ged his pardon.

This brought the Captain to his knees. "By the God who made the Jews,"
he swore, "I leave not this raw flagstone till you have unsaid those
words!"

In the end, after a prodigious fuss, he drifted away down the corridor
and left her to go about her business.

But he drifted not very far. He felt himself full of affairs which were
as meat and drink to his spirit starved by neglect. It was so great a
thing to have a pretext for approaching Count Guarini. That young lord
had a way like a keen-edged knife. You might weave a whole vestment
about your errand, fold upon fold of ingenious surmise, argument _pro_,
argument _con_; Guarino Guarini would dart eyes upon you--slash! he had
rent your fabric and discovered you naked underneath, a liar ready for
the whip. Nor, to do him justice, did he ever fail to apply it. Truth
was, indeed, the only key to Guarino's chamber.

Truth, and timely truth, was what the Captain felt he had at last. With
it he braved the supercilious doorkeeper; with it he forced the fellow
to lift his intolerable eyelids.

"By the powers of darkness, my friend," he said, "it will be a bad day's
work for you if you deny me this time." So he won his admission and
faced his master.

"Now, Mosca, your lie," said the Count, with his cold-steel delivery.
Mosca did not stumble.

"Master," he said, "I can do you service."

"Do it then," whipped in the Count.

"I can tell your Excellence why he succeeds no better with La
Bellaroba."

"Ah!" The Count was suspicious, but interested.

"The little lady has a lover."

"Body of a dog!"

"Body of Angioletto, Excellence."

"Angioletto? That spaniel? How many more laps will he cradle in? Cut his
tongue out, my good fellow, and then come to me again."

"Excellence, may I speak?"

"I suppose so. Speak."

The Captain waited no further invitation, but told the whole story from
the beginning. Guarino thought upon it for a moment.

"He will come to-night?" he asked.

"Certain, Excellence."

"Then we have him. You have done well, Mosca--it was time, my friend,
for you are an expensive hack to keep at grass. Now listen. Take
Bellaroba away--command of the Contessa, of course. Take her to the
little house in the Borgo. Make all fast, and return here in time for
the steeple-jack. When you have him in the trap, run him through the
body, raise the devil's uproar, and denounce him to the patrol. Do you
understand me?"

"Perfectly, Excellence