ilfrid.

"Oh! he's one of the lot, I believe. We have him fast, as we'll have the
bundle of them. Keep eye on those dogs behind us, and manoeuvre your
cigar. The plan is, to give half-a-dozen bright puffs, and then keep it
in your fist; and when you see an Italian head, volcano him like fury.
Yes, I've heard of that Ammiani. The scoundrels, made an attempt to get
him out of prison--I fancy he's in the city prison--last Friday night. I
don't know exactly where he is; but it's pretty fair reckoning to say
that he'll enjoy a large slice of the next year in the charming solitude
of Spielberg, if Milan is restless. Is he a friend of yours?"

"Not by any means," said Wilfrid.

"Mio prigione!" Jenna mouthed with ineffable contemptuousness; "he'll
have time to write his memoirs, as, one of the dogs did. I remember my
mother crying over, the book. I read it? Not I! I never read books. My
father said--the stout old colonel--'Prison seems to make these Italians
take an interest in themselves.' 'Oh!' says my mother, 'why can't they be
at peace with us?' 'That's exactly the question,' says my father, 'we're
always putting to them.' And so I say. Why can't they let us smoke our
cigars in peace?"

Jenna finished by assaulting a herd of faces with smoke.

"Pig of a German!" was shouted; and "Porco, porco," was sung in a scale
of voices. Jenna received a blinding slap across the eyes. He staggered
back; Wilfrid slashed his sword in defence of him. He struck a man down.
"Blood! blood!" cried the gathering mob, and gave space, but hedged the
couple thickly. Windows were thrown up; forth came a rain of household
projectiles. The cry of "Blood! blood!" was repeated by numbers pouring
on them from the issues to right and left. It is a terrible cry in a
city. In a city of the South it rouses the wild beast in men to madness.
Jenna smoked triumphantly and blew great clouds, with an eye aloft for
the stools, basins, chairs, and water descending. They were in the middle
of one of the close streets of old Milan. The man felled by Wilfrid was
raised on strong arms, that his bleeding head might be seen of all, and a
dreadful hum went round. A fire of missiles, stones, balls of wax, lumps
of dirt, sticks of broken chairs, began to play. Wilfrid had a sudden
gleam of the face of his Verona assailant. He and Jenna called "Follow
me," in one breath, and drove forward with sword-points, which they
dashed at the foremost; by dint of swift semicirclin