Th Fighting 
 Troubador 
 
 ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER.i
 
 BERTRAND SMITH;! 
 ACRES OF BOOKS 
 I4O PACIFIC AVENUE 
 LONO BEACH. CALIF,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR 
 
 A &{pvel 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER 
 
 Author of 
 
 'Mr. Barnes of New York," "Billy Hamilton," 
 "M. S. Bradford, Special," Etc., Etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HURST & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 
 by 
 A. C. GUNTER. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 A GIFT OF THE BATTLEFIELD. 
 
 TER PAGR 
 
 I. The fight at Chiari 5 
 
 II. The pledge of the living 14 
 
 III. Bianca Gonzaga 24 
 
 IV. Eugene de Savoy 34 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 LA PRINCESSA MARIA. 
 
 V. An ambassador with a noose round his 
 
 neck 46 
 
 VI. The goatherd comes to court 57 
 
 VII. The lady in waiting 72 
 
 VIII. " By heaven, that is her voice! " 84 
 
 IX. A duet under the sword of Damocles 94 
 
 X. The signal of the secret passage 113 
 
 XI. Covers for twq,, , ,,,,,,,,,. 130. 
 
 2061727
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE SINGING GIRL FROM CREMONA. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 XII. " An idea worthy of Machiavelli " 143 
 
 XIII. " Morbleu, you are a fighting trouba- 
 
 dour!" 155 
 
 XIV. The new maid of honor 165 
 
 XV. The midnight duel 186 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 A WILD NIGHT IN MIRANDOLA. 
 
 XVI. The military gauntlet of De Vivans 206 
 
 XVII. Venus and the troubadour 222 
 
 XVIII. Trapped at the banquet 240 
 
 XIX. A fighter, but no more a troubadour 251
 
 The Fighting Troubadour. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 A GIFT OF THE BATTLEFIELD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FIGHT AT CHIARI. 
 
 " Is there an Englishman within the sound of my 
 voice? " 
 
 The words come slowly from a dying officer, gasped 
 out through pale and dusty lips, as the surgeon turns 
 from him with a look that shows the patient is beyond 
 his skill. Though the timbre of the sufferer's voice is 
 Saxon, the words are faltered out in perfect Italian. 
 
 " Would you not like a priest ? " whispers the sur- 
 geon. 
 
 " No priest for me yet. I have a prior duty. It is 
 not the salvation of my soul, but the salvation of my 
 daughter's soul that racks me," murmurs the wounded 
 man, who lies on a horse-blanket which has been 
 thrown down to make his couch a little in the rear of 
 the long ditch of Chiari under the shade of some olive 
 trees, a few which have been cut down by artillery
 
 6 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 fire, one or two of their trunks even now showing fresh 
 blood upon them, for the throng of battle has only 
 drifted away from the place a short five minutes. 
 
 " For the love of Heaven, is there an Englishman 
 within the sound of my voice? " 
 
 This time the words are spoken in the Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue, and cried out with a despairing intensity that 
 makes them in their sharpness heard over the distant 
 cheer of victory from the Imperial dragoons, who are 
 now cutting down the French rear guard retreating on 
 Urago; and the soft flow of the little River Transana. 
 
 This having dashed torrent-like from the mount- 
 ains on its way to the Oglio, has now become as 
 gentle, and warm as the Italian summer sun, which 
 tinges its ripples with silver as they lave the level 
 meadows to the right of the little village of Chiari, 
 where this 7th day of September, in the year of 
 our Lord seventeen hundred and one, Prince Eugene 
 of Savoy, in behalf of his Emperor, Leopold of Austria, 
 has just smitten the French in a pitched battle and 
 smitten them awfully. For Christendom, by the glori- 
 ous victory of Prince Eugene over the Turks at Zenta 
 some three years before, having been relieved from 
 fear of that awful jack-in-the-box of the Seventeenth 
 and Eighteenth Centuries, the all-conquering Otto- 
 man, its paladins could set their lances in rest against 
 each other in that fifteen years of butchery called the 
 War of the Spanish Succession. 
 
 The strident tones of the dying man's voice are an- 
 swered suddenly and sonorously. 
 
 " I am an Englishman ! " says a young officer, the 
 long hair of whose carefully curled peruke, well lac- 
 quered high jack-boots, immaculate lace ruffles, and 
 cuffs of Venice point, though they are frayed by the
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 7 
 
 rents and covered with the blood and dust of battle, 
 show him to be a dandy as well as soldier. 
 
