"The Lady Valentine will forgive the loss of a dagger, lord, when thou help to rescue her from Milan," he said curtly. "But what use to seek her gift? And give thyself again into the Visconti's power?" "Tush, Visconti! Visconti!... I have heard the name enough," returned Count Conrad. "I intend to have my lady's gift--it suits neither my honor nor my affection to leave it there to be some mercenary's plunder; and the chessmen too, boy! The set the Emperor gave--ah! you would love them--silver and ivory--I will bring them too. They will while away more weary hours such as these. What was I thinking of to leave them there so long!" "At any moment Francisco may return, and without thee here time will be lost; moreover, his orders were that we await him." At Tomaso's words, Conrad raised his arched eyebrows. "Order? To thee, maybe; thou art a boy, and of humble station. I am Von Schulembourg: orders scarcely tally with that name." He drew his mantle over his despised doublet, and stepped to the door, putting Tomaso aside and unheeding his entreaties. "Calm thyself, I shall be back long before the grim Veronese!" he said airily. "Were there light enough, there would be time to learn the game before he comes again." "I will learn from no one who so little knows his duty," cried Tomaso in hot wrath. But it was as impossible to anger Conrad as to stop him, and with a smile on his lips and a good-humored wave of his hand, he was gone. Gone, absolutely gone, out of sight, into the heart of danger and at the crucial moment, for a set of chessmen and for a lady's love-gift. After an undecided pause of utter vexation, Tomaso could not resist the impulse to start in pursuit after him. But Count Conrad was fleet of foot; he had disappeared, and Tomaso dared follow no farther, for Francisco might return at any moment, and to find them both gone would make bad worse. And scarcely had he re-entered the hut before he heard the sound of horses ridden cautiously, and in a few moments more Francisco turned into the open. He was mounted, Vittore in front of him, on a powerful black horse, and leading two others, and his face was animated with his triumph. "Thou see'st," he said, "we are well provided, though it has taken me all day. Now, to mount, without pause. Where is the Count?" "The Count," faltered Tomaso, half-crying with vexation, "the Count----" "Well, what of him?" said Francisco, pausing keenly. "He has gone back to the villa--to fetch something. Oh, Messer Francisco, prevent him I could not--he left but now----" "Gone back to the villa!" cried Francisco. "Did he rave? Is he in his senses?" Tomaso wrung his hands. "He went to fetch a dagger he remembered and some chessmen." With a cry of rage Francisco flung himself from his saddle. "Methinks I left a fool to guard a fool," he said. "Did I not tell thee to see Count Conrad kept from folly? Our lives are on it!"