“Take this good fellow to the kitchen,” he bade the servant that had introduced him, “let him be fed and rested.”  Then, turning to the man, himself, “I shall require you to set out at daybreak with my answer,” he said; and so, with a wave of the hand, he dismissed him.  As the messenger departed Ramiro returned to the table, filled himself a cup of wine and drank.

“What says the Lord Vitelli?” Lampugnani ventured to ask him.

“If he knew you,” answered Ramiro, with a scowl, “he would counsel me to strangle some of the over-inquisitive rascals that surround me.”

“Over-inquisitive?” echoed Lampugnani boldly.  “Body of God!  It were enough to wake the curiosity of an ecstatic hermit to have a mud-splashed courier from Citta di Castello at Cesena three times within one little week.”

Ramiro looked at him, and by his glance it was plain to see that the words had jarred his temper.  Whatever it was that Vitelli wrote to Ramiro, this gentleman was not minded to divulge it.

“If you have supped, Lampugnani,” said the Governor slowly, his eyes upon his offending officer, “perhaps you will find some duty to perform ere you seek your bed.”

Lampugnani turned crimson, and for a moment seemed to hesitate.  Then he rose.  He was a man of choleric aspect, and that he served under Ramiro del’ Orca was as much a danger to the Governor as to himself.  He had not the air of one whom it was wise to threaten in however veiled a manner.

“Shall I fetch you this fellow’s hat ere I sleep?” he inquired, with contemptuous insolence.

Not a word did Ramiro answer him, but his glance fastened upon Lampugnani with an expression before which that impudent ruffian lowered his own bold eyes.  Thus for a moment; then with an awkward laugh to cover the intimidation that he felt, Lampugnani walked heavily from the room and banged the door after him.

There was about it all a strangeness that set my wits to work in a mighty busy fashion.  That work suffered interruption by the harsh voice of Ramiro.

“Are you resolved, Boccadoro?” he growled at me.  “Have you decided for the motley or the cord?”

Instantly I fell into the part I was to play.

“Did I choose the latter,” said I, with an assumption of sudden airiness and such a grimace as was part and parcel of my old-time trade, “then were I truly worthy of the former, for I should have proved myself, indeed, a fool.  Yet if I choose the former, I pray that you’ll not follow the same course of reasoning, and hold me worthy of the latter.”

When he had understood its subtleties; for his wits were of a quality that would have disgraced a calf, he roared at the conceit, and seemingly thrown into a better humour by the promise of more such entertainment, he bade my guards release me, and urged me to assume the motley without more delay.

What time I was obeying him my mind was returning to that matter of Lampugnani’s words, and it is not difficult to understand how I should arrive at the only possible conclusion they suggested.  The hats of the other messengers from Vitelli, that the officer had mentioned, had been brought to Ramiro.  The reason for this that at once arose in my mind was that within the messenger’s hat there was a second and more secret communication for the Governor.