ew
all. He knew where the plots had failed; he knew the man who had bent
and doubled. In the patriotic cause, perfect arrangements are
crowned with perfect success, unless there is an imperfection of the
instruments; for the cause is blessed by all superior agencies. Such was
his governing idea. His arrangements had always been perfect; hence the
deduction was a denunciation of some one particular person. He pointed
out the traitor here, the traitor there; and in one or two cases he
did so with a mildness that made those fret at their beards vaguely
who understood his character. Barto Rizzo was, it was said, born in
a village near Forli, in the dominions of the Pope; according to the
rumour, he was the child of a veiled woman and a cowled paternity. If
not an offender against Government, he was at least a wanderer early in
life. None could accuse him of personal ambition. He boasted that he
had served as a common soldier with the Italian contingent furnished
by Eugene to the Moscow campaign; he showed scars of old wounds: brown
spots, and blue spots, and twisted twine of white skin, dotting the
wrist, the neck, the calf, the ankle, and looking up from them, he
slapped them proudly. Nor had he personal animosities of any kind. One
sharp scar, which he called his shoulder knot, he owed to the knife of
a friend, by name Sarpo, who had things ready to betray him, and struck
him, in anticipation of that tremendous moment of surprise and wrath
when the awakened victim frequently is nerved with devil's strength;
but, striking, like a novice, on the bone, the stilet stuck there; and
Barto coolly got him to point the outlet of escape, and walked off,
carrying the blade where the terrified assassin had planted it. This
Sarpo had become a tradesman in Milan--a bookseller and small printer;
and he was unmolested. Barto said of him, that he was as bad as a few
odd persons thought himself to be, and had in him the making of a great
traitor; but, that as Sarpo hated him and had sought to be rid of him
for private reasons only, it was a pity to waste on such a fellow steel
that should serve the Cause. "While I live," said Barto, "my enemies
have a tolerably active conscience."

The absence of personal animosity in him was not due to magnanimity. He
doubted the patriotism of all booksellers. He had been twice betrayed
by women. He never attempted to be revenged on them; but he doubted
the patriotism of all women. "Use them; keep eye on