“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.

“We’ve had enough of this lad,” said Corte.  “His laundress is following him with a change of linen, I suppose, or it’s a scent-bottle.  He’s an admirable representative of the Lombard metropolis!” Corte drawled out the words in prodigious mimicry.  “If Milan has nothing better to send than such a fellow, we’ll finish without her, and shame the beast that she is.  She has been always a treacherous beast!”

“Poor Milan!” sighed the Chief; “she lies under the beak of the vulture, and has twice been devoured; but she has a soul:  she proves it.  Ammiani, too, will prove his value.  I have no doubt of him.  As to boys, or even girls, you know my faith is in the young.  Through them Italy lives.  What power can teach devotion to the old?”

“I thank you, signore,” Agostino gesticulated.

“But, tell me, when did you learn it, my friend?”

In answer, Agostino lifted his hand a little boy’s height from the earth.