If she needed help, why was she treating us despitefully--putting this insult upon me, for example? Why had she used those words of hate? They had been passionate words, too; spoken from the heart in an instant of surprise. Then, again, to suppose her a friend of the Genoese was impossible. But why, if not a friend of the Genoese, was she a foe of their foes? Why had she taken to the _macchia_ with these men? Why were they keeping watch on the coast while careless that their watchfire showed inland for leagues? Why, if she were a patriot, had the sight of King Theodore's crown awakened such scorn and yet rage against me, its bearer? Why again, at the mere word that my father sought the Queen Emilia, had she let him pass on, while redoubling her despite against me? On top of these puzzles Nat must needs propound another, that this girl stood in need of help! Help? From whom? As my mind ran over these questions, still at every pause the old rigmarole kept dinning--"Mud won't daub sieve, sieve won't hold water, water won't wet stone . . ." on and on without ceasing, and still I toiled and sweated. By noon the hut was clean, at any rate tolerably clean; but its soaked floor would certainly take many hours in drying, and Nat must spend another night under the open sky. I left the hut, snatched a meal of bread and cheese, and, after a pull at the wine flask, turned my attention to the sty. To cleanse it before nightfall was out of the question. I examined it and saw three good days' labour ahead of me. But the palisading could be repaired and made secure after a fashion, and I started upon it at once, sharpening the rotten posts with my axe, driving, fixing, nailing, binding them firmly with osier-twists, of which I had fetched a fresh supply from the stream-side. I had rolled my jacket into a pillow for Nat, that he might lie easily and watch me. The sun was sinking beyond the mountain, staining with deep rose the pinnacles of granite that soared eastward above the pines, when a horn sounded on the slope and Marc'antonio came down the track driving the hogs before him. He instructed me good-naturedly enough in the art of penning the brutes, breaking off from time to time to compliment me on my labours, the sum of which appeared to affect him with a degree of wonder not far short of awe. "But why are you doing it? Perche? perche?" he broke off once or twice to ask, eyeing me askance with a look rather fearful than unfriendly. "The Princess laid this task upon me," I answered cheerfully, indeed with elation, feeling that so long as I could keep my tyrants puzzled I still kept, somehow, the upper hand. "I have travelled, in my time," said Marc'antonio with a touch of vainglorious pride. "I have made the acquaintance of many continentals, even with some that were extremely rich. But I never crossed over to England." "You would have found it full of eccentrics," said I.