 With these words, striding from a group of the 
 officers of Staremberg's infantry and one or two sab- 
 reurs of Palfi's horse, the young man bends over the 
 dying, and his deep voice grows tender as he whispers : 
 " Comrade, what can I do for you ? " 
 
 " I am Sir Andrew Vesey, of Wilton Manor, Berks," 
 falters the wounded man. 
 
 " Yes, I recognize you now ; volunteer aide-de-camp 
 on Prince Eugene's staff. I'm the Honorable Sydney 
 Rawdon Villiers, Captain-Lieutenant in the regiment 
 of Commerci, of the County of Somerset, volunteer 
 from My Lord Ormand's regiment of foot guards for 
 this campaign in Italy by permission of our gracious 
 King William." 
 
 " Then, as you are my countryman," gasps the dy- 
 ing baronet, " I make you the guardian of all I hold 
 dear." 
 
 " What's that? " asks the other, astounded, for as the 
 words are spoken they seem to proclaim a sacred trust. 
 
 " My daughter ! " 
 
 At this there is a jeering guffaw from one or two 
 nearby rough riding officers of the regiment of Com- 
 merci. One, a big whiskered Pandour, jeers : " Sa- 
 pristi, you give your girl to this boyf " 
 
 For the appearance of Villiers, as the sun shines on 
 him through a rift in the drifting cannon smoke, is 
 that of a youth who has scarce left his mother's apron 
 strings. His face is like a Cupid's and he is scarce six 
 inches over five feet high in his cavalry boots. 
 
 Another, a veteran captain of Palfi's horse, with seri- 
 ous voice, says warningly : " Have a care, dying man. 
 Beware what you do,"
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 For though he looks as innocent as an Adonis, 
 young Villiers's reputation, even in the hard-drinking, 
 hard-playing, women loving army of Italy, is as it 
 was in London town, that of a man to whom his Satanic 
 Majesty would be loathe to trust his daughter, a roue 
 of the Haymarket, a roisterer of St. James, an aris- 
 tocratic military Mohawk, who curled his adolescent 
 moustachios to capture beauty in every looted town. 
 
 But something in the young Islander's eyes checks 
 the laugh of the Imperial officers. He says shortly : 
 " Major Guttenberg, you think me a boy of eighteen. 
 True, I have a boy's love for wine and woman, and 
 sometimes dicing, but in serious affairs I am a man of 
 honor, an officer of twenty-eight, who has already 
 crossed swords in two bloody wars. This gentleman 
 may trust his daughter to me as safely as if I were a 
 bishop. My answer is for the others as well as you. It 
 any of you are not pleased with it, you know my regi- 
 ment. At present I have weighty affairs upon my 
 mind." 
 
 He turns to the dying man, whose face at these 
 words has grown very wistful ; his voice rings true and 
 Saxon as he answers : " As living Englishman to dy- 
 ing Englishman, I accept your trust." And Sir An- 
 drew Vesey, turning his glazing eyes upon this boyish 
 officer, knows he has found in his extremity the man 
 he wants. 
 
 Even with the pains of dissolution upon him, a sigh 
 of happiness ripples out from beneath his grizzled 
 moustache. 
 
 But the other goes hurriedly on : "I fear you have 
 little time. Tell me, where is your daughter. Tell me 
 why it is she needs my guardianship I who am here
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 9 
 
 in Italy, when she is doubtless in a gentle English 
 home." 
 
