‘Not she,’ said Jacopo.

After the meal he drew Johann aside.  They returned to Angelo, and Johann beckoned him to leave the house by a back way, leading up a slope of garden into high vine-poles.  He said that he had seen a party pass out of Cles from the inn early, in a light car, on for Meran.  The gendarmerie were busy on the road:  a mounted officer had dashed up to the inn an hour later, and had followed them:  it was the talk of the village.

‘Padrone, you dismiss me now,’ said Jacopo.

‘I pay you, but don’t dismiss you,’ said Angelo, and handed him a bank-note.

‘I stick to you, padrone, till you do dismiss me,’ Jacopo sighed.

Johann offered to conduct them as far as the Monte Pallade pass, and they started, avoiding the high road, which was enviably broad and solid.  Within view of a village under climbing woods, they discerned an open car, flanked by bayonets, returning to Cles.  Angelo rushed ahead of them down the declivity, and stood full in the road to meet the procession.  A girl sat in the car, who hung her head, weeping; Lorenzo was beside her; an Englishman on foot gave employment to a pair of soldiers to get him along.  As they came near at marching pace, Lorenzo yawned and raised his hand to his cheek, keeping the thumb pointed behind him.  Including the girl, there were four prisoners:  Vittoria was absent.  The Englishman, as he was being propelled forward, addressed Angelo in French, asking him whether he could bear to see an unoffending foreigner treated with wanton violation of law.  The soldiers bellowed at their captive, and Angelo sent a stupid shrug after him.  They rounded a bend of the road.  Angelo tightened the buckle at his waist.

‘Now I trust you,’ he said to Jacopo.  ’Follow the length of five miles over the pass:  if you don’t see me then, you have your liberty, tongue and all.’

With that he doubled his arms and set forth at a steady run, leaving his companions to speculate on his powers of endurance.  They did so complacently enough, until Jacopo backed him for a distance and Johann betted against him, when behold them at intervals taking a sharp trot to keep him in view.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE DUEL IN THE PASS

Meanwhile Captain Weisspriess had not been idle.  Standing at a blunt angle of the ways converging upon Vittoria’s presumed destination, he had roused up the gendarmerie along the routes to Meran by Trent on one side, and Bormio on the other; and he soon came to the conclusion that she had rejected the valley of the Adige for the Valtelline, whence he supposed that she would be tempted either to cross the Stelvio or one of the passes into Southernmost Tyrol.  He was led to think that she would certainly bear upon Switzerland, by a course of reasoning connected with Angelo Guidascarpi, who, fleeing under the cross of blood, might be calculated on to push for the mountains