here--true, but it wasn't Castracane," he muttered,
and found his neck in a vice.

"Who was it then, son of a pig? Who was it?"

"Mercy, mercy, my lord! I will tell the truth!" he whined as he twisted.

"Gesu morto! Tell anything else and I cut thy liver out, hound!" swore
the man who held him.

"Ah, Dio! I will! I will! It was Silvestro who killed the Jew!"

"You shall come with me to the Signor Sotto-Prefetto," said his holder.
"There's a ducat for me in this affair." The poor little company were
driven into the gatehouse and there pent; but Andrea went off between
two archers to be examined at greater length by Messer Alessandro, and
to give blubbering confirmation of the fact. All the unfortunate
particulars wrung out of Silvestro on his first night of Monte
Ortone--the stab under the ribs, the Jew's beard, his black blood, etc.,
etc.--were now screwed out of Andrea and went to prove his story.

"By the twenty-four ears of the Twelve Apostles," swore the Corporal,
"we've got him at last, Messere."

The Sub-Prefect felt that he must act upon this news. So much insistence
had been laid upon the affair by his chief, he dared not send his
lieutenant: he must go himself. This is what comes of neglecting
new-killed Jews! he might have thought. He little knew what was to come
of it.

Two mounted men, Andrea with a rope round his neck, himself very
splendidly booted and cuirassed, made up a sufficient cavalcade to fetch
home one snivelling goatherd. It was four by the time they were off,
seven before they were at Abano, eight when they reached the foot of
Monte Ortone and faced the deep chestnut woods in which that precipice
dips his flanks. But though it was getting dusk there were eyes sharp
enough on the top of the mountain to watch for what sharp ears had
heard--a most unaccustomed sound in those leafy solitudes--trotting
horses and jingling steel. Castracane from the summit saw it all; and
what is more, guessed at once what Andrea in a halter meant.

IX

PYLADES FINDS HIS ORESTES

"Silvestro," he called softly, without moving from his ambush or turning
his eyes from those he watched, "Silvestro, come here!"

The obedient stripling came eagerly, and knelt as close to his master as
he dared--just so as to touch him.

"Eccomi, Pilade," says he.

"Get back over the brow as fast as you can," said his friend, "and hide
in the cave. Wait there till I come. Go now; do as I bid you."

Silvestro went