Muriella said nothing. She had little faith in the forest guards. Were they the stranger’s friends or foes? Of one’s own hand one is sure--but of any other? “Tell your master to get more defence for himself,” she said as she lingered on the threshold. “He is not my master,” said Caterina, huffed and on her dignity. “He is a mere servant of the Gandolfo, like me, like Fausto and Gian, and Falko, and Dreino, and all the rest.” “No; he rules those,” said Muriella quickly. “He is in authority over them. Perhaps not over you, but over them certainly.” “And God and the Gandolfo are over us all,” said Caterina testily. “Over him as well as the least of us. Come to supper, wench.” Supper was eaten in the wide long kitchen, black with smoke and age, with the sweet herbs and the dried pork hanging from the rafters, and a great fire burning in a hearth vast enough to hold a dozen men on its settles. There were more than a dozen men and women seated along the tables with the light from the brass _lucerne_ shining on their swarthy faces. The males looked greedily and glowingly at Muriella, but they did not delay the great business of their hungry jaws and thirsty throats to pay her compliments. Moreover, Caterina ruled them with a rod of iron, and tolerated no amorous follies in her presence. Bean-soup, roast kid, fennel and salsify and macaroni were their fare, washed down by a rough, stinging red wine. Their strong and comely women ate and drank as copiously as the men: they had few words to waste, and their white teeth worked like a mill. Italians have not always as much as they could eat, but when they get the chance they can feed like Gargantua’s self. Two Franciscan friars who were passing through the woods and slept at the fattoria as a matter of course, were as loudly munching and as thirstily drinking as the others, and conveying at short intervals remnants of meat and bread into their wallets, under pretext of feeding the dogs who lay under the table. “Trust the holy men to take all they can lay their hands on,” thought Caterina, noting their adroit manœuvres. Through as many centuries as the oaks without were old, monks of all orders had come and gone, and eaten, and drunk, and been feasted, and welcomed at those tables in Le Selve. The mendicant-friars were now few in number, and poor in worldly goods, but at all the Gandolfo’s houses they were ever as honoured as they had been of old, except in the innermost heart of Caterina. Cyrille supped later, alone, in a small stone chamber which opened out of his bedroom. His place at the steward’s table was filled by the under-steward, Fausto. Fausto was a Roman, with the head and face, the throat and shoulders, of a gladiator in the galleries of the Vatican; thickly-curling locks encircled his broad low brow, and rich blood mantled in his olive cheeks. He and the Franciscans spoke in cordial amity where they sat together at his end of his table.