heard of at the eating-house of
Markos, the Samian money-lender and wine-dealer. I dare say you know
where his place is? Not far from the Rialto, on this side----'

'In what is left of the old Quirini Palace, where they sell poultry
downstairs?' asked Pignaver.

'Precisely. I see you are acquainted with the resort. I have, in fact,
been there myself--on a matter of duty, of course.'

'Of course,' echoed the Senator. 'I have only heard of it, but I think I
can find it.'

'I am sure you can,' assented the Signor, without a smile.

Pignaver had not only heard of the eating-house, but he had been there
more than once, and knew the taste of the famous pilaf and the flavour
of the old wine of Samos as well as anybody. He had even sat in the
recess where the two gentlemen of fortune were at that moment supping.
He had worn a mask, it is true, and by some mistake a lady had sat down
at the same small table a moment after he had come, and he had fallen
into conversation with her. But it was not necessary to tell this to the
Signor.

The latter promised again to have a thorough search made through the
city for Ortensia and Pina, and wrote down the descriptions Pignaver
gave him. The nurse was described as 'a serving-woman, with grey eyes,
and black hair turning grey at the temples, whose manners were rather
above her station, and who had once been handsome. Age: forty-three.
Mark: the thumb of the right hand had been broken and was distorted.'

'By the thumb-screw, I suppose,' observed the Signor in a business-like
tone.

'It certainly looks like it,' answered the Senator indifferently.

He took his departure after a few more words and went out by the back
door; he then walked in the direction of the Rialto, muffling himself in
his great cloak, of which he threw one corner over his shoulder, so that
it almost covered his face. He had left his gondola waiting in the
narrow canal, and if he chose to come back and take it again, he could
reach it without going through the low building in which the Signors of
the Night had their office, and the city watch its headquarters.

The Signor had promised to continue the search during three days, and to
inform him of any clue he found. Meanwhile, Pignaver thought it would be
as well to find the two gentlemen who had been so highly recommended to
him, and he hastened to the half-ruined Palazzo Quirini. He went in by a
more convenient entrance than the two Bravi had chosen for reasons of
their own, but he found Markos where they had found him, still busy with
his accounts in the bright little vestibule. When the Senator entered,
he had already slipped on the little velvet mask which most Venetians
carried about them in the evening, but the Samian either recognised his
voice or knew instinctively that his visitor was a person of quality,
for he bowed to the ground, rubbed his large hands as if washing them
before serving his guest, and answered the Senator's brief salutation in
a profoundly obsequious tone.

Pignaver now laid one finger on his lips and spoke in a whisper, asking
whether Markos was acquainted with two honest gentlemen named
respectively Signor Trombin and Signor Gambardella.

By an almost miraculous coincidence the two honest gentlemen were at
that very moment supping within. Markos offered to call them out.

'Unless,' he added, 'your lordship is in need of supper, and will join
them.'

The Senator remembered that he had eaten only a few mouthfuls since
dinner, and the savoury fumes from the hall further sharpened his
appetite.

'The gentlemen are eating together at the little table in the recess,'
Markos added, as he detected signs of hesitation. 'You can turn your
back to the room, my lord, if you do not wish to be watched.'

Pignaver nodded and followed the host, who at once led the way in. Some
of the people who had been supping when the Bravi had entered were gone
away, but others had taken their places. The young Florentine and his
beautiful guest had disappeared, and their table was occupied by a
noisily gay party, of whom more than half wore masks. The two fair
Englishmen in velvet were still gravely drinking with their laughing
companions, but their eyes were growing rather dull. The serenaders had
finished their meal, and were making soft music in their corner, trying
over the songs they were going to sing.

'Gentlemen,' said Markos to the Bravi, 'allow me to introduce a highly
respectable personage who has business with you, and would like to join
you at supper.'

Trombin and Gambardella rose with a courtesy which showed where they had
been bred, in spite of their present profession. Though they had been at
supper two hours and had done well by a jar of old Samian, they were as
cool and steady as when they had sat down, a fact which predisposed
Pignaver in their favour.

'Will you do us the honour to be our guest, sir?' asked Gambardella at
once.

'But you have already supped, gentlemen,' answered the Senator.

'That is a trifle, sir,' Trombin said. 'We have not quite finished, and
if you will join us we shall be delighted to begin again from the
beginning. A clean cloth, Markos,' he went on at once, turning to the
host, 'and the same dishes over again!'

'Your hospitality confounds me, sirs,' protested the Senator. 'I can but
accept your gracious invitation.'

He sat down at the end of the small table, turning his back to the hall.
Markos was already making preparations, and in a few minutes the board
was set again, and with the very same delicacies which the Senator had
just begun to taste at his own supper when Ortensia's flight had been
discovered. He ate in silence, with solemn greediness, while his two
companions each took one shrimp and a taste of the caviare, and
exchanged an occasional glance. When he had consumed everything except
the bread, Pignaver spoke.

'I believe I am not mistaken in thinking that you two gentlemen
occasionally undertake little matters of private business,' he began.
'If I am wrong, pray correct me.'

'You are rightly informed, sir,' answered Trombin; 'we do, though only
on certain conditions, which, again, so far as they are favourable or
unfavourable, depend on circumstances; and these circumstances
themselves, as your experience of life has made you well aware, sir, are
often the result of that element of chance, which, under Providence,
plays such an important part in the affairs of men.'

This was rather vague, and Pignaver, who read the classics and prided
himself on his memory, was reminded of those Lacedæmonians who answered
the wordy fugitives from Samos by saying that they had already forgotten
the first half of their speech and did not understand the second. When
Trombin had finished speaking, he waited for an answer and looked
steadily at the Senator, opening his eyes wider and wider till they were
perfectly round and the lashes stood out in a circle like yellow rays,
and he puckered his lips in the most ridiculous manner, as if he were
just going to whistle. Gambardella, on the other hand, took a minute
quantity of caviare on the end of his fork and tasted it delicately,
looking unconcernedly at the guests in the hall.

Pignaver reflected a moment and drank wine before speaking.

'I attribute my presence here,' he said, 'to the direct intervention of
Providence.'

'We share your view,' answered Gambardella with gravity.

'In fact,' added Trombin, 'the elements of acquaintance all agree
admirably well--the circumstances, the conditions, chance, and
Providence itself. For if, as I gather from your own words, sir, you
stand in need of a little friendly assistance from us, we, on our side,
are weary of wasting our wits in conversation and our strength in
luxurious idleness. It is our mission to benefit mankind both here and
hereafter, by despatching useless persons to Paradise and thus cheering
the lives of the friends they leave on earth. Assured of this, as we
are, all inactivity is unbearable to us. At the present moment we are,
so to say, unemployed philanthropists; we are but a potential and
passive blessing to our fellow-creatures, though we burn to be doing
good to all! I appeal to my friend, Count Gambardella, here. Is this not
the exact truth?'

'Absolutely,' answered the other, toying with a shrimp. 'What my friend,
Count Trombin, says is always strictly true.'

'How could it be otherwise?' asked Pignaver. 'But I must apologise for
not having addressed you gentlemen by your proper titles, which are
foreign, though I had taken you both for Venetian nobles.'

'We are, sir,' Trombin answered, 'but it pleased his Majesty the King of
France to confer titles of French nobility on us, after we had rendered
him a trifling service. We should likewise esteem ourselves your
debtors, sir, if you would inform us of your own name, since we are
fortunate enough to be entertaining you as our guest.'

Again the round eyes opened wide, like those of an angry cat, and the
mouth was all puckered in the midst of the cherubic face, while Trombin
waited for the answer. The Senator saw that he had no choice.

'My name is Pignaver,' he said slowly, and dwelling proudly on each
syllable, 'and I am a Senator. You will understand at once why I wear a
mask here. I am well known by sight to many, and I have many
friends----'

'One too many, I presume,' suggested Gambardella, interrupting softly.

'I shall communicate my business at once,' said Pignaver, 'for the
person in question could never have been my friend any more than he
could be my enemy.'

'We understand your meaning,' said Gambardella; 'he is of low birth.
Shall we say that he is "superfluous"?'

'A weed,' suggested Trombin, 'a parasite, a wart, an overgrowth, a thing
to be eradicated before it does greater harm! Do you take me, my lord?
Have I fitted the word to the definition and suited the definition to
the man?'

'Admirably, Count,' assented Pignaver. 'Your command of language fills
me with envy. "Eradicate" is good, very good!'

'Does the weed flourish in Venice, my lord?' asked Gambardella, who was
bored and wished to settle the preliminaries of the business at once.

'If I did not detest false metaphors,' said Pignaver, 'I should say that
the weed has just flown, or, as I might say, fled, taking with it the
finest flower of my garden. But since elegant speech must not be
submitted to such outrages, I will speak plainly.'

At this point the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the
steaming pilaf, brought on by a neatly clad youth, whose companion set
down beside it a dish of quails roasted in young vine leaves, and
emitting a deliciously aromatic odour. Trombin and his friend helped the
Senator generously, and filled his glass again. He was so hungry by this
time that he ate several mouthfuls before he spoke again.

'I have always found the emotions to be great appetisers,' observed
Trombin, watching him. 'Men feast at a wedding, and gorge themselves
after a funeral. A fit of anger whets the appetite, for I have seen a
man fly into a towering passion with the cook and then immediately
devour the very dish he has found fault with, to the last scraping. As
for the passion of love, a French proverb says well that happiness makes
an empty stomach. I can only hope, my lord, that in a week's time you
may enjoy your supper as much, with satisfaction for a relish instead of
annoyance. As for me, the mere thought of doing some good in the world
makes me hungry.'

And as he spoke he began to eat another quail which he had already taken
on his plate. But Gambardella was more and more bored, and went to the
point, as soon as the Senator looked up from his plate.

'We understand,' he said, 'that some low-born fellow has carried off a
lady of your lordship's household. Do you know where they are?'

'No. I know nothing, except that they have either left Venice already or
will escape before morning.'

'That means a wide search,' said Gambardella.

'But an easy one,' the Senator replied. 'The man is Alessandro
Stradella, the singer, and may the devil get him!'

'He will be safer in our hands, my lord. The lady's name, and some
description of her, if you please.'

'Ortensia is her name. She is only seventeen years old, but is very
beautiful, for she is fair, and her hair is of a true auburn colour,
such as the lamented Titian often painted. Indeed, the young lady much
resembles that master's "Bella," though younger and thinner. With her is
fled also her nurse, a woman called Filippina, of middle age, with grey
eyes and greyish hair, once not bad-looking, and whose manners are above
her station.'

'I suppose she is commonly called Pina,' observed Gambardella. 'Let us
understand each other, my lord. I presume you wish the young lady and
the woman to be brought back to you, when the singer is dead.'

'Precisely. I shall say that she has been spending a week with a
relation of her mother's who is the Abbess of the Ursuline Nuns in
Ravenna.'

'Did you say the Ursulines in Ravenna, my lord?' asked Gambardella
slowly.

'Yes,' answered Pignaver, at first a little surprised by the question,
for he had spoken clearly, although the whole conversation was carried
on in low tones. The Bravo saw his expression, and hastened to explain.

'My left ear is a little deaf,' he said, turning his head so as to
present the other. 'Nothing remains but to agree on the price of the
service,' he continued in a business-like tone. 'When we are told
exactly where we shall find our man, it is simple enough. But in this
case we may have to travel far. We shall require two gold ducats daily
for our expenses till we find the opportunity we need for such a
difficult business, and five hundred gold ducats when we hand over to
you the young lady and her nurse. One hundred gold ducats must be
advanced before we start, on account of expenses.'

Pignaver's sour face twitched at the mention of such sums.

'You set a high price on your services, gentlemen,' he said.

'"Service" is not precisely the word, my lord,' said Trombin, desisting
from picking the leg of a quail, and staring intently at the masked
Senator. 'It is, as I may say, a false metaphor, which is an outrage
upon elegant speech--forgive me for borrowing your own expressions!'

And suddenly Trombin's eyes glared in such a way that the Senator was
cowed.

'I assure you, I had no intention of giving you offence, Count,' he
said. 'If you will, choose the word you prefer; I will use it with
pleasure.'

'"Benefit," my lord, or, if you prefer the longer form, "benefaction."
Either will do very well.'

Trombin thereupon resumed operations on the leg of the quail, and when
his absurd little mouth showed his teeth the Senator observed they were
as white and sharp as a cat's. It was clear that he was the talker in
the partnership, and left all business arrangements to his companion.

'I have named the sum we require, my lord,' the latter said calmly, 'and
we are not accustomed to argue such matters. You would give ten times as
much for your own life any day, and Alessandro Stradella would certainly
find a thousand or two to save his, if the matter were laid before him.'

