eye might range, to the towers of
distant Perugia, to the Lake Trasimeno--a silver sheen that broke
the white monotony--to Etruscan Cortona, perched like an eyrie on its
mountain top, and to the line of Tuscan hills, like heavy, low-lying
clouds upon the blue horizon.

Lost was I in the contemplation of that scene when a cry, succeeded by
a volley of horrid blasphemy, drew my attention of a sudden to my
companions. They stood grouped together, and their eyes were on the road
by which we had scaled those heights. Their first expression of loud
astonishment had been succeeded by an utter silence. I stepped forward
to command a better view of what they contemplated, and in the plain
below, midway between Narni and the slopes, a mile or so behind us, I
caught a glitter as of a hundred mirrors in the sunshine. A company of
some dozen men-at-arms it was, riding briskly along the tracks we had
left behind us in the snow. Could these be the pursuers?

Even as I formed the question in my mind, the lady's silvery voice,
behind me, put it into words. She had drawn aside the curtains of her
litter and she was leaning out, her eyes upon those dancing points of
brilliance.

"Madonna," cried one of her grooms, in a quaver of alarm, "they are
Borgia soldiers."

"Your fear is father to that opinion," she answered scornfully. "How can
you descry it at this distance?"

Now, either God had given that knave an eagle's sight, or else, as she
suggested, fear spurred his imagination and begot his certainty of what
he thought he saw.

"The leader's bannerol bears the device of a red bull," he answered
promptly.

I thought she paled a little, and her brows contracted.

"In God's name, let us get forward, then!" cried Giacopo. "Orsu! To
horse, knaves!"

No second bidding did they need. In the twinkling of an eye they were in
the saddle, and one of them had caught the bridle of the leading mule of
the litter. Giacopo called to me to lead the way with him, with no more
ceremony than if I had been one of themselves. But I made no ado. A
chase is an interesting business, whatever your point of view, and if a
greater safety lies with the hunter, there is a keener excitement with
the hunted.

Down that steep and slippery hillside we blundered, making for Cagli at
a pace in which there lay a myriad-fold more danger than could menace
us from any party of pursuers. But fear was spur and whip to the
unreasoning minds of those poltroons, and