atin, his lids veiling his suddenly down-cast eyes. Thus Peppe gained
the door.

"Say, friar; in my ear, now--Was that a hare you stewed, or an outworn
sandal?"

"Now, God forgive me," roared the monk, springing towards him.

"For your cooking? Aye, pray--on your knees." He dodged a blow, ducked,
and doubled back into the room. "A cook, you? Pish! you tun of convent
lard! Your ortolans were burnt, your trout swam in grease, your
pasty----"

What the pasty may have been the company was not to learn, for Fra
Domenico, crimson of face, had swooped down upon the fool, and would
have caught him but that he dived under the table by Valentina's skirts,
and craved her protection from this gross maniac that held himself a
cook.

"Now, hold your wrath, father," she said, laughing with the rest. "He
does but plague you. Bear with him for the sake of that beautitude you
cited, which has fired him to reprisals."

Mollified, but still grumbling threats of a beating to be bestowed on
Peppe when the opportunity should better serve him, the friar turned to
his domestic duties. They rose soon after, and at Gonzaga's suggestion
Valentina paused in the great hall to issue orders that Fortemani be
brought before her for judgment. In a score of ways, since their coming
to Roccaleone, had Ercole been wanting in that respect to which Gonzaga
held himself entitled, and this opportunity he seized with eagerness to
vent his vindictive rancour.

Valentina begged of Francesco that he, too, would stay, and help them
with his wide experience, a phrase that sent an unpleasant pang through
the heart of Romeo Gonzaga. It was perhaps as much to assert himself
as to gratify his rancour against Fortemani, that, having despatched a
soldier to fetch the prisoner, he turned to suggest curtly that Ercole
should be hanged at once.

"What boots a trial?" he demanded. "We were all witnesses of his
insubordination, and for that there can be but one punishment. Let the
animal hang!"

"But the trial is of your own suggestion," she protested.

"Nay, Madonna. I but suggested judgment. It is since you have begged
Messer Francesco, here, to assist us that I opine you mean to give the
knave a trial."

"Would you credit this dear Gonzaga with so much bloodthirstiness?" she
asked Francesco. "Do you, sir, share his opinion that the captain should
hang unheard? I fear me you do, for, from what I have seen of them, your
ways do not incline to gentleness."

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