He looked around with wild eyes.

A huge, black bureau, fitted with many drawers, stood in one corner of the room. Visconti, the parchment in his shaking fingers, went to it, still with glances around, and drew out drawer after drawer, till he had found the thing he sought. It was among neat piles of parchments, annotated in Giannotto's hand.

Visconti turned them over hastily, till he came upon a document hung with the seals of Verona, a cartel of defiance, neatly endorsed in a clerkly hand, and signed in large, bold writing, 'Mastino della Scala'.

Eagerly he turned to the cover of the packet, and laid the two writings side by side. They were the same.

Visconti leaned against the black chest, breathing heavily, his face not good to look on in its white devilry.

'He lives! Della Scala lives he cried, and struck himself in his rage. Then his gaze came back to the bloodstained parchment crumpled in his hand.

'And this—? And this—where got he this? The parchment that I read from on the road that day; the parchment that I thought was left at Brescia, in that—'

The words died away on his lips. In a sudden paroxysm of something more than fury, Visconti drove it down among the others within the drawer, and locked and double-locked it in.

The day was fading; in that dull chamber the light fled early and entered late. Visconti glanced again stealthily at the dark arras, faint in the dusk. He strained his ears listening; the air was full of voices, far away, pleading for the most part, yet some so near and threatening, Visconti held his ears. They died away as they had come, but to Visconti the silence was more terrible.

'Giannotto!' he called. 'Lights! It grows dark—'

He listened; he heard those sighs again, then suddenly the sound of flying feet, hurrying, hurrying; with a scream of horror Visconti rushed up the steps calling wildly for lights.

The huge door swung open at his desperate push, then, falling to behind him, shook the tapestry; as it fell into place again a long sighing filled the empty room.

 

Chapter 8. — For a Lady's Gift

Tomaso Ligozzi sat in a corner of the ruined hut, with enthralled face, listening to Count Conrad, who lounged against the wooden table opposite. It was five days since Conrad's rescue. He had made a recovery the more rapid that no leech had been there to meddle with him. Left to the simplest nursing, the barest needful nourishment, and the vigour of his own constitution, Conrad had rallied, till now, in almost full health, no trace was left of the hollow-faced, emaciated figure Francisco had carried into safety.

The morning after the rescue, it was decided that the hut was no longer a safe shelter; and, carefully destroying all traces of their habitation, the three, under Francisco's leadership, helping Conrad between them, betook themselves into a thicket near. There, in his solitary prowlings to and fro, Francisco had discovered a deep cave underneath a sandbank, the entrance well overgrown with boughs and bushes. Here, not without discomfort, they hid till Conrad should be fit to travel, and comforted themselves for the wretched exchange when they heard the shouts of Alberic's men.

Francisco was disappointed in his new ally. Count Conrad showed a levity, a forgetfulness of injury, that chimed badly with his own deep purposes. Tomaso was his chief reliance; his plan was to secure horses, by fair means or foul, and, as soon as Conrad could sit the saddle, to depart for Ferrara. So far Francisco's stealthy and cautious manoeuvres to possess himself of what he needed had been unsuccessful; but at last he had come upon the track of something possible, and today, with Vittore to help him, he had departed to bring back with him the horses for their flight.

Twice between dawn and noon had Alberic's men scoured their neighbourhood. Two, indeed, had come so near the hiding-place that their talk was plain. They spoke of the parchment found the day before and of the Visconti's fury.

It seemed fairly sure that for many hours at least the soldiery would not return, as they could scarce confine their search to the one spot only; so, before Francisco's departure, it was arranged between him and Tomaso that their rendezvous at sundown should be the ruined hut where they had first had shelter, there being no means of horsemen treading the thick brushwood around the sand-cave, and the hut affording opportunities of space and movement.

After a weary day and the second visit of the search party, which alarmed them as to the heat of Visconti's pursuit, but reassured them also as to returning to the hut, Tomaso and Conrad reached it an hour before sundown and prepared to wait.

At first keenly anxious, straining for every sound, as time went on, unconsciously they grew more at ease, and Conrad beguiled Tomaso with his talk.

At last, with a sudden sigh, Conrad broke off, and lapsed into silence. Tomaso sat alert, looking through the open door. 'Francisco is long,' said Conrad after a while.

He was dressed in the leather doublet of a peasant, coarse and plain, yet very different from the rough attire Francisco wore. He was very handsome, of a sunny, pleasant expression, a quality rarely found among the Italians of Lombardy; and today, although prepared for flight, his blond curls were as carefully arranged as though he still shone at the court of Milan.

'Messer Francisco is long,' he remarked again, and Tomaso turned with a start.

'He has doubtless met with unexpected difficulty, lord,' he said with some reproach. 'Horses must be found—somewhere—for our journey tonight. Every hour we stay here is dangerous.'

'My heart misgives me that I did not accompany him,' said Conrad; 'we should all four have kept together.'

'Doubtless too many would have hampered him,' was the reply.

Tomaso did not add, as he might have done, that Francisco had his doubts of Conrad's discretion, and had left Tomaso charged to see he committed no rashness in his absence.

'Thinkest thou he will get the horses?' continued the Count, twirling his curls through his fingers. 'Let us hope he will try naught so mad as that attempt on the walls of Milan we made two days ago! The saints preserve us! But I thought it was all over with us! That was a fine race—tearing through the dark with Visconti's soldiers at our heels!'

Tomaso was hurt at the flippant tone that reflected on Francisco's judgement.

'It was a gallant attempt,' he said, 'and all but succeeded; once within the town, we might have done much.'

'And so might Visconti,' remarked Conrad airily. 'Thou art young, Tomaso, or thou wouldst see how worse than useless was such a mad escapade.'

'Something had to be done,' returned Tomaso, 'this inaction was maddening Messer Francisco.'

Conrad smiled and changed the subject.

'Who is this Francisco, thinkest thou?' he asked. Tor a mere servitor at della Scala's court, he bears a mighty hatred to Visconti.'

'He served the Prince, and lost his master and his all in the sack of Verona. It is not strange he should wish to revenge della Scala's wrongs and his own.'

'I think him of better birth and station than he claims,' said the Count judicially.