Pignaver saw that he must agree to the demand, for if he refused and
sought help elsewhere the Bravi would warn the musician and offer the
latter their protection. The Senator was uncomfortable in their company,
as many of his friends would have been; for if a born coward ever comes
into contact with such men, he regards them much as a timid woman looks
on a loaded gun. Though the two cut-throats behaved with the outward
courtesy of gentlemen, there was something terrifying in their looks
which it would have been hard to define, and the highly refined Venetian
noble, who admired the elegant works of Politian and composed scores of
polished inanities, shuddered from time to time as he glanced at
Gambardella's sinewy brown hand or Trombin's strong pink fingers and
thought of the stains that must often have been on both.

A silence followed the Bravo's last speech, during which Trombin
consumed more pilaf, and his companion thoughtfully salted a small bit
of bread-crust, ate it slowly, and then sipped the old Samian wine from
the blue and white glass beaker which he kept constantly quite full. And
immediately, though he had only drunk a few drops, he re-filled the
glass exactly to the brim. Trombin drank at much longer intervals, but
always emptied his tumbler before replenishing it. Nor were these
opposite habits of the two men mere matters of preference or taste; for
the nose of the one turned up in such a convenient manner that he could
drain the smallest glass or cup with ease, but the other's portentous
beak turned down and then hooked itself in towards his lips, so that
wherever his mouth went, there it was also, always in the way; and if he
ever tried to drink like ordinary people, its tip was wetted before he
had tasted the wine.

The Senator was reflecting before giving an answer which must be final.
Was Ortensia worth the six or seven hundred ducats which the whole
affair would cost him? That was really the question, for he looked upon
the murder of Stradella merely as a necessary and just consequence of
his niece's capture, and though the thought of vengeance was agreeable
to his nature, he would not have been willing to pay such a price for
it. Ortensia herself was certainly not worth so much, in his estimation,
for the sake of her beauty, seeing that he could buy a Georgian girl
almost or quite as pretty, in the Fondaco dei Turchi, for much less.
Besides, though Stradella would be dead and buried, it would always be
humiliating to feel that she had belonged to him first, though the truth
need never be known in Venice.

But there was another consideration, which turned the scale in her
favour. Pignaver had heard her sing his own compositions, after having
been taught by Stradella, and he had dreamed of electrifying Venetian
society at last by her rendering of his immortal works. Hitherto, even
his most industrious flatterers had not given him the very first place
among living poets and musicians; but he was sure that when they heard
Ortensia they would exalt him above all his predecessors and all his
contemporaries; at last he would enjoy that absolute supremacy which is
the prime birthright of genius in all ages, and to which he firmly
believed himself entitled. Ortensia alone could assure to him that final
victory, and beside it all objections, all scruples, all petty questions
of technical honour sank away to nothing. He must marry her himself, of
course, so that he might order her to perform his works whenever he
pleased, and she must be a married woman before propriety would allow
her to sing to his assembled friends; but marriage was a detail and of
no consequence compared with the triumph he expected to gain by it; the
girl's flight with the musician was a childish escapade of little
importance, since it could be kept quite secret, and she might be
supposed to have been spending a few days in a convent in Ravenna to
complete her education. As for any resistance on her part, it was
absurd to think of such a thing; no doubt she would cry her eyes out for
a few weeks, after Stradella was despatched to a better world, but she
would soon see the error of her ways and be only too glad to accept the
magnificent position the Senator offered her, instead of being murdered
herself, or forced to spend her life in a convent.

The two Bravi did not hurry their new acquaintance to a decision, though
Gambardella had flatly declined to discuss the terms of the bargain;
they only made it clear that their offer must be accepted or declined as
it was, and they seemed quite indifferent as to Pignaver's decision.
Trombin continued to eat pilaf in a leisurely way, as if he could go on
for ever, and Gambardella sipped his wine, filled his glass again, and
ate several little morsels of salted crust, while the Senator turned the
matter over in his mind and plied his knife and fork in silence.

'The truth is,' he said at last, 'I should not wish you to start till
the city has been thoroughly searched by the police. As you wisely
observed, I think, a man of Stradella's reputation cannot remain long
concealed, and will be more easily found next week than to-morrow.'

'I believe,' answered Gambardella politely, 'that the remark was yours,
and it is a wise one. Are we then to understand that if the Signors of
the Night do not find the pair, you desire our help on the terms I have
stated?'

'Exactly so,' said Pignaver. 'That will give you time to make your
preparations for the journey at your leisure. Where shall I find you
three days hence, gentlemen?'

'At Benediction in the Church of the Frari, my lord, for the day will be
a Sunday. If you desire it, we will call for paper and pen and set down
the terms of our agreement at once.'

'That will not be necessary, sir,' replied the Senator, who did not care
to put his name to such a document. 'I have confidence in you.'

Trombin at once raised his head and fastened his eyes on Pignaver.

'As between gentlemen, my lord,' he observed, 'it would be more fitting
to say that we have confidence in each other. With your permission I
shall complete your statement by saying that we are willing to trust you
without any written promise. We will leave such sordid dealings to the
lawyers and notaries. You give your word, we give ours, and the matter
is safer for accomplishment than if a contract were engrossed on a dozen
sheepskins and sealed with the Fisherman's Ring!'

'Certainly, certainly,' assented the Senator, who did not like the
Bravo's eyes. 'You have my word, I have yours, and that is enough.'

'My lord,' said Trombin, his manner suddenly becoming extremely affable,
'I have the honour to drink your health!'

'Your health, Count,' responded Pignaver, raising his glass.

'Your health,' said Gambardella, bowing politely, and then sipping his
wine with all the caution required to keep his long nose out of it.

Having settled matters in this way and, moreover, satisfied his appetite
with a good supper, Pignaver took leave of the Bravi with considerable
ceremony, for he perceived that they were as exigent and punctilious as
to all points of courtesy as any noble in Italy, France, or Spain; and
it would not be good to fall out with such touchy gentlemen on a point
of manners. Indeed, as he retraced his steps to the office of the
Signors of the Night, where his gondola was waiting, he really
congratulated himself on having escaped without a quarrel, and hoped
that the next interview would pass off as well.

The three days went by, and at noon on Sunday he received a note from
the Signor of the Night informing him that the runaway pair and the
serving-woman had been in Padua early on the morning after they left
Venice, and had immediately taken an extra post to Rovigo and Ferrara.
They had excited no suspicion, and the spy who had brought the news had
not obtained the information without considerable difficulty, for many
travellers were going and coming, and in a time of peace like the
present more attention was bestowed by the authorities on foreign
travellers than on Italians. But Stradella had brought some of his
belongings with him, which his man had carefully concealed in the
gondola, and amongst other things there was his favourite long lute; the
instrument had been noticed by the ostlers at the postern-house in Padua
on account of its unusual size, and they remembered the four travellers
after hearing the spy's description of three of them, for he knew
nothing of Stradella's servant.

There was therefore no doubt but that the fugitives were now far beyond
the Venetian border in the States of the Church, and Pignaver resolved
to keep the appointment at the Frari, taking with him the hundred gold
ducats which were to be paid in advance.

The Bravi were already there indeed, but he did not see them at once,
and as Vespers were over and the Benediction was about to begin, he
selected a spot a little apart from the common herd and knelt down to
his devotions, for it was of no use to waste time that could be so
profitably employed.

But while he was thus engaged, it being already sunset and the light in
the church failing, the men he sought were earnestly conversing in low
tones with a young Dominican monk in a distant corner; and the monk, it
is needless to say, was the lady whose ring they had taken, and who had
knocked so long in vain at Stradella's door three days earlier.

'Madam,' Gambardella was saying, 'the search may be a long one, but we
will do our best. We shall require two gold ducats daily for our
expenses in travelling, and the payment of five hundred gold ducats in
cash when we deliver to you Master Alessandro Stradella, bound hand and
foot, at your villa on the Brenta.'

'But the woman must die!' protested the lady earnestly.

'That goes without saying, madam,' answered Gambardella. 'You may
regard her as already dead and buried, for you have our word for it.
Nothing remains but that you should place in our hands a hundred gold
ducats on account, which we shall require in order to start.'

The lady was evidently prepared for such a demand, and produced a small
leathern bag from within her monk's frock. But she was evidently a woman
of business.

'Since we are now friends,' she said, putting the bag into Gambardella's
hand, 'you ought to give me back my ring when the thing is done!'

'Madam,' said Trombin, in his grand manner, 'you have our word for that.
In fact, we only meant to borrow it for a day or two, and for your great
kindness in allowing us to do so we have the honour to tender you our
sincerest thanks.'

'It is impossible to be more polite, sir,' answered the lady.

So they parted, for she slipped away into the dusk and soon left the
church by a side door. But Trombin and his companion went forward, and
finding the Senator on his knees, they knelt down, one on each side of
him. He glanced to the right and left, and was surprised at the
improvement in their appearance since he had seen them at supper. They
had been distinctly shabby then, and he would not have liked to be seen
in their company by his friends; but to-day they were dressed with
excellent taste and neatness, in perfectly new clothes. Gambardella wore
a suit of dark purple cloth slashed with velvet of the same colour; but
Trombin wore black velvet and silk, which he considered most becoming to
his infantile complexion and yellow hair. Both had new hats, too, and
their feathers, purple and black respectively, were nothing short of
magnificent. Only their rapiers were unchanged, the same serviceable,
business-like weapons that Pignaver had seen before.

The three men knelt side by side, putting on an air of devotion; and no
one else was very near them.

'_Tantum ergo_ ...' began the choir, somewhere out of sight.

'I presume you mean business, my lord,' said Gambardella so that the
Senator could just hear him.

'They passed through Padua, and took post to Rovigo and Ferrara,'
answered Pignaver. 'You cannot miss them if you go that way.'

'A very convenient place, Ferrara, if they would wait for us there,'
observed Trombin.

'... _veneremur cernui_,' the choir sang, and many of the people were
joining in the ancient hymn.

'When can you start?' inquired Pignaver.

'As soon as we have funds for the journey,' answered Gambardella
promptly.

'You said one hundred ducats, did you not? Your expenses are to be
counted at two ducats per day, and as much of the first hundred as is
left when you have finished is to be deducted from the final payment of
five hundred. Is that it?'

'Precisely,' said Gambardella.

'It is impossible to be more accurate,' observed Trombin, without
turning his head, and preserving the expression of a devout, fat-cheeked
seraph, which he always put on when at his prayers.

'I have the money with me, gentlemen,' continued Pignaver. 'As soon as
the Benediction is over I will hand it to you, and I hope you will find
it convenient to start at once.'

'We are ready,' Gambardella replied. 'To-morrow night we shall be in
Ferrara, and if your friends are still there, we may be here again on
the third day.'

'Heaven grant us all its favours and a speedy return!' prayed Trombin.

'Amen,' said the Senator, calculating that if only three days were
consumed, the Bravi would have ninety-four ducats in hand, and he would
have to pay them only four hundred and six.

In his pocket his hand grasped the heavy little bag containing the gold,
and he wished that private vengeance and justice were not so dear; but
he was not a miser, though he had a real Venetian's understanding of the
value of money, and did not like to part with it till he was sure that
he was to receive a full equivalent. For the rest, what he was doing was
perfectly justifiable in his eyes: if the couple had been caught within
the territory of the Republic, Alessandro Stradella would have had to
answer to the law for the atrocious crime of carrying off a Senator's
niece and affianced bride who was a minor, and the law would not have
been tender to the Sicilian; the least penalty he would have suffered
would have been to be chained to an oar on a government galley, and it
was quite possible that he might have been hanged. Most people would
prefer to be run through with a rapier, and it was therefore clear that
Stradella ought to be satisfied. As for such weakness as a qualm of
conscience, Pignaver was as far above such childishness as the Bravi
themselves.

He gave them the little bag of ducats and took leave of them by the
monument of Pietro Bernardini, almost on the spot where Ortensia and
Pina had put on their brown cloaks three or four days earlier.

When he was gone, Trombin and Gambardella looked at each other in
silence; the dark man's thin lips, visible on each side of the point of
his nose, but quite shaded by it in the middle, were smiling faintly,
but Trombin's cherubic countenance expressed, or caricatured, the utter
beatitude of one of those painted angels to which his friend always
compared him.

They walked slowly up the church towards the sacristy, and at the door
they met the sacristan, a lay brother, coming out with his long
extinguisher in his hand. They stopped him politely.

'We desire to offer two candles to Saint Francis,' said Gambardella,
'one for each of us. We also desire to leave a gold ducat for masses to
be said for the soul of a departed friend.'

'I will serve you at once, gentlemen,' answered the sacristan. 'What was
your friend's baptismal name, if you please, that I may write it on the
list?'

'Alessandro,' answered Gambardella.

'Do you wish to mention the date of his death, sir?'

'No. It is of no use.'

The lay brother took the money and went into the sacristy to deposit it,
and to fetch the candles, which the Bravi then lighted and put up
themselves.

