Brazenhead in Milan

 

CHAPTER I.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD PROVED HIMSELF TO BE TWICE AS OLD AS HE LOOKED.

THAT many times repeated asseveration of Captain Salomon Brazenhead's, that he had formed one of the suite of Duke Lionel, when that prince went out to Lombardy to marry Visconti's daughter, and that, in consequence, the poet Chaucer—"little Smugface," as he was pleased to call him—was his fellow-traveller and bosom friend, bore at the first blush the stamp of truth. It was always supported by vigorous reminiscence; the older he grew, the more positive he was of it. Like the Apostle, confronted by tales of the sort, we might partly believe it. It would make him out to have been one hundred and five years old at the time of his death, or necessitate his having been born into this world with thirty-seven years already to his score. Here is a problem for the historian which we may prudently leave him.

I think it was his manner of telling the tale which gave confidence to those who had watched his rapt gaze into the embers of the hearth, who had observed his easy length of leg and hands clasped behind his head, and the pleasant gloss which recollection might well have laid upon his sombre and seldom-smiling lips. "It all comes back to me," he would say, "by my head, and so it does! Little Smugface! Little scrivening Geoffrey, and his age-long tales of Troy town! Blithely he strung stave to stave—and we, a gay company of drones, clustered about the honey of his tongue; and my lord's grace pounding before us on his black courser! He would rehearse of Dido, the lily queen, of the piled faggots, of the flame. Ha! and she in the midst, as white as an egg! It welled out of him like treacle from a broken crock; and my lord's grace, with ears set back, lost not a syllabub of it. Long days, brave days—ah, how they rise and beckon me!" It really sounds very plausible.

All this as it may be, what is beyond cavil is that I find him at Pavia in the year 1402, a fine figure of a man, scarred, crimson, shining in the face, his hair cropped in the Burgundian mode, moustachios to the ears, holding this kind of discourse to a lank and cavernous warrior, three times his own apparent age, who had proposed, I gather, before a tavern full of drinkers, to eat him raw. He stood astraddle, one arm crooked, one hand on his hip. He looked at his rival's boots; but his words must have winged directly to his heart. "Who eats me chokes, for I am like that succulent that conceals, d'ye see, his spines in youthful bloom. You think you have to do with a stripling: not you, pranking boy, not you. I am a seamed and notch-fingered soldier, who belched Greek fire while you were in your swaddling-clout. I was old in iniquity ere they weaned you. Or do you vie with me in perils, by cock, do you so? Five times left for dead; trampled six times out by the rearguard of the host I had lead to victory; crucified, stoned, extenuated, cut into strips; in prisons frequent, in deaths not divided—what make you of it? And you to tell me that your green guts can pouch old Leathertripes, for so they dub me who dare? Fob, you are a bladder, I see!"

He bit his thumb, and did that with his fingers to his nose whose import is sinister. I believe no man can bear it and live on. The irons came swinging out, the room cleared; all the frequenters of the tavern sat on the tables, while the tapsters strewed sawdust on the floor. They had need. There was a ding-dong passage of arms of one hundred and thirty seconds, which was ample time for Captain Brazenhead to run his foe through the weazand, wipe his blade in his armpit, finish his drink, and say: "There lies long Italy." All this in one hundred and thirty seconds. Five minutes more remained to the fallen brave, and were not too much for what he had to do—namely, cough blood, say the Ave Maria, and bequeath a pair of horns to the tapster, Gregory.

Captain Brazenhead's reputation was established in Pavia, his age what he pleased. Admirers crowded about him, to pledge and be pledged in cups. He was asked his name, and said that it was Testadirame: his trade, and pointed to his extended foe. It was replied to him by a brother of St. Francis who squinted that then Greek and Greek had met and engaged, seeing that the dead man in life had been Lisciasangue—Lisciasangue the exorbitant, assassin to the Duke of Milan, one of a Mystery of Three.

At this critical moment in his career Captain Brazenhead paused in the act to drink, and looking down over the edge of his flagon, thoughtfully stirred the dead with his toe.

"His sword is a good one," said he, "and I take it, as right is. What he may have in poke I bestow in alms upon the poor drinkers of Pavia. But as to his trade, or mystery, I must hear more of that." One glance at the religious commentator shrivelled him. "Speak!" he commanded him. "Speak, thou flea-pasture, or I split thee!"

Ah, but they spoke. They all spoke at once. They all clambered the tables again and leaned over each other to speak. Straining out their arms, see-sawing in air, they spoke with hands and eyes and voices. Captain Brazenhead, a sword to the good, listened and learned. To the ready reckoner he was, the accounts were soon cast up. If there were in Milan twenty-nine churches, thirty convents of religion, and seven-and-thirty jails, all full; if there were no penalty in the code but that of death; and if it were true that the Duke, feeling the cares of his lands, the needs of his subjects, and his own advancing years, had relaxed his personal activities, and now did his justice by deputy—then it was most certain that the Mystery of Three could not afford to lose the services of Lisciasangue: no, nor Duke Galeazzo neither. His Grace's condition was indeed deplorable, robbed of one-third of his assassins. "I see the aged monarch," mused Captain Brazenhead, overheard by a sympathetic throng, "maimed, as you might say, of his right hand. I see his prisons full to brim-point, his lieutenants at work night and day to keep abreast of the flood. But alas for the Duke of Milan! they have lost a friend, maybe; he has lost a member. Gentlemen!" he cried this aloud with a surprising gallantry. "Gentlemen, you must pity him, since you have hearts; but I must help him or be untrue to this good arm. Now, then, the next man that offers to drink with me shall not have nay."

Reasoning of this sort enkindled his wits. He could not restore the Duke his Lisciasangue; the dead was most dead; but so far as might be he would repair his fault. If, so doing, he opened a career for himself, shall he be blamed for the added glow which the thought lent to his blood? Not by any generous man. "There lies long Italy," he had said, and the words flashed up again and revealed him a nation at his feet. To Milan, to Milan—and "there lies long Italy in the cup of my hand," says he.

CHAPTER II.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD USED THE KING'S WRIT.

Blithe was the morn and blithe the adventurer when, rising in his stirrups, Captain Brazenhead, like Chanticlere the Valiant, saluted the sun. Red in the mist, it lit the road to Milan; red in the mist that city showed, admirably strong, remarkable to any soldier's eye. He saw double walls, towers innumerable, many gates of port and antiport, the bulk of a square castle, belfries of churches, and outside the ditch, in a broad meadow, a tented camp, with silk pavilions for the captains, and men-at-arms in black and white liveries executing manœuvres at the double. "This Milan," said Captain Brazenhead, "lacks only water to flood the marshes to be as impregnable as Jericho of old—more so, indeed, since Jericho, I do remember, was taken by a man of God. He, it appears, by taking a walk round about it in the cool of the day, could level those proud walls, as with a breath you have down your house of cards. But those are tactics of despair. I would only use them when all else had failed me."

A young woman in a striped petticoat and kerchiefed head, who rode sideways upon an ass and nursed a baby, was upon the road before him, and gave a tender note to the warlike scene. The avenue of budding trees framed her in like a picture, dappled her with light and shade. "Venus rideth to assuage Mars his fury," said he, "and a pretty turn to the head she hath." He quickened his pace, overtook and accosted her.

"Damsel, by your leave," he said, "we undertake this adventure in company. Why, cheerly then, and cry Tickle my chin." She looked at him askance out of her dove's eyes, but his gaiety was not to be denied.

But "Sir," said she, "I know not how that may fall out." He stooped towards her.

"I know a couple will never fall out while the sun shineth on Milan," he admonished her.

"I too, sir," she replied, "for I am a married woman."

"It is very evident," said the Captain, with genial warmth. "In that fine little girl——"

She bit her lip. "It is a boy, sir. I had supposed you better instructed. But you and I must not be seen together at the gate."

Captain Brazenhead turned his gaze most earnestly upon her. "Listen now," he said. "There's Fate in this our meeting. One star leans to another in conjunction. We do what we do under the swaying of the spheres. So sure as your name is——"

"Oh!" she cried, all in a flame, "who told you that my name was Liperata?"

The soldier smiled. "Why, you, my dear. But I am in Fortune's way. I have a net, and have enmeshed thee, fair partridge. Contend no more, fold thy beating wings. We go through the gate together; afterwards we must see our way. Thou art my passport, Liperata, and I defend thy reputation with my last breath." She had no answer ready, so they ambled on together. Her confusion became her. It was to remain with him a balmy memory—like a remembered fragrance in sultry weather.

What amiable intentions he may have had in her regard, however, did not avail him to pass the entry of Milan. The posted sentinels, seeing a fine man in leather, with two swords, bestriding a horse three of whose legs, at least, were ready for war, ran nimbly in and called out the guard. Monna Liperata, free of the gates, dug heels into her donkey's ribs and jogged into the city, glancing back but once as she turned the street corner. Captain Brazenhead, however, confronted a double row of halberdiers.

He was vexed. "How now?" he cried. "Am I hosts of Midian? Cæsar with his legions? Am I Tamerlane at the door? or what the devil?"

They told him that no man could pass the gates of the city without lawful warrant. That was inexorable. "What is, is," said Captain Brazenhead, "and what must be, shall be. Et in sæcula sæculorum, Amen. You wish for my warrant, masters? He drew from his breast a strip of parchment, folded, sealed, and bound with a green cord. "Take," he said, "and read it who can."

Now, they could not; but they examined the seal, which was a broad one, with the arms of England and France upon it.

"Read you, rather," they said; so Captain Brazenhead recited the exordium, being no more able to read Latin (nor, indeed, any written tongue) than his auditors.

"Henricus dei gratia Rex Angliæ et Franciæ et dominus Hiberniæ dilecto et fideli suo T. de Compton Vicecomiti Middlesexiæ, salutem. He read no more, because he knew no more, but crushing up the parchment in his fist, looked sublimely down upon the gaping soldiery, and his words extended to the curious merchants who stood at the doors of their little shops watching the game.

"You see very well how it is, men of Lombardy," he proclaimed. "The King of England and France and Lord of Ireland sends this affectionate greeting to his cousin Milan. What, ye sour-chops, ye will not understand? Hearken then yet again." As they wondered among, themselves, he reopened the scroll and smacked it with his fist. "Henricus dei gratia, hey? How's that for my King Harry? And Vicecomiti, hey? Is't not your Visconti written fair? And will you, hirelings," he added, with a searching change of tone, "will you thrust up your dirty hands between the kissing lips of kings?"

They said that they would not, and saw in the smile that stole over the hero's face a strong resemblance to the gleaming of the morning sun upon the scarred brow of an Alp. "Then lead on, peeping Tom," were the bold words. "My business here is to greet King from King."

A strong escort conducted him through the narrow ways of the city and presented him to the Captain of the Castle. His writ was taken over, turned about, and (since nothing could be made of it) carried away to more learned officers. Captain Brazenhead meanwhile sat, quite at his ease, in the gatehouse quarters, affably conversing with all and sundry. His cause may have been good; his nerve was better.

After a period of suspense, which may have lasted an hour, or may have lasted three, two clerics entered the gatehouse and saluted him with great respect.

Captain Brazenhead stood up. "How now, my reverends?"

One of them said: "Your Excellency's credentials have been examined by our master, the Great Chamberlain, to whose mind certain little difficulties have presented themselves, which can only be dispersed by your Excellency's self."

"Like enough," said Captain Brazenhead, and closed one of his eyes. "But I'll warrant you that I disperse 'em."

But the spokesman, an elderly brother of St. Dominic's order of religion, was now examining the writ. "It is clear," said he, "that the King your master directs this letter to a kinsman of our Duke, though in what degree of consanguinity the Lord T. de Compton Visconti may be to his Grace we are unable to determine."

