this--in the
company of a couple of tatterdemalions worthy of him--sat the giant
who had mocked his escape from falling, and as Gonzaga took his seat he
heard the fellow's voice, guttural, bottle-thickened and contentious.

"And this wine, Luciano? Sangue della Madonna! Will you bring it before
dropping dead, pig?"

Gonzaga shuddered and would have crossed himself again for protection
against what seemed a very devil incarnate, but that the ruffian's
blood-shot eye was set upon him in a stony stare.

"I come, cavaliere, I come," cried the timid host, leaping to his
feet, and leaving the goat to burn while he ministered to the giant's
unquenchable thirst.

The title caused Gonzaga to start, and he bent his eyes again on the
man's face. He found it villainous of expression, inflamed and blotched;
the hair hung matted about a bullet head, and the eyes glared fiercely
from either side of a pendulous nose. Of the knightly rank by which
the taverner addressed him the fellow bore no outward signs. Arms he
carried, it is true; a sword and dagger at his belt, whilst beside him
on the table stood a rusty steel-cap. But these warlike tools served
only to give him the appearance of a roving masnadiero or a cut-throat
for hire. Presently abandoning the comtemplation of Gonzaga he turned to
his companions, and across to the listener floated a coarse and boasting
tale of a plunderous warfare in Sicily ten years agone. Gonzaga became
excited. It seemed indeed as if this were man who might be useful to
him. He made pretence to sip the wine Luciano had brought him, and
listened avidly to that swashbuckling story, from which it appeared that
this knave had once been better circumstanced and something of a leader.
Intently he listened, and wondered whether such men as he boasted he
had led in that campaign were still to be found and could be brought
together.

At the end of perhaps a half-hour the two companions of that thirsty
giant rose and took their leave of him. They cast a passing glance upon
Gonzaga, and were gone.

A little while he hesitated. The ruffian seemed to have lapsed into a
reverie, or else he slept with open eyes. Calling up his courage the
gallant rose at last and moved across the room. All unversed in tavern
ways was the magnificent Gonzaga, and he who at court, in ballroom or
in antechamber, was a very mirror of all the graces of a courtier, felt
awkward here and ill at ease.

At length, summoning his wits t