Lady Valentine will not forgive my losing it!'

'The Lady Valentine will forgive the loss of a dagger, lord, when thou helpest to rescue her from Milan,' Tomaso said curtly. 'But what use to seek her gift and give thyself again into the Visconti's power?'

'Cush, Visconti! Visconti!...I have heard the name enough,' returned Count Conrad. 'I intend to have my lady's gift—it suits neither my honour nor my affection to leave it there to be some mercenary's plunder; and the chessmen too, boy! The set the Emperor gave—ah! you would love them—silver and ivory—I will bring them too. They will while away more weary hours such as these. What was I thinking of to leave them there so long!'

'At any moment Francisco may return, and without thee here time will be lost; moreover, his orders were that we await him.' At Tomaso's words, Conrad raised his arched eyebrows. 'Order? To thee, maybe; thou art a boy, and of humble station. I am von Schulembourg: orders scarcely tally with that name.'

He drew his mantle over his despised doublet, and stepped to the door, putting Tomaso aside and not heeding his entreaties. 'Calm thyself, I shall be back long before the grim Veronese!' he said airily. 'Were there light enough, there would be time to learn the game before he comes again.'

'I will learn from no one who so little knows his duty,' cried Tomaso in hot wrath.

But it was as impossible to anger Conrad as to stop him, and with a smile on his lips and a good-humoured wave of his hand, he was gone.

Gone, absolutely gone, out of sight, into the heart of danger and at the crucial moment, for a set of chessmen and for a lady's love-gift.

After an undecided pause of utter vexation, Tomaso could not resist the impulse to start in pursuit after him. But Count Conrad was fleet of foot; he had disappeared, and Tomaso dared follow no farther, for Francisco might return at any moment, and to find them both gone would make bad worse.

And scarcely had he re-entered the hut when he heard the sound of horses ridden cautiously, and in a few moments more Francisco turned into the open.

He was mounted, Vittore in front of him, on a powerful black horse, and leading two others, and his face was animated with his triumph.

'Thou see'st,' he said, 'we are well provided, though it has taken me all day...Now, to mount, without pause. Where is the Count?'

'The Count,' faltered Tomaso, half-crying with vexation, 'the Count—'

'Well, what of him?' said Francisco, pausing keenly.

'He has gone back to the villa—to fetch something. Oh, Messer Francisco, prevent him I could not—he left but now—'

'Gone back to the villa!' cried Francisco. 'Did he rave? Is he in his senses?'

Tomaso wrung his hands.

'He went to fetch a dagger he remembered and some chessmen.'

With a cry of rage Francisco flung himself from his saddle. 'Methinks I left a fool to guard a fool,' he said. 'Did I not tell thee to see Count Conrad kept from folly? Our lives are on it.'

Tomaso paled at his displeasure, and faltered out a recital of what had happened, but Francisco cut him short.

'The thing has happened,' he said sternly, 'and may cost us dear, but mine the fault to trust the foreign coxcomb.' Never had the two boys seen him so moved, and they shrank into silence.

Francisco fumed with anger. We will ride without him,' he said at length; but even while he bade Tomaso mount, and saw to his own girths, he paused irresolute, and Tomaso was thankful. He did not like to think of the gay Conrad left to meet his fate alone. He ventured to speak.

'The dagger was a lady's gift,' he said, 'the Lady Valentine's. He could not bear to leave it.'

'He will be wishing that he had,' said Francisco brusquely; but his face softened, and he added presently: 'He must be brought back, we cannot wait, and 'tis too dangerous to abandon him—for him and for ourselves.'

He flung the reins to Tomaso, and lifted Vittore to the ground. 'Stretch thy legs the while,' he said.

'Shall I go, messer?' asked the boy.

'He will come quicker at my bidding,' said Francisco grimly. 'Keep open eyes,' he added, 'the soldiers must come by the road if come again they do. Hold thither at once and spy, and then return and wait us here. Tether the horses carefully and water them. They cost me something.' He pointed to his roughly bandaged arm.

Half wild with remorseful vexation, Tomaso watched Francisco go the way the Count had gone, till his tall figure was lost to view. Then he and Vittore surveyed each other with anxious eyes.

'Oh, cousin!' cried the boy, 'we have had a fearful day!'

'Thou wert fortunate,' returned the other bitterly; 'Francisco is not vexed with thee'

But Vittore, full of his tale, was eager rather for a listener than himself to give sympathy.

'Till noon we found nothing,' he said. 'Francisco hung around the farmhouses, but there were naught but sorry jades in every stable that we peered into, every one we tried, Tomaso, and so we roamed farther and farther across the plains—'

'But how didst thou ever get such steeds as these?' asked Tomaso, looking admiringly at the splendid animals, well groomed and well fed, fresh and vigorous.

We took them,' said Vittore proudly. We came upon a camp of soldiers with horses and to spare, and Francisco asked them would they trade with him, and offered money, but they jeered and shouted and drove us off. Then Francisco stood before me while I crept up to those three and loosened their halters. The soldiers drank and sang; some lay and snored; they thought that we were gone, then suddenly 2 his voice sank with excitement.

'What happened?' asked Tomaso with interest. 'I am glad that thou didst show thyself a brave lad, Vittore; what happened?'

'They saw us; three of them rushed out; there was a fight, and Francisco won.'

Won? Against three?' cried Tomaso.

'He scattered them like the wind,' said Vittore.