Captain Brazenhead ejaculated "Cousin," but the Dominican did not seem to heed him.

"We see further," he pursued, poring over the parchment, "that this Lord Visconti is to have the body of one Salomone, to answer to his lord the King why with force and arms he brake the close of one Jak a-Style, and took therefrom certain of the goods of the said Jak—to wit, five hens and one cock of the value of one shilling. So far we agree, my brother, I think?" He looked at his colleague, who nodded gravely; and then both of them looked at his Excellency.

"By my faith, gentlemen," said Captain Brazenhead, after a pause for breath, "you know more about all this than I do. But I will tell you the plain truth. I was in my castle of Baynard's in Middlesex on a day, my hounds at my feet, arms laid aside; taking my ease, picking my teeth with a dagger—when the lieutenant of this same Visconti came pressing in. He must by all means see me, saith he; cannot be denied. He serves me with this—what do I say? he tenders me this scrip, saying, 'Testadirame, look to it.' A nod or a wink! What care I? Enough for you that I understand him. I take horse and arms incontinent, and off—as it were from Visconti of Middlesex to the head of his house here in Milan; but in reality, doubt it not, from King to King. Of your cocks and hens, or cocks and bulls, of Jak a-Style's poultry-yard, I know nothing. But I take it that a king can put as many things into his letters as he pleases. Gossip of the day! Or, it may well be, sand in the eyes of your Worships, who (let me tell you) are not to know everything. No, no. But I would have you know this much at least, my reverend brothers, that I have no sort of business with your Honours, and much with him you serve. My business with him is both heavy and light; it is bitter-sweet, but for his ear alone. Yours with me is to take me to his ear. Advise among yourselves now what you will do next. For my part, I sit here well enough, though I should have said, mind you, that it was the dinner-hour. In my own country it is long past it, but of your customs here in Milan, in this great house of a generous prince, I cannot speak—at present."

"All this," said the Dominican, "shall be faithfully reported to the Duke our master." So said, he vanished with his pied brother.

CHAPTER III.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD HAILED THE DUKE OF MILAN.

It must have been in the late afternoon when Captain Brazenhead (who, in the meantime, had dined) received the desired summons from the mouth of a handsome page. Following this resplendent youth, whose scarlet thighs, whose trim green jerkin and cloud of yellow hair lost nothing by earnest scrutiny, he had to admit that he had not understood rulers of states to be so hard to come by. But the Tyrant of Milan, he believed, could be no ordinary monarch. He counted the corridors with doors at both ends of each; in every door a grille, through which he was very conscious of inspection before the bolts were drawn. He commented upon this. "Your Duke Galeass is as coy as a winkle in his shell"; to which the iridescent young man had no more reply than a lively look at the walls about him, and a finger to his lip. Handed on then to a gentleman-at-arms, he was admitted to an anteroom, where he was divested of his two swords, the hanger at his belt, and of another which was found in his trunks. He was then blindfolded and led about and about until, the bandage removed, he found himself standing before the narrow door of a vaulted passage, confronted by two halberdiers in black and a priest with a crucifix.

Captain Brazenhead wished these gentlemen a good day, and made a fine attempt to whistle the air of "In the meadow so green," but the remark was received in silence and the gallantry quenched by the priest, who, holding up his crucifix, administered an oath to the visitor of so dreadful a character that my pen, very properly, refuses to set it down. In effect, it bound him down in fearful penalties, both temporal and eternal, if he ventured anything against the Duke's person—"As if," he said, looking blandly round, "as if I should hurt the little man! I, Brazenhead, to whom the fleas in the bed are playmates!" Adding, however, that hard words would never break his bones, he cheerfully took it, and kissed the crucifix. Then the priest knocked three times at the door. It opened just wide enough to admit a man edgeways; Captain Brazenhead stood up in a dark and long apartment, lit at the further end by swinging lamps. There in that wavering light sat the Duke of Milan in his elbow-chair and furred gown, with his hands stretched out over a charcoal fire, and showed a quick-eyed, white, and beardless face, lively with fear, turned back to watch the visitor. It was to be seen that he was a hunchback, to be guessed that he wore chain-mail. He had three guards by the wall, two by the door. With one hand he now grasped his chair; with the other plucking at his throat, he recoiled and waited. It was very quiet in the room—so much so that you could hear the Duke's breath, fetched short and quickly. Like a rush of south-west wind making havoc in a cloister, the superb figure of Captain Brazenhead—with his six feet two inches, his cloak thrown back, his buoyant moustachios and eagle nose—seemed to fill the presence-chamber. Inspired to utterance, strung taut as he was by the occasion, he broke upon the silence of that churchyard vault with the crash and shatter of a trumpet.

"Hail, Ironsides!" he proclaimed, and the halberdiers backed to the walls. He said no less and added no more—nor need he.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD EXEMPLIFIED HIS MAXIMS.

Now, it was plain that the apostrophe pleased. The Duke relaxed his hold upon the chair, left his throat alone, and, shivering, returned his hands to the fire. Looking into that, he asked in a dry voice—

"Who are you that call me by my name?"

"Testadirame," was the answer, which he meditated, poring into the fire.

"Your business, Testadirame?"

He seemed already to be tired of all this, but he had an answer which quickened him.

"Death," said Captain Brazenhead, "is my business."

Many and many a maxim of rhetoric as this hero exemplified in his career through the courts and camps of Europe, it may be said with confidence that he never brought more apposite illustration to that one which teaches: "If you would be listened to at length, be heard first in brief. Strike," says this profound guide to persuasion, "strike hard and sharply." So struck Brazenhead here, and saw the Tyrant pale and flicker like a blown candle-flame at the dreadful word. His contorted face, his eyes as he turned them upon the speaker, were those of a trapped hare. He mouthed rather than voiced his cry: "Ha, treason!" and his guards shot forward between his person and the other's. But Captain Brazenhead folded his arms and, nodding his head with certain emphasis, was oracular again. One could not be more oracular.

"Who touches me dies the death I profess. Listen."

And Duke Galeazzo listened and his guards gaped.

"I ask no more of Providence than a foot inside the door"—a favourite saying of his. Having got that beyond question, he never faltered in the flood of his discourse, which, like a river fed by a thousand rills, sucking substance as it runs from mountain and morass, rolled free and irresistible towards it goal. If the matter of his allocution was extraordinary—as it was—its manner made it reasonable and indeed inevitable. You might as well have headed up the Danube as Captain Brazenhead when once he was under way. The tongues of men and of angels seemed in pawn to him who, without pause or stay, spoke headlong, with a fierce and white-hot fluidity indescribable by me, for the space of an hour and a quarter. His subject ranged from metaphysics to manslaughter; he borrowed freely and impartially, now from the Seraphic Doctor, now from Hermes, the Thrice-Mage. These, the sages and captains of antiquity, Plato and Holophernes, Quintus Fabius and Michael Scot, Roger Bacon, the Witch of Endor, and other ladies and gentlemen, as it were, dissolved in oil, came swirling down the tide. Not the sciences only, but the Virtues, Justice, Fortitude, and Mercy, with exemplars of each, engaged his tongue. He did not forget the clemency of Scipio, the Spartan boy, Mutius Scsevola, Susanna before the Elders. He became particular, dwelt intimately upon the infirmities of kings. He knew how many lovers had Semiramis, what ravages the fire made in the breast of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, what proved a stumbling-block to Cæsar, how Charlemagne doted, the luxuries of all the Persian kings—he rehearsed them all, brought them all to a fermenting head, and, if I may say so, slicing off that head, laid it on the point of his tongue at the feet of Milan. His whirling oratory, his flights of frenzied research into the history of men and movements of which he knew little or nothing, his élan his endurance, and his mendacity were but one concentrated tribute to the little changeling by the fire.

To say that this monarch was dazed is to state a mere fact, to infer that he was flattered is to argue a high probability. That he was relieved when Captain Brazenhead stopped at last with a vigorous clearing of the throat and a "That's the truth, by Cock, take it as you will!"—of that there is no shadow of doubt. He was so greatly relieved that he had at first no word to say; and when he did speak, it was not to inquire concerning the message of Visconti of Middlesex or King Henry's greetings, but to ask in a voice which was the pale reflection of his mood: "What wouldst thou of me, soldier?"

Captain Brazenhead, who had thought that he had made himself plain, was for once embarrassed. "Why, sir," said he, "there was a fellow in your service called Lisciasangue—and a paltry rogue——"

The Tyrant started, echoed him: "There was? Aye," he said grimly, "and there is."

"There is not, my lord duke," said the Captain, "and that's a fact; for he is done and done with. He lies his length, so much dead meat, in a tavern of Pavia. Now you may have him by the pound."

The Duke started and turned. "You have him——" he began to say.

"Aye, my lord, aye!" he was told, "you may have him avoirdupois. I saw him so myself no later than yesternight. And here stand I, Testadirame, friend of Visconti of Middlesex, late of Burgundy, Scourge of the Alps, offering you myself in his room. 'Tis for that I am come, from Visconti of Middlesex to him of Milan—I, Testadirame, bosom's mate of Death."

Viscounti paused, staring, as if fascinated, at the bosom's mate of Death.

"Do you dare to pretend," he said, "that you can stand where Lisciasangue stood? Are you so bold?"

Captain Brazenhead replied: "But I am."

"But he slew his thousands, man," said Viscounti.

Captain Brazenhead replied: "But I slew him."

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

Now, the fact is that the Duke of Milan, caring nothing for Lisciasangue, cared greatly for death. His own was of painful and constant interest, but that of any other man was his passion. Therefore, when Captain Brazenhead, by that dazzling admission, spoke, for the first time that day, the truth, Viscounti's eyes began to glitter, and there came a sound of "Ah!" from him, as of breath drawn in slowly. He was watched with minute attention.

And there was to be discerned in his voice a note of decision. "Tell me," he said, "how you killed that man; prove to me that you did it, and I appoint you to his place."

Captain Brazenhead smiled. "These things are easy to me," he replied. "The proof is in the antechamber, where I have left his sword along with mine which did the business. As for the manner of his death, that is a small affair. Had he been a greater man, I had been more curious in dealing. I am a carver and gilder when the hire is good or the stuff worthy. But this knave! He angered me, and I drew upon him; he blundered, and I played. I was fanciful, d'ye see? I took slices off him here and there till he gleamed before me in stripes of red and white. He was like a dressed radish before I had done with him, or a mannikin cut out of a carrot, or a slipped beetroot. Aye, aye, and there he lies—at your money by the pound."

The Duke, gloating over the fire, felt the first warmth of that day in his fevered bones. "Bring me," he desired, "the man's sword, that I may look on it and believe."

They fetched it, and he ran his finger up the furrowed blade. "I gave two hundred sequins for it in Ferrara," he said musingly. "We call it Jezebel." He held it out. "Take, wield, Testadirame. Jezebel is yours."

This is the manner of Captain Brazenhead's appointment to be Third Murderer to the Duke of Milan.

The second episode in the career of Captain Brazenhead in Milan will appear in the January Number.

