mpaigning; I
think we all longed boyishly for action. Pray you, remember that the
most of us were very young, that to most of us the events of life had
still something of the zest that a schoolboy finds in robbing an orchard
and glutting himself with its treasures.

But while most of us were thus brimful of eagerness, he that had been
until now our guide and leader, even Simone's man Maleotti, was all of a
sudden retarded in his progress by the ill conduct of his nag. It was
always a mettled beast, but now it turned restive and took to all kinds
of bucking and jibbing and shying, that seemed strangely disconcerting
to its rider, albeit he was known as a skilful cavalier. So Maleotti
must needs dismount and look to his girths and gear, to see what ailed
his steed, while we rode merrily forward, eager to join hands with those
that we knew were awaiting us behind the mask of yonder clump of trees.
What was it to us if Maleotti could not handle an unmanageable horse?
Behind that brown wood Messer Griffo of the Dragon-flag waited for our
coming--Messer Griffo, the famousest soldier of fortune in all Italy.
Who could be more lucky than we to be thus chosen as sharers in an
enterprise that was honored by the alliance of so astonishing a
_condottiere_? If I were to judge of all our fellowship by myself, as I
fairly think I may judge, then I can assure you that all our pulses were
drumming, that we were hungry and thirsty to get to grips with the
devils of Arezzo.

How exquisitely vain is youth! We who rode and thought that we were
going to do great deeds and win endless applause, how little we dreamed
that we were no more than the toys of chance, the valueless shuttles
between a rich man's gold and the kisses of a courtesan. We that likened
ourselves to the conquerors of worlds were no better than petty pawns on
an unfriendly chess-board, making moves of which we knew nothing, in
obedience to forces of which we were as ignorant as children. All we
knew, all we cared to know, in our then mood, was that we had come to
the point where it was ordained that we were to meet and join forces
with Messer Griffo of the Dragon-flag.

XX

THE FIGHT WITH THOSE OF AREZZO

This was what was to have happened at this point; this is what caused
Messer Maleotti to have so much show of trouble with his steed. The
little company of Florentine gentlemen were to have joined their forces
with those that rode under the Dragon-flag of Mess