“We replaced,” he related, “the trailing plants which our entrance had disturbed, and retired into the depths of the cave to await events, just as the first of the horsemen topped the summit. From the edge of the wood they surveyed the plain below. Seeing it empty, they must have supposed that those they had caught and slain composed the entire company which had harassed them. They turned, and rode back, only to return again almost at once, their force enormously increased as it seemed to us who could judge only by sounds.
“I realise now that in reality they were in flight before the French cavalry which had been sent across to rescue us.
“For an hour or more after their passage we remained in our concealment. At last I sent forth a scout, who reported a great body of cavalry advancing from the Nure. This we still assumed to be Buonterzo’s horse brought back by news of Facino’s real movements. For another two hours we remained in our cave, and then at last I climbed to the summit of the bluff, whence I could survey the farther bank of the Trebbia. To my amazement I found it empty, and then I became aware of men moving among the trees near at hand, and presently found myself face to face with Werner von Stoffel, who told me of the battle fought and won whilst we had lain in hiding.”
He went on to tell them how they had crossed the river and pushed on to Travo in a famished state. They found the village half wrecked by the furious tide of war that had swept over it. Yet some food they obtained, and towards evening they set out again so as to overtake Facino’s army. But at San Giorgio, which they reached late at night, and where they were constrained to lie, they found that Facino had not gone that way, and that, therefore, they were upon the wrong road. Next morning, consequently, they decided to make their own way back to Milan.
They crossed the Po at Piacenza, only to find themselves detained by the Scotti for having marched into the town without permission. The Scotti knew of the battle fought, but not of its ultimate issue. Buonterzo was in flight; but he might rally. And so, for two days Bellarion and his little band were kept in Piacenza until it was definitely known there that Buonterzo’s rout was complete. Then, at last, his departure was permitted, since to have detained him longer must provoke the resentment of the victorious Facino.
“We have made haste on the march since,” he concluded, “and I rejoice to have arrived at least in time to prevent a Requiem, which would have been rendered a mockery by my obstinate tenacity to life.”
Thus, on a note of laughter, he closed a narrative that was a model of lucid brevity and elegant, Tuscan delivery.
But there were two among the courtly crowd who did not laugh. One was Francesco Busone of Carmagnola, Facino’s handsome, swaggering lieutenant, who looked sourly upon this triumph of an upstart in whom he had already feared a rival. The other was the Princess Valeria, who, herself unseen in that concourse, discovered in this narrative only an impudent confession of trickery from one whom she had known as a base trickster. Almost she suspected him of having deliberately contrived that men should believe him dead to the end that by this sensational resurrection he should establish himself as the hero of the hour.
Gabriello Maria, elegant and debonair, came to shake him by the hand, and after Gabriello came the Duke with della Torre, to praise him almost fawningly as the Victor of Travo.
“That title, Lord Duke, belongs to none but my Lord Facino.”
“Modesty, sir,” said della Torre, “is a garment that becomes a hero.”
“If my Lord Facino did not wear it, sir, you could not lie under your present error. He must have magnified to his own cost my little achievement.”
But they would not have him elude their flattery, and when at last they had done with him he was constrained to run the gauntlet of the sycophantic court, which must fawn upon a man whom the Duke approved. And here to his surprise he found the Marquis Theodore, who used him very civilly and with no least allusion to their past association.
At last Bellarion escaped, and sought the apartments of Facino. There he found the Countess alone. She rose from her seat in the loggia when he entered, and came towards him so light and eagerly that she seemed almost to drift across the floor.
“Bellarion!”
There was a flush on her usually pale cheeks, a glitter in her bright slanting eyes, and she came holding out both hands in welcome.
“Bellarion!” she cried again, and her voice throbbed like the plucked chords of a lute.
Instantly he grew uneasy. “Madonna!” He bowed stiffly, took one of her proffered hands, and bore it formally to his lips. “To command!”
“Bellarion!” This time that melodious voice was pitched reproachfully. She seized him by his leather-clad arms, and held him so, confronting him.
“Do you know that I have mourned you dead? That I thought my heart would break? That my own life seemed to have gone out with yours? Yet all that you can say to me now—in such an hour as this—so cold and formally is ‘to command’! Of what are you made, Bellarion?”
“And of what are you made, madonna?” Roughly almost, he disengaged himself from her grip. He was very angry, and anger was a rare emotion in his cold, calculating nature. “O God! Is there no loyalty in all this world? Below, there was the Duke to nauseate me with flattery which was no more than base disloyalty to my lord. I escape from it to meet here a disloyalty which wounds me infinitely more.”
She had fallen back a little, and momentarily turned aside. Suddenly she faced him again, breathless and very white. Her long narrow