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS.—That many times repeated asseveration of Captain Salomon Brazenhead's, that he had formed one of the suite of Duke Lionel, when that prince went out to Lombardy to marry Visconti's daughter, and that, in consequence, the poet Chaucer—"little Smugface," as he was pleased to call him—was his fellow-traveller and bosom friend, bore at the first blush the stamp of truth. It was always supported by vigorous reminiscence; the older he grew, the more positive he was of it. All this as it may be, what is beyond cavil is that we find him at Pavia in the year 1402, a fine figure of a man, scarred, crimson, shining in the face, his hair cropped in the Burgundian mode, moustachios to the ears, holding this kind of discourse to a lank and cavernous warrior, three times his own apparent age, who had proposed, we gather, before a tavern full of drinkers, to eat him raw. The irons came swinging out, there was a ding-dong passage of arms of one hundred and thirty seconds; and Captain Brazenhead had run his foe through and established his reputation in Pavia. Admirers crowded about him, to pledge and be pledged in cups, and he learned that the dead man in life had been Lisciasangue, assassin to the Duke of Milan, one of "a Mystery of Three Murderers." His Grace's condition was indeed deplorable, robbed of one-third of his assassins. "I see the aged monarch," mused Captain Brazenhead, overheard by a sympathetic throng, "maimed, as you might say, of his right hand. I see his prisons full to brim point, his lieutenants at work night and day to keep abreast of the flood." He could not restore the Duke his Lisciasangue, but so far as might be he would repair his fault and open a career for himself. "To Milan!" he said, "and there lies long Italy in the cup of my hand." By sheer impudence he obtained admission to the Duke's presence, confessed the killing of his assassin, and startled the craven Tyrant into appointing him to be Third Murderer in succession to Lisciasangue.

CHAPTER V.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD DEALT WITH A BURGUNDIAN IN A TUNNEL.

AFOOT inside the door, indeed! And here was Captain Salomon Brazenhead with his whole fine body within already. Comfortable quarters and free table, a livery all of red, with a mask for business purposes, flattering attentions from lackeys of all sorts, partnership with two such ruffians, Camus and Gelsomino, as never, even in his experience, had tainted the air before—what could a soldier of fortune want with more? It is the misfortune of such gentlemen, when their imaginations are ardent and habit sanguine, that they can be seduced more easily by a phrase than by all the sensible temptations of Saint Anthony the Abbot. If the kindling of noble rage by a neat allocution can ever be called a misfortune, so it was with Captain Brazenhead—that when his prospects seemed most fair he told himself that all was still to do. "There lies long Italy," that too happy phrase, was what moved his discontent. To be Third Murderer to the Duke of Milan was to be something; but long Italy did not lie murdered, as yet.

His colleagues—Camus, who beneath a beetling Roman brow had the thin and bitter lips and hoarse voice of a fed Cæsar, and Gelsomino, easily mistaken for a Tartar with the toothache, with red rims to his eyes and a sour mouth shockingly awry—made plain to him his duties from the outset. He was to kill daintily, and report every night to the Duke, his master, the means and the manner of his killing. Imagination was to go to it; it was not enough to kill; he must be an artist, he must compose his murders, give them a lyrical pitch. The Prince, now that his fear had taken hold of him, was no longer able to witness the sport he loved; but his enthusiasm for it burned clear and bright, and the fire now in his blood gave a zest to his understanding such as his eyes had never lent it. He was, clearly, a virtuoso; he collected murders as other men bronzes. Captain Brazenhead, therefore, was to excel; it was little use to offer such a master anything but the best of its kind. "Kill," said Camus, "but be eloquent above all. Be a poet, brother." And Gelsomino added: "Aye! Braid your periods with blood; let your stresses be gashes, your cæsuras rents. Rhyme your passados, balance your refrains, now on this side, now on that. Stab in your Ha's! and Ugh's! and spare not your God-ha'-mercies! for by such comments you enhance a poorer recital than you need conceive. For the rest you have a free hand, and a choice of implements in the armoury. I never, myself, saw a prettier set of tools, though by my grandsire's account the great Lord Eccelino had twice the number. But we have a blade with a double crook in it, a narrow steel, sinuous, like a watersnake. I recommend it. We call it The Horseleech's Daughter—a happy name, I think. Come now, colleague, will you open the ball? There is a fellow in the Tunnel bursting ripe. Will you take him for a beginning?"

Captain Brazenhead, sitting stiffly by the wall, nursed his leg in silence. His mood was short, his method precise. "Is he but one, then? Do you pit me to one man?" He frowned. "His offence!" was his next question, and he was told, deer-stealing in the Duke's park of Marignano. It shocked him out of his dignity. "What!" he cried. "Am I to embellish a man out of the world for a collop of venison? Let the hangman deal with him; let him dance in the air—or you will ask me next to whip dogs."

Gelsomino said: "As you will. 'Tis pity you fly off so fast, for this is a great fellow of his hands. Not that he will look amiss on the gallows, by any means, for the bulk of him is bound to tell. But there he lies, for you or the tree; 'tis for you to say."

Captain Brazenhead's eyes had begun to glitter. "'Tis a big bulk, you tell me, and a man of his hands. Bones in him? thews to him? I'll see the man—I may make something of him. What's his lodging? The Tunnel, d'ye call it? Let me see him, then."

"It will be torchlight work," said Camus; "chancy, merry work."

"It shall be merrier than you guess for," said Captain Brazenhead, "for I'll have at him in the dark."

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

But he took a torch with him when he went masked to his work. By its shuddering light he saw his man at the far end of the dripping vault—his steady eyes, his mouth firmly set, his square jaw; a broad-shouldered, high-coloured young man.

Next he surveyed the theatre of his operations, truly named the Tunnel, since it was nothing else. "Light bad, a tricky floor, little play for the arm. We must thread with the point, I see." He fixed the torch into a ring in the wall, took off his cloak, rolled up his sleeve, cleared his throat, and said: "Now, brother."

With lowered head, but indomitable eyes, the victim awaited his death-stroke. It came not; the tense moment was sharply broken by a cry from the Executioner. "By the Mass, the man's tied up!" He dropped his sword, and advancing, took a file from his belt, and severed the manacles which held the prisoner fast to the walls. Having resumed his blade and first position, he adjured him cheerfully. "Now, then——" But the other's head remained bowed, and he kept to his knees.

"Little man," said Captain Brazenhead, "I am waiting. Lift up your head and play the soldier."

The prisoner replied: "I conceive that I play that best by suffering what I cannot avoid." Nevertheless he raised his head. "You intend to murder me," he continued. "I have commended my soul to God, and bow my body to necessity, not to you."

"Bow not at all, by Cock!" said Captain Brazenhead; "but jump up, minion, and play with me. What! we are only young once, so who says die?" He held out two swords. "Here is a choice of irons, take which you will. This one is of Pistoja, and is the longer! but Ferrara tried this other seven times in the fire. The choice is yours."

"What is this?" the prisoner stammered, and then he panted like a dog.

"Battle, my son," said Captain Brazenhead; "bloody, beauteous battle. No one is by; we have a fair field. You know the ground and are the younger man; but maybe I am in better fettle. I see that you have courage, and tell you fairly that I have some. To it, gamester, and the best throw wins."

The prisoner sobbed, then laughed aloud. "Oh, wonder!" he cried deliriously; "I had thought you my executioner."

"So I am," said Captain Brazenhead; "make no mistake."

"And yet—you offer me——"

"Why," said the Captain, "am I not to have my pleasure as well as you? Do you take me for a poulterer or a cat's-meat man?"

The prisoner threw up his arms. "Oh," says he, "here is one cast in a great mould."

Captain Brazenhead accepted the compliment. "I am a pretty fighter, I do believe," he owned. "Will you have at me in the dark? A word, and I beat out the torch."

The prisoner had taken over a sword, and was making cuts in the air. He cried: "Ha!" and stamped. Up went his left hand as he lunged forward with gaiety. "A touch!" he cried. "Have at you, soldier!"

"What of the light?" he was asked severely, and answered: "Leave it, leave it. 'Tis a pleasure to see your face."

"Gallantly said, butcher boy," returned Captain Brazenhead, and threw himself into position. "One, two; one, two; engage!" And they closed.

To it they went, as merry as could be, thrusting, foining, slicing. The deer-stealer was very limber, and had a lightning eye. Captain Brazenhead touched him once on the upper arm, but himself received no hurt. When the younger man cried "Truce!" his executioner was not sorry to oblige him.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

With all the intentions in the world to do justice to the last extremity upon the malefactor before him, Captain Brazenhead could not forbear to admire so stout a fighter. And, generosity being of the essence of him, he must needs praise where he admired. Each leaning on his sword, the hero spake. "Comrade, I see that thou art a have-at-you kind of a dog-fox. Thou hast learned thy trade in a good school of fence."

"The best," said the prisoner, deep-breathing.

"Thou hast served Burgundy!" This was one of the Captain's flashes of inspiration, and it sped like an arrow to the mark.

Reverberation thrilled from the prisoner, as memories kindled in his eyes. "Ah, and so I have," he said, "and with brave fellows. The days were too long, or the nights too short,, for the game we loved. I know not which was the matter."

"'Tis little matter either way," mused aloud his executioner, who in turn was deeply stirred. "Many found them the same." He looked darkling at the other—darkling and shrewdly. Knew'st thou the Fish? The Thumb-marked Fish in Besançou? And Long-eared Noll, the drawer there? "

The prisoner raised an eyebrow and smiled awry. "Eh, if I knew them! Hark to this drinker!"

But the Captain leaned intensely forward, his voice down to a whisper. "Say—and Joconde?"

The prisoner kept his eyes fixed upon his foe. "She and I," said he carefully, "were old enemies. She beat me at last."

"Aye!" cried the Captain, on fire, "aye! and so she would. A many went down."

"Among them was I," the prisoner confessed; "but there was one, a tall man, who never failed."

"Ha!" said Brazenhead hoarsely. "What, a hollow man, a drinker?"

"He could drink against twelve."

"And was ready with his blade?"

"He was ready."

"Hairy? A deep and curious swearer? Could notch a shaft to purpose?"

"My arm," said the prisoner, "was the cross-bow; but that man had a long arm."

The Captain was trembling. "His name, his name, Burgundian?"

The answer came slowly. "They called the man Tête-d'airain, with reason. I loved him, as you might love the Pope of Rome—that is, with reverence, from afar."

His hearer gulped down his emotion. "Thy name, then, is——?"

"Bernart," he said, "is my name of the Church. But they called me Tranche-coupe for short."

Captain Brazenhead lightly plucked off his mask, and held his arms out wide. "To my bosom, child! to my breast! I am thy dear gossip Brazenhead!" There followed an affecting scene.…

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

"I carved my name upon him," was the substance of the Third Murderer's report to his master and lord. "I carved my name out upon him, and he died of the dot on the i. So perish all thine enemies, Milan!" But it is nevertheless the fact that Bernart Tranche-coupe lay snug on straw in a cellar, awaiting the orders of his executioner and friend.

Captain Brazenhead has been blamed for this clemency, but not by me. He had intended to do his work when his blood was properly warmed by battle, and but for his memories would have done it. I think it was the name and hardy shadow of Joconde that saved the Burgundian.

CHAPTER VI.

DESPERATE DOINGS WITH A BISCAYAN.

When he was told off for the duty of strangling three ruffians who lay chained in the well of Santa Chiara, Captain Brazenhead hesitated, but only for a moment. It appears that, for once, he doubted of his prowess. "'Tis true, I once hanged a running dog, when I was a lad," he allowed; "but since then the sword hath been my arm; and sometimes the long-bow, sometimes the long-bow. Yet tell me over their names and conditions, that I may consider them."

The three prisoners, they told him, were Lo Spagna, Squarcialupo, and a nameless young man, an Egyptian. Lo Spagna was a one-armed man of surpassing strength and infamous conversation, consorting with Hussites and Waldensians, suspected of a plot to take off the Duke in the Sacrament. Squarcialupo was old in sin. He had been in the galley at Lerici, and having torn up a bench with his teeth, had used it as a club and freed himself. Retaken at Bergamo, he had been offered his freedom upon condition that he would eat one of his fellows on the chain, and had shortly refused. "A very contumacious villain," was Captain Brazenhead's comment; "but too good for the cord. Well, and who is your third?"

Nothing was known about the Egyptian, save that he had a ragged ear, and was branded on the shoulder with a galloping horse. "Why," says the Captain, "and how else would you brand an Egyptian? But continue." This Egyptian, they said, was in the Well, on the information of the Augustinian Order, for atheism. At this the Captain's eyes showed a dangerous light. "What! he denies God! If he does so, he strangles; but I'll never believe it of any but the Jews."

