caught him a buffet on the side of the head with a pike, and he fell like a log in the water, and had been drowned, but that two of his comrades lifted him. Then all twelve of the band being together--for the first six had risen now from off the six pikemen, having forced them, on pain of instant death, to deliver over their pikes to them--Antonio, with the casket in his hands, spoke in a loud voice, "I thank God that no man is dead over this business; but if you resist, you shall die one and all. Go to the city; tell the Duke that I, Antonio of Monte Velluto, have the bones of the blessed St. Prisian, and carry them with me to my hiding-place in the highest parts of the hills. But if he will swear by these bones that I hold, and by his princely word, that he will not suffer the Lady Lucia to take the vows, nor will constrain her to wed any man, but will restore her to her own house and to her estate, then let him send the Archbishop again, and I will deliver up the sacred bones. But if he will not swear, then, as God lives, to-morrow, at midnight, I will cause a great fire to be kindled on the top of the hills--a fire whose flame you shall see from the walls of the city--and in that fire will I consume the sacred bones, and I will scatter the ashes of them to the four winds. Go and bear the message that I give you to the Duke." And, having thus said, Antonio, with his men, turned and went back at a run along the road by which they had come; but to the village of Rilano they did not go, but turned aside before they came to it, and, coming to the farm of one who knew Antonio, they bought of him, paying him in good coin of the Duchy, three horses, which Antonio, Tommasino, and Bena mounted; and they three rode hard for the hills, the rest following as quickly as they might; so that by nightfall they were all safely assembled in their hiding-place, and with them the bones of the blessed St. Prisian. But they told not yet to the rest of the band what it was that Antonio carried under his cloak; nor did Martolo, when he returned from Rilano, ask what had befallen, but he crossed himself many times and wore a fearful look. But Tommasino came to Antonio and said to him, "Why did you not ask also pardon for all of us, and for yourself the hand of Lucia?" "A great thing, and a thing that troubles me, I have done already," answered Antonio. "Therefore I will ask nothing for myself, and nothing may I ask for you or for my friends. But if I ask nothing save that right and justice be done, it may be that my sin in laying hands on the sacred bones will be the less."