hrob of
her bells upon the warm Italian air! Those are the works of great men.
And I have seen them with my own eyes, these very eyes which look upon
you. I have seen Andrea Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, Giottino, Stefano, Simone
Memmi--men whose very colors I am not worthy to mix. And I have seen the
aged Giotto, and he in turn was pupil to Cimabue, before whom there was
no art in Italy, for the Greeks were brought to paint the chapel of the
Gondi at Florence. Ah, signori, there are the real great men whose names
will be held in honor when your soldiers are shown to have been the
enemies of humankind."

"Faith, sir," said Ford, "there is something to say for the soldiers
also, for, unless they be defended, how are all these gentlemen whom you
have mentioned to preserve the pictures which they have painted?"

"And all these!" said Alleyne. "Have you indeed done them all?--and
where are they to go?"

"Yes, signor, they are all from my hand. Some are, as you see, upon one
sheet, and some are in many pieces which may fasten together. There are
some who do but paint upon the glass, and then, by placing another sheet
of glass upon the top and fastening it, they keep the air from their
painting. Yet I hold that the true art of my craft lies as much in the
furnace as in the brush. See this rose window, which is from the model
of the Church of the Holy Trinity at Vendome, and this other of the
'Finding of the Grail,' which is for the apse of the Abbey church. Time
was when none but my countrymen could do these things; but there is
Clement of Chartres and others in France who are very worthy workmen.
But, ah! there is that ever shrieking brazen tongue which will not let
us forget for one short hour that it is the arm of the savage, and not
the hand of the master, which rules over the world."

A stern, clear bugle call had sounded close at hand to summon some
following together for the night.

"It is a sign to us as well," said Ford. "I would fain stay here forever
amid all these beautiful things--" staring hard at the blushing Tita as
he spoke--"but we must be back at our lord's hostel ere he reach it."
Amid renewed thanks and with promises to come again, the two squires
bade their leave of the old Italian glass-stainer and his daughter. The
streets were clearer now, and the rain had stopped, so they made their
way quickly from the Rue du Roi, in which their new friends dwelt, to
the Rue des Apotres, where the hostel of the "Half