There seemed no room for doubt, however. The proof was that when he was put before an image of the Holy Virgin, he addressed it in an unknown tongue, which was exactly what a man would do when he intended to deny her divine attributes.

The Captain shook his head. "It looks black against him, and so it does. I take a whipcord in my poke for this renegade. He shall say the Ave backwards before he chokes."

One whipcord, then, three sacks, and three swords besides his own, formed his equipment for the execution of the Law's decree. "There may be nothing in it, after all," he considered; "and I'll not spoil sport until I am obliged." It will be seen that he again intended to temper justice with hard knocks.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

To the Pozzo Santa Chiara he strode in his awful array, and was lowered into it by a bucket on a windlass. Now, the well was literally that, thirty feet deep and fifteen across. In the midst was a brick pier, to the which the three condemned ruffians were fettered, two by the leg and one by the neck. The rains might rot and the sun shrivel them, for all was open to the sky.

The dreadful apparition of a man, whiskered, gigantic, masked, clothed in blood-red, with four swords under his arm, three sacks over his shoulder, and the end of a whipcord hanging from his trunks, produced its unfailing effect. The chained wretches backed the length of their tether, and squatting on their hams, blinked and gibbered at their doom. The Egyptian, clasping his brown knees in his bands, buried his face between them and appeared to be praying to the devil.

Nothing in the executioner's first words extenuated their despair.

"Friends of Misery," he said, "you bond-servants of concupiscence, an offended God and the Law's sacred nature alike demand your righteous extermination. They demand it of me, Testadirame, and it is not likely that I shall fail them. Prepare then to account for the uttermost farthing of your debts, and see me notch the tallies, by Cock." The Egyptian did not move nor cease his prayers; Squarcialupo sniffed through one nostril, while he held the other firmly against his knee. "Stand up, Lo Spagna," the Captain roared, "stand up, you left-handed devil, and meet Testadirame, drinker of blood."

The little, black-bearded, snub-nosed man bent nearly double amidships, shuffled to his feet, and saluted the dreadful swordsman. He, erect and discerning, assorted him at once.

"There is this to be said of thee, Lo Spagna, that if thou hast lost an arm, thou canst spare it better than most. That which thou hast is too long by cubits. What, Barbary, canst thou scratch a flea? Canst thou pitch a cocoanut? Ha, tree-topster, show thy tail, then."

At this shocking mirth Lo Spagna mouthed uneasily, and uneasily rubbed his knee. Captain Brazenhead shook his sword at him. "Say the Credo, thou toe-fingered mock man, say the Credo, or I lop thee into firewood lengths, for the doubter I believe thee." By, a pardonable confusion he had supposed him the atheist of the party, and was agreeably surprised. "Credo in unum deum omnipotentem," the fellow quavered forth, and finished without a throw-back. By force of habit his yokemates quired Amen.

So far the wretch had cleared himself. "This is indifferent well," admitted his executioner, and bent frowning brows upon Lo Spagna, considering how he should most surely convict him of sin. "Now listen to me," said he, sure of his man. "Thou hast crossed the Bidassoa."

Accusation of an unheard of crime caused the little man to dance up and down, like a bear asking for supper. He protested vehemently. "Never, my lord, by all my hopes! I would not do it—I should shame to do it—oh, that I should live to be accused of such a deed! I am an old Christian, my lord, a very old Christian, and the only cross I know is that of salvation." He began to chant: "O Crux! O Crux, spes unica! O lignum vitæ stirps Davidis! O sæccula sæculorum!" And looking keenly up: "You see that I have my clergy."

But the Captain spurned him. "I see that thou art a very vile Biscayan, clergyman or none. Yet for the sake of a little person, known to me in Bilboa, when I was there in '89, thou shalt fight with me for thy deplorable life. I had believed thee an atheist, upon my soul, and had a cord for thy wry neck. 'Tis better for thee to be a one-armed ape of Spain than so outrageous a fellow. Hold thee still now, while I loose thy fetter."

The little man was loosed, and slowly, pleasurably, straightened himself.

"By stretching," said the Captain, "thou mightest reach my nipple yet. Horrid food for thee there, Biscayan. Take now what blade thou wilt. This of Ferrara is the longest; have thou that. Stay a little. Tie me up my right arm with this cord, wherewith I shall shortly strangle the atheist, when I have found him. Tie me close, dog. Dost thou think that I would crow over a Biscayan the less?" Deftly Lo Spagna bound him up, and they began their bout. The other pair, squatting by the pillar, watched and wondered and hoped greatly.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

The Biscayan, if such he was, proved himself a marvel of his age and nation. Such agility, lightning advance and retreat, thrust and parry had scarcely been seen since Bernard del Carpio engaged the dwarf Malimart. He would run in, drive and duck; then turn and fly like the wind. Such were his tactics. Twice Captain Brazenhead, thinking to have him, chased him round the limits of the well. But Lo Spagna ran so fast that he caught his enemy up. Pursuer became pursued; the unchivalrous might have said it was the greater man who ran, the justiciar who fled from justice; but we know that it could not be so. Pursuing who might, they ran like greyhounds: then to it again, one, two, one, two, until for a third time the Biscayan, stooping, ran in and delivered his point. Turning immediately, he ran, his fate after him. Captain Brazenhead chased Lo Spagna, Lo Spagna sped faster and chased Captain Brazenhead. Then suddenly, as they slipped round like beetles in a cask, the Egyptian edged out a foot and brought the Captain down. Was this treason? I fear it. Lo Spagna buffeted into him and flew over his head, his length on the floor. Immediately Captain Brazenhead arose, set his foot on the other's chest, and nicked the point of his sword into his throat. "I dig—thou diest—is a good verb, and an active verb. Phew! Bilboan, thou art a monarch of the chase. Say thy prayers now, say thy prayers, for I must kill a man this day—and why not thee? But that none shall say that I deal unfairly by a fine little rogue, have at thee left-handed. Now beware."

The Biscayan writhed under the sword's point. "One word, one word, noble enemy," he faintly urged.

"Say on, dead man." It had been fine to have watched the Egyptian just then—the pondering, sphinx-like face he had.

"That little person of my people known to your Excellency—had she a red poll?" Thus far the Biscayan. The Captain's eyes grew dreamy.

"It was something reddish. There was a tang. I know that I called her Judas when I was merry, and Foxy when she crossed me."

"And her eyes, noble sir? Her fair eyes?"

"They were not what you would call a pair," said the Captain. "But one was well enough, inclining to the yellow. With that she could make pretty work, I assure you."

"And so she could," the Bilboan said, "and I should know it, for she was my aunt."

Starting, Captain Brazenhead somewhat recoiled, and in so doing plucked his sword out of Lo Spagna's neck with the kind of noise you make when you draw a cork. A spasm of pain contracted the prisoner's features; but in his eyes hope shone bright. As for Captain Brazenhead, he knew that he must once more have mercy. "Cock's body, and is the world so paltry small?" The sword's point drooped nerveless to the ground. "I spare thee, Bilboan, for thy aunt's merry sake. Thou mayst bless her name in thy prayers."

"She was a fine woman," said the little man, sitting up and closing the wound in his neck. "May she go with God!"

"She was a knowing one," replied Brazenhead. He turned to his business. "Into the sack with thee, Barbary, and lie quiet until I have done with those pampered rogues." Here the Egyptian wetted his lips,

"Sir," said the Biscayan, "I will help you there, if I may, for my aunt's sake."

"By Cock, and you shall!" the hero cried. "A main! a main! Three arms to four! Stand up, you drolls."

He turned short upon the chained men, who were already on their feet, a murderous couple: the one, a square-headed, heavy man of past middle life, with hanging chops and not a hair upon him; the other, the Egyptian, hatchet-faced, lithe, and walnut-brown, with restless eyes which could never meet yours, and tight lips never soothed by smiling. The bigger was enormously strong. His muscles rippled as he moved, like incoming waves. The younger was all wire and brain; no ruth was in either, nor law, nor quarter. Captain Brazenhead sized them up and down when he had set them free.

"Now, my bravoes," he said, "we shall have sport. You know my way, and if ever I saw rufflers, ambushmen behind a hedge, or outlaws in a clump of scrub, then do I know your way also." He flung two swords with a generous gesture at their feet, then balanced his own. "Take your fancy, little men, and get to work. There's light enough for the game we play, and a rare game it shall be." The Bilboan lined up with him. and he set on with a shout.

A further episode in the career of Captain Brazenhead in Milan will appear in the next number.

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS.—That many times repeated asseveration of Captain Salomon Brazenhead's, that he had formed one of the suite of Duke Lionel, when that prince went out to Lombardy to marry Visconti's daughter, and that, in consequence, the poet Chaucer—"little Smugface," as he was pleased to call him—was his fellow-traveller and bosom friend, bore at the first blush the stamp of truth. It was always supported by vigorous reminiscence; the older he grew, the more positive he was of it. All this as it may be, what is beyond cavil is that we find him at Pavia in the year 1402, a fine figure of a man, scarred, crimson, shining in the face, his hair cropped in the Burgundian mode, moustachios to the ears, holding this kind of discourse to a lank and cavernous warrior, three times his own apparent age, who had proposed, we gather, before a tavern full of drinkers, to eat him raw. The irons came swinging out, there was a ding-dong passage of arms of one hundred and thirty seconds, and Captain Brazenhead had run his foe through and established his reputation in Pavia. Admirers crowded about him, to pledge and be pledged in cups, and he learned that the dead man in life had been Lisciasangue, assassin to the Duke of Milan, one of "a Mystery of Three Murderers." His Grace's condition was indeed deplorable, robbed of one-third of his assassins. "I see the aged monarch," mused Captain Brazenhead, overheard by a sympathetic throng, "maimed, as you might say, of his right hand. I see his prisons full to brim point, his lieutenants at work night and day to keep abreast of the flood." He could not restore the Duke his Lisciasangue, but so far as might be he would repair his fault and open a career for himself. "To Milan!" he said, "and there lies long Italy in the cup of my hand." By sheer impudence he obtained admission to the Duke's presence, confessed the killing of his assassin, and startled the craven Tyrant into appointing him to be Third Murderer in succession to Lisciasangue. But strangely merciful did he prove, for reasons of claims of old acquaintance, real or plausibly invented, and the like, to his first few intending victims, though anxious "to do his work when his blood was properly warmed by battle." Yet his very clemency had the effect of attaching to his service those derelict soldiers of fortune whom he spared. With two such fellows he has just engaged in fair fight rather than take them unawares.

CHAPTER VII.

DOUBLE BATTLE.

IT was rare, very rare, a game for the heroes in the trenches about Ilium, when Diomede fought waist-deep in dead men, and yellow-haired Menelaus ranged disconsolate the walls, crying upon the false thief Paris to show himself. From the hush of preparation to Captain Brazenhead's cry of onset was but a moment of long breath; and then immediately the ring was alive with whirling blades, and steel clanged on steel like church bells of an Easter morning. Brazenhead raged like a plunging horse. He seemed everywhere at once—wallowing in his work, snorting, shaking his head. Like a strong swimmer newly in the water, rejoicing to feel the tide, so did he breast the waves of battle. Ever on the look-out for advantage, the Egyptian writhed in and out, or darted like an eel, now this side, now that; and the Bilboan, bending at the knees, ran in where he could and cut left-handed at the heavy Italian. That livid giant was sore beset, and by his breathing betrayed himself. So long as he kept his wind he did well—as when he laid open Captain Brazenhead's forearm with a smashing blow, and cut down the Bilboan as if he had been a hemlock. But alas for him! even as he roared his triumph Brazenhead set upon him, and mowing at the tendons of his knees, missed his aim indeed, but split open one of his calves horizontally and laid him his length. When one of that party—the Egyptian, I believe—cried a halt, Squarcialupo could not rise above one knee, and then his wounded calf could be seen, notched like a leg of mutton. All the champions were hurt; the Egyptian had lost his ragged ear, and might have been seen shaking the blood out of his head before the fighting stopped. Two fingers the less was the brave Biscayan. Captain Brazenhead might well swing his forearm; but Squarcialupo was down and could fight no more. The conqueror—all duty to his Prince cast to the wind—felt magnanimous, little disposed to insist upon his right.

