This uniform character of Ammiani’s replies, and the smile of Agostino on hearing them, had begun to strike the attention of the soldierly Marco Sana.  He ran his hand across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red mole-spotted cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, “Said yes!” he remarked.  “He might say no, for a diversion.  He has yeses enough in his pay to earn a Cardinal’s hat.  ‘Is Milan preparing to rise?’ ‘Yes.’—­’Is she ready for the work?’ ’Yes.’—­’Is the garrison on its guard?’ ‘Yes.’—­’Have you seen Barto Rizzo?’ ’Yes.’—­’Have the people got the last batch of arms?’ ’Yes.’—­And ‘Yes,’ the secret is well kept; ‘Yes,’ Barto Rizzo is steadily getting them together.  We may rely on him:  Carlo is his intimate friend:  Yes, Yes:—­There’s a regiment of them at your service, and you may shuffle them as you will.  This is the help we get from Milan:  a specimen of what we may expect!”

Sana had puffed himself hot, and now blew for coolness.

“You are,”—­Agostino addressed him,—­“philosophically totally wrong, my Marco.  Those affirmatives are fat worms for the catching of fish.  They are the real pretty fruit of the Hesperides.  Personally, you or I may be irritated by them:  but I’m not sure they don’t please us.  Were Carlo a woman, of course he should learn to say no;—­as he will now if I ask him, Is she in sight?  I won’t do it, you know; but as a man and a diplomatist, it strikes me that he can’t say yes too often.”

“Answer me, Count Ammiani, and do me the favour to attend to these trifles for the space of two minutes,” said Corte.  “Have you seen Barto Rizzo?  Is he acting for Medole?”

“As mole, as reindeer, and as bloody northern Raven!” ejaculated Agostino:  “perhaps to be jackal, by-and-by.  But I do not care to abuse our Barto Rizzo, who is a prodigy of nature, and has, luckily for himself, embraced a good cause, for he is certain to be hanged if he is not shot.  He has the prophetic owl’s face.  I have always a fancy of his hooting his own death-scrip.  I wrong our Barto:—­Medole would be the jackal, if it lay between the two.”

Carlo Ammiani had corrected Corte’s manner to him by a complacent readiness to give him distinct replies.  He then turned and set off at full speed down the mountain.

“She is sighted at last,” Agostino murmured, and added rapidly some spirited words under his breath to the Chief, whose chin was resting on his doubled hand.

Corte, Marco, and Giulio were full of denunciations against Milan and the Milanese, who had sent a boy to their councils.  It was Brescia and Bergamo speaking in their jealousy, but Carlo’s behaviour was odd, and called for reproof.  He had come as the deputy of Milan to meet the Chief, and he had not spoken a serious word on the great business of the hour, though the plot had been unfolded, the numbers sworn to, and Brescia, and Bergamo, and Cremona, and Venice had spoken upon all points through their emissaries, the two latter cities being represented by Sana and Corte.