CHAPTER VII

Trombin had rightly guessed that the fugitives would rest themselves in
Ferrara, where they would be safe within the Pope's dominions, and
beyond the reach of Venetian law. By the old road the city was nearly a
hundred miles from Padua, and it was only by a lavish use of money that
Stradella succeeded in reaching it at midnight, after leaving Padua soon
after sunrise. Ortensia was utterly exhausted, and even Pina, who was
very strong, was beginning to be worn out. They had trouble in getting
into the inn at that hour, and when they at last succeeded, they found
that there was only one room to be had, although, as the sleepy servant
who had let them in added, they might have the whole house to themselves
the next day, for all the travellers would be gone again long before
noon.

Pina slept with her mistress, while Stradella and his man rolled
themselves in their cloaks and lay down outside the door, with valises
for pillows; for they expected to be pursued, and though they had made
good time, they knew that mounted men, with frequent relays of horses,
might overtake them before morning. It was not Stradella's first
adventure, though it was his last, and he fully realised that Pignaver
would use every means to wreak his vengeance. It could not have occurred
to the runaways that three days would be wasted in searching Venice
before the pursuit actually began.

Even that knowledge could not have made Alessandro sleep more soundly,
since the fear of danger to Ortensia could not keep him awake, and he
slept as peacefully on the stone pavement of the corridor as ever he did
in the most luxurious bed.

But his man was awake and was watching for all the four, though he lay
quite still, rolled up in his brown cloak. For Cucurullo was one of
those people who sleep little at the best of times, and generally have
to content themselves with resting their bodies by lying motionless,
while they deaden thought as best they can with those melancholy devices
that are familiar to the sleepless.

The hunchback rested now, but was glad to lie awake, though he was well
aware that he deserved no especial credit for watching while his young
master slept soundly by his side. But he did not try to cheat time by
fancying that he was counting a flock of sheep that crowded through a
narrow gate into a field, or by saying the alphabet backwards, or by
repeating all the prayers he knew, which were many, for he was a
religiously inclined person, nor did he laboriously reckon how many
Apostolic florins there were in seventeen hundred and sixty-three and a
half Venetian ducats. On the contrary, he concentrated his mind to the
best of his ability on a problem which it seemed to him of the very
highest importance to solve at once; for it involved nothing less than
the salvation of Alessandro Stradella's soul.

Now Cucurullo, as I have said, was religiously inclined. He was not
devout in the same sense as the two cut-throats who lighted candles
before the image of Saint Francis for the success of their murderous
enterprise, and paid beforehand for masses to be said for the soul of
the man they were going to kill. He would not have denied that this was
a form of piety too, if any one had asked him his opinion. Everything,
he would have argued, was relative; and if you were going to stab a man
in the back, it was more moral to make an effort to save his soul than
to wish to destroy it with his body. He would have admitted this, for he
was charitable, even to such people as professional murderers. But his
own religion was quite of another sort; he was devotedly attached to his
master, he was deeply concerned for the latter's future welfare, and it
looked just now as if Stradella's chances of salvation would be slender
if any accident carried him off suddenly. Moreover, such an accident
might occur at any moment, for, like Stradella himself, he anticipated
that Pignaver would seek a speedy revenge.

Like the early Christians he was a pessimist about this world and an
optimist about the next; for that is usually the state of mind of those
who labour under any material or bodily disability, from slavery, which
is the worst, to blindness or deformity.

As a pessimist, therefore, Cucurullo thought that his master, Ortensia,
Pina, and himself had a most excellent chance of having their throats
cut within twenty-four hours, and he was rather surprised that it should
not have happened already.

As an optimist, on the other hand, he trusted that by his own exertions
he might so dispose matters as that his master and Ortensia should be
murdered while in a state of grace, and not in mortal sin; to be plain,
he was determined that they should be duly married before Pignaver's
agents despatched them. For he had been constrained to aid and abet his
master in more than one romantic adventure before now, and nothing had
come of any of them that was at all conducive to the young man's
salvation.

Poor Cucurullo knew the whole process of those affairs, as the
conjurer's assistant knows how the tricks are done. Even when Stradella
was at home, in his own room, his man had always been able to tell
whether he was in love or not. When he was not, he industriously
composed oratorios, or motets, or some other kind of serious music; but
when he was, he sang to himself, as a bird does in spring, improvising
both the words and the melody; or else he would sit still for an hour at
a time, doing nothing, but dreaming with open eyes and slightly parted
lips; or he would pace the floor impatiently, and go to the door every
five minutes to listen for a light footfall on the stairs. All this
Cucurullo had observed frequently; often, too, he had carried letters
and tokens, and had brought others back; and not a few times, by night,
he had held cloak and lute and rapier, while his master climbed up to a
balcony or a window high above. Many such things had Cucurullo done, and
had confessed them afterwards as misdeeds. Wretched sinner that he was,
he had even paid flattering compliments to a chambermaid to sweeten her
humour till she promised to take a message to her lady. This had seemed
to him particularly wicked, yet he had done it and would do it again, if
Stradella required such service, simply because he could not help it.

Now, however, all former adventures sank to nothing in comparison with
the present one. So far, the musician had lightly loved and ridden away;
but this time he had not ridden away alone, and, moreover, he was not
carrying off the buxom wife or daughter of some meek citizen who would
appeal in vain to the law and could do nothing without it, and who would
probably let the erring lady return to his home at the trifling price of
a sound beating when Stradella was tired of her. That would have been
bad enough, in all conscience; but this time the hare-brained singer had
done much worse, even from a worldly point of view; and looking at it
from another, Cucurullo thought that the irreparable nature of the deed
made it more wicked, besides the fact that all the persons concerned
might lose their lives by it. He was a very simple person in some ways.
Under the circumstances it seemed necessary before all things to convert
moral wrong into moral right by the simple intervention of a priest and
a wedding ring, after which the question of civil right, as the law
would regard it, would take care of itself well enough.

In the grey dawn Cucurullo's large unshaven face emerged from the ample
folds of his cloak, and his mild blue eyes seemed to review the
situation by daylight as he looked from his master's half-muffled
figure to Ortensia's closed door, and then towards the window at the end
of the passage. Then he sat up cautiously and drew his heels under him,
and because his body was so short and so completely covered up, he
looked as if he had none at all, and as if his big head were lying in a
nest of brown cloth on a pair of folded legs. Then, from just below his
chin, an immensely long arm stole out quietly, and his hand drew up
Stradella's cloak which had slipped from his shoulder; for the morning
air was chilly, though the spring was far advanced. Any one, coming on
him suddenly as he sat there, would have been startled as at the sight
of a supernatural being, consisting of a head, legs, and arms, all
joined together without any body.

The dawn brightened to day, and all sorts of noises began to come up
from below, echoing through the staircase and long passages of the
house; a distant door was opened and shut, then some one seemed to be
dragging a heavy weight over a rough floor; far off, some one else
whistled a tune; and then, all at once, came the clatter of many horses'
feet on the cobble-stones in the yard.

Cucurullo sprang up and ran on tip-toe to the window, instantly fearing
the arrival of mounted pursuers; but he only saw the stablemen leading
out the post-horses to be watered and groomed. When he turned to come
back he saw that he had waked Stradella, who was sitting up, yawning
prodigiously, and rubbing his eyes like a sleepy boy. He raised his hand
to stop his man, and then got up without noise and joined him near the
window.

'What is it?' he asked in a whisper, not without some anxiety.

'Only the post-horses, sir, but I was afraid of something else.'

'I wish we were already in Florence. This is too near Venice!'

'Better still in Rome,' said Cucurullo, gloomily. 'Still better in
Sicily, and altogether much better in Africa; but best of all in heaven,
sir, if you can manage to get there!'

'It is not the first time you and I have run a risk together,' observed
Stradella, slowly moving the back of his hand up and down against his
unshaven cheek.

'It is the first time you have risked the life of a lady,' answered
Cucurullo quietly, for he understood his master very well.

'We had better go down and see about getting horses,' Stradella
answered, and he led the way to the stairs, his man following in his
footsteps.

The sun was rising now, and there was much bustling and clattering in
the yard, and sousing and splashing of cold water about the fountain; a
dozen horses were tied up to rings in the wall on one side, and the
stablemen were grooming some of them industriously while others waited
their turn, stamping now and then upon the cobble-stones, and turning
their heads as far as they could to see what was going on behind them
and on each side. Three men were washing the huge coach that ran to
Rovigo one day and back the next, and several smaller conveyances stood
beyond it in a row, still covered with dust from yesterday, for the
weather had been dry.

As in many inns of that time, the innkeeper was also the postmaster.
Stradella found him under the arched entrance to the yard, giving
instructions to the cook, who was just going to the market accompanied
by a scullion; the latter carried three empty baskets on his head, one
inside of the other.

'You can have no horses to-day,' said the host, in answer to Stradella's
demand, and he shook his head emphatically.

'No horses! It is impossible! It is absolutely necessary that we should
go on at once.'

The innkeeper was a square-shouldered Romagnole with grey hair, red
cheeks, and sharp black eyes. He shook his head again.

'I have not a horse to give you,' he said. 'Everything in my stable was
engaged beforehand for the Nuncio. I cannot give you the Government's
horses from the Rovigo coach, can I? Patience! That is all I can say.'

Stradella began to ask questions. The Nuncio, on his way to Verona and
Austria, had spent three days in the inn, both to rest himself and also
to be sure of having enough horses ahead to go on with, and word had
been sent to Mantua to make all the necessary arrangements. He should
have gone by Modena, but the road was in a bad state. A bridge had
broken down, and he had been forced to pass through Ferrara.

'But surely,' said the musician, 'I can hire a pair of horses of some
sort in the town, by paying a good price for them!'

No. The Nuncio had hired everything. Did the gentleman suppose that a
Papal Nuncio could travel with as few as eight or ten horses? He needed
about fifty in all. That was why he proceeded so slowly. There was not
another animal to be had in the town, horse or mule, that could be put
to a wheeled vehicle--not one! The gentleman might hire a riding-horse
or two, but the innkeeper had been told that he had a lady and her
tire-woman with him. Patience! A day would soon pass, Ferrara was a fine
town, well worth seeing, and he could go on to-morrow morning in the
Bologna coach, which would arrive from that city at noon to-day.

Clearly there was not the smallest possibility of being able to get on
during the next twenty-four hours. Stradella's face was very grave as he
turned away, and Cucurullo was paler than before.

Upstairs Ortensia had wakened just then and had called Pina, who got up
and opened the window wide, letting in the air with the morning sun.
Utterly unprovided as the two women were, they had slept half-dressed,
and as Ortensia rose the nurse threw one of the two brown cloaks over
her bare shoulders and fastened it round her neck.

For a few moments after she had opened her eyes the young girl had not
quite understood where she was, for she had lain down exhausted, and
sleep had come to her as her head touched the pillow. Now, in the broad
daylight, when she had plunged her face into cold water, she realised
everything, and the colour rose slowly to her throat and cheeks. She
went to the window and stood there, turned away from Pina and looked
out. Below her lay the chief public square of the city; on the left rose
the huge castle, the most gloomy and forbidding she had ever seen. She
had never heard of Nicholas Third of Este nor of his wife Parisina,
fair, evil, and ill-fated, nor of handsome Ugo, who died an hour before
her for his sins and hers, in the dark chamber at the foot of the Lion
Tower; but if Pina had known the story and had told it to her in all its
horror, Ortensia would have felt that it must be true, and that only
such tragedies as that could happen within such walls. They were so
stern, so square, so dark; the towers rose so grimly out of the black
waters of the moat! It was of bad augury to look at them, she thought,
and she drew back from the window and sat down where she could see only
the sky.

Pina was making such preparations for her mistress's toilet as were
possible. Being a prudent woman she had brought in her pocket three
objects of the highest usefulness, a piece of white Spanish soap, a
comb, and a shabby little old rolling work-case of yellow leather, in
which there were needles and thread and pins. The figure of a wild
animal, which might have been meant for a bear, was embroidered in black
thread on the outer flap of the case. Pina had used it ever since
Ortensia could remember, and seemed to value it as much as any of her
few possessions. It was a very useful little thing, and she kept it
always well filled with sewing materials.

As the young girl did not move and showed no inclination to dress
herself, Pina came behind her and began to let down and comb her hair,
which she had not even taken down on the previous night, being far too
much exhausted to think of such a thing. She submitted her head
willingly to the skilled hands of her nurse.

'Where is he?' she asked after a time, and she felt that she was
blushing again.

'They slept on the floor in the passage,' Pina answered. 'Perhaps they
are asleep still. You shut your eyes as soon as you lay down, but I
opened the door again and looked out before I went to bed. Signor
Alessandro asked me if we needed anything, and then said good-night.'

'Will you go and see if they are still there, please?'

Pina crossed the room, drew back the bolt, and put out her head, looking
up and down the passage. There was no one to be seen, and she shut the
door again without bolting it. She came back and again began to comb out
the girl's hair.

'They are not there,' she said. 'Probably Signor Alessandro is ordering
the horses. He will come in a few minutes and tell us at what time we
are to start.'

A short silence followed.

'Have you ever been here before?' Ortensia asked presently.

'Yes,' Pina answered, 'I have been here before. I do not like Ferrara.'

