ed.

"That which I dare be sworn you have dreamt of being!"--the scholar
continued with a subtle smile. "The Grand Duke's _alter ego_, Mayor of
the Palace, Adviser to his Highness! Yes, I hit you there? I touch you
there! Oh, vanity of little men, I thought so! "He broke off and
listened, as sharp on one another two gun-shots rang out at no great
distance from the house. A third followed as he hearkened: and on it a
swelling wave of sound that rose with each second louder and nearer.
"Ay, 'tis known now!" Basterga resumed, in a tone more quiet, but not
less confident. "And I must go, my dear friend--who thought a minute
ago to speed me for ever. Know that it lies not in hands mean as yours
to harm Caesar Basterga of Padua! And that to-night, of all nights, I
bear a charmed life! I carry, Syndic, a kingdom and its fortunes!"

He seemed to swell with the thought, and in comparison of the sickly man
scowling darkly on him from the wall, he did indeed look a king, as he
turned to the door, flung it wide and passed into the passage. With only
the street door between him and the hub-bub that was beginning to fill
the night, he could measure the situation. He had stayed late. The beat
of many feet hastening one way--towards the Porte Tertasse--the clatter
of weapons as here and there a man trailed his pike on the stones, the
roar of rising voices, the rattle of metal as some one hauled a chain
across the end of the Bourg du Four and hooked it--sounds such as these
might have alarmed an ordinary man who knew himself cut off from his
party, and isolated among foes.

But Basterga did not quail. His belief in his star was genuine; he was
intoxicated with the success which he fancied lay within his grasp. He
carried Caesar and his fortunes! was it in mean men to harm him? Nay, so
confident was he, that when he had opened the door he stood an instant
on the threshold viewing the strange scene, and quoted with an
appreciation as strange--

"At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu
Miscetur, penitusque cavae plangoribus aedes
Femineis ululant; ferit aurea sidera clamor"--

from his favourite poet. After which without hesitation but also without
hurry he turned and plunged into the stream of passers that was hurrying
towards the Porte Tertasse.

He had been right not to quail. In the medley of light and shadow which
filled the Bourg du Four and the streets about the Town Hall, in the
confusion, in the rush of all i