hich on your accession included but fifty thousand names, to
its present list of seventy-five thousand, and at the same time have so
marvellously reduced the number of brigands in your kingdom."

"Partly in this way," he acknowledged, lightly, "but the Austrian
officers would be surprised to know how many of my best disciplined
soldiers have had the advantage of their drilling."

"Deserters?" the Princess asked.

"And whole companies in Northern Italy waiting for the first symptoms of
a war with Italy to desert en masse."

When the party reached Mondragone the custodian, surprised at their
coming (for the villa had been long unoccupied), unbarred the shutters
and let the light into the dusty salons.

"It is roomy enough for a barracks," Murat remarked as he wandered
through suite after suite of the great tenantless rooms.

"I forbid you so to use it," the Princess jested, "though you may occupy
Mondragone yourself when you lay siege to Rome."

"It would not be a bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the
terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd
columns--what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to
Calabria and from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian."

That was an exaggeration, of course, but Mondragone would have been a
good station in such a signal service.

"Those absurd columns," the Princess replied, "might themselves serve
as semaphores. They are chimneys, colossal enough to serve a foundry,
though they do duty to simple kitchens, those which prepared the
excellent dinners with which Pope Paul V. entertained his guests. When
the smoke rises from that one I can see the cloudy column from my
windows at Rome."

"And I could see it far on the road from Naples," he mused, and then the
two wandered away from their watching dragon and leaning on the
balustrade with their faces toward the magnificent view earnestly
discussed projects which had nothing to do with that unrivalled
panorama.

Celio was in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice,
while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the
balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the
Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near
his passionate lips?

Since there was no way of overhearing this equivocal conversation, it
must at all hazards be interrupted, and Celio prematurely announced the
_al fresco_ supper. Here, while he