a claim to Captain Weisspriess. In the first place, I
yield him to no man who does not show himself a better man than I. It's
the point upon which I don't pay compliments.'

Count Medole bowed.

'But, if you want occupation,' added Luciano, closing his speech with a
merely interrogative tone.

'I scarcely want that, as those who know me will tell you,' said Medole,
so humbly, that those who knew him felt that he had risen to his high
seat of intellectual contempt. He could indulge himself, having shown
his courage.

'Certainly not; if you are devising means of subsistence for the
widows and orphans of the men who will straggle out to be slaughtered
to-night,' said Luciano; 'you have occupation in that case.'

'I will do my best to provide for them,'--the count persisted in his air
of humility, 'though it is a question with some whether idiots
should live.' He paused effectively, and sucked in a soft smile of
self-approbation at the stroke. Then he pursued: 'We meet the day after
to-morrow. The Pope's Mouth is closed. We meet here at nine in the
morning. The next day at eleven at Farugino's, the barber's, in Monza.
The day following at Camerlata, at eleven likewise. Those who attend
will be made aware of the dispositions for the week, and the day we
shall name for the rising. It is known to you all, that without affixing
a stigma on our new prima-donna, we exclude her from any share in this
business. All the Heads have been warned that we yield this night to
the Austrians. Gentlemen, I cannot be more explicit. I wish that I could
please you better.'

'Oh, by all means,' said Pietro Cardi: 'but patience is the pestilence;
I shall roam in quest of adventure. Another quiet week is a tremendous
trial.'

He crossed foils with Leone Rufo, but finding no stop to the drawn
'swish' of the steel, he examined the end of his weapon with a
lengthening visage, for it was buttonless. Ammiani burst into laughter
at the spontaneous boyishness in the faces of the pair of ambitious
lads. They both offered him one of the rapiers upon equal terms. Count
Medole's example of intemperate vanity was spoiling them.

'You know my opinion,' Ammiani said to the count. 'I told you last
night, and I tell you again to-day, that Barto Rizzo is guilty of gross
misconduct, and that you must plead the same to a sort of excuseable
treason. Count Medole, you cannot wind and unwind a conspiracy like a
watch. Who is the head of this one? It is the m