portant
a personage should have been charged with the pursuit of the Lady of
Santafior, I inferred that great issues were at stake.

He was clad in mail and leather, and from his lance fluttered the
bannerol bearing the Borgia arms, which had announced his quality to
Madonna's servants.

At sight of me his bloodshot eyes grew round with wonder, and for a
little season a deathly calm preceded the thunder of his voice.

"Sainted Host!" he roared at last. "What trickery may this be?" And
sidling his horse nearer he tore aside the curtains of my litter.

Out of faces pale as death the craven grooms looked on, to behold me
reclining there, my cloak flung down across my legs to hide my boots,
and my motley garb of red and black and yellow all revealed. I believe
their astonishment by far surpassed the Captain's own.

"You are choicely met, Ser Ramiro," I greeted him. Then, seeing that
he only stared, and made no shift to speak: "Maybe," quoth I, "you'll
explain why you detain me. I am in haste."

"Explain?" he thundered. "Sangue di Cristo! The burden of explaining
lies with you. What make you here?"

"Why," answered I, in tones of deep astonishment, "I am about the
business of the Lord Cardinal of Valencia, our master."

"Davvero?" he jeered. He stretched out a mighty paw, and took me by the
collar of my doublet. "Now, bethink you how you answer me, or there will
be a fool the less in the world."

"Indeed, the world might spare more."

He scowled at my pleasantry. To him, apparently, the situation afforded
no scope for philosophical reflections.

"Where is the girl?" he asked abruptly.

"Girl?" quoth I. "What girl? Am I a mother-abbess, that you should set
me such a question?"

Two dark lines showed between his brows. His voice quivered with
passion.

"I ask you again--where is the girl?"

I laughed like one who is a little wearied by the entertainment provided
for him.

"Here be no girls, Messer del' Orca," I answered him in the same tone.
"Nor can I think what this babble of girls portends."

My seeming innocence, and the assurance with which I maintained the
expression of it, whispered a doubt into his mind. He released me, and
turned upon his men, a baffled look in his eyes.

"Was not this the party?" he inquired ferociously. "Have you misled me,
beasts?

"It seemed the party, Illustrious," answered one of them.

"Do you dare tell me that 'it seemed'?" he roared, seeking to father
upon them the