u, the night is warm. Piaghe di Cristo! I am an ill man to
contradict, my pretty gallant, and if I say the night is warm, warm it
shall be though there be snow on Mount Vesuvius."

The courtier turned pink at that, and but for the arrival of
the taverner with the wine, it is possible he might have done an
unconscionable rashness. At sight of the red liquor the fury died out of
the ruffler's face.

"A long life, a long thirst, a long purse, and a short memory!" was his
toast, into whose cryptic meaning Gonzaga made no attempt to pry. As the
fellow set down his cup, and with his sleeve removed the moisture from
his unshorn mouth, "May I not learn," he inquired, "whose hospitality I
have the honour of enjoying?"

"Heard you ever of Romeo Gonzaga?"

"Of Gonzaga, yes; though of Romeo Gonzaga never. Are you he?"

Gonzaga bowed his head.

"A noble family yours," returned the swashbuckler, in a tone that
implied his own to be as good. "Let me name myself to you. I am Ercole
Fortemani," he said, with the proud air of one who announced himself an
emperor.

"A formidable name," said Gonzaga, in accents of surprise, "and it bears
a noble sound."

The great fellow turned on him in a sudden anger.

"Why that astonishment?" he blazed. "I tell you my name is both noble
and formidable, and you shall find me as formidable as I am noble.
Diavolo! Seems it incredible?"

"Said I so?" protested Gonzaga.

"You had been dead by now if you had, Messer Gonzaga. But you thought
so, and I may take leave to show you how bold a man it needs to think so
without suffering."

Ruffled as a turkey-cock, wounded in his pride and in his vanity, Ercole
hastened to enlighten Gonzaga on his personality.

"Learn, sir," he announced, "that I am Captain Ercole Fortemani. I held
that rank in the army of the Pope. I have served the Pisans and the
noble Baglioni of Perugia with honour and distinction. I have commanded
a hundred lances of Gianinoni's famous free-company. I have fought with
the French against the Spaniards, and with the Spaniards against the
French, and I have served the Borgia, who is plotting against both. I
have trailed a pike in the emperor's following, and I have held the rank
of captain, too, in the army of the King of Naples. Now, young sir, you
have learned something of me, and if my name is not written in letters
of fire from one end of Italy to the other, it is--Body of God!--because
the hands that hired me to the work garn