r. In a flash Pedraglio was upon him, and snatched his
carbine from him.

"If you yell, you dog, I shall do for you!" said he. But how could he
possibly yell? With a blow like that in the stomach, it was all he could
do to breathe for at least fifteen minutes. In fact the man lay like one
dead, and it was some time before they could even make him groan
faintly: "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"

"It's nothing, nothing at all," V. told him with his usual, mocking
calm. "Shocks like that are good for the health. You will see. Now, my
friend, you are just going to pick yourself up and stand nice and firm
on your legs, and accompany us to Colmaregia. You will see how well you
will be able to walk. I was careful not to use this." And he showed him
the key.

"Oh, what a blow!" groaned the guard. "Oh, what a terrible blow!"

"It is indeed a rather stiff climb," the lawyer went on, taking the
carbine from Pedraglio, "but with your permission we will help you up
from behind with the point of this instrument. Thus climbing will become
a delight. Then you must bear us company down to Bre. We will carry your
carbine for you, but you, in return, must carry this little _gerla_. Is
my meaning quite clear to you? Now, march!"

But the wretched man could not get to his feet and they certainly could
not leave him there and run the risk of his calling out for help.

"Poor fellow!" said Pedraglio. "You hit him too hard."

V. replied that he had touched him with the gentleness of a woman, and
passing the carbine to Pedraglio, he seized the guard by the collar of
his uniform, pulled him to his feet, and made him run his arms through
the straps of the _gerla_.

"Go ahead, you fraud!" said he. "March, lazy-bones!"

Up, up, ever upwards they climbed through the thick mist. The hillside
was extremely steep, and it was all they could do to find foothold
between the clumps of soft grass. They slipped, they laboured with hands
and feet, but they heeded naught, struggling ever upwards for freedom's
sake. Up, up, ever upwards, through the thick mist, invisible as
spirits, first the false Marianna, then the guard puffing and groaning
under the heavy _gerla_, then the false _Scior Zacomo_ promising him a
fine view from the top, and from time to time encouraging him with the
point of the carbine. The carbine worked miracles. In half an hour the
three had reached the crest, from whence the hill slopes down towards
Bre, lying only a short distance below the