‘Illustrious signore, obedience oils necessity,’ quoth the innkeeper.  ’If we had but a few more of my cigars!’

‘Step on,’ said Angelo sternly.

They walked till dark and they were in keen air.  A hut full of recent grass-cuttings, on the border of a sloping wood, sheltered them.  The innkeeper moaned for food at night and in the morning, and Angelo tossed him pieces of bread.  Beyond the wood they came upon bare crag and commenced a sharper ascent, reached the height, and roused an eagle.  The great bird went up with a sharp yelp, hanging over them with knotted claws.  Its shadow stretched across sweeps of fresh snow.  The innkeeper sent a mocking yelp after the eagle.

‘Up here, one forgets one is a father—­what’s more, a husband,’ he said, striking a finger on the side of his nose.

‘And a cur, a traitor, carrion,’ said Angelo.

’Ah, signore, one might know you were a noble.  You can’t understand our troubles, who carry a house on our heads, and have to fill mouths agape.’

‘Speak when you have better to say,’ Angelo replied.

’Padrone, one would really like to have your good opinion; and I’m lean as a wolf for a morsel of flesh.  I could part with my buon’mano for a sight of red meat—­oh! red meat dripping.’

‘If,’ cried Angelo, bringing his eyebrows down black on the man, ’if I knew that you had ever in your life betrayed one of us look below; there you should lie to be pecked and gnawed at.’

’Ah, Jacopo Cruchi, what an end for you when you are full of good meanings!’ the innkeeper moaned.  ‘I see your ribs, my poor soul!’

Angelo quitted him.  The tremendous excitement of the Alpine solitudes was like a stringent wine to his surcharged spirit.  He was one to whom life and death had become as the yes and no of ordinary men:  not more than a turning to the right or to the left.  It surprised him that this fellow, knowing his own cowardice and his conscience, should consent to live, and care to eat to live.

When he returned to his companion, he found the fellow drinking from the flask of an Austrian soldier.  Another whitecoat was lying near.  They pressed Angelo to drink, and began to play lubberly pranks.  One clapped hands, while another rammed the flask at the reluctant mouth, till Angelo tripped him and made him a subject for derision; whereupon they were all good friends.  Musket on shoulder, the soldiers descended, blowing at their finger-nails and puffing at their tobacco—­lauter kaiserlicher (rank Imperial), as with a sad enforcement of resignation they had, while lighting, characterized the universally detested Government issue of the leaf.

‘They are after her,’ said Jacopo, and he shot out his thumb and twisted an eyelid.  His looks became insolent, and he added:  ’I let them go on; but now, for my part, I must tell you, my worthy gentleman, I’ve had enough of it.  You go your way, I go mine.  Pay me, and we part.  With the utmost reverence, I quit you.  Climbing mountains at my time of life is out of all reason.  If you want companions, I ’ll signal to that pair of Tedeschi; they’re within hail.  Would you like it?  Say the word, if you would—­hey!’