"Halt!" The word, which seemed to come from nowhere, rang out into the crisp winter moonlight so sharply, so suddenly, so absolutely without warning, that the Cavaliere Michele di Lippo, who was ambling comfortably along, reined in his horse with a jerk; and with a start, looked into the night. He had not to fret his curiosity above a moment, for a figure gliding out from the black shadows of the pines, fencing in each side of the lonely road, stepped full into the white band of light, stretching between the darkness on either hand and stood in front of the horse. As the two faced each other, it was not the fact that there was a man in his path that made the rider keep a restraining hand on his bridle. It was the persuasive force, the voiceless command, in the round muzzle of an arquebuse pointed at his heart, and along the barrel of which di Lippo could see the glint of the moonlight, a thin bright streak ending in the wicked blinking star of the lighted fuse. The cavaliere took in the position at a glance, and being a man of resolution, hurriedly cast up his chances of escape by spurring his horse, and suddenly riding down the thief. In a flash the thought came and was dismissed. It was impossible; for the night-hawk had taken his stand at a distance of about six feet off, space enough to enable him to blow his quarry's heart out, well before the end of any sudden rush to disarm him. The mind moves like lightning in matters of this kind, and di Lippo surrendered without condition. Though his heart was burning within him, he was outwardly cool and collected. He had yielded to force he could not resist. Could he have seen ever so small a chance, the positions might have been reversed. As it was, Messer the bandit might still have to look to himself, and his voice was icy as the night as he said: "Well! I have halted. What more? It is chill, and I care not to be kept waiting."

The robber was not without humour, and a line of teeth showed, for an instant, behind the burning match of the weapon he held steadily before him. He did not, however, waste words. "Throw down your purse."

The cavaliere hesitated. Ducats were scarce with him, but the bandit had a short patience. "Diavolo! Don't you hear, signore?"

It was useless to resist. The fingers of the cavaliere fumbled under his cloak, and a fat purse fell squab into the snow, where it lay, a dark spot in the whiteness around, for all the world like a sleeping toad. The bandit chuckled as he heard the plump thud of the purse, and di Lippo's muttered curse was lost in the sharp order: "Get off the horse."

"But----"

"I am in a hurry, signore." The robber blew on the match of his arquebuse, and the match in its glow cast a momentary light on his face, showing the outlines of high aquiline features, and the black curve of a pair of long moustaches.

"Maledetto!" and the disgusted cavaliere dismounted, the scabbard of his useless sword striking with a clink against the stirrup iron, and he unwillingly swung from the saddle and stood in the snow--a tall figure, lean and gaunt.

As he did this, the bandit stepped back a pace, so as to give him the road. "Your excellency," he said mockingly, "is now free to pass--on foot. A walk will doubtless remove the chill your excellency finds so unpleasant."

But di Lippo made no advance. In fact, as his feet touched the snow, he recovered the composure he had so nearly lost, and saw his way to gain some advantage from defeat. It struck him that here was the very man he wanted for an affair of the utmost importance. Indeed, it was for just such an instrument that he had been racking his brains, as he rode on that winter night through the Gonfolina defile, which separates the middle and the lower valleys of the Arno. And now--a hand turn--and he had found his man. True, an expensive find; but cheap if all turned out well--that is, well from di Lippo's point of view. This thing the cavaliere wanted done he could not take into his own hands. Not from fear--it was no question of that; but because it was not convenient; and Michele di Lippo never gave himself any inconvenience, although it was sometimes thrust upon him in an unpleasant manner by others. If he could but induce the man before him to undertake the task, what might not be? But the knight of the road was evidently very impatient.

"Blood of a king!" he swore, "are you going, signore? Think you I am to stand here all night?"

"Certainly not," answered di Lippo in his even voice, "nor am I. But to come to the point. I want a little business managed, and will pay for it. You appear to be a man of courage--will you undertake the matter?"

"Cospetto! But you are a cool hand! Who are you?"

