Claws of the Tigress, The Firebrand & The Pearls of Bonfadini (3 Historical Adventures in One Edition). Max Brand
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fell back, with a yell and a curse. Two more were coming; but in spite of its clumsy feet and bulky size, Tizzo had his horse in motion, now. He could hear the loud voice of the baron shouting orders as the heavy brute cantered through the gateway and then slithered and slid down the steep way outside, theatening to fall with a crash at every instant.
The girl was there—she was waiting just beyond the threshold of the first danger, crying out: “Are you hurt, Tizzo?”
She had heard the clashing of the swords, no doubt.
“Not touched!” he answered.
And they swept down the dangerous, bending way together. The huddled ruins of the town poured past them, like crouching figures ready to spring. They issued into the open country; and already the roar of pursuing hoofs sounded through the street of the village behind them.
Tizzo began to laugh. He sheathed his sword and waved his arm above his head. “We have won!” he shouted.
It seemed to him in the wildness of his happiness that he could pluck the brightness of the stars from the sky. But under him he felt the gallop of the carriage-horse already growing heavy. It would not endure. The poor brute was as sluggish as though running in mud fetlock-deep.
The girl had to rein in her light-footed gray to keep level with Tizzo.
“Go on!” he called to her. “This brute is as slow as an ox and they’ll overtake it. But you’re free. You’ve won. Ride for safety—go on!”
“If they find you, they’ll kill you,” cried the girl. “I won’t leave you. If they catch you, Tizzo, I’ll let them catch me, also!”
“They’d never spare me for your sake!” he shouted in answer. “Ride on!”
“I shall not!” came that clear voice in reply.
He drew the blundering horse closer to hers and leaned above her.
“I have started the work. Let me hope that it will be finished!” he exclaimed. “For God’s sake and for mine, save yourself!”
As though to reinforce his words, the uproar of hoofs left the dull, echoing street of the village and poured more loudly across the open country.
“If they find you—” she protested.
But he laughed in that wild and happy voice. “They’ll never find me. I have a lucky star—do you see there?—the golden one—it is favoring me now. Farewell! Tell me where to find you—and ride on!”
“Perugia!” she cried in answer. “You shall find me in Perugia. My name is—”
But here their horses thundered over the hollow of a bridge and the name was quite lost to him.
As they reached the roadway beyond, with loosed rein she was already flying before him, farther and farther in the lead; every stride that the fine gray gave carried her distinctly away from him. At the next bend of the road she was gone; and the flying hoofs from the village poured closer and closer behind Tizzo.
There was no use continuing on the back of that sluggard. He drew rein enough to make it safe to leap to the ground and then let the heavy blunderer canter on, diminishing speed at every jump, while the liquid jounced and squeaked audibly in its belly. Tizzo jumped behind a broken stone wall and lay still.
When the flight had passed him, he ran up to the top of the nearest hill, but the light was too dim for him to see anything. Only the noise of the galloping poured up to him from the darkness of the hollow, rang more loudly off the face of the opposite hill, and then dipped away and disappeared beyond.
Tizzo folded his arms and shook his head.
Ah, what a fool he had been not to see the truth before! Of course all of the others had known what she was. That was why their eyes had dwelt upon her in a certain way, following her hungrily. But he, Tizzo, had not known. And yet no matter what a fool he had been there remained in him an abiding resentment against the baron.
Neither was it all resentment, either. The heart of Tizzo poured out in admiration of that rash and valiant man who had set his single hand against such powers as those of the house of Marozzo. For with the name of Marozzo went that of Baglioni; the whole of Perugia was dominated by that noble family.
From Falcone, from Melrose, he had cut himself off. And if he went to Perugia—well, was it not likely that he would encounter the eyes of any one of the dozen men who had seen him with unvisored face in the battle of that day?
That did not matter. He knew that it was folly, but he also knew that nothing under a thunderstroke could keep him possibly from the town of Perugia.
She had made a handsome boy; she would be a gloriously beautiful woman. It seemed to Tizzo that there was nothing in the world he wanted so much as to hear, once more, her singing of that song which he had heard in the evening.
He walked down the hill, took the first road, and stepped along it at a brave pace toward distant Perugia.
CHAPTER 7
It was a day of heat and of showers; and the old beggar at last drew in under a projecting cornice which kept him dry. His withered face was full of both malice and patience, and his throat was sore from the whining pitch at which he had been singing out his appeals for mercy since that morning. He had in his purse enough to buy him a good cloak, and wine and meat and bread for half a month, but he was disappointed because he had not picked up enough for an entire month. Old Ugo, secure under the cornice, leaning on his staff, was about to step out into the street again in spite of a slight continuing of the rain, but here a sprightly young man with a sword at his side and his hat cocked jauntily at an angle paused suddenly beside him and said: “Father, have you lived a long time in Perugia?”
“I have existed here for a little course of years, some fifty or sixty,” said Ugo.
“If I describe a lady to you, shall you be able to tell me her name?”
“Try me,” said Ugo. “But first why not advertise your name?”
“Because she has never heard it.”
“She has not heard your name—but she will be glad to see you?”
“I hope so—I pray so—I earnestly believe so,” sighed the young Tizzo.
“Well,” said the beggar, “this is like something out of an old story. Perhaps love at first sight, love in passing, a look between you—and now you are hunting for her around the world. Describe her to me.”
“I describe to you,” said Tizzo, “a girl of about nineteen or twenty. She has eyes that are brown and big—gold in the brown like sunlight through forest shadows—and a sweet, pretty, perfect, delightful face—about so wide across the brow and with a smile that dimples, do you hear—”
“I hear,” said Ugo, smiling steeply down at the ground.
“A smile that dimples in the left cheek only. The left cheek, you understand?”
“Perfectly, signore.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“I? By no means, signore. I was simply remembering certain things. Old men cannot help remembering, you know. Tell me more about her.”
“The top of her head comes to the bridge of my nose. Her nose, by the way, is not exactly a straight, ruled, stupid line. It is altered from that just a trifle. It is tipped up a shade at the end. Just at that slight angle which makes smiling most charming. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly, signore.”
“Her complexion,” said Tizzo, frowning as he searched for the proper words, “is neither too pale nor too dark. A trifle pale now, because of