mething else.'

'I wish we were already in Florence. This is too near Venice!'

'Better still in Rome,' said Cucurullo, gloomily. 'Still better in
Sicily, and altogether much better in Africa; but best of all in heaven,
sir, if you can manage to get there!'

'It is not the first time you and I have run a risk together,' observed
Stradella, slowly moving the back of his hand up and down against his
unshaven cheek.

'It is the first time you have risked the life of a lady,' answered
Cucurullo quietly, for he understood his master very well.

'We had better go down and see about getting horses,' Stradella
answered, and he led the way to the stairs, his man following in his
footsteps.

The sun was rising now, and there was much bustling and clattering in
the yard, and sousing and splashing of cold water about the fountain; a
dozen horses were tied up to rings in the wall on one side, and the
stablemen were grooming some of them industriously while others waited
their turn, stamping now and then upon the cobble-stones, and turning
their heads as far as they could to see what was going on behind them
and on each side. Three men were washing the huge coach that ran to
Rovigo one day and back the next, and several smaller conveyances stood
beyond it in a row, still covered with dust from yesterday, for the
weather had been dry.

As in many inns of that time, the innkeeper was also the postmaster.
Stradella found him under the arched entrance to the yard, giving
instructions to the cook, who was just going to the market accompanied
by a scullion; the latter carried three empty baskets on his head, one
inside of the other.

'You can have no horses to-day,' said the host, in answer to Stradella's
demand, and he shook his head emphatically.

'No horses! It is impossible! It is absolutely necessary that we should
go on at once.'

The innkeeper was a square-shouldered Romagnole with grey hair, red
cheeks, and sharp black eyes. He shook his head again.

'I have not a horse to give you,' he said. 'Everything in my stable was
engaged beforehand for the Nuncio. I cannot give you the Government's
horses from the Rovigo coach, can I? Patience! That is all I can say.'

Stradella began to ask questions. The Nuncio, on his way to Verona and
Austria, had spent three days in the inn, both to rest himself and also
to be sure of having enough horses ahead to go on with, and word had
been sent to Mantua to make all the necessary arr