Sullenly Giacopo moved his horse nearer, and sullenly he answered her.

“Madonna, our horses are done.  It is useless to go farther.”

“Useless?” she cried, and I had an instance of how sharply could ring the voice that I had heard so gentle.  “Of what do you talk, you knave?  Ride on at once.”

“It is vain to ride on,” he answered obdurately, insolence rising in his voice.  “Another half-league—­another league at most, and we are taken.”

“Cagli is less than a league distant,” she reminded him.  “Once there, we can obtain fresh horses.  You will not fail me now, Giacopo!”

“There will be delays, perforce, at Cagli,” he reminded her, “and, meanwhile, there are these to guide the Borgia sbirri.”  And he pointed to the tracks we were leaving in the snow.

She turned from him, and addressed herself to the other three.

“You will stand by me, my friends,” she cried.  “Giacopo, here, is a coward; but you are better men.”  They stirred, and one of them was momentarily moved into a faint semblance of valour.

“We will go with you, Madonna,” he exclaimed.  “Let Giacopo remain behind, if so he will.”

But Giacopo was a very ill-conditioned rogue; neither true himself, nor tolerant, it seemed, of truth in others.

“You will be hanged for your pains when you are caught!” he exclaimed, “as caught you will be, and within the hour.  If you would save your necks, stay here and make surrender.”

His speech was not without effect upon them, beholding which, Madonna leapt from the litter, the better to confront them.  The corners of her sensitive little mouth were quivering now with the emotion that possessed her, and on her eyes there was a film of tears.

“You cowards!” she blazed at them, “you hinds, that lack the spirit even to run!  Were I asking you to stand and fight in defence of me, you could not show yourselves more palsied.  I was a fool,” she sobbed, stamping her foot so that the snow squelched under it.  “I was a fool to entrust myself to you.”

“Madonna,” answered one of them, “if flight could still avail us, you should not find us stubborn.  But it were useless.  I tell you again, Madonna, that when I espied them from the hill-top yonder, they were but a half-league behind.  Soon we shall have them over the mountain, and we shall be seen.”

“Fool!” she cried, “a half-league behind, you say; and you forget that we were on the summit, and they had yet to scale it.  If you but press on we shall treble that distance, at least, ere they begin the descent.  Besides, Giacopo,” she added, turning again to the leader, “you may be at fault; you may be scared by a shadow; you may be wrong in accounting them our pursuers.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and grunted.

“Arnaldo, there, made no mistake.  He told us what he saw.”

“Now Heaven help a poor, deserted maid, who set her trust in curs!” she exclaimed, between grief and anger.