sabres were drawn, the whitecoats planted themselves back to back.  Milan was clearly in a condition of raging disease.  The soldiery not only accepted the challenge of the mob, but assumed the offensive.  Here and there they were seen crossing the street to puff obnoxiously in the faces of people.  Numerous subalterns were abroad, lively for strife, and bright with the signal of their readiness.  An icy wind blew down from the Alps, whitening the housetops and the ways, but every street, torso, and piazza was dense with loungers, as on a summer evening; the clamour of a skirmish anywhere attracted streams of disciplined rioters on all sides; it was the holiday of rascals.

Our traveller had ordered his vetturino to drive slowly to his hotel, that he might take the features of this novel scene.  He soon showed his view of the case by putting an unlighted cigar in his mouth.  The vetturino noted that his conveyance acted as a kindling-match to awaken cries in quiet quarters, looked round, and grinned savagely at the sight of the cigar.

“Drop it, or I drop you,” he said; and hearing the command to drive on, pulled up short.

They were in a narrow way leading to the Piazza de’ Mercanti.  While the altercation was going on between them, a great push of men emerged from one of the close courts some dozen paces ahead of the horse, bearing forth a single young officer in their midst.

“Signore, would you like to be the froth of a boiling of that sort?” The vetturino seized the image at once to strike home his instance of the danger of outraging the will of the people.

Our traveller immediately unlocked a case that lay on the seat in front of him, and drew out a steel scabbard, from which he plucked the sword, and straightway leaped to the ground.  The officer’s cigar had been dashed from his mouth:  he stood at bay, sword in hand, meeting a rush with a desperate stroke.  The assistance of a second sword got him clear of the fray.  Both hastened forward as the crush melted with the hiss of a withdrawing wave.  They interchanged exclamations:  “Is it you, Jenna!”

“In the devil’s name, Pierson, have you come to keep your appointment in mid-winter?”

“Come on:  I’ll stick beside you.”

“On, then!”

They glanced behind them, heeding little the tail of ruffians whom they had silenced.

“We shall have plenty of fighting soon, so we’ll smoke a cordial cigar together,” said Lieutenant Jenna, and at once struck a light and blazed defiance to Milan afresh—­an example that was necessarily followed by his comrade.  “What has happened to you, Pierson?  Of course, I knew you were ready for our bit of play—­though you’ll hear what I said of you.  How the deuce could you think of running off with that opera girl, and getting a fellow in the mountains to stab our merry old Weisspriess, just because you fancied he was going to slip a word or so over the back of his hand in Countess Lena’s ear?  No wonder she’s shy of you now.”