She accused the heavens of injustice.

Pericles, prostrate on the floor, moaned that he was wounded.  She said, “Bleed to death!”

“It is my soul, it is my soul is wounded for you, Sandra.”

“Dreadful craven man!” she muttered.

“When my soul is shaking for your safety, Sandra Belloni!” Pericles turned his ear up.  “For myself—­not; it is for you, for you.”

Assured of the cessation of arms by delicious silence he jumped to his feet.

“Ah! brutes to fight.  It is ‘immonde;’ it is unnatural!”

He tapped his finger on the walls for marks of shot, and discovered a shot-hole in the wood-work, that had passed an arm’s length above her head, into which he thrust his finger in an intense speculative meditation, shifting eyes from it to her, and throwing them aloft.

He was summoned to the presence of Count Karl, with whom he found Captain Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and officers of jagers and the Italian battalion.  Barto Rizzo’s wife was in a corner of the room.  Weisspriess met him with a very civil greeting, and introduced him to Count Karl, who begged him to thank Vittoria for the aid she had afforded to General Schoneck’s emissary in crossing the Piedmontese lines.  He spoke in Italian.  He agreed to conduct Pericles to a point on the route of his march, where Pericles and his precious prima donna—­“our very good friend,” he said, jovially—­could escape the risk of unpleasant mishaps, and arrive at Trent and cities of peace by easy stages.  He was marching for the neighbourhood of Vicenza.

A little before dawn Vittoria came down to the carriage.  Count Karl stood at the door to hand her in.  He was young and handsome, with a soft flowing blonde moustache and pleasant eyes, a contrast to his brother Count Lenkenstein.  He repeated his thanks to her, which Pericles had not delivered; he informed her that she was by no means a prisoner, and was simply under the guardianship of friends—­“though perhaps, signorina, you will not esteem this gentleman to be one of your friends.”  He pointed to Weisspriess.  The officer bowed, but kept aloof.  Vittoria perceived a singular change in him:  he had become pale and sedate.  “Poor fellow! he has had his dose,” Count Karl said.  “He is, I beg to assure you, one of your most vehement admirers.”

A piece of her property that flushed her with recollections, yet made her grateful, was presently handed to her, though not in her old enemy’s presence, by a soldier.  It was the silver-hilted dagger, Carlo’s precious gift, of which Weisspriess had taken possession in the mountain-pass over the vale of Meran, when he fought the duel with Angelo.  Whether intended as a peace-offering, or as a simple restitution, it helped Vittoria to believe that Weisspriess was no longer the man he had been.

The march was ready, but Barto Rizzo’s wife refused to move a foot.  The officers consulted.  She, was brought before them.  The soldiers swore with jesting oaths that she had been carefully searched for weapons, and only wanted a whipping.  “She must have it,” said Weisspriess.  Vittoria entreated that she might have a place beside her in the carriage.  “It is more than I would have asked of you; but if you are not afraid of her,” said Count Karl, with an apologetic shrug.