"

Marc'antonio's shoulders went up to his ears. "He knew well enough
what comedy he was playing. Disinherit his own son? We Corsicans,
he might be sure, would never permit that: and meanwhile your
father's money bought him out of prison. Ajo, it is simple as
milking the she-goat yonder!"

"If you knew my father better, Marc'antonio, you would find it not
altogether so simple as you suppose. King Theodore might have told
my father that these children lived, and my father would yet have
bought his freedom for their sake; yes, and helped him to the last
shilling and the last drop of blood to restore them to the Queen
their mother."

"Verily, cavalier, I knew your father to be a madman," said
Marc'antonio, gravely, after considering my words for awhile.
"But such madness as you speak of, who could take into account?"

"Eh, Marc'antonio? What acquaintance have you with my father, that
you should call him mad?"

"I remember him well, cavalier, and his long sojourning with my late
master the Count Ugo at his palace of Casalabriva above the Taravo,
and the love there was between him and my young mistress that is now
the Queen Emilia. Lovers they were for all eyes to see but the old
Count's. Mbe! we all gossiped of it, we servants and clansmen of the
Colonne--even I, that kept the goats over Bicchivano, on the road
leading up to the palace, and watched the two as they walked
together, and was of an age to think of these things. A handsomer
couple none could wish to see, and we watched them with good will;
for the Englishman touched her hand with a kind of worship as a
devout man touches his beads, and they told me that in his own
country he owned great estates--greater even than the Count's.
Indeed, cavalier, had your father thought less of love and more of
ambition there is no saying but he might have reached out for the
crown, and his love would have come to him afterwards. But, as the
saying goes, while Peter stalked the mufro Paul stole the mountain:
and again says the proverb, 'Bury not your treasure in another's
orchard.' Along came this Theodore, and with a few lies took the
crown and the jewel with it. So your father went away, and has come
again after many years; and at the first I did not recognize him, for
time has dealt heavily with us all. But afterwards, and before he
spoke his name, I knew him--partly by his great stature, partly by
his carriage, and partly, cavalier, by the likeness your yout