, even as
on every countenance some consternation showed. "Are we betrayed?"

"If you are in case to fear betrayal, it may well be, my friends. As I
crossed the bridge over the Metauro and took the path that leads hither,
my eyes were caught by a crimson light shining from a tangle of bushes
by the roadside. That crimson flame was a reflection of the setting sun
flashed from the steel cap of a hidden watcher. The path took me nearer,
and with my hat so set that it might best conceal my face, I was all
eyes. And as I passed the spot where that spy was ambushed, I discerned
among the leaves that might so well have screened him, but that the sun
had found his helmet out, the evil face of Masuccio Torri." There was a
stir among the listeners, and their consternation increased, whilst one
or two changed colour. "For whom did he wait? That was the question
that I asked myself, and I found the answer that it was for me. If I was
right, he must also know the distance I had come, so that he would not
look to see me afoot, nor yet, perhaps, in garments such as these.
And so, thanks to all this and to the hat and cloak in which I closely
masked myself, he let me pass unchallenged."

"By the Virgin!" exclaimed Fabrizio hotly, "I'll swear your conclusions
were wrong. In all Italy it was known to no man beyond us six that you
were to meet us here, and with my hand upon the Gospels I could swear
that not one of us has breathed of it."

He looked round at his companions as if inviting them to bear out his
words, and they were not slow to confirm what he had sworn, in terms
as vehement as his own, until in the end the new-comer waved them into
silence.

"Nor have I breathed it," he assured them, "for I respected your
injunction, Messer Fabrizio. Still--what did Masuccio there, hidden like
a thief, by the roadside? Sirs," he continued, in a slightly altered
tone, "I know not to what end you have bidden me hither, but if aught of
treason lurks in your designs, I cry you beware! The Duke has knowledge
of it, or at least, suspicion. If that spy was not set to watch for
me, why, then, he was set to watch for all, that he may anon inform his
master what men were present at this meeting."

Fabrizio shrugged his shoulders in a contemptuous indifference which was
voiced by his neighbour Ferrabraccio.

"Let him be informed," sneered the latter, a grim smile upon his rugged
face. "The knowledge will come to him too late."

The new-comer th