"Bleed on your sacks, bleed on your sacks, you rogues!" he cried upon his victims, "or how shall I carry you through Milan for dead?" Grinning at his ruse, they obeyed him. The captain sat upon the ground and surveyed them.

"Squarcialupo, my old son," he said, "let us take up your business. You broke from your oar, they tell me, and I'll not blame you for it. I would have done the same. But what kind of a fool am I to think you, to be lagged again?"

"Captain," said the Italian hoarsely, looking with intense interest at the fountain in his leg, "it was done by craft. I am something of a drinker, you must know. Now, as I lay in the sun, sleeping off my draught, the Duke's archers came upon me and knew me again; and I awoke to find myself in this hole."

"Knew thee again, sayst thou?" Brazenhead picked him up. "Explain me that saying, I'll trouble thee."

"I am a Pisan, noble Captain," said Squarcialupo, "and followed the fleet, making war upon the Genoese; and when I was rifling a corpse—as it might be you or me—it turned out to be no corpse at all, but a quicker man than I was. So they chained me to a bench in the galleys, and there I sweated for six years less one. Therefore, sir——"

"Therefore! Therefore! No therefore at all, thou paltry fellow," the Captain roared, sternly frowning. "What have thy beastly habits to do with my question? 'Twas Genoa chained thee to a bench—and Genoa was wise. But if they knew thee again in Milan, they had known thee of old."

"Why, yes, sir," the heavy Italian replied; "long ago, when I took the old Duke Barnaby's pay for the war in Piedmont——"

"Bleed on your sack!" the Captain interrupted him. "Bleed on your sack! See what a quag you make out here!"

"And valiantly I should have served him but for an evil acquaintance I made. For in his service there was a spearman, a most rascally knave, if not the devil in person, who beguiled me with hopes of high renown combined with comfort. Sir, he was the plausiblest, God-bless-you kind of a man that ever you saw—and you will have seen many——"

Captain Brazenhead's face was a study at this time. Profound meditation, humour, judgment, acquaintance with villainy, benevolence: all knowledge could be read there. He covered his mouth with his hand, his hand with his nose, and his eyes twinkled as if to say: "Proceed, son."

"And says this sly one to me over the camp-fire: 'Hark ye, jail-bird'—for he had a pleasant name for everybody—'knowst thou aught of a convoy that comes this way?' 'A convoy?' says I. 'What convoy?' Just like that I said it, civil-spoken; and says he: 'Treasure, hire for the troops;' and lays his finger along his nose, as you might do."

It so happened that Captain Brazenhead was doing exactly that, and no less. The coincidence startled him; he dropped his hand and began to hum an air.

The Italian resumed: "'And what of that?' says myself. 'We have our share, I suppose?' says he darkly; 'look to it that we do.' To be brief with you, sir, he did beguile me into a dark venture—me and a company of eight Christians—that with horses and arms we went up the sea-road some six leagues by night, and there lay hid in a little wood, and stood by our arms all night, and heard him tell tales—this wily, hairy man. And in the grey of dawn came the convoy down the sea-road, a round dozen of men-at-arms, with the treasure on mules' backs; and at the word of command: 'Leap, ye thousand devils!' out we did leap, and put those men to the sword; and the muleteers fled, believing that hairy man's word that we were a thousand—though we were but eight Christians and one devil."

Captain Brazenhead cheered the speaker: "O brave! It was bravely done, my brother!"

"Not so brave as you might suppose," said the Italian, with grief thickening his voice. "When we came to share the plunder, what think you fell to me out of all that booty untold? Three sols Tournois, as I'm a hoping soul—and if I had remained snug in camp I had had fifty. But, said that deceiver, I was the best-nourished man he had ever set eyes on, and therefore——"

"'Therefore' will be thy ruin, Demetrio," said Captain Brazenhead. "I gave you four, which is enough for any man not a leader of a company. But now, look you, I spare your life for the sake of our old friendship. You shall go alive into that sack, and drink my health this night in a flagon or two of right liquor—you, man, who, but for my clemency, might have been paddling upon red-hot bricks, mingling fires for your new prince, Beelzebub. Think of it, Demetrio, and rejoice greatly—and there's for you and your three sols Tournois. For I'll go into the fire myself for it that I gave you the four."

Sedately, with a very stiff leg, the large Italian crawled into his sack, and lay hidden there beside the Biscayan, who was by this time asleep.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, AGAINST HIS BETTER JUDGMENT, SPARED THE EGYPTIAN.

The Egyptian, who had been lying his length upon the sack, destined, as he hoped, to receive him alive, and who had lost nothing of the conversations between his fellow-prisoners and their great opponent, now arose to his feet and came wheedling to Captain Brazenhead.

"You shall spare me also, noble Captain, if you please, to be a credit to you yet."

"That," said Captain Brazenhead, "will you never be."

The Egyptian sighed. "Who knows?" he inquired. "Sir, if you will but listen to my tale——"

The Captain frowned upon him. "Fair and softly with your tale," he said. "Why should I listen to thee, rascal, since thou must die?"

"Die, Captain! Oh, Captain!" The Egyptian shivered.

"Aye," said Brazenhead, "die is the word." He was irritated with the man. "Cock's wounds!" he cried out, "am I Executioner to the Duke of Milan, and execute no man? Is it to be said of me: 'Testadirame is an unprofitable servant'? Never in life! Dog, thou diest!"

The Egyptian shook like a straw in the wind. "But, sir, having spared the life of a Spanish renegado——" he began to plead.

"Pooh!" says the Captain. "I trifled with his aunt."

"Alas!" said the Egyptian, "alas! that I am an orphan! But so it is that when I left Lutterworth in fair, green England—" Here he paused and scanned the stern man's face to see if Lutterworth were to help him. It was not; he had touched no chord. Captain Brazenhead's features were marble.

"Proceed, Egyptian," he said; "I listen. When thou leftest Lutterworth——"

"When I left Lutterworth, and went to seek my fortune in London, I lived happily enough with a brave company gathered in Houndsditch, in the fields there and about the 'Old Cat' tavern—does your honour not remember Catherine—Kate Wryneck, called also 'Drink to me only'?"

Captain Brazenhead spoke as one in a dream. "I do not," he said. "Get on!"

The Egyptian, most uneasy, shifted his ground. "Alack the day, noble Captain, in the which I left that proud city and went down with a horse to sell—to Bristol——"

Captain Brazenhead started, snorted, and pounced upon him.

"That horse thou stolest, vile thief! He is branded on thy shoulder; thou art a dead man. A flea-bitten white gelding—that screwed the off-hind foot——"

"Oh, sir, oh, sir!" cried the Egyptian, falling on his knees. "That horse was never yours!" His case was parlous; you may touch the chords too often, it seems. But no!"

"By Cock, and it was not," said the Captain, "but I knew the horse. The man that owned it—or called himself the owner——"

"Aye, sir," said the young man, with gleaming eyes—"aye, sir, right, sir—so he called himself; but he lied, sir."

"I'll warrant that he did," said Brazenhead; "for he was not called Glossy Tom for nothing. Well, then——" Hesitation marked for the first time his incisive lineaments and dissipated the lightning of his eyes. The Egyptian considered his case settled. "Since I prove to be of the number of your friends, dear sir," he ventured—but too hastily. The Captain recoiled.

"A friend, thou!" He towered over the man. "I fancied the horse, 'tis true, and thou wast beforehand with me. Pooh! I had but to stretch out mine hand. And now I remember that thou art a horrible knave. Didst thou not address Our Lady in an unknown tongue full of blasphemy? Horse or no horse, I tell thee that thou diest."

Trembling, looking all ways for help, muttering with his pale lips, the wretched Egyptian faltered. "It was the tongue I know best, noble Captain. I am a very pious Christian, better than some who have their Latin. I spoke in the Roman to her Ladyship—and she heard me. I prove that, sir, I prove that!" His eyes gleamed; you could see the whites of them. "The proof that she heard me," he said, "is that you are here, her lieutenant in this wicked place—yourself an Englishman——"

"By the Mass," replied the Captain, "all this may be very true, and yet be woundily inconvenient." He held his chin, and this time the young man believed himself snatched out of the pit. He came forward obsequiously, bending at the knees. Captain Brazenhead roared at him to hold off.

"I forswear my nation!" he cried, "I become Lombard! I will embrace Jewry before I let thee go!"

But it was too late. the Egyptian now held him by the knee. "Captain," prayed he, "noble Captain, you will never break a man who got the better of you in a horse-deal."

"Who says that I will not?" And yet he was touched. If he could spare Squarcialupo of whom he had made a fool, how not this oily rogue who had made a fool of him? And it was not to be denied the fellow had fought for his skin. Captain Brazenhead had it not in him to take life in the cool of his bile. He was so made that he, who would cut a man's liver out of him in fair fighting, came afterwards to love his enemy if he had so much as scratched him. He knew this was a weakness. "Look you," he was wont to say to his opponent. "if you would save yourself from me, wound me where you can. I consider you carrion at this speaking, but he who draws my blood wears armour of proof for me. Now, then, have at you, soldier!"

Meditating his own nature and deploring it, muttering to himself: "Mayhap I do wrong—I do grudge this fellow his mercy—upon my soul I do grudge it him," Captain Brazenhead remained intensely in thought for many minutes, his head sunk upon his breast, his arms folded. At last, as if suddenly awaking out of sleep, he threw his chin up and stamped with his foot. "Into your sack, you black-livered hound! May Hell forgive me the wrong I do him this day, and count it not against me when mine cometh!" It was a sight to see how the Egyptian slipped in—like a terrier into kennel when the whip is whistling.

There, then, for good or evil, in their sanguine wrappings, lay the three ransomed men; there over them, like a meditative god, stood Captain Brazenhead, with a hand to grasp his chin, and one finger of it to rake in his moustachios. He set a foot upon the round of a sack; deeply, profoundly he thought upon mercy, justice, judgment, the weighing of souls and such-like themes; and here, if you will have it, is a summary of his reflection.

"Now have I here ensacked four indifferent rascals bound straitly to my person by cords of steel. They worship me as the author of their being, as in a sense I am. No doubt they would follow me all over the world; a bodyguard the like of which the Duke of Milan might pay for night and day—and with him all long Italy." His eye flashed fire. "Long Italy! Long Italy! By their means I make good the soothsay that I heard in the tavern of Pavia when, with my foot upon Lisciasangue's remains, I vaunted, There lies long Italy.

"It was true, by Cock, for all that, when I spake, I spake as in a glass, darkly. Aye, darkly, but it was true. For see me now! To each of my four scoundrels there will adhere—like ticks to a sheep's back—lesser scoundrels, to each one ten at least. That gives me four-and-forty desperate men; and with forty men you may take a gatehouse—and hold it, by Cock's body! Nay, you may get by shock a town, as my lord John Swynford got Coulanges in Brittany on a foggy night of Martinmas, and became Viscount thereof, and sweated meat out of the burgesses, and honey out of their wives, and levied toll upon all and sundry faring that way into France, and took to wife Melisette, daughter of Simon de Fotz, and got a son, who is Viscount of Coulanges to this day. Viscount of Coulanges—Viscount of Pavia! Put it so that I catch Pavia unawares and become its Viscount—what then? A royal beginning: we begin with Pavia.…

"Every male of Pavia, of proper age and fully membered, following my banner, we lay siege to Milan. The sooner the better; for that old dog-fox Sforza is warring in Umbria, and I could not cope with Sforza until I have all my Pavians matched and in full bearing—say, for twelve years at the least. Nay, Brazenhead, nay, Testadirame, my ancient, strike thy metal while 'tis hot.…

"Milan falls—Milan falls! And there's the thigh of Italy under my thigh!

