ancient days, holding the
villa safe in their protecting embrace from any uprising of the populace
of Rome, while on the side toward the Campagna they had withstood more
than one siege of the Goths. But high aloft, near the summit of this
cliff of natural rock and hewn stone the inhospitable windowless expanse
was broken by a row of arched openings, and silhouetted against the dark
void of one of these he caught a glimpse of a face framed in golden
hair.

Though so far above him the lady, who had been gazing down the road from
sheer ennui, had noticed the graceful figure of the cavalier, and had
watched his approach until he halted with upturned face beneath her
window. At that instant a little fan opening as it fell, dropped from
her hand and fluttered in the light breeze, like a bird with a broken
wing, beyond the road and into the ravine at its side.

Instantly Brandilancia sprang from his horse and, vaulting over the low
embankment, clambered down the incline. A smiling contadina, who was
beating out her linen on the margin of a basin of water, assisted him in
his search, but having found the fan she was so curious in regard to its
donor that Brandilancia endeavoured to divert her attention by plying
her with questions concerning the locality. From her replies he learned
that the washing pool was fed from an old aqueduct which passed under
the Villa Medici on its way to supply the fountains of Rome.

"See, Signor," she said, pointing out a nail-studded oaken door
concealed in the angle of a huge abutment, "they say that if that door
were not bolted on the inside one might enter the tunnel which brings
the water through the hill from its source miles away. There is a
legend, too, that a Roman princess who lived up yonder, centuries ago,
betrayed the secret to the barbarians, who came through the tunnel and
sacked Rome."

Brandilancia paid little heed to this information, not dreaming that he
would one day be indebted to it for escape from the villa which he was
now so blithely entering. Climbing back to the roadway he waved the fan
above his head and was greeted by a light clapping of hands from the
lofty window. Who could the lady be? He would ascertain in time, and
until he did so it was pleasant to reflect that some one within the
villa was interested in his coming and had wafted him this welcome.

He had need of hospitality for he was faint from the ride from Ostia in
the heat of an Italian June. The beautif