of a crevice of rock overhung
by shrubs a man's voice called, and Merthyr climbing up from perch to
perch, saw Marco Sana lying at half length, shot through hand and
leg. From him Merthyr learnt that Carlo and Angelo had fled higher up;
yesterday they had been attacked by coming who tried to lure there to
surrender by coming forward at the head of his men and offering safety,
and "other gabble," said Marco. He offered a fair shot at his heart,
too, while he stood below a rock that Marco pointed at gloomily as a
hope gone for ever; but Carlo would not allow advantage to be taken of
even the treacherous simulation of chivalry, and only permitted firing
after he had returned to his men. "I was hit here and here," said Marco,
touching his wounds, as men can hardly avoid doing when speaking of the
fresh wound. Merthyr got him on his feet, put money in his pocket, and
led him off the big stones painfully. "They give no quarter," Marco
assured him, and reasoned that it must be so, for they had not taken
him prisoner, though they saw him fall, and ran by or in view of him in
pursuit of Carlo. By this Merthyr was convinced that Weisspriess
meant well. He left his guide in charge of Marco to help him into the
Engadine. Greatly to his astonishment, Lorenzo tossed the back of his
hand at the offer of money. "There shall be this difference between me
and my wife," he remarked; "and besides, gracious signore, serving my
countrymen for nothing, that's for love, and the Tedeschi can't punish
me for it, so it's one way of cheating them, the wolves!" Merthyr shook
his hand and said, "Instead of my servant, be my friend;" and Lorenzo
made no feeble mouth, but answered, "Signore, it is much to my honour,"
and so they went different ways.
Left to himself Merthyr set step vigorously upward. Information from
herdsmen told him that he was an hour off the foot of one of the passes.
He begged them to tell any hunted men who might come within hail that a
friend ran seeking them. Farther up, while thinking of the fine nature
of that Lorenzo, and the many men like him who could not by the very
existence of nobility in their bosoms suffer their country to go through
another generation of servitude, his heart bounded immensely, for he
heard a shout and his name, and he beheld two figures on a rock near the
gorge where the mountain opened to its heights. But they were not Carlo
and Angelo. They were Wilfrid and Count Karl, the latter of whom had
disc
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