'Why not? Have you any particular reason for not liking it?'

'It was here that my thumb was hurt,' said the nurse. 'That is a fair
reason, is it not?' She laughed rather harshly. 'To hate a place because
one has had an accident in it! The men would say that is just like a
woman!'

'I hope I may never come here again, either,' Ortensia answered. 'How
did you hurt your thumb?'

'That is a long story, my lady. But why do you also dislike the place
already? You have only looked out of the window once.'

'I saw the castle, and I thought it was of bad augury, for it looks like
a great prison.'

'There are prisons in it without any light, very deep down,' said Pina
quietly. 'The Pope's Legate lives in the upper part. The Legate is the
Papal Governor, you know, my lady.'

'I did not know. But the ugly castle is not the real reason why I do not
like Ferrara. I could not tell any one else, but I think I can tell you,
Pina.'

She turned her head half round under the nurse's hands, looked up
sideways, and then hesitated. It was not easy to explain.

'What is it, my lady?' asked the serving-woman. 'You can tell old Pina
anything.'

'It is all so different from what I thought it would be,' Ortensia said
in a rather low voice, and again a blush rose in her cheek.

'I think I understand,' Pina said, steadily combing out the heavy auburn
hair.

'You see,' Ortensia explained, 'we all four got into the gondola
together, and there was that long row to the land, and that dreadful
night in the cart on the road to Padua--and then the half-hour at
daybreak, while he was getting the carriage, and then the journey
here--and last night--and now----'

She did not finish the sentence, hoping that Pina would really
understand.

'Yes,' the woman said quietly. 'You have not been alone together for a
moment since we left Venice, and that is not what you expected.'

'No,' Ortensia answered in the hurt tone of a disappointed child, 'I
thought it was going to be quite different! And now we shall start again
and drive all day and half the night, and then it will be just the same,
I suppose!'

'Once in Florence, or even in Bologna, there will be no more hurry,'
said Pina in a consoling tone. 'Besides, my lady, you can be properly
married then.'

'Of course, of course! We shall be married as soon as we can, but all
the same----'

'All the same, it would be pleasant to spend half-an-hour together
without old Pina always listening and looking on!'

The nurse smiled and shook her head, but Ortensia could not see her, and
did not think her tone was very encouraging; it sounded as if 'old Pina'
thought it was going to be her duty to play chaperon two or three days
longer, which was not at all what Ortensia wished.

'If he had even shown that he was a little disappointed, too----' the
girl began, and then she stopped.

'That would not have been good manners, my lady,' Pina said primly.
'When a gentleman has carried off a young lady, with her own consent,
the least he can do is to look pleased, I am sure!'

'I thought you would understand better,' Ortensia answered in a tone of
disappointment.

Some one knocked at the door, not loudly but sharply, and as if in a
hurry; Pina went at once to see who it was, and found Stradella himself
outside.

'May I come in?' he asked quickly.

Beyond Pina, as he looked in, he saw Ortensia in her brown cloak, with
her hair down and all combed out over her shoulders, and without waiting
for an answer he pushed past the nurse and went to her. Instinctively
she drew the cloak more closely round her, but she looked up with a
bright smile, which vanished when she saw his expression in the strong
light. He spoke anxiously, without even a word of greeting.

'There are no horses to be had,' he said. 'I have done my best, but the
Pope's Nuncio is passing through and has engaged everything there was.
There is not even a public coach to Bologna till to-morrow morning. I am
more distressed than I can tell you! I have sent my man out to see if he
can find anything, and he will if there is a beast to be had. If not, we
shall have to wait here.'

While he was speaking, the door had closed softly and Pina was gone.
Ortensia saw her go out and put out one hand timidly between the folds
of the cloak, for her arm was bare, and she tried to cover it. At the
same time the glorious colour rose in her face, the third time since
she had opened her eyes that morning.

'I am glad,' she said simply, as soon as her hand was in his.

He glanced behind him and saw that Pina had disappeared. Then without a
word he drew the lovely girl up to him, and for a while they stood
clasped in each other's arms; and she forgot that hers were bare, and he
scarcely knew it; and if their faces drew back one from the other for a
few seconds, it was that their eyes might meet in one another's depths;
and the broad morning sun shone full upon the two through the open
window, making the girl's auburn hair blaze like dark red gold, and a
white radiance glowed in her pure forehead and snowy arms.

Stradella shivered a little, even in the sunshine, as he let her go, and
she sank upon her chair, finding his hand again and holding it fast as
if she feared lest he should leave her. It had been a strange wooing, in
which song had played a greater part than words; and as for anything
else, he had kissed her twice on that night when he had climbed into the
loggia, and not again till now. Had he loved her less, he would have
laughed at himself for the innocence of such a love-making; but it was
all unlike anything that had ever happened to him before, and, moreover,
he had no time for such reflections at the present moment, since every
hour of delay might mean the nearer approach of danger, not to him only,
but to Ortensia herself.

'We are not far enough from Venice,' he said, when he spoke at last. 'I
would give the world to have you safe in Florence!'

'My uncle will not even try to catch us,' Ortensia said calmly. 'You do
not know him. When he finds out that we are gone together he will fear a
scandal, and he fears ridicule still more. He will tell his friends that
he has sent me to the country, or to a convent, and by and by he will
tell them that I am dead. He dreads nothing in the world so much as
being laughed at!'

She was so sure that she laughed herself as she thought of him, and
almost wished that he might hear her, though he was certainly the very
last person she wished to see just then. But Stradella thought
otherwise.

'No one would laugh at him if he had you assassinated,' he said.

'I am not afraid of that!' Ortensia smiled at the mere idea of such a
thing. 'Why are you standing? Come, bring that chair and sit down beside
me, for we are alone at last!'

He was well used to women's ways, but the ways of grown women of the
world are not those of innocent maidens of seventeen; her perfect
simplicity and fearlessness were quite new to him, and had a wonderful
charm of their own. He drew a chair to the window and sat down close to
her, and afterwards he was glad that he had done as she wished.

It was all very strange, he thought even then. As yet, a love-affair had
mostly meant for him a round of more or less dangerous adventures by
night, such as climbing of balconies, unlocking of forbidden doors with
stolen keys, imprisonment in dark closets and wardrobes, and sometimes
flight in break-neck haste. That had usually been the material side,
whereas now, reckoning up his risks, he had only climbed once to a
loggia at night, and once he had been taken for a thief and chased, and
that was all, excepting the actual escape from Venice, which had been
without danger until now. On the other hand, there had stood to love's
credit, as against those insignificant perils, only two kisses and no
more, exchanged when he had been so drenched with rain that it had been
quite out of the question to put a dripping arm round his lady's waist.

And now, for the first time in his life, he was suddenly alone with an
innocent girl of seventeen who loved him, and whom he loved even to the
point of having carried her off out of her house; he was alone with her,
in her own room, when she had but just risen from sleep, and she was
sitting beside him in the early sunshine, that wove a blaze of glory
round her young beauty, and her soft white hand held his; and he was not
satisfied as she was, but wished it were night instead of day, and
wished the sun were the moon, and that there were sweet silence without
instead of the thousand cries and echoes of a waking Italian city. For
all he had ever known of joy on earth, or ever hoped for, he would not
have wished that Ortensia's face could change into any that had once
been dear to him under the summer moonlight of the south; yet he felt
strangely constrained and awkward, like a schoolboy in love, not knowing
what to do or say in the overwhelming daylight.

'You are not glad, as I am,' Ortensia said after the long silence.

At the sound of her voice he found himself again, and he lifted her hand
and pressed it to his lips.

'I am afraid for you,' he answered. 'When a man has taken the most
precious thing in the whole world, and carries it with him through an
enemy's country, he may well be afraid lest some harm come to it on the
way.'

'But this is not the enemy's country!' laughed Ortensia, too happy to be
serious. 'Are we not a hundred miles from Venice and my uncle?'

'They say the Republic has long arms, love, and the Senator can count on
every one of the Ten to help him. The law cannot touch us merely for
having run away together, it is true, but what if he invents a crime?
What if he swears that we have robbed him? The Pope's Government will
not harbour thieves nor shelter criminals against the justice of Venice!
We should be arrested and given up, that is all, and then sent back!
This is what I fear much more than that he should have us tracked and
murdered by assassins, as many Venetians would do in this civilised
age!'

'But we have taken nothing,' Ortensia objected, quite unable to be
afraid of anything while her hand was in his. 'How can he accuse us of
robbing him? Pina and I have a comb and piece of soap between us! As for
money, she may have a little small change, for all I know, but I have
nothing.'

'I have a good deal,' Stradella answered; 'quite enough to justify such
an accusation as that. But, after all, nothing can hinder such a thing,
if it is going to be. I dare say you are right--it is my anxiety for you
that makes me think of everything that might happen.'

'Nothing will happen,' Ortensia said softly, 'nothing will happen to
part us!'

Still holding his hand, she gazed into his eyes with an expression of
ecstatic happiness, and she could not have found another word, even if
she had needed speech; then suddenly her bare arm circled his neck like
a flash of white light, for he was very close to her, and she took him
unawares and kissed him first.

She laid her head upon his breast a moment later, and he pressed her to
him and buried his face in her sweet auburn hair. His heart overflowed
in many soft and loving words.

The door opened while he was speaking, and both started and sat upright,
expecting to see Pina, and ashamed to be surprised even by her. Then
Ortensia uttered a sharp cry and Stradella sprang to his feet.

Two big men in rusty black and long boots had entered the room, and were
advancing. They were broad-shouldered men, of a determined bearing, with
sinister faces, and both wore swords and kept their slouch hats on their
heads. Stradella was unarmed, and could only stand before Ortensia,
awaiting their onset, for he had not a doubt but that they were Bravi
sent by Pignaver to murder him. To his surprise they stopped before him,
and one of them spoke.

'You had better come quietly with us,' the man said.

Stradella understood at once that the two intruders were sbirri, come to
arrest him, and he was sure that Pignaver had pursued precisely the
course he had explained to Ortensia, and that he was going to be accused
of robbery.

'I am a Sicilian and a Spanish subject,' he said. 'By what right do you
dare to arrest me?'

'We know very well that you are a Sicilian, Master Bartolo,' answered
the man. 'And as for the rest, it is known to you, so come with us and
make no trouble, or it will be the worse for you.'

'My name is not Bartolo!' cried the musician indignantly. 'I am
Alessandro Stradella, the singer.'

'Any one can say that,' replied the man. 'Come along! No nonsense, now!'

'I tell you, I am Stradella----'

But the man glanced at his companion, and the two had him by his arms in
an instant, though he struggled desperately. They were very strong
fellows, and between them could have thrown a horse, and though
Stradella was supple and quick, he was powerless between them.

During the short exchange of words Ortensia had leaned back against the
window-sill in frightened surprise, but when she saw her lover suddenly
pinioned and dragged towards the door, she flew at the sbirri like a
tigress, and buried her fingers in the throat of the nearest, springing
upon him from behind. The fellow shook her off as a bull-terrier would a
rat, and, while keeping his hold on the prisoner with one hand, he
tripped her roughly with his foot and the other, by a common
professional trick, throwing her heavily upon the brick floor. Before
she could rise, the men had got Stradella outside, and as she struggled
to her feet she heard the key turned, and knew that she was locked in.
In wild despair she beat upon the solid panels with her small fists, but
no one answered her. Stradella's man was scouring the town for horses,
and Pina was not within hearing.

Meanwhile the singer had submitted, as soon as he realised that he had
no chance of escape, and that, unless the men were acting a part, he had
been taken for a man called Bartolo, and would be able to explain the
mistake as soon as he was brought before a responsible officer or
magistrate. Indeed, when this view presented itself to him, he was only
anxious to facilitate the course of events as much as possible, and
spoke civilly to his captors, while walking quietly downstairs between
them; but they did not let go of his arms for that reason.

Below, in the arched entrance, the innkeeper was waiting, in
conversation with three other sbirri, dressed and armed much in the same
manner as the two who had made the arrest.

'It is a mistake,' Stradella said to the host. 'I am taken for another
man, and as soon as I have explained who I am, I shall return. I shall
be obliged if you will attend to the wants of the lady and her
serving-woman.'

'Guests who quit the house without paying their score generally leave
their luggage as security,' answered the host with an insulting sneer,
and pointing towards the entrance.

There, to his surprise, Stradella saw two sturdy porters, laden with his
valises, his cloak, and his lute, and evidently waiting to accompany
him.

'What are you doing, you scoundrels?' he cried. 'Put down my things!'

But they only grinned and began to move on, and as he was hurried out of
the door into the square, they jogged across the square at a trot with
their burdens. A few moments later he followed them across the
drawbridge of the castle and in under the great gate where a papal
soldier, armed with halberd and broadsword, was pacing up and down on
guard.

Just as he disappeared, Pina emerged upon the square from a narrow
street at its northern end, and hastened to the entrance of the inn. The
host was standing there, his legs apart, his arms crossed, and his small
black cap on one side of his head. He stopped Pina.

