He was a large, fleshly creature, was this Lampugnani, needing some fastidious lust to stir him to action, and then suddenly violent. His face was big and vealy, with a mouth in its midst like a rabbit’s, showing prominently a couple, no more, of sleek teeth. His eyes drooped under lids so languid as to give him an affectation of fatigue in lifting them. His voice was soft, but compelling: he never lent it to platitudes. An intellectual sybarite, a voluptuary by deliberation, he had tested God and Belial, and pronounced for the less Philistine lordship of the beast. Quite consistent with his principles, he not hated, but highly disapproved of Galeazzo, who, as consistently, had pardoned him some abominable crime which, under Francesco the father, had procured him the death sentence. But Messer Andrea had looked for a more sympathetic recognition of his merits at the hands of his deliverer than was implied in an ill-paid lieutenancy of Guards; and his exclusion from a share in the central flesh-pots was a conclusive proof to him of the æsthetic worthlessness of the master it was his humility to serve. The Visconti, at whom he breathed his little laugh, was a contrast to him in every way—a bluff, stout-built man, with fat red chaps flushing through a skin of red hair, a braggadocio manner, and small eyes red with daring. There was nothing of his house’s emblematic adder about him, save a readiness with poisons; and after all, that gave him no particular distinction. He took a great, stertorous pull at a flagon of wine, and smacked his lips bullyingly, before he answered with a roar:— ’Wounds! scarlet scotched on a ground of flesh-tint—a fashion will please our saint.’ Montano chuckled again, and more shrilly. ’Good, good!’ he cried: ’scarlet on flesh!’ and he squinted roguishly at the blind smith, who sat beside him on a bench, nervously kneading together his wasted hands. ’Messers,’ muttered the poor fellow; ’but will this holy boy approve the means to such a fashion? For Love to exalt himself by blood!’ He turned his sightless eyes instinctively towards Olgiati, where the boy stood, a dark, fatalistic young figure, breathing himself by the forge. He, he guessed, or perhaps knew, was alone of the company actuated by impersonal motives in this dread conspiracy. But he did not guess that, by so much as the young man was a pure fanatic of liberty, his hand and purpose were the most of all to be dreaded. Olgiati gave a melancholy smile, and, stirring a little, looked down. He was habited, as were his two companions, for the occasion—a recurrent dress-rehearsal—in a coat and hose of mail, and a jerkin of crimson satin. It was not the least significant part of his undertaking that he, like the others, was court-bred and court-employed. The fact, at its smallest, implied in them a certain anatomic-cum-sartorial acquaintance with their present business.