compromised already for a
pistol-shot more or less to affect his position much."

"What do you think they are going to do with him?"

She grew a shade paler even than before.

"I think," she said; "that we must not wait to find out what they mean
to do."

"You think we shall be able to effect a rescue?"

"We MUST."

He turned away and began to whistle, with his hands behind his back.
Gemma let him think undisturbed. She was sitting still, leaning her head
against the back of the chair, and looking out into vague distance with
a fixed and tragic absorption. When her face wore that expression, it
had a look of Durer's "Melancolia."

"Have you seen him?" Martini asked, stopping for a moment in his tramp.

"No; he was to have met me here the next morning."

"Yes, I remember. Where is he?"

"In the fortress; very strictly guarded, and, they say, in chains."

He made a gesture of indifference.

"Oh, that's no matter; a good file will get rid of any number of chains.
If only he isn't wounded----"

"He seems to have been slightly hurt, but exactly how much we don't
know. I think you had better hear the account of it from Michele
himself; he was present at the arrest."

"How does he come not to have been taken too? Did he run away and leave
Rivarez in the lurch?"

"It's not his fault; he fought as long as anybody did, and followed the
directions given him to the letter. For that matter, so did they all.
The only person who seems to have forgotten, or somehow made a mistake
at the last minute, is Rivarez himself. There's something inexplicable
about it altogether. Wait a moment; I will call Michele."

She went out of the room, and presently came back with Michele and a
broad-shouldered mountaineer.

"This is Marco," she said. "You have heard of him; he is one of the
smugglers. He has just got here, and perhaps will be able to tell us
more. Michele, this is Cesare Martini, that I spoke to you about. Will
you tell him what happened, as far as you saw it?"

Michele gave a short account of the skirmish with the squadron.

"I can't understand how it happened," he concluded. "Not one of us would
have left him if we had thought he would be taken; but his directions
were quite precise, and it never occurred to us, when he threw down his
cap, that he would wait to let them surround him. He was close beside
the roan--I saw him cut the tether--and I handed him a loaded pistol
myself before I mounted. The only thing I