'Your master has changed his lodgings,' he said in a jocular tone, and
pointing with his thumb towards the castle. 'His Excellency the Legate
has just taken him in free.'

Pina understood instantly, and drew back a step in consternation.

'If you mean to stay here, you must pay in advance,' continued the host,
'for your master has taken all the luggage with him. Perhaps he expects
to spend some time with the Legate.'

'But we have no money of our own!' Pina cried in great distress. 'What
are we to do?'

'That is your affair,' answered the innkeeper. 'You have had your
night's lodging from me, and that is all you will get for nothing; so,
unless you can pay, take your mistress somewhere else.'

Pina bent her head, and went upstairs without more words. A quarter of
an hour later she and Ortensia left the inn, with the hoods of their
brown cloaks drawn over their heads. The young girl leaned on her
nurse's arm, and walked unsteadily.

Their worldly possessions, besides the clothes they wore, consisted of a
piece of Castile soap, a comb, and Pina's work-case.

CHAPTER VIII

The Nuncio departed amidst a tremendous clatter of hoofs and rumbling of
wheels, after being accompanied to his coach by the Legate of Ferrara
himself. The second coach was occupied by his chaplains, and a third by
his body-servants; in his own he took only his secretary; each vehicle
carried a part of his voluminous luggage. After the coaches rode the
footmen, mounted on all sorts of beasts, such as could be had, but
wearing good liveries and all well armed. A dozen papal troopers
commanded by a sergeant brought up the rear.

The wizened little Legate bowed to the ground as the noisy procession
started, for though he wore a clerical dress he was only a layman, and
the Nuncio was Archbishop of Kerasund, 'in partibus infidelium,' and
returned the Governor's salutations with a magnificent benediction from
the window of his coach. The papal halberdiers of the castle, all drawn
up in line outside the moat, saluted by laying their long halberds to
the left at a sharp angle.

The Legate put on his three-cornered hat as the escort trotted away
after the coaches, and he stood rubbing his hands and watching the
fast-disappearing procession of travellers, while the guard formed in
double file and awaited his pleasure, ready to follow him in.

He had scarcely reached middle age, but he looked like a dried-up little
old man, with his wrinkled face, his small red eyes, and his withered
hands. No one who did not know him would have taken him to be the
tremendous personage he really was in Ferrara, invested with full powers
to represent his sovereign master, Pope Clement the Tenth; or rather the
Pope's adopted 'nephew,' who was not his nephew at all, Cardinal Paluzzo
Altieri, the real and visible power in Rome. The truth was that the aged
Pontiff was almost bedridden and was scarcely ever seen, and he was only
too glad to be relieved of all care and responsibility.

Monsignor Pelagatti, for that was the Legate's name, was a man of no
distinguished extraction; indeed, it would be more true to say that he
had extracted himself from his original surroundings. For it was by dint
of laudable hard work as well as by virtue of certain useful gifts of
mind and character that he had raised himself above his family to a
really important position. It was commonly said in Rome that his father
had been a highway robber and his mother a washerwoman, and that his
brother was even now a footman in service; but it is quite possible that
the Roman gossips knew more of his people than he did, seeing that he
had declined to have anything to do with his family ever since he had
got his first place as assistant steward in the Paluzzo household,
before that family had been adopted and had received the name of Altieri
from the Pope; and this is all that need be said about his beginnings
for the present.

In due time he went upstairs again, installed himself behind the long
oak table in his office, and took up the business of the day. A brown
wooden crucifix stood before him, and at the foot of it was placed his
large leaden inkstand, well provided with pens, ink, and red sand for
blotting. At each end of the table sat a clerk; of these two, one was an
untidy old man with a weary face and snuff-stained fingers, the other
was a particularly spruce young fellow, with smug pink cheeks and
carefully trimmed nails. The room had one high window to the north, from
which a cold and dreary light fell upon the table and the three men.

The Legate proceeded to transact current business, receiving in turn a
number of officials and citizens who came of their own accord, or were
summoned, for various reasons, mostly connected with the revenue. When
he had dismissed them all, more or less satisfied or dissatisfied, as
the papal interests required, he ordered the officer at the door to send
for the prisoner who had been taken at the inn that morning.

'Let us see this famous Sicilian coiner,' he said, rubbing his hands and
screwing up his little red eyes. 'Bring up his effects, too, and send
for a goldsmith with his touchstone and acids.'

He leaned back in his high chair to wait, and mentally ran over the
questions he meant to ask. The shabby old clerk took snuff, and
sprinkled a liberal quantity of it on his spotted black clothes and on
the edge of the paper before him. His colleague at the other end
occupied himself in improving the point of his quill pen. In the
silence, a huge spotted cat sprang upon the table and calmly seated
itself upright beside the crucifix, facing the Legate, who paid no
attention whatever to it. From time to time it blinked and slowly moved
the yellow tip of its tail.

Presently Stradella was led in by the gaoler and his assistant. On his
wrists there were manacles, joined with each other by a strong chain
which was highly polished by constant use. He was bare-headed, of
course, and he seemed perfectly cool and self-possessed. Immediately
after him, two men entered bringing his luggage, which was set down on
the floor before the table. The cat did not even turn to look at the
people who had entered.

'What is your name?' asked the Legate, eyeing him sharply.

'Alessandro Stradella.'

Instead of writing down the answer the two clerks looked at their
superior for instructions.

'His name is Bartolo,' the Legate said, in a decided tone.

'By your worship's leave, my name is Stradella,' protested the musician.

'You may note that this fellow Bartolo persists in calling himself
Stradella,' said the Legate, looking first at one clerk and then at the
other.

'I am not Bartolo!' cried the musician indignantly. 'I am Alessandro
Stradella, the singer, well known to hundreds of people in Rome.'

'You see how he persists,' answered the Legate with an ironical smile.
'Write down what he says as correctly as you can.'

Stradella saw that it was useless to protest, and that vehemence might
be dangerous.

'By your leave,' he said more quietly, 'if you will loosen my hands and
let me have my lute there, I will prove what I say, by singing and
playing to you.'

'Anybody can sing,' retorted Monsignor Pelagatti with profound contempt,
and without even looking at him. 'Write down that he has insulted this
tribunal by offering to sing to the Legate and his clerks--which low
jesting is contempt of court, and nothing else. The man is either drunk
or insane.'

Stradella was speechless with anger and disgust, and his face grew very
pale.

'Open his effects,' the Legate said, when the clerks' pens stopped
moving.

Two of the sbirri at once unstrapped the valises, and laid out the
contents on the long table on each side of the Legate, neatly and in
order. One of the bags contained clothes and personal effects, but the
other was almost entirely filled with manuscript compositions and a
supply of paper ruled for writing music. It also contained a leathern
pouch stuffed full of gold ducats.

'There we have it!' exclaimed Monsignor Pelagatti. 'Is the goldsmith
come?'

'He is waiting, your worship,' answered the officer at the door.

The goldsmith was ushered in, a grey-haired man, who still stooped when
he had finished his bow to the Legate. The latter ordered him to sit at
the table and test the gold coins one by one.

'This fellow,' said Monsignor Pelagatti, by way of explanation, 'is the
famous Sicilian coiner of counterfeit money, Bartolo. Push the good
ducats towards me, if you find any, and the false coin towards the clerk
at your elbow.'

The goldsmith glanced curiously at Stradella, and then took his small
block of basalt and a stoneware bottle of nitric acid from a leathern
bag he carried, slung on his arm. The spotted cat seemed interested in
these objects, and after having gazed at them placidly for half a
minute, rose with deliberation, walked along the edge of the table, and
sniffed at the stone and the goldsmith's fingers. It then crossed to the
Legate and sat down on his left, surveying the prisoner with apparent
satisfaction.

The Legate's eyes followed with keen interest the operations of the
expert, who took one coin after another from the pouch, rubbed it on the
basalt, poured a drop of acid on the yellow mark made by the gold, and
then examined the wet spot closely to see how the colour changed; and he
shook his head each time and pushed ducat after ducat towards Monsignor
Pelagatti, but not a single one towards the clerk. The Legate's crooked
fingers played absently with the coins as they came to his side,
arranging them in little piles, and the piles in patterns, almost
without glancing at them. The goldsmith worked quickly, but the ducats
were many, for Stradella had supplied himself plentifully with money
before leaving Venice, and had drawn the whole balance of the letter of
credit he had brought with him from the banking-house of Chigi in Rome.

The sbirri and the two clerks eyed the gold longingly. Stradella stood
motionless between his keepers, wondering what would happen next, and
never doubting but that the whole proceeding had been inspired by
Pignaver.

But what had really happened can be explained in a dozen words, and will
show that the sharp little Legate was acting in perfectly good faith.
The truth was that a notorious Sicilian counterfeiter who was described
as a pale young man with black hair, and who went by the name of
Bartolo, was really travelling in the north of Italy, and had been heard
of at Vicenza, whence it was reported that he had set out in haste for
Padua. The spies who were in pursuit of him learned in the latter city
that a dark young man with a pale complexion had hired an extra post for
Rovigo, in a very great hurry, and was spending money liberally, and
after that it had been easy to trace Stradella to the inn at Ferrara.
One of the spies had ridden in before daybreak and had warned the
innkeeper not to let the musician have horses at any price, and had then
given information at the castle, which the Legate had received before
sunrise, for he was an early riser. For the rest, he always followed the
time-honoured custom of considering every prisoner guilty till he was
proved innocent. In his opinion any criminal could call himself a
singer, and could very likely sing, too, if his life depended upon it.
Moreover, a hundred gold Apostolic florins had been offered for the
capture of Bartolo, and the Legate meant to have a share of the prize
money.

By the time the goldsmith had tested all the coins and found these good,
Monsignor Pelagatti had also counted them over several times.

'Three hundred and ninety-one ducats,' he said, dictating to the clerks,
'were found amongst the criminal's possessions, and were confiscated to
the Papal Treasury.'

'But they are all good,' objected Stradella.

'Precisely,' answered the Legate. 'If anything was wanting to prove you
guilty, it was this fact. Could any one but an expert counterfeiter have
in his possession three hundred and ninety-one ducats without a single
false one, in these dishonest days? But a coiner, whose nefarious
business it is to exchange counterfeit coin for genuine, is not to be
deceived like an ordinary person.'

'But I drew the money from an honest bank in Venice----'

'Silence!' cried the Legate in a squeaky voice.

'Silence!' roared the gaolers and the sbirri with one accord, all
looking at the musician together.

The spotted cat rose sleepily at the noise, arched its back and clawed
the oak table, by way of stretching itself.

'The counterfeiter Bartolo is duly committed for trial and will be sent
to Rome in chains with the next convoy of prisoners,' said the Legate,
dictating. 'Till then,' he added, speaking to the officer, 'put him into
one of the cells at the foot of the Lion Tower. He is a criminal of some
note.'

It was worse than useless to attempt any further protest; the gaolers
seized the singer by his arms again, one on each side, and in ten
minutes he was left to his own reflections, locked up in a pitch-dark
cell that smelt like a wet grave. They had brought a lantern with them,
and had shown him a stone seat, long enough to lie down upon, and at one
end of it there was a loose block of sandstone for a pillow, a luxury
which had been provided for a political prisoner who had passed some
months in the cell under the last of the Este marquises, some eighty
years earlier, and which had doubtless been forgotten.

After he had been some time in the dark, Stradella saw that a very
feeble glimmer was visible through a square grated opening which he had
noticed in the door when the gaoler was unlocking it before entering.
Even that would be some comfort, but the unlucky musician was too
utterly overcome to think of anything but Ortensia's danger, and his own
fate sank to insignificance when compared with hers; for he was sure
that Pignaver's agents must have seized her as soon as he himself had
been taken away, and he dared not think of what would happen when they
brought her back to Venice and delivered her up to her uncle. That they
would murder the defenceless girl he did not believe, and besides, it
was much more likely that Pignaver would prefer to torment her to death
at his leisure, after assassinating her lover. Stradella guessed as much
as that from what he knew of the Senator's character.

As for himself, when he was able to reflect soberly after being several
hours alone in the dark, the singer came to the conclusion that he was
in no immediate danger of his life, though he owed his present
imprisonment to his enemy. It looked as if he stood a good chance of
being sent to Rome, as Bartolo the counterfeiter, to be tried; but once
there, he would have no difficulty in obtaining his liberation, for he
was well known to many distinguished persons, including Cardinal Altieri
himself. Pignaver had cleverly cut short his flight in order to take
Ortensia from him, but to accomplish this the Senator had been obliged
to put off the murder he doubtless contemplated. Stradella's life would
probably be attempted in Rome, as soon as he was free, but meanwhile he
could not but admit that the Senator had succeeded in making him
exceedingly uncomfortable, merely from a material point of view. It was
not likely that prisoners were sent to Rome more than once a month, and
the last convoy had perhaps left yesterday. He might have to spend
thirty days in the cell.

