indeed, but neither alone nor unaided; for he had
no sooner stepped out of the door than a most unpleasant and unexpected
thing happened. To his surprise and mortification, not to mention the
pain he felt, an iron hand caught him by the back of his collar and ran
him down the hill at the double-quick, encouraging his speed with a
hearty kick at every third step or so. He ran by the house in a moment,
being positively kicked past the door, and he ran on to the gate of the
Jewish cemetery, whence the mules had now disappeared, and the boot of
his implacable driver almost lifted him off his feet. The hand that held
him was like iron, and the foot felt very like it too. Down the hill he
was forced to run, till suddenly, at the turn near the bottom, where the
road is wider, he came upon his own coach on its way up.

Then the kicking ceased indeed, but the hand did not relax its hold,
while the coachman stopped his horses at the sound of quick footsteps
just ahead. An instant later Don Alberto's tormentor had opened the
coach, flung him up inside, and slammed the door on him.

'Palazzo Altieri!' cried a voice the courtier had heard only once
before. 'Be quick! Your master is ill!'

The running footman had already dropped to the ground from behind, and
was at the open carriage window in an instant, springing upon the step
for orders. But Don Alberto was exhausted and had sunk back in the
cushioned seat, panting for breath and aching, not only in every joint,
but elsewhere.

'Home!' he managed to say, as he saw the footman's head at the window.

There was just room in the road to turn, and a few seconds later the
carriage was rumbling along over the bad road towards the paved streets
of the city, while its only inmate slowly recovered his breath and made
attempts in the dark to repair the disorder of his dress before he
reached his palace. But that was not easy, for he had dropped his cloak
in the struggle with Ortensia and had lost his hat in falling with the
ladder; moreover, his collar and wristbands were covered with blood, and
his usually smooth hair looked like a wild man's. Last, and perhaps
least in his estimation, he had given a thousand crowns, in the shape of
two hundred and fifty gold ducats of Naples, for the pleasure of being
half-strangled by a young woman, thrown out of the window by her
rescuer, and finally kicked downhill for a distance of at least two
hundred and fifty yards by an unseen boot. As an equiv