he must have dreamed of meeting the dark and
subtle Barto Rizzo overnight; on realizing that fact he could not
realize how the man had escaped him, except that when he thought over
it, he breathed deep and shook his shoulders. The mind will, as you
may know, sometimes refuse to work when the sensations are shameful
and astonished. He despatched a messenger with a 'good morrow' to his
mother, and then went to a fencing-saloon that was fitted up in the
house of Count Medole, where, among two or three, there was the ordinary
shrugging talk of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to
hear. Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to small-sword
and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling point, and mad to strike
at something, they attacked one another furiously, though they were dear
friends, and the helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the
thumps. For half an hour they held on to it, when, their blood being up,
they flashed upon the men present, including the count, crying shame to
them for letting a woman alone be faithful to her task that night.
The blood forsook Count Medole's cheeks, leaving its dead hue, as when
blotting-paper is laid on running-ink. He deliberately took a pair of
foils, and offering the handle of one to Ammiani, broke the button off
the end of his own, and stood to face an adversary. Ammiani followed the
example: a streak of crimson was on his shirt-sleeve, and his eyes
had got their hard black look, as of the flint-stone, before Romara in
amazement discovered the couple to be at it in all purity of intention,
on the sharp edge of the abyss. He knocked up their weapons and stood
between them, puffing his cigarette leisurely.

'I fine you both,' he said.

He touched Ammiani's sword-arm, nodded with satisfaction to find that
there was no hurt, and cried, 'You have an Austrian out on the ground by
this time tomorrow morning. So, according to the decree!'

'Captain Weisspriess is in the city,' was remarked.

'There are a dozen on the list,' said little Pietro Cardi, drawing out a
paper.

'If you are to be doing nothing else to-morrow morning,' added Leone
Rufo, 'we may as well march out the whole dozen.'

These two were boys under twenty.

'Shall it be the first hit for Captain Weisspriess?' Count Medole said
this while handing a fresh and fairly-buttoned foil to Ammiani.

Romara laughed: 'You will require to fence the round of Milan city, my
dear count, to win