"Now Rome, the city old, lies about the knee of Italy—is, as you may say, the knee-cap; and Venice is the hamstring. Let me work it out, let me work it out. You cut the hamstring, and the knee gives, and the leg drops. Venice gives me Rome; Naples is the toe. Cut the hamstring; the knee is nerveless; then gangrene assails the toe, and it fritters and falls off. But with Milan to add to Pavia, who is to keep me from Venice? Pooh! I lead a host. To-morrow, therefore, to the shock of Pavia!"

He swept the mist of glory from his eyes; he lifted his head and bellowed for his men—those dread apparitors who hover in Milan, who sit about the jails, like vultures patient on their trees about a battlefield, awaiting the summons to their obscene task.

One by one the crimson heaps were lifted out of the Well of Santa Chiara; lastly Captain Brazenhead himself set his foot into the grappling-hook and swung aloft. The tumbril-cart was loaded with its sodden load; the Executioner sat down upon the pile and ordered the disposal of his dead. In a disused hermitage in the burial-ground of Sant' Eustorgio, he chose to hide his three recruits, and to add to them Tranche-coupe, the stout Burgundian. Means were found to victual the garrison, which, sworn to secrecy and commended to the gods of War and Good Luck, their leader then left—going, as his duty was, to make his report to the Duke.

CHAPTER IX.

HOW AND WHERE CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, FALLING INTO DISGRACE, READ HIS DE REMEDIO.

"Tyrant of Milan"—thus ran his Third Murderer's report—"one wretch I seized by the ankles, as if he had been a three-legged stool, and whirling him over my head a few times, with him attacked those other two. As a flail I brought him thwacking down; as wheat from the chaff on the floor fled brain from husk. The time was not long before they lay before me like the must of trodden grapes; while as for him I wielded, he was as whip-thongs in my hand—strips of hide wherewith to trounce a truant, but no weapon for a man. Anon came my varlets to sweep up with a besom, and now your well of Santa Chiara is so sweet you could stable there your store pig."

Viscounti, burning and shivering by turns in his fever, hugged his furs about him and spread out his thin hands to the sun. He may have listened, but he did not heed; he may have been gratified, but he did not seem to be. Captain Brazenhead's invention, for lack of nourishment, wilted and faltered out. His eloquence, for that turn, was not ready at call—or it may be that his patron had heard it all before. When the best is said, the variations you can play upon the death of a man are very few, at least in Europe. They say that the Chinese have contrived better, or perhaps they have greater vitality to work upon. However that may be, Captain Brazenhead stopped—and there followed a painful pause.

Presently Viscounti croaked out his doom. "You have done very ill on your own showing. To dispose of three men by knocking their heads together—what is this but insensate butchery? Get you to the knacker's, hire yourself in the shambles, but serve me no more. Yet stay," he added, seeing that Brazenhead was preparing to obey him with suspicious alacrity, "I may have use for you yet. You are confined to quarters until my next orders, and you are disarmed."

Then and there the halberdiers deprived him of his weapons; he was led to the door and turned loose into the corridors of the Castle, a disgraced man. I must observe upon this that it is not given to the most generous to foresee the full scope of their magnanimity; or it may well be that our Brazenhead's circle of acquaintance was too wide or his instincts too warm to make him a tolerable murderer. For if every murderer were to fight with the man he proposed to slay, the work would never be done; and if you are to add to a zest for combat a tenderness towards the nephews of ladies with whom you may have conversed, or are inclined to spare them who may have bested you as well as those whom you have bested, you narrow the field of your operations too severely. It is likely you will murder none. Add the difficulty of explaining how you have slain persons who are alive at the moment of explanation, and you put a tax upon your invention which may easily make you bankrupt.

•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•

It was vexatious in every way—humiliating to his finer feelings and embarrassing to his political schemes. He had his garrison in Sant' Eustorgio to provide for; he had fixed the day for the shock of Pavia; and here he was, deprived of arms and confined to the precincts of the Court, while his friends starved in a disused hermitage and Pavia remained inviolate. This was trouble enough, but the hurt to his pride, his professional pride, was worse. To Camus and Gelsomino, his colleagues, was allotted the notable adventure of putting three hundred Anabaptists to the sword. Not only so, but on the day fixed the Duke himself would attend the shambles in state. Milan would hold high festival; and so it did. Fortified by proof armour and a ring with prussic acid in the jewel of it, Duke Galeazzo set out. His Duchess, his daughter, his great officers, suitably accompanied, took horse in the great court, and rode down to the piazza. Captain Brazenhead saw them go from where he sat in an obscure corner of the buttery, and bit his nails to the quick. Occasionally he sipped a mug of small beer, very occasionally he tried to carry his misfortune with grace by humming an air. But he never got beyond the first bar. He had been thus pitifully engaged for more than a week, and was very glum.

A thin stream of persons of both sexes was maintained throughout the day, to and from the buttery. Mendicant friars came to fill their sleeves with broken victuals, widows and orphans, half-pay soldiers, murderers out of work, and other unfortunates, received their daily sustenance from the overflowings of the kitchens. But for them the Castle had been like a house of the dead, for the whole Castle world was gone to see the slaying of the Anabaptists. Captain Brazenhead watched them now darkly from his corner, chewing a bitter cud and reading a soured judgment upon every comer.

Upon a rosy-gilled Franciscan he mused: "Aye, thou scratching dog, filch the substance of the poor and score the crime against thy god of Assisi. Him thou professest to serve; in his wounded side thou hopest to hide, as thou sayest. And yet, I tell thee, that little beggar-man had not been cold two-and-fifty weeks before thou and thy likes were like fed stallions. Get thee hence, thou cheek of brawn, and vex not the sight of the honest." And with some such scathing words he was ready for every religious who came to get much for little.

By and by there came in a pretty young woman in a striped petticoat, leading by the hand a short-smocked child. She approached the buttery-hatch modestly, and not perceiving Captain Brazenhead in his corner, stumbled against him, and would have fallen had she not sat down upon his knee. The moment she perceived her error she begged his pardon.

Confusion once more became her; she was tinged like a flower. Captain Brazenhead, for all his dejection, knew her at once.

"Ah, gentle Liperata," said he, "you may well be ashamed of the seat you chose. A time there was when these war-wasted knees would have become you better. No doubt you remember how we journeyed together the way of Milan—and with what hopes, odd's face! and what promise! But then Fortune smiled upon me, though you did not."

"Sir," said the young woman, "at that time I should never have sat upon your knee, for then I was a wife. Now, alas——!"

"How now?" cried the Captain. "Has thy husband forsaken so lovely a partner? Bring me face to face with him, and I will embrace him."

The lady began to cry; she snatched up her child and clasped it to her bosom.

"Behold an orphan! Behold the widow of a murdered man!" she wailed.

Captain Brazenhead was awake and vibrating with fire.

"Who is the murdered man? Confront me with his killer, and thou shalt have two murdered men," he cried. "I have a sword not yet rusty, and by this hand——"

He had forgotten that he was weaponless, and was to have good reason anon to remember it.

"Sir," said Liperata, "I will tell you my tale if you will be pleased to hear it. I was but yesterday the wife of a gentleman of position and talent, who had a Court appointment which brought him honour, respect, and a handsome emolument. His name was Camus——"

"Camus!" the Captain whispered hoarsely, "Camus! My colleague! Oh, Fate, thou avenger of wrong! Proceed, fair widow, I conjure thee."

"My husband," said Liperata, "had been entrusted with a responsible task which he must fulfil this very day——"

"Aye," said the Captain, "and so he must. Three hundred Anabaptists await him. But now—what may not come of this?"

"He felt the burden laid upon him as one which called for all his powers of head, heart, and sinew," she continued, "and devoted the whole of yesterday to the exercise of these parts of his. He spent the forenoon in the reading of theology; Saint Thomas Aquinas equipped him here. His heart was in my care. I think I may say, without affectation, that I lavished upon it all the arts which a good and dutiful wife has at her command. At least, he praised me, and assured me that I had not worked in vain."

"I warrant that you did not, lady," said Captain Brazenhead warmly, and she thanked him with gentleness.

"In the evening of that unhappy yesterday my husband set out for the exercise of his muscular system. With our child upon one arm, and my hand upon the other, he took a walk about the streets of the city, conversing cheerfully with his acquaintance, visiting the shrines of certain saints who had always been propitious. All went well until we passed through the deserted cemetery of Sant' Eustorgio. But in that unhallowed spot——"

The Captain's eyes seemed starting from his head.

"Which of them did it?" he said, and his voice was like the sea-sound in a shell. "Not Tranche-coupe? Not Squarcialupo? Not a long-armed man?"

"A dusky youth, lithe as a snake," said she, "sprang upon him from behind a grave, and crying: 'Here's for thee, Braggart of England!' stabbed him in the neck. He could not have chosen a more fatal spot. It was the heel of my dear Achilles—my noble, diligent Achilles, of whom I am the poor Briscis of his arms. For my husband, whose profession exposed him to constant danger, wore chain mail upon his person, which unhappily ended at the shoulders. Need I say more? He sank, bathed in his own bright blood, and as I wrung my hands and cried upon my Camus by name, the villain slipped among the tombs and disappeared into the city. I am bereft of his love, and he, by failing of his tryst to-day, has died dishonoured. If my tears have earned your pity, sir, I am glad, for indeed I need the pity of the humane. Now, with no prospect before me but a life of beggary and want, I am come here for alms, that I may school myself at once for the bitter end of my days."

She covered her face with her hands, but Captain Brazenhead was moved to the very centre of his being.

"But not so, by Cock's wounds, not so," he said, and laid a well-chopped finger along his nose. "What if I can amend your griefs, my bird of the bough? What of bearded men, old in warfare? What of the ties of gratitude? Bands of steel? No more——" And here he clasped the melting fair to his breast, while all the hangers about the buttery marvelled and many wept. "Come you with me, lady, come you out along with me. 'Twas to-morrow for Pavia, pity is, but now it must be later. Now I am Persia and thou art my Andromedary. Now we summon the legionaries for chivalry, and off we go, my chuck!"

With no more words, but with husbanded breath and an arm crooked for her hand, he led her away to the cemetery of Sant' Eustoroio.

A further episode in the career of Captain Brazenhead in Milan will appear in the next number.

SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS.—That many times repeated asseveration of Captain Salomon Brazenhead's, that he had formed one of the suite of Duke Lionel, when that prince went out to Lombardy to marry Visconti's daughter, and that, in consequence, the poet Chaucer—"little Smugface," as he was pleased to call him—was his fellow-traveller and bosom friend, bore at the first blush the stamp of truth. It was always supported by vigorous reminiscence; the older he grew, the more positive he was of it. All this as it may be, what is beyond cavil is that we find him at Pavia in the year 1402, a fine figure of a man, scarred, crimson, shining in the face, his hair cropped in the Burgundian mode, moustachios to the ears, holding this kind of discourse to a lank and cavernous warrior, three times his own apparent age, who had proposed, we gather, before a tavern full of drinkers, to eat him raw. The irons came swinging out, there was a ding-dong passage of arms of one hundred and thirty seconds, and Captain Brazenhead had run his foe through and established his reputation in Pavia. Admirers crowded about him, to pledge and be pledged in cups, and he learned that the dead man in life had been Lisciasangue, assassin to the Duke of Milan, one of "a Mystery of Three Murderers." His Grace's condition was indeed deplorable, robbed of one-third of his assassins. "I see the aged monarch," mused Captain Brazenhead, overheard by a sympathetic throng, "maimed, as you might say, of his right hand. I see his prisons full to brim point, his lieutenants at work night and day to keep abreast of the flood." He could not restore the Duke his Lisciasangue, but so far as might be he would repair his fault and open a career for himself. "To Milan!" he said, "and there lies long Italy in the cup of my hand." By sheer impudence he obtained admission to the Duke's presence, confessed the killing of his assassin, and startled the craven Tyrant into appointing him to be Third Murderer in succession to Lisciasangue. But strangely merciful did he prove, for reasons of claims of old acquaintance, real or plausibly invented, and the like, to his first few intending victims, though anxious "to do his work when his blood was properly warmed by battle." Yet his very clemency had the effect of attaching to his service those derelict soldiers of fortune whom he spared. While hiding his recruits in a disused burial-ground and flattering himself that he is enrolling "a bodyguard the like of which the Duke of Milan might pay for night and day—and with him all long Italy"—he falls from the ducal favour just when the hopes of his ambition touch their highest, and is turned loose into the corridors of the Castle, a disgraced man. To Camus and Gelsomino, his colleagues, is alloted the notable adventure of putting three hundred Anabaptists to the sword, the Duke himself attending the shambles in state. Milan holds high festival, but Brazenhead learns from Liperata that her husband, Camus, has been murdered by one of his own rascally henchman, and, seeing his chance again, sets forth to fight, with Liperata on his arm.

CHAPTER X.

HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD SLEW THREE HUNDRED ANABAPTISTS WITH THE THIGH-BONE OF A PHILOSOPHER.

THE tombs of Sant' Eustorgio stood or leaned at all angles, and stared like the bleached and derelict bones of a host long dead. Disconsolate kites, buzzards, ravens, and other reprobate birds flapped heavily above or, perching on cross or pinnacle, voiced after their fashion their discontent with the world as it was. The crazy Hic Jacets of the tombs coincided with these harsh-throated heralds of despair, and set Captain Brazenhead to stalk briskly about, himself like a long-necked bird of bad omen, if haply he might discover but one of his bond-slaves. Clinging to his arm was the now terrified Liperata, upon whose skirts dragged the child of slain Camus.

"I pin my faith to the Bilboan," said Brazenhead, "for he alone is fitted by his nature to inhabit so beastly a spot. His arm reaches to his knee-cap; he is, you may say, three-legged. No hyæna could be more at home in a graveyard than this fellow, who is, moreover, endeared to me by many ties. He owes me for his life, I owe him for his aunt. Certainly I pin my faith to him."

And he was justified. Far within the shade of an empty vault they came upon a crouched figure. His head was not visible, so deeply was it sunk between his knees. But by his arm—by the absence of one, and the presence of one—he could be recognised for the Bilboan.

"Ho, Barbary, awake!" cried Brazenhead, and stirred him with a thigh-bone which he happened to have in his hand. It was no ordinary thigh-bone, though its present possessor knew nothing of that. Being deprived of his sword, and missing the use of it, he had picked it up in his way through the cemetery. It had belonged to the philosopher Gnatho of Samothrace, who had devoted his life to demonstrating the indestructibility of matter, and had perished at the stake in the great days of Saint Ambrose, to whom matter was so little that he considered the punishment a light one. It was a curious circumstance that Captain Brazenhead was to be the instrument of Gnatho's vindication—if indeed those modern disciples of the sage are not nearer the mark when they affirm that he himself was his own instrument, and Captain Brazenhead the unconscious agent of his purpose.

But at the smart touch of the relic the Bilboan came leaping from the tomb and humbled himself at the feet of his lord. His uncouth mops and mows touched Captain Brazenhead in a quick spot.

"My faithful vassal," said he tenderly, "how is it with thee, man? Art thou alone faithful to thy Brazenhead? Is gratitude, then, so dear? Are memories so short? Where is Squarcialupo, that prick-eared Roman?"

"Gone, master, gone," said the Bilboan. "A gamester came this way and did beguile him."

The Captain was shocked. "How now? So sturdy a knave!"

"He promised him good wages," said the other. "Five sols Tournois per diem. I cried shame upon him, saying: 'Trust to our Lord's honour'; but he said your rate had been but three."

"It was four!" cried the Captain. "I pass you my word it was four!"

The Bilboan shrugged in despair. "Even so, said Squarcialupo, five was above your figure; and he went the day after you had brought him here."

Captain Brazenhead had expected as much. "He was a gallows knave, when all's said. But I hoped better things of Tranche-coupe. Now what of that Burgundian?"

"There came a funeral to this place," said the Bilboan, "on Saint Milo's day. They buried a certain notary, a warm man, but not near so warm as that heathen is, whose thigh-bone your honour now wears at your side, if all they tell me of his teaching is but half true. Now, to commit our notary to earth came a widow of his and ten children, if not more. Quite a company! Their lamentable cries did so move Tranche-coupe our friend that he brooded upon them day and night. The affair got upon his mind and wrought upon the young man's brain; so presently, moved by pity, he borrowed a suit of clothes from the gravedigger, and is but this morning gone to pay court to the relict of the notary. If he succeed, as I think lie will, from what he tells me, he will be fourth husband to a lady of substance and merit. I cannot blame him neither; for a widow, d'ye see, has experience in the comforting of mankind, and that counts for much with a young man of Tranche-coupe's years. No, no, I cannot blame him."

"Nor I," said Captain Brazenhead, constricting the muscles of his arm and looking benignantly down upon Liperata. "No, nor I, by Cock. But I am vexed," he added, "and something put about—for I had reckoned upon his cross-bow arm for an adventure at Pavia before long. There shun me two men by whom I had hoped to win a score. Tush! And the Egyptian——"

"Master," said the Bilboan darkly, "come we now to the Egyptian, against whom I would have warned you before had I seen you here or known how to come at you. That dark-skinned rogue, that snake-tongue, who got the better of your Honour once in a horse-deal, has now done you the scurviest turn of all. For not content with the slaughter of Signior Camus, your colleague, he has dressed himself out in his livery, and with the murdered man's vizor to cover his own false face, is engaged at this hour in slaughtering three hundred Anabaptists in the presence of the Duke's grace of Milan, and his consort, and his daughter, and all his court."

At this intelligence Captain Brazenhead smote himself on his forehead and said "It was very well." Those who knew him would have read the oracle for a bad sign, because he really meant it. Its deep-mouthed tones rang the passing-bell for the Egyptian.

"Come," said Captain Brazenhead sternly to the Bilboan, "I shall need thee. Come." So saying, he led the way back to the Castle of Milan.

Walking through a desert city into a desert stronghold, it came upon him as a providence of supernatural powers that all lay so snug—"at the mercy of any man of his hands." A sombre cheer illumined his burnt face; he put his arm around the waist of Liperata and pressed her to his heart. With the other arm free, he flourished the thigh-bone of Gnatho, the Philosopher. "All may yet be done; all may fall out still for the best. By the Sacred Places of Jerusalem, I see my way! Forward!"

It was very much the hero, it was de son naturel, to overlook the exiguity of his little force. True, the great Sforza was far away. That right hand of Milan, with the flower of the Lombard host, was warring in Umbria, it was believed, engaged just now in the leaguer of Perugia. Even so, it needs a mind cast in a Paladin's mould to compass the sack of Milan with a one-armed man, a young widow, and an unbreeched boy for attacking party. But Captain Brazenhead would never perish of dry-rot in the brain. If great schemes, great enthusiasms had been all, he might have realised that grandiose conception of Castruccio's, who, having Lucca under his hand, saw his way to the tyranny of all Italy.

More sanguine than Castruccio himself, the swelling thought held him in thrall as he led his band into the Hall of Audience, which was in the shape of a basilica of three aisles. These aisles were marked by columns of the Doric order, grey and serried. In the apse of the noble chamber, upon its degrees, stood the Throne of Milan—empty. To stride forward, mount the steps, seat himself in that chair of State, place Liperata upon his left hand, made but short work for a man whose brain was on fire. He bade the child go up himself by a column; and then, in the clear voice of a man who has a vision, commanded the Bilboan to proclaim him Duke of Milan. We may call that burning your ships—or we may call it high treason—or both. The question is, had Captain Brazenhead, or had he not, the quick sprite Destiny by the tail? Now, Captain Brazenhead thought that he had.

"Salomon, by the grace of God, Duke of Milan, Marquess of Pavia, Lord of Monza, Como, Bergamo and Brescia, Tyrant of Verona, Piacenza and the Borrommean Isles" was called by the herald and acclaimed by the populace; and a reign, the shortest but most eventful in the annals of the Lombard State, was peacefully ushered in. Not trumpets pealed its opening, nor the clash of lifted swords, nor pikes tossing like reeds in a wind. The piping of an unbreeched child calling for his mother was all the acclamation, and the fevered agitation of his legs, as he pattered up and down the pavement, all the commotion of a scene which needed perhaps but a little more bustle to have been memorable by Corio and the other court historians of the Houses of Viscounti and Sforza, who, as things were, and for reasons of their own, passed it over.

I have no such reasons, and am proud to be the humble means of restoring a stirring page to the volume of Lombard story. It would be my wish to enlarge upon the events of the twenty-five minutes following the proclamation (and its reception by the populace) which I have just related, and I am sure it would be the reader's; but materials are wanting. Cætera desunt, as the chroniclers say. I believe that the Civil List was established, provision made for the Duchess-elect Liperata, and the tax on beer, spruce, cider, perry, wine, mead, and all fermented liquors, abolished. The marriage-laws were standardised, I gather: but for such high matters space fails me.

Now, the issuing of these important and far-reaching reforms took up the better part of five-and-twenty minutes; and immediately after, just as the new Duke, feeling the vein leap within him, was about to deliver an apologue upon Equity, a confused murmuring afar aff, the noise of a great tumult without the house, made itself heard. It was for all the world like the sound of a mighty flood, gathered in the mountains, and sweeping its way irresistible over the plain. All heard it, some shook; the Duke paused in the act to speak. His mouth was open, his eyes were fixed; but no rhapsody came forth. Quite otherwise.

"Did I name Equity?" he said. "Here Cometh our little affair. Equity's bane this wall be—a more ancient practice. Haste thee, Bilboan, and draw thy blade." This was all very well; but the Bilboan, no better than his master, had no blade.

Duke Brazenhead saw his penury and was not long amending it. With his trusty bone in hand he attacked the throne where his Duchess yet sat, and was not long in knocking off a fluted column of marble and mosaic, of the kind known as opus alexandrinum. It was of the length of a man's forearm, as sharp at the angles as if it had just left the mason's yard. "Arm thee, friend," he said, "with this emblem until thou hast a better for thy prowess." Descending then into the hall, he caught up the child, and returned and set him upon his mother's knee. "Stay you there, mother and son," he bade them. "I fight for hearth and home this day." Accompanied by the Bilboan, he took the middle aisle of the basilica and stood there, a superb figure of a man, masked, hairy, bristling, his scarlet cloak thrown over his left arm, and in his restless right hand the avenging limb of Gnatho of Samothrace. The Bilboan, true to his nature, crouched, peering forward. He bent himself at the knees, as an athlete does at the starting-point—but so far that he could easily scratch his ankle with his forefinger; and he did so more than once.

The uproar in their hearing, who waited, neared, swelled, and became a din~a riot of broken clamour. You could hear now and again the name of the late Duke thrown up: "Visconti! Visconti!" you heard; but that cry was drowned in outland curses, and names unknown to Italy held the air. Sooner than was convenient, the noise of countless running feet blotted out all others. It became evident that a host was at hand.

