He waited for no more. Without word of thanks for the priceless information I had given him, he wheeled his horse, and shouted a hoarse command to his followers. A moment later and they were cantering past us, the snow flying beneath their hoofs; within five minutes the last of them had vanished round an angle of the road, and the only indication of the halt they had made was the broad path of dirty brown where their horses had crushed the snow. I have been an actor in few more entertaining comedies than the cozening of Ser Ramiro, and a witness of nothing that afforded me at once so much relief and relish as his abrupt departure. I sank back on the cushions of my litter, and gave myself over to a burst of full-souled laughter which was interrupted ere it was half done by Giacopo, who had dismounted and approached me. “You have fooled us finely,” said he, with venom. I quenched my laughter to regard him. Of what did he babble? Was he, and were his fellows, too, so ungrateful as to bear a grudge against the man who had saved them? “You have fooled us finely,” he insisted in a louder voice. “That, knave, is my trade,” said I. “But it rather seems to me that it was Messer Ramiro del’ Orca whom I fooled.” “Aye,” he answered querulously. “But what when he discerns how you have played upon him? What when he discovers the trick by which you have thrown him off the scent? What when he returns?” “Spare me,” I begged, “I am but indifferently skilful at conjecture.” “Nay, but you shall answer me,” he cried, livid with a passion that my bantering tone had quickened. “Can it be that you are indeed curious to know what will befall when he returns?” I questioned meekly. “I am,” he snorted, with an angry twist of the lips. “It should be easy to gratify the morbid spirit of curiosity that actuates you. Remain here, and await his return. Thus shall you learn.” “That will not I,” he vowed. “Nor I, nor I, nor I!” chorused his followers. “Then, why plague me with unprofitable questions? What concern is it of ours how Messer del’ Orca shall vent his wrath when he is disillusioned. Your duty now is to rejoin your mistress. Ride hard for Cagli. Seek her at the sign of ‘The Full Moon,’ and then away for Pesaro. If you are brisk you will gain the shelter of the Lord Giovanni Sforza’s fortress long before Messer del’ Orca again picks up the scent, if, indeed, he ever does so.” Giacopo laughed derisively till his fat body shook with the scornful mirth of him. “By my faith, I’m done with the business,” he cried, and the other three expressed a very hearty agreement with that attitude. “How done with it?” I asked. “I shall make my way back across the hills and so retrace my steps to Rome. I’ll risk my head no more for any lady or any Fool.”