y, and at once led them to the best rooms,
with which they expressed themselves well satisfied. For whatever their
real names might be, they had been originally brought up as gentlemen,
and they did not abuse everything that was offered them in order to make
innkeepers believe that they lived magnificently at home. When they saw
that they were given the best there was to be had, no matter how poor
that might be, they accepted it quietly and said 'Thank you' without
more ado; but if they perceived that the best was being withheld for
some one else, they were a particularly troublesome pair of gentlemen to
deal with; for nothing abashed them, and nothing seemed to frighten
them, and they were always as ready to beat an innkeeper as to skewer a
marquis according to the most rigidly honourable rules of duelling. As
for the law, it might as well not have existed, so far as they were
concerned. They never needed it, and when it wanted them they were never
to be found--unless they were under the powerful protection of a prince
or an ambassador, of whom the law itself was very much afraid, and who
promptly demanded for them a written pardon for their last offence. For
those were the only conditions under which Bravi could have exercised
their profession as they did throughout Italy in the seventeenth
century.

Trombin detained the innkeeper a moment when he was about to leave the
two to their toilet, after the day's ride.

'Some acquaintances of ours must have spent a night here last week,'
Trombin began. 'Do you remember them? They were the celebrated Maestro
Alessandro Stradella and his young Venetian wife. They have with them a
middle-aged serving-woman. Can you recollect when they left here?'

The landlord scratched his head and pretended to be racking his memory;
for it would have been quite easy to say that the party had left on
Saturday, on their way to Bologna. That was the answer the gentleman
expected, and the innkeeper generally found that it served best to tell
people what they expected to hear. But, on the other hand, there was the
question of truth, if not of truthfulness. Who could tell but that such
fine gentlemen might have with them an introduction to the Legate, who
might tell them the story. If this happened, the two travellers would be
angry at having been deceived, since, if the imprisoned man was really
Stradella, they would naturally wish to help him to regain his liberty.

This reflection carried the