ossed
themselves, and leisurely resuming their head-gear, they looked at one
another with questioning glances. Yet before any could voice the inquiry
that was in the minds of all, a knock fell upon the rotten timbers of
the door.

"At last!" exclaimed old Fabrizio da Lodi, in a voice charged with
relief, whilst a younger man of good shape and gay garments strode to
the door in obedience to Fabrizio's glance, and set it wide.

Across the threshold stepped a tall figure under a wide, featherless
hat, and wrapped in a cloak which he loosened as he entered, revealing
the very plainest of raiment beneath. A leather hacketon was tightened
at the waist by a girdle of hammered steel, from which depended on his
left a long sword with ringed, steel quillons, whilst from behind his
right hip peeped the hilt of a stout Pistoja dagger. His hose of red
cloth vanished into boots of untanned leather, laced in front and turned
down at the knees, and completed in him the general appearance of a
mercenary in time of peace, in spite of which the six nobles, in that
place of paradoxes, bared their heads anew, and stood in attitudes of
deferential attention.

He paused a moment to throw off his cloak, of which the young man who
had admitted him hastened to relieve him as readily as if he had been
born a servitor. He next removed his hat, and allowed it to remain
slung from his shoulders, displaying, together with a still youthful
countenance of surpassing strength and nobility, a mane of jet-black
hair coiffed in a broad net of gold thread--the only article of apparel
that might have suggested his station to be higher than at first had
seemed.

He stepped briskly to the coarse and grease-stained table, about which
the company was standing, and his black eyes ran swiftly over the faces
that confronted him.

"Sirs," he said at last, "I am here. My horse went lame a half-league
beyond Sant' Angelo, and I was constrained to end the journey on foot."

"Your Excellency will be tired," cried Fabrizio, with that ready
solicitude which is ever at the orders of the great. "A cup of Puglia
wine, my lord. Here, Fanfulla," he called, to the young nobleman who had
acted as usher. But the new-comer silenced him and put the matter aside
with a gesture.

"Let that wait. Time imports as you little dream. It may well be,
illustrious sirs, that had I not come thus I had not come at all."

"How?" cried one, expressing the wonder that rose in every mind