"Is it necessary to know? I offer a hundred crowns, fifty to be paid to you if you agree, and fifty on the completion of the affair."

"A matter of the dagger?"

"That is for you to decide."

The bandit almost saw the snarl on di Lippo's lips as he dropped out slowly: "You are too cautious, my friend--you think to the skin. The rack will come whether you do my business or not." The words were not exactly calculated to soothe, and called up an unpleasant vision before the robber's eyes. A sudden access of wrath shook him. "Begone, signore!" he burst out, "lest my patience exhausts itself, and I give you a bed in the snow. Why I have spared your life, I know not. Begone; warm yourself with a walk----"

"I will pay a hundred crowns," interrupted di Lippo.

"A hundred devils--begone!"

"As you please. Remember, it is a hundred crowns, and, on the faith of a noble, I say nothing about tonight. Where can I find you, in case you change your mind? A hundred crowns is a comfortable sum of money, mind you."

There was no excitement about di Lippo. He spoke slowly and distinctly. His cool voice neither rose nor dropped, but he spoke in a steady, chill monotone. A hundred crowns was a comfortable sum of money. It was a sum not to be despised. For a tithe of that--nay, for two pistoles--the Captain Guido Moratti would have risked his life twice over, things had come to such a pass with him. Highway robbery was not exactly his line, although sometimes, as on this occasion, he had been driven to it by the straits of the times. But suppose this offer was a blind? Suppose the man before him merely wanted to know where to get at him, to hand him over to the tender mercies of the thumbscrew and the rack? On the other hand, the man might be in earnest--and a hundred crowns! He hesitated.

"A--hun--dred--crowns." The cavaliere repeated these words, and there was a silence. Finally the bandit spoke:

"I frankly confess, signore, that stealing purses, even as I have done to-day, is not my way; but a man must live. If you mean what you say, there must be no half-confidences. Tell me who you are, and I will tell you where to find me."

"I am the Cavaliere Michele di Lippo of Castel Lippo on the Greve."

"Where is Castel Lippo?"

"At the junction of the Arno and the Greve--on the left bank."

"Very well. In a week you will hear from me again."

"It is enough. You will allow me to ransom the horse. I will send you the sum. On my word of honour, I have nothing to pay it at once."

"The signore's word of honour is doubtless very white. But a can in the hand is a can in the hand, and I need a horse--Good-night!"

"Good-night! But a can in the hand is not always wine to the lips, though a hundred crowns is ever a hundred crowns;" and saying this, di Lippo drew his cloak over the lower part of his face, and turned sharply to the right into the darkness, without so much as giving a look behind him. His horse would have followed; but quick as thought, Moratti's hand was on the trailing reins, and holding them firmly, he stooped and picked up the purse, poising it at arm's-length in front of him.

"Silver," he muttered, as his fingers felt the coins through the soft leather--"thirty crowns at the most, perhaps an odd gold piece or so--and now to be off. Hola! Steady!" and mounting the horse, he turned his head round, still talking to himself: "I am in luck. Cheese falls on my macaroni--thirty broad pieces and a horse, and a hundred crowns more in prospect. Captain Guido Moratti, the devil smiles on you--you will end a Count. Animo!" He touched the horse with his heels, and went forward at a smart gallop; and as he galloped, he threw his head back and laughed loudly and mirthlessly into the night.

