enzo. He has orders to meet us up
high in the mountain this evening. He is the best of servants but
I always meet the best everywhere--that is, in Italy. Leaving it, I
grieve. No news from Milan, except of great confusion there. I judge by
the quiet of my sleep that we have come to no harm there.

'Your faithfullest

'VITTORIA.'

Lorenzo and the innkeeper had arrived at an altercation before Angelo
finished reading. Angelo checked it, and told Lorenzo to make speed: he
sent no message.

'My humanity,' Angelo then addressed his craven associate, 'counsels me
that it's better to drag you some distance on than to kill you. You 're
a man of intelligence, and you know why I have to consider the matter. I
give you guide's pay up to the glacier, and ten florins buon'mano. Would
you rather earn it with the blood of a countryman? I can't let that
tongue of yours be on the high-road of running Tedeschi: you know it.

'Illustrious signore, obedience oils necessity,' quoth the innkeeper.
'If we had but a few more of my cigars!'

'Step on,' said Angelo sternly.

They walked till dark and they were in keen air. A hut full of recent
grass-cuttings, on the border of a sloping wood, sheltered them. The
innkeeper moaned for food at night and in the morning, and Angelo
tossed him pieces of bread. Beyond the wood they came upon bare crag and
commenced a sharper ascent, reached the height, and roused an eagle.
The great bird went up with a sharp yelp, hanging over them with knotted
claws. Its shadow stretched across sweeps of fresh snow. The innkeeper
sent a mocking yelp after the eagle.

'Up here, one forgets one is a father--what's more, a husband,' he said,
striking a finger on the side of his nose.

'And a cur, a traitor, carrion,' said Angelo.

'Ah, signore, one might know you were a noble. You can't understand
our troubles, who carry a house on our heads, and have to fill mouths
agape.'

'Speak when you have better to say,' Angelo replied.

'Padrone, one would really like to have your good opinion; and I'm lean
as a wolf for a morsel of flesh. I could part with my buon'mano for a
sight of red meat--oh! red meat dripping.'

'If,' cried Angelo, bringing his eyebrows down black on the man, 'if I
knew that you had ever in your life betrayed one of us look below; there
you should lie to be pecked and gnawed at.'

'Ah, Jacopo Cruchi, what an end for you when you are full of good
meanings