As the hours passed he forgot himself again, and thought only of
Ortensia. In his imagination he fancied her already far on her way to
Rovigo in the jolting coach with her captors; in the very coach,
perhaps, in which he had brought her to Ferrara only last night. He
called up her face, and saw it as pale as death; her eyes were half
closed and her lips sharp-drawn with pain. He could hardly bear to think
of her suffering, but not to think of her he could not bear at all.

He did not know how long he had been locked up, when he noticed that the
faint glimmer at the grated hole was almost gone, and suddenly he felt
horribly hungry, in spite of his misery, for it was nearly twenty-four
hours since he had tasted food. The gaolers had brought a little bread
and a jug of water, and had set them down on the ground at one end of
the bench. He felt about till he found them, and he gnawed the tough
crust voraciously, though it tasted of the damp earth on which it had
lain since morning.

After a long time he fell asleep with the stone pillow under his head.

CHAPTER IX

Cucurullo came back to the inn in less than an hour after Pina and
Ortensia had left it. In spite of the asseverations of the innkeeper, he
had found that there were horses to be had in plenty in the city, and
that it was merely a question of choice and of paying well for the
accommodation. He was hastening upstairs to tell this to Stradella when
he was stopped by the host himself, who informed him that Stradella was
imprisoned in the castle, and that the lady and her serving-woman had
just gone away on foot.

'You had better melt away yourself,' the innkeeper concluded in a
confidential tone, 'unless you wish to be clapped into prison too.'

Cucurullo had betrayed no surprise at what the host told him, and he did
not seem inclined to pay any immediate attention to the latter's advice,
though it was distinctly friendly. He was used to that, for few Italians
would care to incur the hatred of a hunch-backed man, who is supposed to
bring good luck to those who treat him well, and to dispose of the
mysterious curses of the Evil Eye for wreaking vengeance on those who
injure him. Cucurullo stood still on the stairs, in deep thought, after
the innkeeper had ceased speaking.

'What is the name of the Legate?' he inquired, looking up at last.

'Pelagatti,' answered the other. 'He is from the South, they say;
though, between you and me, he looks more like a rat than a Christian.
Monsignor Luigi Pelagatti, that is his name.'

Again Cucurullo was silent, apparently more absorbed in his thoughts
than ever.

'Come, come!' cried the innkeeper in an encouraging tone. 'You need not
be so down-hearted! I will have a good meal cooked for you, and if you
need a little ready money for your journey, it is at your disposal. A
clever fellow like you will soon find another place.'

By way of laying in a stock of luck for the day, he patted the deformed
man's hump as he spoke, but he awaited the answer with evident concern,
for it was fortunate to have a hunch-backed man eat and drink in one's
house; a hunch-backed woman, on the contrary, always brought evil with
her, and should be driven from the door.

Cucurullo's reply was not only of favourable omen, but announced a piece
of unexpected good-fortune.

'You are very obliging,' he said, 'and I shall be glad of a mouthful at
noon. As for your kind offer to lend me money, I thank you heartily, but
I am well provided, and wish to pay my master's bill here before
accepting your friendly offer of a dinner. My master always trusts me
with a few ducats to pay his small expenses.'

The innkeeper congratulated himself on having patted the man's hump, for
it was clear that the good luck which at once befell him could be traced
to no other source. He now inwardly cursed his haste in turning
Ortensia and Pina out of the house, since Cucurullo was perhaps in a
position to have paid their score for some time. Of this, however, the
host could not be quite sure, for the serving-man did not show his
purse, but only produced some loose silver from the pocket of his wide
brown breeches.

'I shall charge nothing for the lady's use of the room,' said the
innkeeper magnanimously. 'You came with three horses from Rovigo, I
believe; there is their feed, and the supper of the postillion, who left
in an hour. That is all. Three pauls will pay for everything.'

'You are very obliging,' Cucurullo said again, as he paid the money.
'Your charges are very moderate. Since you act in such a friendly
manner, I will tell you something.'

Thereupon Cucurullo laid one of his large hands gently on the
innkeeper's sleeve, and looked up earnestly into the latter's face; and
when he was very much in earnest, his large blue eyes had a peculiar
expression, which lent great weight to what he said.

'A friendly act deserves a friendly return,' he said, 'for, as we say in
the South, "one hand washes the other and both wash the face." My master
has been arrested by mistake. He is really and truly the famous Maestro
Stradella, and is a great favourite with the Roman Court, for he has
sung to His Holiness himself and often to His Eminence Cardinal Altieri.
Therefore, if any harm comes to him in Ferrara through the ignorance of
Monsignor Pelagatti, there will be trouble for you, since the Legate
will be severely reprimanded, and will make those persons who gave him
wrong information pay for his scolding. As you have shown me kindness, I
tell you these things beforehand, because I know them for certain. Do
you understand?'

The innkeeper not only understood, but began to feel uncomfortable at
the thought of being called to account even for his small share in
Stradella's arrest. As for the spy who had made the mistake, his lot
would not be enviable if he was within the Legate's reach when the error
was discovered.

'Pardon the question, my dear friend,' said the host in an extremely
gentle tone, 'but are you quite sure of these things?'

'Altogether sure,' was the answer. 'I have been in the Maestro's service
since he first began to be famous. He saved my life at the risk of his
own, and I have served him five years come the Feast of Saint John. I
therefore know that he is not a Sicilian counterfeiter! If you have any
means of reaching the Legate, therefore, it would be well to set him
right at once in this matter. He will be the more grateful, or, at
least, the less angry, if my master is detained in prison for a few
hours only.'

The innkeeper saw the wisdom of this, on the supposition that Cucurullo
was speaking the truth, but of that he was not quite sure. It was a bad
world, he reflected, and the counterfeiter might have a clever hunchback
for a servant, with a knack of fixing his eyes as Cucurullo did, and of
putting great earnestness into his tone. So far, the innkeeper had only
done what the law had required of him, except in the matter of turning
out two women who could not pay for their lodging, and in doing this
the law would support him. Monsignor Pelagatti was a tremendous
personage, who ruled the whole Marquisate of Ferrara in the name of the
Pope; he knew his business, or believed he did, and it was absurd to
think that a humble innkeeper and posting-master could influence him to
act upon the mere word of a serving-man.

On the other hand, it was unsafe to doubt a hunchback openly, and it
would be fatal to quarrel with him, because he could cast the spell of
the Evil Eye.

'I shall do my best,' the innkeeper replied, 'and far more readily for
your sake, my dear friend, than for my own, I assure you.'

Cucurullo smiled quietly, and seemed quite satisfied with this answer.
He now went on to ask questions about Ortensia and Pina, but the host
knew nothing, except that they had left the house together, immediately
after the arrest of Stradella. For obvious reasons he said nothing of
his interview with Pina. He declared that they had simply left the inn,
and that he had not hindered them. He had not seen them go out, and
could not tell whether they had turned to the north or the south. He
suggested that since they had gone away at once and without the least
hesitation, they probably had friends in Ferrara to whom they could turn
for protection and help in their difficulty. He was ready, he said, to
help Cucurullo to find them out; he would be only too happy to be of
use.

What he suggested was not unlikely. During the flight from Venice,
Cucurullo had observed Pina closely, and had come to the conclusion that
she was a woman of resources, who had travelled much at some time or
other, and who could hold her tongue. She would certainly think of some
expedient, and would succeed in placing her mistress under some sort of
protection. His own mind always instinctively ran in the direction of an
ecclesiastical solution of any difficulty in life; if he himself were
starving and friendless in a strange city he would knock at the door of
a Franciscan monastery and beg for shelter and work. He therefore
concluded that Pina would naturally have taken Ortensia directly to a
convent, where they would both be cared for; the serving-woman would
take care to be informed of what happened to Stradella, and as soon as
he was let out she would communicate with him.

Moreover, as compared with the fate of the musician, Cucurullo cared
little what became of Ortensia; for his devotion to his master filled
his whole life, whereas the young girl's only claim to his attachment
was that Stradella was in love with her. On the other hand, the pious
serving-man saw in the present separation of the two a special
intervention of Providence for the purpose of keeping the lovers apart
till they could be duly and properly married. From this point of view to
putting Ortensia out of his thoughts altogether was only a step, and he
devoted every energy to the liberation of his master.

Having come to this conclusion in a much shorter time than it has taken
to explain his reasons, he again thanked his new friend, promising to
come back for dinner at noon, and adding that he would go over to the
castle gate and gather such information as he could. He was hindered
from doing so at once, however, by the preparations for the Nuncio's
departure, which has been already described. He mixed with the crowd
that had gathered to see the sight, and waited till some time had
elapsed after the Legate and the guard had gone in before he approached
the drawbridge.

The single sentinel had now returned to his beat, but half-a-dozen of
the halberdiers were loitering about the door of the guard-room within
the deep archway, at some distance from the gate. The sentry stopped
Cucurullo and asked his business.

'I am the servant of the gentleman who has been arrested by mistake at
the inn,' the hunchback answered humbly. 'My master had sent me out on
an errand, and when I came in I learnt the news. So I have come to wait
for him.'

'I am afraid you may wait long,' answered the sentry, with a friendly
glance at Cucurullo's hump; 'but you are welcome to sit in the
guard-room, if you like.'

'Thank you,' Cucurullo answered, and as he passed he felt the soldier's
light touch on his crooked back.

The other halberdiers received him with equal kindness, and there was
not one of them who did not believe that he would have a stroke of luck
before night, if he could by any means touch the magic hump without
offending its possessor. Cucurullo took off his hat civilly as he
stopped before them.

'Good-morning, gentlemen,' he said. 'The sentinel was kind enough to say
that I might wait here for my master, who has been arrested by mistake
and will soon come out.'

'And welcome!' cried the sergeant on duty, who had lost money at play on
the previous evening.

'At your service! Pray sit down! Bring out a chair!'

The men all spoke together, and gathered closely round Cucurullo to
touch his hump, so that he almost disappeared amongst them. Then they
got a chair from the guard-room and made him sit down at his ease, and
some remained standing beside him while others sat on the end of the
stone seat that ran along the wall. He thanked them warmly, and at once
entered into conversation, asking for news of Stradella, and explaining
the strange mistake that had led to his arrest. In a few minutes he had
learned that his master was in all likelihood at that very moment before
the Legate.

'And what sort of person is his worship, the Governor?' asked Cucurullo,
anxious for information, and lowering his voice.

The sergeant was a jolly, red-faced, merry-eyed man from the March of
Ancona, and he laughed before he answered.

'We used to call him Pontius Pilate, because he does not know what truth
is,' he said, 'but we gave that up because he never washes his hands!'

Cucurullo smiled at the rough jest, but he looked curiously at the
speaker.

'I see that you are familiar with the Scriptures, sir,' observed the
hunchback.

'I come by the knowledge honestly,' answered the soldier. 'I did not
steal it! My father, bless his soul, was killed in battle, and so my
mother tried to make a priest of me. Eh? You see me as I am! This is the
kind of priest my mother made! Neither more nor less than a poor
sergeant of halberdiers. But a little of the Latin stuck to me, for
indeed it is sticky stuff enough, and the priests laid it on with a
stick!'

The men roared with delight at their superior's elegant wit, and
Cucurullo laughed a little too, more out of politeness than because he
was amused.

'You may yet die a saint, sir,' he said with a grave smile when the
general mirth had subsided. 'Many of the saints were soldiers, you know.
There was the blessed Saint Eustace, and there was Saint Martin, and
Saint Sebastian, and Saint George----'

'But there never was a Saint Hector, and that is my name, at your
service.'

At this retort the men again showed their delight, laughing in chorus.

'Do you think you have no chance of being the first Saint Hector in the
calendar?' asked Cucurullo pleasantly. 'Why not? You have a good heart,
sir. I see it in your face, if you will pardon me for saying so.
Gentlemen'--he smilingly appealed to the other men--'has not Sergeant
Hector a good heart?'

'A heart of gold!' cried one of the soldiers.

'A heart as big as a pumpkin!' another chimed in.

'A lion's heart!'

'There is not another like him in all the Pope's army!'

'And God bless him!'

The sergeant stood back, pretending to put on a terrible frown, and
cutting the air in carte and tierce with his handsome tasselled stick.

'You ruffians!' he roared. 'You know well enough that I would beat you
all black and blue if you did not praise me seventeen times a day, four
times for each watch and once more for good luck! Eh?' He glared
ferociously about him, and his stick flew round in his hand like
lightning, through a whole series of cuts, feints, and round parries.
'Have I trained my men well or not?' he asked, desisting at last, and
turning to Cucurullo.

'You have trained them to tell the truth about you, sir, I have no
doubt,' answered the hunchback.

'And we will make a bad day of it for any man who says a word against
him,' said the biggest of the halberdiers with a grin.

The rest confirmed his statement with a variety of asseverations,
according to their several tastes, calling to witness indifferently both
heathen deities and Christian saints.