In the meantime it was with a sore heart that the cavaliere made his way through the forest to the banks of the Arno, and then plodded along the river-side, through the wood, by a track scarcely discernible to any but one who had seen it many times. On his right hand the river hummed drearily; on his left, the trees sighed in the night-wind; and before him the narrow track wound, now up, then down, now twisting amongst the pines in darkness, then stretching in front, straight as a plumb-line. It was gall to di Lippo to think of the loss of the crowns and the good horse; it was bitterness to trudge it in the cold along the weary path that led to the ferry across the Arno, which he would have to cross before reaching his own home; and he swore deeply, under the muffling of his cloak, as he pressed on at his roundest pace. He soon covered the two miles that lay between him and the ferry; but it was past midnight ere he did this, and reaching the ferryman's hut, battered at the door with the hilt of his sword. Eventually he aroused the ferryman, who came forth grumbling. Had it been any one else, honest Giuseppe would have told him to go hang before he would have risen from his warm bed; but the Cavaliere Michele was a noble, and, although poor, had a lance or two, and Castel Lippo, which bore an ill name, was only a mangonel shot from the opposite bank. So Giuseppe punted his excellency across; and his excellency vented his spleen with a curse at everything in general, and the bandit in particular, as he stepped ashore and hurried to his dwelling. It was a steep climb that led up by a bridle-path to his half-ruined tower, and di Lippo stood at the postern, and whistled on his silver whistle, and knocked for many a time, before he heard the chains clanking, and the bar put back. At last the door opened, and a figure stood before him, a lantern in one hand.

"St. John! But it is your worship! We did not expect you until sunrise. And the horse, excellency?"

"Stand aside, fool. I have been robbed, that is all. Yes--let the matter drop; and light me up quick. Will you gape all night there?"

The porter, shutting the gate hastily, turned, and walking before his master, led him across the courtyard. Even by the moonlight, it could be seen that the flagstones were old and worn with age. In many places they had come apart, and with the spring, sprouts of green grass and white serpyllum would shoot up from the cracks. At present, these fissures were choked with snow. Entering the tower by an arched door at the end of the courtyard, they ascended a winding stair, which led into a large but only partially furnished room. Here the man lit two candles, and di Lippo, dropping his cloak, sank down into a chair, saying: "Make up a fire, will you--and bring me some wine; after that, you may go."

The man threw a log or two into the fireplace, where there was already the remains of a fire, and the pinewood soon blazed up cheerfully. Then he placed a flask of Orvieto and a glass at his master's elbow, and wishing him good-night, left him.

Michele di Lippo poured himself out a full measure and drained it at a draught. Drawing his chair close to the blazing wood, he stretched out his feet, cased in long boots of Spanish leather, and stared into the flames. He sat thus for an hour or so without motion. The candles burned out, and the fire alone lit the room, casting strange shadows on the moth-eaten tapestry of the hangings, alternately lighting and leaving in darkness the corners of the room, and throwing its fitful glow on the pallid features of the brooding man, who sat as if cut out of stone. At last the cavaliere moved, but it was only to fling another log on the flames. Then he resumed his former attitude, and watched the fire. As he looked, he saw a picture. He saw wide lands, lands rich with olive and vine, that climbed the green hills between which the Aulella babbles. He saw the grey towers of the castle of Pieve. Above the donjon, a broad flag flapped lazily in the air, and the blazon on it--three wasps on a green field--was his own. He was no longer the ruined noble, confined to his few acres, living like a goat amongst the rocks of the Greve; but my lord count, ruffling it again in Rome, and calling the mains with Riario, as in the good old times ten years ago. Diavolo! But those were times when the Borgia was Pope! What nights those were in the Torre Borgia! He had one of Giulia Bella's gloves still, and there were dark stains on its whiteness--stains that were red once with the blood of Monreale, who wore it over his heart the day he ran him through on the Ripetta. Basta! That was twelve years ago! Twelve years! Twelve hundred years it seemed. And he was forty now. Still young enough to run another man through, however. Cospetto! If the bravo would only undertake the job, everything might be his! He would live again--or perhaps! And another picture came before the dreamer. It had much to do with death--a bell was tolling dismally, and a chained man was walking to his end, with a priest muttering prayers into his ears. In the background was a gallows, and a sea of heads, an endless swaying crowd of heads, with faces that looked on the man with hate, and tongues that jeered and shouted curses at him. And the voices of the crowd seemed to merge into one tremendous roar of hatred as the condemned wretch ascended the steps of the platform on which he was to find a disgraceful death.

Michele di Lippo rose suddenly with a shiver and an oath: "Maledetto! I must sleep. It touches the morning, and I have been dreaming too long."