igi thrust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to him that by doing
so he propitiated that ill-conceived divinity called Virtue, who lived
in the open air, and desired men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidently
understood the kind of man he was schooling to his service.

"Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman, acquainted with the
Signor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, his sister, on the Motterone?"

Luigi answered promptly, "Yes."

"Did the Signorina Vittoria speak to the lady?"

"No."

"Not a word?"

"No."

"Not one communication to her?"

"No: she sat under her straw hat."

"She concealed her face?"

"She sat like a naughty angry girl."

"Did she speak to the officer?"

"Not she!"

"Did she see him?"

"Of course she did! As if a woman's eyes couldn't see through
straw-plait!"

Barto paused, calculatingly, eye on victim.

"The Signorina Vittoria," he resumed, "has engaged to sing on the night
of the Fifteenth; has she?"

A twitching of Luigi's muscles showed that he apprehended a necessary
straining of his invention on another tack.

"On the night of the Fifteenth, Signor Barto Rizzo? That's the night of
her first appearance. Oh, yes!"

"To sing a particular song?"

"Lots of them! ay-aie!"

Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his seat till he
howled, saying, "Now, there's a slate and a pencil. Expect me at the
end of two hours, this time. Next time it will be four: then eight,
then sixteen. Find out how many hours that will be at the sixteenth
examination."

Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his straightened
arm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen to the explanation of Barto's
system; which was that, in cases where every fresh examination taught
him more, they were continued, after regularly-lengthening intervals,
that might extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain.
"When all's delivered," said Barto, "then we begin to correct
discrepancies. I expect," he added, "you and I will have done before a
week's out."

"A week!" Luigi shouted. "Here's my stomach already leaping like a fish
at the smell of this hole. You brute bear! it's a smell of bones.
It turns my inside with a spoon. May the devil seize you when you're
sleeping! You shan't go: I'll tell you everything--everything. I
can't tell you anything more than I have told you. She gave me a
cigarette--there! Now you know:--gave me a cigarette; a cigarette. I
smoked it--