'Very well,' said Cucurullo. 'It is proved that you have a very good
heart, sir, and that is the chief thing needed to make a saint. For to
say that a man is kind-hearted is only another way of saying that he is
charitable, and Charity is the greatest of the three Theological
Virtues, as you must have learned at the seminary.'

'Good friend,' answered the sergeant, 'if you are going to open the
"Process" concerning my Beatification this morning, the Devil's Advocate
must be appointed to argue against you and try to prove me the worst of
sinners, for that is the rule in Rome.'

'Very well, sir,' laughed the hunchback. 'Appoint him yourself, sir!'

'He is upstairs just now,' retorted the other, 'sitting in judgment on
your master! But I will promise that if you argue with him about me, he
will prove that my soul is rotting in original and acquired sin, and
that nothing can save me but cutting my pay!'

Again the gloomy archway rang with the soldiers' hoarse laughter, which
was by no means the expression of obsequious flattery. The sergeant was
more than popular with the whole company of halberdiers that garrisoned
the castle; he was beloved for his inexhaustible good-nature and
respected for his undoubted courage. Cucurullo had guessed this in a few
moments, and in view of possible complications he was resolved to make
an ally of the sergeant and friends of the men.

He felt amongst the loose silver in his pocket and jingled it in a
manner agreeable for poor soldiers to hear.

'It is still early,' he said, 'but talking always makes me thirsty. If
you would allow some one to fetch some drink, sir, I should be
grateful.'

The sergeant assented to the proposal with alacrity, and at his nod a
young soldier stepped briskly forward to take the piece of silver
Cucurullo was holding up.

'How much shall I fetch?' asked the man, grinning.

Cucurullo counted the company quickly before he answered.

'We are nine,' he said. 'I think you had better get nine pints in a
stoup.' A little murmur of approval and anticipatory satisfaction ran
round. 'I do not know whether that is right,' he added, in a tone of
hesitating interrogation.

'You speak the wisdom of all ages,' answered the sergeant. 'Solomon
never said anything better. "Take a little wine for the good of the
stomach," says Saint Paul.'

So the time passed pleasantly for the soldiers down there under the
great gate, while Monsignor Pelagatti was conducting his singular
judicial proceedings upstairs. A couple of horn cups were produced from
the guard-room, and the men drank to Cucurullo's health in turn, while
he himself swallowed a little; for he was tired, and he was terribly
anxious, in spite of his cheerful manner and jesting tone.

They were all laughing and talking together when the old goldsmith
appeared from within, on his way home. The sergeant hailed him and asked
what news of the counterfeiter there was from the Legate's court.

'Three hundred and ninety-one good gold ducats confiscated to the
Treasury,' answered the grey-haired crafts-man, 'and the prisoner to be
lodged under the Lion Tower till he is sent to Rome for trial.'

The sergeant looked at Cucurullo, and saw that he grew paler, and dead
white all round the lips; but the hunchback showed no other sign of
emotion, and the goldsmith nodded gravely and went out.

'This is bad news, gentlemen,' said Cucurullo. 'Is there any way by
which I could send a message to my master?' he asked in a low voice.

'Either of the turnkeys would sell his soul for a dodkin, and blow up
the castle for a ducat, Legate and all,' answered the sergeant in the
same tone.

'I would willingly give a ducat if I might see my master.'

'I will bargain with him for half that, but it will have to be after
dark. We go off duty at Ave Maria this evening, but to-morrow we have
the night watch. Come about the first hour of the night, and you will
find the little postern ajar in the left half of the gate. Push it open
and come in.'

With this friendly promise Cucurullo had to be satisfied; and, indeed,
he had good reason to congratulate himself, for if he had chanced upon
one of the other sergeants he might have had a very different reception,
though the whole garrison hated the Legate heartily. The guard for the
month at the main gate was divided into three watches that took turns,
being on duty there for twelve hours and off for twenty-four; this did
not mean, however, that they were at liberty during all that time, for
there was other sentry duty to be done about the castle.

Having taken leave of his new friends, the hunchback went back to the
inn, debating with himself whether he should remain there until the
following night, or seek a lodging in a more remote and quiet part of
the town. But, on the whole, he resolved to trust the innkeeper--or it
would be nearer the truth to say that he trusted to the power his
deformity exercised over a man in whom he would not otherwise have
placed much confidence. If he took a room elsewhere, he would be forced
to make acquaintance with the owners of the house, and he was convinced
that such a Governor as Monsignor Pelagatti must have his spies
everywhere; it was safer to stay where he was already known, and was
looked upon as a bringer of luck, than to go where he might find less
superstitious people.

He therefore took the cheapest room in the inn, announced his intention
of waiting till his master was set free, and by way of inspiring
confidence he paid for three days' lodging in advance. His object in
seeing Stradella was to get definite instructions in the first place,
and, secondly, to take him a dish of meat and a supply of such food as
would keep some time without spoiling. Stradella would probably bid him
ride post to Rome and bring back an order from Cardinal Altieri which
would set everything right; but it would scarcely be possible to cover
the distance and return in less than ten days, at the very least, during
which time it was only too probable that the musician would fall ill
from lack of food and from the possible dampness and closeness of his
prison.

The hours passed slowly enough in the solitude of the little upper room
in which Cucurullo spent most of that day and the next, and the
intervening night; for he thought it wiser not to be seen much in the
town, being what he was, a mark for men's eyes wherever he went. He
would have read if he could have found a book, for he was a good reader
and writer, and often copied music for his master, for he could engross
handsomely; but there were no books in the inn, not even the works of
that 'poor Signor Torquato Tasso,' who had been so long shut up as a
lunatic in Ferrara in the days of the Marquis Alfonso Second. The only
book Cucurullo had been able to find was a small volume with a very
strange name, for its title was _Eikon Basilike_; but Cucurullo did not
understand a word of it, and the innkeeper said he thought the book must
have been forgotten by two rich English gentlemen who had lately spent
some days in his house.

At the appointed hour Cucurullo crossed the drawbridge of the castle,
pushed the small postern, and went in. A hanging iron lamp, fed with
mingled olive-oil and tallow, dimly lighted the great archway, where the
sentry was pacing up and down. Sergeant Hector came forward as soon as
the hunchback appeared, and closed and bolted the postern after him
before speaking. The other men of the watch were presumably dozing in
the guard-room, from the open door of which no light appeared.

'This way, my dear friend,' whispered the sergeant. 'The man is
waiting.'

He hurried Cucurullo along the dark way towards the inner court, laying
a hand on his crooked back by way of guiding him; but the truth was that
since he had met Cucurullo his luck at play had been surprisingly good,
and he would not miss the chance of refreshing it again at the magic
source of fortune.

They passed the foot of the main staircase, went on a few steps farther,
and then turned into a narrow passage. The glare of a lantern flashed in
Cucurullo's eyes.

'Here is the gentleman,' the sergeant said in a low voice. 'This is our
head gaoler,' he added, turning to Cucurullo. 'I have agreed that you
should pay three silver florins in advance for the visit.'

'Cash,' said a voice that was unnaturally hoarse, possibly from the
dampness of the underground labyrinth to which the man's business often
took him.

Cucurullo was wrapped in his wide cloak, under which he had slung on
himself the bottles and provisions he was bringing. He had prepared some
loose money in his breeches pocket, and immediately produced the three
coins. The turnkey was holding the lantern in such a position that it
was impossible to see his face, but a grimy hand shot out into the
yellow glare to take the money.

'Come,' said the hoarse voice; and as the speaker turned to lead the
way, Cucurullo heard the jingling of his keys.

The sergeant was already gone, and the hunchback followed his guide
along the passage, which descended by a distinctly perceptible grade. It
was clear from this that the prisons must be below the level of the
water in the moat, and already the moving light showed that the walls
were dripping with moisture. Presently the passage emerged into a sort
of crypt, in which huge masses of masonry supported low arches that in
turn carried the cross vaulting. The floor, if it was anything but
beaten earth, was slippery with a thin film of greasy mud.

At last the turnkey stopped before one of half-a-dozen doors, all
studded alike with rusty iron nails, and each having a lock, a bolt, and
a square aperture at the height of a man's head, strongly barred.
Cucurullo now saw the gaoler's ugly features for the first time.

The door opened, creaking loudly on its hinges; and as the turnkey held
up his lantern to see into the cell, Cucurullo, peering past him, caught
sight of his master's face. It was ghastly pale, his sunken eyes had
dark half-circles under them, and his unshaven chin and cheeks looked
grimy in the yellow light.

'Is it morning?' he asked, in a dull voice.

Cucurullo slipped past the gaoler and spoke to him, and instantly the
light flashed in his eyes and he smiled, for the first time since he had
been arrested in Ortensia's room. Cucurullo took his hand and kissed it
with devotion, as Italian servants often do in great moments.

Neither had yet spoken when the heavy door creaked and was slammed, and
they were suddenly in the dark. The key turned noisily in the lock,
twice in quick succession, and the additional bolt rattled as it was
pushed into its socket.

'Good-night, gentlemen,' said the preternaturally hoarse voice of the
turnkey through the square hole in the door. 'I will bring you your
dinner at noon!'

Cucurullo sprang to the grated aperture, only to see the ruffian
stalking off into the gloom with his lantern.

'Hi! Listen!' he cried. 'Come back, Sir Gaoler! You shall have a
ducat----'

The man stood still, and turned his face towards the door of the cell
with a sardonic grin.

'Now that I have you and your ducats under lock and key I shall take
them at my leisure, Sir Fool!' he answered. 'I only agreed to let you
in; I did not promise to let you out.'

Thereupon he turned again and stalked away, much to Cucurullo's
consternation; and in this manner the fourth and last of the runaway
party that had arrived at the inn from Rovigo disappeared in Ferrara,
somewhat to the surprise of the innkeeper, but not to his loss, since
Cucurullo had paid for his lodging in advance.

CHAPTER X

Stradella and Ortensia had fled from Venice on Thursday evening and had
reached Ferrara at midnight on Friday. It was therefore on a Saturday
morning that the musician was imprisoned, and on Sunday night Cucurullo
was caught in the trap and locked up with him. It was late on that same
afternoon that the Bravi took leave of Pignaver in the church of the
Frari, and they did not leave Venice till the next day; for since they
were to be paid for their time they could really not see any reason for
being in a hurry. Moreover, they travelled like gentlemen, and though
the proceeds of the emerald ring had already amply furnished them with
the means of replacing many useful articles which adversity had forced
them to sell or pawn, yet some further preparation seemed necessary, if
they were to make their journey in a manner becoming to their rank.

As for travelling night and day, that was quite out of the question, for
they would have thought it very foolish to trust implicitly to the
information about the runaways which Pignaver had got from the Venetian
police. Where such grave responsibility was laid upon them, it was right
that they should rely only on what they themselves could learn with
certainty. The consequence was that they did not reach Ferrara till
Wednesday afternoon, having spent a night in Padua and another in
Rovigo; and they were of course persuaded that Stradella and Ortensia
were by that time already in Florence, if they had taken that direction.

So far, the Bravi had only spoken of their business when it was
necessary to compare notes about the information they gathered. Having
undertaken to murder both the lovers on the one hand, but also to
deliver both of them safe and unhurt, Ortensia to the Senator and
Stradella to the enamoured lady, the subject presented certain
complications which were too tiresome to discuss until a final decision
became necessary; and for that matter, Trombin and Gambardella fully
intended to obtain the full five hundred ducats from each side.

'You and I were certainly meant to be lawyers or bankers,' Trombin had
observed at Rovigo over a bottle of very old Burgundy; 'for whichever of
two cards turns up, we must win half the stakes.'

'Both must turn up at the end of the deal,' Gambardella had answered
with decision, 'and we must win everything.'

'Under Providence,' Trombin had replied, 'we will.'

Having said this much they had dismissed the subject, and their
conversation during the rest of the evening had been of artistic
matters, politics, literature, women's beauty, and whatsoever else two
tolerably cultivated gentlemen might discuss with propriety in the
presence and hearing of a landlord and his servants. As soon as they had
arrived, they had learned without difficulty that the runaway party had
passed through the place and had safely reached Ferrara, whence the
carriage they had hired in Padua had duly returned.

The Bravi preferred to ride post, sending their luggage on with their
servant, six or seven hours in advance of them. The serving-man they had
hired in Venice had been a highway robber for several years, as they
were well aware, and in an ordinary situation he might have made away
with his masters' valuables, if entrusted with them; but he knew who
Trombin and Gambardella were, and what they had done, and his admiration
for such very superior cut-throats was boundless. Anything of theirs was
safe in his hands, and therefore safe from robbers on the road, for he
had not long retired from the profession, and had the thieves'
pass-words by heart from Milan to Naples, and farther. As a servant, he
had parted his hair in the middle and resumed his modest and unobtrusive
baptismal name of Tommaso; but he had always been known to the gang as
Grattacacio, that is, 'Cheese-grater,' because it was told of him that
he had once done good execution with that simple kitchen instrument on
the nose of a sbirro who had tried to catch him, but was himself caught
instead.

