He was clad in mail and leather, and from his lance fluttered the bannerol bearing the Borgia arms, which had announced his quality to Madonna’s servants.

At sight of me his bloodshot eyes grew round with wonder, and for a little season a deathly calm preceded the thunder of his voice.

“Sainted Host!” he roared at last.  “What trickery may this be?” And sidling his horse nearer he tore aside the curtains of my litter.

Out of faces pale as death the craven grooms looked on, to behold me reclining there, my cloak flung down across my legs to hide my boots, and my motley garb of red and black and yellow all revealed.  I believe their astonishment by far surpassed the Captain’s own.

“You are choicely met, Ser Ramiro,” I greeted him.  Then, seeing that he only stared, and made no shift to speak:  “Maybe,” quoth I, “you’ll explain why you detain me.  I am in haste.”

“Explain?” he thundered.  “Sangue di Cristo!  The burden of explaining lies with you.  What make you here?”

“Why,” answered I, in tones of deep astonishment, “I am about the business of the Lord Cardinal of Valencia, our master.”

“Davvero?” he jeered.  He stretched out a mighty paw, and took me by the collar of my doublet.  “Now, bethink you how you answer me, or there will be a fool the less in the world.”

“Indeed, the world might spare more.”

He scowled at my pleasantry.  To him, apparently, the situation afforded no scope for philosophical reflections.

“Where is the girl?” he asked abruptly.

“Girl?” quoth I.  “What girl?  Am I a mother-abbess, that you should set me such a question?”

Two dark lines showed between his brows.  His voice quivered with passion.

“I ask you again—­where is the girl?”

I laughed like one who is a little wearied by the entertainment provided for him.

“Here be no girls, Messer del’ Orca,” I answered him in the same tone.  “Nor can I think what this babble of girls portends.”

My seeming innocence, and the assurance with which I maintained the expression of it, whispered a doubt into his mind.  He released me, and turned upon his men, a baffled look in his eyes.

“Was not this the party?” he inquired ferociously.  “Have you misled me, beasts?

“It seemed the party, Illustrious,” answered one of them.

“Do you dare tell me that ’it seemed’?” he roared, seeking to father upon them the blunder he was beginning to fear that he had made.  “But—­What is the livery of these knaves?

“They wear none,” someone answered him, and at that answer he seemed to turn limp and lose his fierce assurance.

Then he bridled afresh.

“Yet the party, I’ll swear, is this!” he insisted; and turning once more to me:  “Explain, animal!” he bade me in terrifying tones.  “Explain, or, by the Host! be you ignorant or not, I’ll have you hanged.”