tter appeared to be keeping rigid watch over the
safety of the position. Carlo puffed the smoke of a cigarette rapidly,
and Agostino replied for him:--"From the quarter where the best donkeys
are to be had."

It was supposed that Agostino had resumed the habit usually laid aside by
him for the discussion of serious matters, and had condescended to father
a coarse joke; but his eyes showed no spark of their well-known twinkling
solicitation for laughter, and Carlo spoke in answer gravely:--"From
Baveno it will be."

"From Baveno! They might as well think to surprise hawks from Baveno.
Keep watch, dear Ammiani; a good start in a race is a kick from the
Gods."

With that, Corte turned to the point of his finger on the map. He
conceived it possible that Carlo Ammiani, a Milanese, had reason to
anticipate the approach of people by whom he, or they, might not wish to
be seen. Had he studied Carlo's face he would have been reassured. The
brows of the youth were open, and his eyes eager with expectation, that
showed the flying forward of the mind, and nothing of knotted distrust or
wary watchfulness. Now and then he would move to the other side of the
mountain, and look over upon Orta; or with the opera-glass clasped in one
hand beneath an arm, he stopped in his sentinel-march, frowning
reflectively at a word put to him, as if debating within upon all the
bearings of it; but the only answer that came was a sharp assent, given
after the manner of one who dealt conscientiously in definite
affirmatives; and again the glass was in requisition. Marco Sana was a
fighting soldier, who stated what he knew, listened, and took his orders.
Giulio Bandinelli was also little better than the lieutenant in an
enterprise. Corte, on the other hand, had the conspirator's head,--a head
like a walnut, bulging above the ears,--and the man was of a sallying
temper. He lay there putting bit by bit of his plot before the Chief for
his approval, with a careful construction, that upon the expression of
any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of Milan, caused him to
shout a defensive, "But Carlo says yes!"

This uniform character of Ammiani's replies, and the smile of Agostino on
hearing them, had begun to strike the attention of the soldierly Marco
Sana. He ran his hand across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red
mole-spotted cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, "Said
yes!" he remarked. "He might say no, for a diversio