basins, chairs, and water descending.  They were in the middle of one of the close streets of old Milan.  The man felled by Wilfrid was raised on strong arms, that his bleeding head might be seen of all, and a dreadful hum went round.  A fire of missiles, stones, balls of wax, lumps of dirt, sticks of broken chairs, began to play.  Wilfrid had a sudden gleam of the face of his Verona assailant.  He and Jenna called “Follow me,” in one breath, and drove forward with sword-points, which they dashed at the foremost; by dint of swift semicirclings of the edges they got through, but a mighty voice of command thundered; the rearward portion of the mob swung rapidly to the front, presenting a scattered second barrier; Jenna tripped on a fallen body, lost his cigar, and swore that he must find it.  A dagger struck his sword-arm.  He staggered and flourished his blade in the air, calling “On!” without stirring.  “This infernal cigar!” he said; and to the mob, “What mongrel of you took my cigar?” Stones thumped on his breast; the barrier-line ahead grew denser.  “I’ll go at them first; you’re bleeding,” said Wilfrid.  They were refreshed by the sound of German cheering, as in approach.  Jenna uplifted a crow of the regimental hurrah of the charge; it was answered; on they went and got through the second fence, saw their comrades, and were running to meet them, when a weighted ball hit Wilfrid on the back of the head.  He fell, as he believed, on a cushion of down, and saw thousands of saints dancing with lamps along cathedral aisles.

The next time he opened his eyes he fancied he had dropped into the vaults of the cathedral.  His sensation of sinking was so vivid that he feared lest he should be going still further below.  There was a lamp in the chamber, and a young man sat reading by the light of the lamp.  Vision danced fantastically on Wilfrid’s brain.  He saw that he rocked as in a ship, yet there was no noise of the sea; nothing save the remote thunder haunting empty ears at strain for sound.  He looked again; the young man was gone, the lamp was flickering.  Then he became conscious of a strong ray on his eyelids; he beheld his enemy gazing down on him and swooned.  It was with joy, that when his wits returned, he found himself looking on the young man by the lamp.  “That other face was a dream,” he thought, and studied the aspect of the young man with the unwearied attentiveness of partial stupor, that can note accurately, but cannot deduce from its noting, and is inveterate in patience because it is unideaed.  Memory wakened first.

“Guidascarpi!” he said to himself.

The name was uttered half aloud.  The young man started and closed his book.

“You know me?” he asked.

“You are Guidascarpi?”

“I am.”

“Guidascarpi, I think I helped to save your life in Meran.”

The young man stooped over him.  “You speak of my brother Angelo.  I am
Rinaldo.  My debt to you is the same, if you have served him.”