usiness!' which means, 'Go and earn your ounce of
Austrian lead.' They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor
devil of a curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on if we give
them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, and goes off like a drugged
pistol. It's a nest of bunglers, and may it be razed! We could do
without it, and well! If it were a family failing, should not I too
be trusting them? My brother was one of the fifteen who marched out as
targets to try the skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: and they did it
thoroughly--shot him straight here." Corte struck his chest. "He gave
a jump and a cry. Was it a viva for Milan? They swear that it was, and
they can't translate from a living mouth, much more from a dead one; but
I know my Niccolo better. I have kissed his lips a thousand times, and
I know the poor boy meant, 'Scorn and eternal distrust of such
peddling conspirators as these!' I can deal with traitors, but these
flash-in-the-pan plotters--these shaking, jelly-bodied patriots!--trust
to them again? Rather draw lots for another fifteen to bare their
breasts and bandage their eyes, and march out in the grey morning, while
the stupid Croat corporal goes on smoking his lumpy pipe! We shall hear
that Milan is moving; we shall rise; we shall be hot at it; and the news
will come that Milan has merely yawned and turned over to sleep on the
other side. Twice she has done this trick, and the garrison there has
sent five regiments to finish us--teach us to sleep soundly likewise! I
say, let it be Bergamo; or be it Brescia, if you like; or Venice: she
is ready. You trust to Milan, and you are fore-doomed. I would swear it
with this hand in the flames. She give the signal? Shut your eyes, cross
your hands flat on your breasts: you are dead men if you move. She lead
the way? Spin on your heels, and you have followed her!"

Corte had spoken in a thick difficult voice, that seemed to require the
aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it did like a water-pipe in
a hurricane of rain. He ceased, red almost to blackness, and knotted his
arms, that were big as the cable of a vessel. Not a murmur followed his
speech. The word was, given to the Chief, and he resumed:--"You have
a personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You have not heard me. I came
through Paris. A rocket will soon shoot up from Paris that will be
a signal for Christendom. The keen French wit is sick of its
compromise-king. All Europe is in convul