And without further words he hurried off, and tossing a twenty-franc piece to the sleepy hotel porter who was holding Ruspardi’s horse outside, he flung himself into the saddle and galloped away.  Ruspardi, young and hotblooded, was of too mercurial a disposition to anticipate any really serious results of the night’s adventure;—­ his contempt for a coward was far greater than his fear of death, and he was delighted to think that in all probability the Marquis would use his riding-whip on Miraudin’s back rather than honour him by a pistol shot.  And so dismissing all fears from his mind he took Fontenelle’s letters in his charge, and went straight out of the hotel singing gaily, charmed with the exciting thought of the midnight chase which was going on, and the possible drubbing and discomfiture of the “celebrated” Miraudin.

Meanwhile, under the flashing stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste.  He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch,—­the resolve of his urging speed.  He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi’s hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and felt, rather than saw the outline of the Villa Torlonia, as he rushed past, and the Basilica of St. Agnese Fuori le Mura, which is supposed to cover the tomb of the child-martyr St. Agnes,—­then across the Ponte Nomentano, till, two miles further on, in the white radiance of the moon, he perceived, driving rapidly ahead of him, the vehicle of which he was in pursuit.  Letting the reins fall loosely on the neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his stirrups, and by his own movements assisted the animal’s now perfectly reckless gallop,—­and at last, hearing the flying hoofs behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly pulled up and came to a dead halt.  A head was thrust out of the carriage window,—­Miraudin’s head,—­and Miraudin’s voice shouted in bad Italian,

“What are you stopping for, rascal!  On with you!  On with you!  Five hundred francs for your best speed!”

Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Marquis gained the side of the vehicle, and pulling up his horse till it almost fell in rearing backwards, he cried furiously,

“Lache!  Tu vas te crever sur terre avant je te quitte!”

And he struck his riding-whip full in the actor’s face.

Springing out of the fiacre Miraudin confronted his antagonist.  His hat was off—­and his countenance, marked as it was with the crimson line of the lash, lightened with laughter.

“Again!  Monsieur le Marquis, je vous salue!” he said, “Kismet!  One cannot escape it!  Better to fight with you, beau sire, than with destiny!  I am ready!”

Fontenelle at once dismounted, and tied his horse to the knotted bough of a half-withered tree.  Taking his pistols out of their holder he proffered them to Miraudin.