The worthy courier arrived at the inn in Ferrara on Wednesday before
noon and took the best room in the house for his masters, who, he said,
would arrive at their convenience during the afternoon; as in fact they
did, looking very magnificent in fashionable long-skirted riding-coats
buttoned tight across the chest and under the broad linen collar,
high-crowned felt hats with magnificent feathers, boots of the new
fashion, cut off below the knee, and handsome silver chains instead of
shoulder-belts for their rapiers.

Grattacacio had announced them as two Venetian gentlemen travelling for
their pleasure, and when the innkeeper asked their names, the man
answered that they had received titles of nobility from the King of
France, and were called respectively Count Tromblon de la Trombine and
Count Gambardella. When in Venice, he said, they dropped these
appellations and took their seats in the Grand Council as nobles of the
Republic. For the rest, Grattacacio continued, they were gentlemen of
exquisite taste and most fastidious in their eating and drinking.
Burgundy was their favourite wine, and they could not drink French
claret if it was more than twelve or less than eight years old. They
abhorred the sweet Malmsey which the Tuscans were so fond of, but if
there was any old Oporto in the cellar they were connoisseurs and could
appreciate it.

The landlord received them with all the respect due to such a noble pair
of epicures, and long before they arrived preparations were making in
the kitchen to cook them a dinner worthy of their refined taste and
portentous appetites.

So far as their other pretensions went, they had really seen some
service in the French Army, but their highest title to distinction was
that they had narrowly escaped being hanged for selling information to
the Dutch, and as soon as they had fled it was discovered that they had
taken with them all the loose gold in the regimental chest, and the two
fleetest horses in the Field-Marshal's stable.

The landlord, who did not know this, bowed to the ground as they
dismounted under the archway, and at once led them to the best rooms,
with which they expressed themselves well satisfied. For whatever their
real names might be, they had been originally brought up as gentlemen,
and they did not abuse everything that was offered them in order to make
innkeepers believe that they lived magnificently at home. When they saw
that they were given the best there was to be had, no matter how poor
that might be, they accepted it quietly and said 'Thank you' without
more ado; but if they perceived that the best was being withheld for
some one else, they were a particularly troublesome pair of gentlemen to
deal with; for nothing abashed them, and nothing seemed to frighten
them, and they were always as ready to beat an innkeeper as to skewer a
marquis according to the most rigidly honourable rules of duelling. As
for the law, it might as well not have existed, so far as they were
concerned. They never needed it, and when it wanted them they were never
to be found--unless they were under the powerful protection of a prince
or an ambassador, of whom the law itself was very much afraid, and who
promptly demanded for them a written pardon for their last offence. For
those were the only conditions under which Bravi could have exercised
their profession as they did throughout Italy in the seventeenth
century.

Trombin detained the innkeeper a moment when he was about to leave the
two to their toilet, after the day's ride.

'Some acquaintances of ours must have spent a night here last week,'
Trombin began. 'Do you remember them? They were the celebrated Maestro
Alessandro Stradella and his young Venetian wife. They have with them a
middle-aged serving-woman. Can you recollect when they left here?'

The landlord scratched his head and pretended to be racking his memory;
for it would have been quite easy to say that the party had left on
Saturday, on their way to Bologna. That was the answer the gentleman
expected, and the innkeeper generally found that it served best to tell
people what they expected to hear. But, on the other hand, there was the
question of truth, if not of truthfulness. Who could tell but that such
fine gentlemen might have with them an introduction to the Legate, who
might tell them the story. If this happened, the two travellers would be
angry at having been deceived, since, if the imprisoned man was really
Stradella, they would naturally wish to help him to regain his liberty.

This reflection carried the day; the innkeeper therefore decided in
favour of truth, and he told the tale of Stradella's arrest, and of the
mysterious disappearance of the other three members of the party. The
two Bravi listened in silent surprise, glancing at each other from time
to time, as if to note some point of importance.

'Something must be done at once!' cried Trombin, when the landlord had
told all. 'This is an egregious miscarriage of the law! Something must
be done at once!'

'Something must be done at once!' echoed Gambardella very emphatically,
though in a much lower tone. 'Are you quite sure that you do not know
where the lady went, Master Landlord? Or have you only forgotten?'

He had fixed his evil black eyes on the innkeeper's face, and there was
something in his look and tone that suddenly scared the stout Romagnole,
who was no great hero after all; he backed against the door as if he
expected Gambardella to spring at him.

'Indeed, Signor Count,' he cried in a rather shaky voice, 'if it were my
last word, I know nothing more of the lady and her woman! They left the
house immediately, but I do not know whether they turned to the right or
the left from my door, for I did not see them go out.'

'Have you made any inquiries in the town?' asked Gambardella in the same
tone as before. 'No? Then you had better set about it at once. Do you
understand? That young lady is the niece of a friend of ours, who is a
Venetian Senator, and if any harm comes to her through your having
allowed her to leave your house unprotected, you may be held
responsible. I fancy that the Legate here must be anxious to oblige the
Republic in such matters!'

This was no doubt arrant nonsense, but nothing seemed laughable when
Gambardella assumed that tone.

'Something must be done at once!' cried Trombin, and turning suddenly to
the landlord he opened his round blue eyes as wide as possible, and drew
his breath sharply in through his pursed lips with a soft sound of
whistling.

He looked like a colossal angry cat, and was at least as terrifying as
Gambardella. The landlord faltered as he replied to both the Bravi at
once.

'Certainly, my lords, certainly--I will have inquiries made--I will do
my best--it was really not my fault----'

'It may not have been your intention, but it was, in a measure, your
fault,' answered Trombin, allowing his expression to relax, 'though it
may have been only a fault of omission, and therefore venial, which is
to say, pardonable, Master Landlord, in proportion to the gravity of the
consequences that may attend it. And now we will make ourselves ready
for the succulent dinner which, I have no doubt, your wise care is about
to set before us, for your house has an excellent name, but we would
have you know that our appetites are at least as good, and our
understanding of the noble art of cookery much better. It is not
becoming to speak of any actions we may have to our past credit in war,
but we can at least boast without reproach that we have eaten some of
the best dinners cooked since Lucullus supped with himself!'

This tirade, delivered with the utmost rapidity and punctuated with
several smiles that showed the speaker's sharp and gleaming teeth,
partially reassured the innkeeper, who took himself off at once; and as
he had been frightened he proceeded at once to restore his self-respect
by frightening the cook, cuffing the scullions, and threatening the
drawer with an awful end if he should shake the bottles and disturb the
ancient sediment when he brought the Burgundy to the gentlemen's table.

When he was gone, the Bravi did not at once talk over the unexpected
news, for Grattacacio was with them, coming and going, bringing hot
water, shaving them as well as any barber, unpacking their linen and
clothes, and waiting on them with such a constant prescience of their
needs as only a highly trained body-servant can possess. For the truth
was that he had begun life as a bishop's footman, and had risen to be
valet to a cardinal, before he had taken to the road after robbing his
master of some valuable jewels; but his hair was now growing grey at the
temples, and his nerve was not so good as it had been, and as he had
escaped hanging till now, he gave up risking it any longer. Accordingly
he had parted his hair and called himself Tommaso once more, and he was
now looking out for a good place with a not too decrepit prelate; for he
had been used to boast that no valet in all the Roman Curia could put on
a bishop's sandals at High Mass with such combined skill and unction as
he, nor carry a cardinal's scarlet train at a consistory with such
mingled devoutness and grace. As for serving Mass, it had been a second
nature to him, and even now he could rattle off the responses without a
mistake, from the first 'sicut erat in principio' to the last 'Deo
gratias' after the Second Gospel.

Trombin and Gambardella did not discuss the situation until this highly
accomplished servant of theirs had accompanied them to the dining-room,
to push their chairs under them as they sat down, and to assure himself
that the table-cloth was spotless and the glasses not only clean but
polished. Then he left them to their dinner, which, as he well knew,
would last at least two hours.

The dining-room was spacious and airy, having two large grated windows
that overlooked the square, and there were several small tables besides
the long one at which the 'ordinary' was served every day at noon. The
Bravi were now the only guests, and were installed near one of the
windows, for the day was warm. From the middle of the vaulted ceiling a
huge bunch of fresh green ferns was hung, not as a substitute for
flowers, but to attract and stupefy the stray flies that found their way
in from the kitchen, even at that early season of the year.

Trombin was the first to speak, after the preliminary appetisers had
been placed on the table and the glasses had been filled.

'The situation strikes me as amusing,' he said. 'I have always felt that
destiny possesses a sense of humour which makes the wittiest French
comedy lugubrious by comparison.'

'You are easily amused, my friend,' answered Gambardella gloomily, and
picking out a very thin slice of Bologna sausage for his next mouthful.
'We were looking forward to a pleasant journey to Florence or Rome, our
expenses being liberally paid; instead, we find that all the people we
wish to meet are here, barely two days from Venice, and as if that were
not enough, they must needs melt away like snow in the street and
disappear underground, so that we must turn sbirri to find them. I see
no sense of humour in the destiny that brings about such silly
circumstances.'

'You were always a melancholic soul,' Trombin observed. 'As for me, I
cannot but laugh when I think that we shall have to rescue our man from
the danger of being hanged as a counterfeiter, in order that we may
conveniently cut his throat.'

Having expressed his view of the case Trombin swallowed half a glass of
wine at a draught, while his companion sipped a few drops from his.

'I do not call it melancholy to like good things and to wish that they
may last as long as possible,' Gambardella said, rather sourly. 'What
could have been more delightful than to ride all the way to Rome or
Naples in this way, travelling only on fine days, and stopping where one
can get a bottle of old Burgundy and a slice of a decently cooked capon?
Talk of sending people to a better world, my friend--it would give me
infinite satisfaction to skewer this fool of a Legate for having
interfered with our plans! A pretty job it is going to be, to get a man
out of a dungeon under the Lion Tower.'

'Which one is that?' asked Trombin, looking through the grated window at
the gloomy castle on the other side of the square.

'It is at the northeast corner at the head of the street they call
Giovecca. You cannot see it from here. When we have dined we will
stroll over and look at it, if you like, but you might as well try to
rescue a prisoner from the Bastille!'

Gambardella sniffed his wine discontentedly and then sipped it. He was a
grave man and business-like; he could drive as hard a bargain for a life
as any Bravo in Italy, and do his work as neatly and expeditiously, when
it was plainly laid out before him; but he had no imagination, and his
idea of rescuing Stradella was evidently to get him out of the castle by
some simple trick such as poor Cucurullo had tried in order to see his
master.

'This seems to be a good inn,' observed Trombin thoughtfully, after a
pause. 'I had as soon spend a ducat a day here as in a worse house. Now
this Burgundy is of the vintage of the year fifty-one.'

'Undoubtedly,' assented Gambardella, sipping again as he did about once
a minute. 'It has the "rose" bouquet like that of forty-six, but is a
little younger. To think that if we could only get that fellow out of
prison we could have him to dinner, and he would sing for us this
evening! It is maddening to think that he may lose his voice in a damp
hole through the idiocy of that thrice-confounded Legate!'

'It is indeed,' agreed Trombin. 'I wonder what has become of the lady.'

'I thought you were thinking of the girl,' said the other
discontentedly. 'It would complete the situation if you should find her
and fall in love with her yourself!'

'That is possible. It has pleased Providence to make me susceptible,
whereas you are designed by nature for a monastic life. Our friend's
description of his niece calls up an enchanting picture! The "Bella" of
the late Titian, but younger and slimmer! Heaven send such a sweet
creature to cheer my declining years! I do not wonder that the Maestro
lost his heart and carried her off. And at this very moment she must be
hiding somewhere in Ferrara, perhaps not a quarter of a mile from here!
In a convent, no doubt, in some gloomy old house full of yellow-faced
Carmelite or Franciscan nuns, with her glorious hair and her matchless
complexion! I can see her in my imagination, a gilded rose amongst
cabbages, a luscious peach in a heap of turnips.'

'For goodness' sake stop raving!' interrupted Gambardella. 'Why should
she be in a convent, I should like to know?'

'Where else could two respectable women without money go? They could not
possibly travel, and no one in the town would take them in without
baggage or cash. I tell you they went from here to a convent and asked
for shelter and protection. It is the most natural thing in the world.
It is what the girl's middle-aged serving-woman would certainly think of
first.'

'You may be right,' answered the other, his tone changing. 'Drink more
wine, for it always stimulates your imagination, and you may imagine a
way of getting Stradella out of the Lion Tower. I think you are right
about the girl. We will make inquiries at the convents after dinner.'

Trombin filled his glass, which was quite empty, drank half the contents
and set it down.

'In the first place,' he said, 'we had better try simple persuasion with
the Legate. If you agree, I will go and see him late in the afternoon.
He may make some little difficulty about receiving me, but that will
only be in order to impress me with his greatness. Besides, you will
give me a letter of introduction which I shall ask to present in
person.'

'I?' Gambardella looked at his friend across his glass with an
expression of inquiry.