"It is the Anabaptists," said the Bilboan, scratching his foot.

"Aye," said his master. "They drive back Milan. Now we have it in the nose. Be thou ready."

The doors were pushed open wide; a few scared servants, varlets and maids of the pantry and kitchen, came first—old tirewomen, old bedeswomen, a priest, and a limping page whose ankle was bound up—running helter-skelter for protection. Regardless, in their terror, of the stern figures in mid-hall, they pelted by them, and gaining the daïs, crouched at the knees of the mother and child on the throne. There was no marvel in their mistake. They saw a miracle—and felt it, when Monna Liperata, heavenly mildness beaming from her eyes, put out her hand and laid it upon the head of the nearest. The heart of Duke Brazenhead leaped in his body, and warm tears flooded his eyes as he witnessed this fair sight. "As God liveth, I have that for which to fight this day."

Close upon these stragglers, however, came the halberdiers of Visconti, a mere handful of striped men backing into the hall, disputing the passage with them who pursued. In their midst, white and slavering at the lips, tottered he who but that morning had been Lord and Tyrant of Milan; beside him his Duchess walked, a goddess, though she was too portly to be fair; and with her came Bianca, her only daughter, mater pulchra filia pulchrior. Royally these two advanced up the hall; and behind them, blocking up the great entry, was a thicket of pikes, staves, scythes, and bills, the snatched-up weapons of the wholly frantic and partially naked persons of the Anabaptists. The battling of this shaggy host at the doors, where without order or judgment all tried to enter at once, gave a moment's respite to the pursuers.

Captain Brazenhead—to call him still by his familiar name—had pity upon the fallen and abject prince, and more than pity—high admiration, indeed—for the persons of the two noble ladies of his household. "Open ranks!" he bade the Bilboan; "open ranks, messmate, and let in this jerking wretch. He was a king this morning," he added pitifully, "and shall sleep in a bed for aught I care." The Bilboan dutifully stood aside, and the hunchback, blind with panic, crawled on all fours up the degrees of his ancient throne, and seeing there a fair woman seated, with a golden-headed child on her lap, stumbled forward with a cry to her feet, clutched at her knees, and buried his face in her striped petticoat. There, throughout the carnage to ensue, he stayed.

But Captain Brazenhead bowed courtly to the Duchess and her daughter. "Ladies," he said, "suffer a soldier, and trust in the clemency of a prince. By your leave, noble ladies, by your leave." So said, he turned to face the throne with them, and taking a hand of each, escorted them with high-stepping gallantry up the steps of the throne. "Be seated, ladies, beside my family, and be sure that for you, no less than for them, I shall play the man this day." The ladies, who may be pardoned for not knowing, nor caring, what all this might be about, sat beside Liperata on the throne, and saw Captain Brazenhead swoop into the fray, like a sea-eagle into a school of mackerel in a shallow. He had poised on the edge of the daïs but for a minute. That had sufficed him to see how matters stood. Viscounti's guards were ranged before him; the Bilboan still crouched in mid-hall. Opposite to him raged and bayed the furious host. With a voice like the blast of a trumpet he had signalled for the contest. "Salt and water en avant!" he had cried. "The Anabaptists are at ye, hounds! Rally for the Faith!" That bone which erstwhile had stood up stiffly for the indestructibility of matter whistled above his head. "You that love order and good baptism, follow me." The Guard rallied and formed a wedge. Led by such a prince, they clove the Anabaptists' ranks, and men dropped like cornstalks heavy in the ear to right and left.

Such battle he had never yet dreamed of—even he, to whom long odds were as a draught of wine—as this, wherein he, the Bilboan, and ten of Visconti's bodyguard faced three hundred fanatics stung by terror into frenzy. Hot-eyed, half-naked, giant men they were—Bulgarians, Croats, and Serbs—red in the beard and flat in the bone, hairy-chested, crying uncouth shibboleths of their own, outraged in every sense, and bent upon outrage. They howled, wept, gnashed their teeth; they thrust and smote, clubbed at their oppressors; but to little purpose. Cut into halves by the wedge of the Lombards, hampered by the pillars of the hall, they impeded each other. In sheaves they fell, or backing in panic at each onrush of the foe they trampled and tumbled over upon the other. Like the uneasy gleams of the sun upon broken water, here and there glided a red figure urging them to effort.

Where, then, was the Egyptian, if not there? Whose was that evil-whispering spirit, if not his? Captain Brazenhead, roaring in the press as he mowed, cried upon him: "Come out, thou horse-coper, thou black thief of Lutterworth! Come out and meet me." But there was no response, save some glancing of the red figure, and no means of getting at that save through the massed Anabaptists about the door. But that caitiff's hours were numbered, and his tale is nearly told. Marked down at last by his incensed adversary, where he stood egging on his dupes to their hopeless task, he was from that moment a doomed man. For Captain Brazenhead, seizing a dead Anabaptist by neck and ankles, lifted him up on high and hurled him with all his force at the Egyptian. The two heads, that of the dead and that of the living, met in horrid shock. That of the Anabaptist stood the strain, but the Egyptian's was split open, as when a man with his finger and fist smashes a walnut. The rogue went down, and was trampled out of recognition by the feet of his flying friends.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW, AND FOR WHAT EXQUISITE REASONS, CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD RENOUNCED THE THRONE OF MILAN.

Folding his ragged doublet about his bleeding breast, Captain Brazenhead turned his face towards the daïs, where Liperata sat chaste and still, like some fair-haired Madonna of the North. Not upon her only must he look, but he must frown upon the huddled figure of Duke Visconti, and consider what was to be done with him and his. Great and weighty thoughts contended within him as he stood, deep-breathing and deep-pondering, there. At his feet, very contentedly, sat the Bilboan, dabbing his wounds with a rag. Such of Visconti's bodyguard as remained alive waited upon his words.

He was master; he ruled in Milan. At a word from him the writhen little tyrant would be extinguished, and that which he had greatly dreamed would come to pass. Power of life and limb over men, cities, armies, were his at a word; more than all these as hinting at these and more, the waiting eyes of citizens, the waiting steps of legions, the held breath of neighbouring states attendant upon his motions. To a man of great ideas and imagination winged the temptation to say that one word. Death, was not, you would say, to have been resisted. Death to Visconti! and all Lombardy fell crumbling at his feet.

And yet not only did he not say it, but he knew that he could not. And why? Because he was so made that he could not take life in cold blood. There was one reason. This pitiful, blood-gluttonous, writhen man—whom to kill were to honour above his deserts—must then go free. He might be chained, caged, hidden away within walls; but he could not be slain, because Brazenhead, with everything to gain, could not be angry with him. He could deplore him, despise him, spurn, spit upon him, but treat him as hateworthy he could not for all Milan and its subject cities.

Assume Viscounti chained and put away, what was to hinder him then? "By my soul," said he to himself, "when I am Duke of Milan, I must wive; for I must get me a dynasty, d'ye see?" He eyed Visconti's tall daughter as he spoke, and could not deny her merits. "Thou and I, fair dame! O propitious Lucina!" And then he looked at Liperata, where she chastely sat, a mild young goddess. By her side Bianca Visconti showed the termagant, revealed the shrew; yes, but in every feature, in every mould, in carriage, gesture, and regard, there shone a duchess, the mother of dukes to come.

At this crisis in the affairs of Milan, Bianca, Liperata, and the subduer of them all—the Bilboan limped up to his master, plucked him by the sleeve, and, as the hero stooped to him, whispered hoarsely in his ear. The hushed auditory could make little of the message, which was in the Spanish tongue; but at one word, out of many, two persons started. These were Bianca Visconti and he who proposed to raise her to a throne. At that one word their looks encountered. Some say the word was Sforza.

Captain Brazenhead. at any rate, paused; for once in his life he showed timidity. "She is nothing to me beside that mouse in the throne. A man must be snug, d'ye see? Give me my comforts, and I'll cry you quittance of your strapping ladies. See me at my ease, having well supped, slippers on my feet, plying the toothpick; what do I need then, ha? Why, a dove-eyed, ministering, kiss-me-quick lass to sit on my knee and work the whisk to keep the flies away, what time I sleep off my drink. 'Tis so, by Cock; for men are so made that they carry a maid's heart by storm and waste the world until they have it; and after that they look to have done with the matter. All must be solace afterwards; and the woman wooed before wedlock must thereafter woo until the end of days. Men are so made, there's no denying, and I more than most.

"But Madame Bianca there—lo, you! where is my ease? Where would she hide my slippers? Would she flick away flies? Not so; but 'My lord, I pray you fan my face against this heat.' 'My lord, I would have you sing me lullaby.' 'Carry you the child, my lord, while my women tie my hair.' 'Get up, my lord, get up, and snuff the candle; I vow 'tis your turn.' Why, a pest upon it, how should a man find force to lead armies afield, or preside in council-chambers, or beard the envoys of foreign princes, if his rest is to be broken, his pride humbled, his courage frittered off him like cheese off a grater? Yet thus, and not otherwise, must that man suffer who has Madame Bianca to wife. Yet it comports not with my honour to lead any less a lady to the throne of Milan. Zounds, but I'll none of your thrones, then, at such a price. And yet wathal—and yet—oho, Madame Bianca, I see thee the mother of the dukes my sons!

"A proof, a proof!" he cried. "I'll put all to the proof. Mark you me, Bilboan, how I go a-wooing in my own fashion." Followed by the eyes of his crouching ally, still busy with his sores, he trod impetuously forward to the daïs.

There from below he accosted Bianca Visconti, daughter of Dukes.

"Lady, I am Master of Milan, and like you well enough. Come now, shall we make a match of it? Will you be a soldier's wife?"

The lady's eyes shone steely blue. The lady's cheeks flushed high.

"Yes, sir. That is my fixed intention," she said.

Captain Brazenhead set his right foot upon the second degree of the daïs.

"Well and good, then, mistress," said he. "Gird me on that forepiece with your belt. It was torn in the fray, and you would not have your husband go barefoot."

Madame Bianca recoiled as if a hornet had stung her.

"Hound!" said she, "do you dare?"

But Liperata slipped from the throne and ran and knelt by the great foot. She took her kerchief from her fair hair and bound the torn forepiece closely to the instep with that. Captain Brazenhead stooped and lifted her in his arms. High in air she swung, like a feather caught in a tree.

"Behold, behold the wife for a soldier!" cried her taker. He lowered her and kissed her twice. Mounting then the throne, he stirred the Duke with his bound foot.

"Ho, there Milan," he said, "take heart, if thou canst find it. Thy foes are all dead or fled, and as for thy throne, I renounce it with a flick of the finger, as I assumed it with the same. Fortune send thy state bolder tyrants than thee. As for you, mistress," and he turned his face to Madame Bianca, "if you will be a soldier's wife, disdain not to serve him who bleeds. For I care not who the man may be, with him it will never be 'Leave to love thee is my hire' So, fare you heartily well, mistress, and the soldier, your husband. As for me, I am suited here."

So said, he handed Liperata from the daïs, and put the child upon his shoulder. Whistling to the Bilboan, he strode leisurely down the hall over the writhen bodies of the dead and dying, and was seen no more in Milan for that time.

Curiously enough, Sforza entered the city next day at the head of his victorious army, and shortly afterwards married Visconti's daughter. His regrets at not meeting Captain Brazenhead must have been many and bitter. What were Captain Brazenhead's feelings we have no means of knowing; but I understand that he heard of the entry from a lodging he had in Cremona where, under the name of Damœtas, a shepherd, he was then dwelling with the fair Liperata. From these subsequent events, I assume, the curious legend must have arisen that among the many Spanish words whispered in his ear by the Bilboan, while all Milan lay humble at his feet, was the Italian word Sforza.

THE END.

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