: Gian Maria never shall set hands upon me." She turned
again to Francesco. "I see a certain wisdom in the counsel of flight
you would have offered me, no less than in what I take to be your advice
that I should remain. Did I but consult my humour I should stay and
deliver battle when this tyrant shows himself. But prudence, too, must
be consulted, and I will give the matter thought." And now she thanked
him with a generous charm for having come to her with this news and
proffered his assistance, asking what motives brought him.

"Such motives as must ever impel a knight to serve a lady in distress,"
said he, "and perhaps, too, the memory of the charity with which you
tended my wounds that day at Acquasparta."

For a second their glances met, quivered in the meeting, and fell apart
again, an odd confusion in the breast of each, all of which Gonzaga,
sunk in moody rumination, observed not. To lighten the awkward silence
that was fallen, she asked him how it had transpired so soon that it was
to Roccaleone she had fled.

"Do you not know?" he cried. "Has not Peppe told you?"

"I have had no speech with him. He but reached the castle, himself, late
last night, and I first saw him this morning when he came to announce
your presence."

And then, before more could be said, there arose a din of shouting from
without. The door was pushed suddenly open, and Peppe darted into the
room.

"Your man, Ser Francesco," he cried, his face white with excitement.
"Come quickly, or they will kill him."

CHAPTER XIV. FORTEMANI DRINKS WATER

The thing had begun with the lowering glances that Francesco had
observed, and had grown to gibes and insults after he had disappeared.
But Lanciotto had preserved an unruffled front, being a man schooled in
the Count of Aquila's service to silence and a wondrous patience. This
insensibility those hinds translated into cowardice, and emboldened
by it--like the mongrels that they were--their offensiveness grew more
direct and gradually more threatening. Lanciotto's patience was slowly
oozing away, and indeed, it was no longer anything but the fear of
provoking his master's anger that restrained him. At length one burly
ruffian, who had bidden him remove his head-piece in the company of
gentlemen, and whose request had been by Lanciotto as disregarded as
the rest, advanced menacingly towards him and caught him by the leg, as
Ercole had caught his master. Exasperated at that, Lanciotto had