"Shave your chin, old fool! Shave your chin!" Two hairy beggars, brandishing cudgels, emerged from the thicket. No sooner did they lay eyes on the duke, than they bounded down the road and out of sight. The Duke of Spoleto smote his thighs and laughed like a woodpecker. They passed two howl-women, making for a near-by castle and practising their doleful chants. The duke greeted them with a grotesque bow. "Why so joyful, fascinating graces?" he bellowed through his auburn bristles. "Is the fiend assembling a chorus in these regions, to lead it in procession to hell? I commend his taste!" The howl-women gibbered some inarticulate response and blew down the road, to the great delight of the duke. A fat reeve with heavy saddle-bags and a fiery face whipped a mouse-colored nag right about and departed the way he came, as soon as he spied the duke in the distance. The duke's mirth increased as the mud-sticker, as he called him, took to flight. He seemed vastly pleased with the respect he inspired. At last, at a cross-road, they came upon two women in red cloaks and gaudy tunics, seated on the greensward, with a certain dubious alertness about the eyes, that glimmered between hunger and discontent. By their side in the grass lay a viol; they seemed to have chosen the spot to rest. As the duke and his companion approached, the twain watched them with a peculiar, hard-eyed intentness, glanced at each other, and smiled. "Whither away, my dear?" said the taller of the two. "It is fair weather for a journey!"-- The duke bowed profusely. "Fair weather for a good thirst," he replied, nodding at the stone bottle which reposed in the capacious lap of the speaker. "You carry a lusty belly," replied the dame, whose eyes had a hungry boldness, while she offered the bottle to her interlocutor. The duke took a liberal draught. Francesco frowned. Then the three chaffered with obvious good humor, touching upon many topics, which sounded strange to Francesco's ears. They touched upon the wonders of the swamps, wild beasts, wolves and bears; they conversed of the outlaws of Arezzo, whose leader was said to be a woman; of the stone that bled on Passion Sunday, of the mysterious almond-tree at Treviso, that bore fruit showing the impress of the face of the Christ. The duke seemed remarkably well versed in all matters pertaining to Church or state. When he stopped for a pull at the stone bottle, the two women laughed, taking alternate bites from an apple and munching the pulp with a voracious movement of the jaws. Francesco thought them queer wayfarers, for they in turn stared at him, then at each other and laughed, looking at Francesco's grave face as if it were the quaintest thing on earth. "Saints! What a sweet gentleman!" said the taller of the two, "and to see such a one in the spider's web!" And as she sighed, her eyes discoursed to Francesco something that savored not of the Church.