y on what they themselves could learn with
certainty. The consequence was that they did not reach Ferrara till
Wednesday afternoon, having spent a night in Padua and another in
Rovigo; and they were of course persuaded that Stradella and Ortensia
were by that time already in Florence, if they had taken that direction.

So far, the Bravi had only spoken of their business when it was
necessary to compare notes about the information they gathered. Having
undertaken to murder both the lovers on the one hand, but also to
deliver both of them safe and unhurt, Ortensia to the Senator and
Stradella to the enamoured lady, the subject presented certain
complications which were too tiresome to discuss until a final decision
became necessary; and for that matter, Trombin and Gambardella fully
intended to obtain the full five hundred ducats from each side.

'You and I were certainly meant to be lawyers or bankers,' Trombin had
observed at Rovigo over a bottle of very old Burgundy; 'for whichever of
two cards turns up, we must win half the stakes.'

'Both must turn up at the end of the deal,' Gambardella had answered
with decision, 'and we must win everything.'

'Under Providence,' Trombin had replied, 'we will.'

Having said this much they had dismissed the subject, and their
conversation during the rest of the evening had been of artistic
matters, politics, literature, women's beauty, and whatsoever else two
tolerably cultivated gentlemen might discuss with propriety in the
presence and hearing of a landlord and his servants. As soon as they had
arrived, they had learned without difficulty that the runaway party had
passed through the place and had safely reached Ferrara, whence the
carriage they had hired in Padua had duly returned.

The Bravi preferred to ride post, sending their luggage on with their
servant, six or seven hours in advance of them. The serving-man they had
hired in Venice had been a highway robber for several years, as they
were well aware, and in an ordinary situation he might have made away
with his masters' valuables, if entrusted with them; but he knew who
Trombin and Gambardella were, and what they had done, and his admiration
for such very superior cut-throats was boundless. Anything of theirs was
safe in his hands, and therefore safe from robbers on the road, for he
had not long retired from the profession, and had the thieves'
pass-words by heart from Milan to Naples, and farther. As a servant, he
h