ue dolis, lacrimisque coactis,
Quos neque Tydides, nec Larrissaeus Achilles
Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinae!

D'Albigny nodded. "Well, I trust you are really counting on something
solid," he answered. "For you are taking a great deal upon yourself,
Monsieur Basterga. I hope you understand that," he added with a
searching look.

"I take all on myself," the big man answered.

The Frenchman was far from content, but he argued no more. He reflected
a moment, considering whether he had forgotten anything: then, muttering
that he would convey Basterga's views to the Grand Duke, he pulled his
cloak more closely about his face, and with a curt nod of farewell, he
turned on his heel and was gone. A moment, and he was lost to sight
between the wooden mills and sheds which flanked the bridge on either
side, and rendered it at once as narrow and as picturesque as were most
of the bridges of the day. Basterga, left solitary, waited a while
before he left his shelter. Satisfied at length that the coast was
clear, he continued his way into the town, and thinking deeply as he
went came presently to the Corraterie. It cannot be said that his
meditations were of the most pleasant; and perhaps for this reason he
walked slowly. When he entered the house, shaking the moisture from his
cloak and cap, he found the others seated at table and well advanced in
their meal. He was twenty minutes late.

He was a clever man. But at times, in moments of irritation, the sense
of his cleverness and of his superiority to the mass of men led him to
do the thing which he had better have left undone. It was so this
evening. Face to face with d'Albigny, he had put a bold face on the
difficulties which surrounded him: he had let no sign of doubt or
uncertainty, no word of fear respecting the outcome escape him. But the
moment he found himself at liberty, the critical situation of his
affairs, if the Syndic refused to take the bait, recurred to his mind,
and harassed him. He had no _confidante_, no one to whom he could
breathe his fears, no one to whom he could explain the situation, or
with whom he could take credit for his coolness: and the curb of
silence, while it exasperated his temper, augmented a hundredfold the
contempt in which he held the unconscious companions among whom chance
and his mission had thrown him. A spiteful desire to show that contempt
sparkled in his eyes as he took his seat at the table this evening; but
for a