 "Ay de mi, if she were! " whispers the dying man. 
 " She is here, also, in Italy. Listen to me before my 
 voice grows too weak. I came here to save her. In 
 my travels in Italy eighteen years ago I met her 
 mother, a fair Italian lady of gentle blood, but no 
 fortune. I loved her. Our marriage, a true one by the 
 Church, was secret, for I was a cadet of my family 
 then and feared being cut off from the fortune that has 
 since come to me with my title. Called to England on 
 this business two years ago, I left my wife in Cremona, 
 the leeches saying the climate, fogs, and cold of our 
 Island would be too powerful for her delicate health. 
 With her, of course, remained my daughter, at that 
 time but fifteen. The English business finished to my 
 satisfaction, the title assumed by me, I was ready to 
 return to my wife and offspring, when news came to 
 me by a packet delayed three months in the irregular 
 posts of Europe, stating my wife, Lady Vesey, was 
 dying. Then afterward another packet told me that 
 she had passed away and left my daughter alone, un- 
 protected, in the great Italian city. I was already en 
 route when this trouble of the Spanish Succession, 
 between England allied with the Emperor, and France 
 and Spain, which holds Cremona, began. If I jour- 
 neyed to Cremona, I, the subject of King William, 
 would become the prisoner of His Majesty Louis XIV. 
 With that I turned to England's allies. Eugene of 
 Savoy had beaten the all-conquering Ottoman. Why 
 should he not make Jean Jacques, the frog eater, turn 
 his back. With Prince Eugene I would visit Cre- 
 mona when he conquered it and save my daughter. 
 But now you must do this for me. Save her ! My little
 
 10 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Lucy ! My God, that is a cannon shot ! Are the 
 French returning? " 
 
 " No, the enemy are still retreating," whispers the 
 other. " But your story ? " 
 
 " You will find the details in my valise and dispatch 
 box. The keys are beneath my cuirass. They will 
 take it off when I die. Go to Cremona and save my 
 daughter." 
 
 " Why should you fear for her? " 
 
 " She has a voice as beautiful as an angel. It has 
 been cultivated till she sings as if she were the mis- 
 tress of the art of Euterpe. Word has been brought to 
 me that, desiring to profit by it, a damned Italian 
 maestro of music is plotting to put her upon the stage 
 to sing in the accursed opera, which will debase her 
 forever. You know how lightly we think of player- 
 women in England. But it is considered even more 
 degrading in Italy. You know the French law : 
 ' Courtezans, actresses, singing women and other 
 vagabonds.' " He quotes in despairing sneer the old 
 Gallic police edict which made every prima donna 
 one of Hetaira. " You know in Italy the divas of the 
 theater are considered but the prostitutes of the rich 
 and titled. Save a gentle English girl from a pollution 
 such as would come to her in the slums and purlieus 
 of London. For that is what it means. She may be 
 great upon the stage, but she is forever cut off from 
 her rank. She receives the plaudits of the throng, but 
 also its contempt. She can no more marry a gentle- 
 man. It is a degradation to the blood of the Veseys 
 and the Howards, my cousins, for she is my own legit- 
 imate daughter, my heart and love. Keep her from 
 becoming one of the vagabonds of this world." 
 
 Listening to him, Sydney Villiers knows this man's
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 11 
 
 words are true. Once upon the stage, the girl will 
 have the brand of shame upon her; for in those days 
 in Latin countries the ladies of the stage, dramatic or 
 musical, were considered as already accursed ; living, 
 they could not mate with gentlemen save as their 
 harlots ; dead, they could not be buried in consecrated 
 ground, nor even in their dying moments have the 
 consolations of the Church. 
 
 " I promise to save her as though she were my own 
 sister," answers the young man solemnly, and makes 
 the sign of the cross. 
 
 Noting this, the father smiles and gasps : " You 
 are a Catholic ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Then remember, as you are a Catholic ! And " 
 
 He calls to two or three surrounding officers, and 
 falters : " Write on that drumhead. Quick, while I 
 have time ! " 
 
 Then he dictates a few words which make Sydney 
 Rawdon Villiers, of the County of Somerset, England, 
 Captain in the regiment of Commerci's horse, guard- 
 ian of the person of his daughter, Lucia Marianna 
 Vesey, and trustee of the fortune he is leaving, for her 
 sole benefit and use. 
 
 " Let me write one line to her, that she may know 
 you ! " 
 
 Sydney supporting the dying man, he scrawls a few 
 words to his daughter and signs it with trembling hand. 
 Gazing at this, Villiers reads : " The gentleman who 
 brings you this is Captain Sydney Villiers. Obey and 
 trust him. Andrew Vesey." 
 
 The whole thing is done in four short minutes, a 
 few spent bullets falling around them, though the 
 battle has drifted from them toward the north.
 
 12 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Vesey having signed his name to it and it being at- 
 tested by Captain D'Arcy Macdonnel, of the Dietrich- 
 stein Regiment of Dragoons, and Colonel Paul Diak, 
 of the Hussars, the dying man, with a sigh of relief, 
 speaks again : 
 
 " Captain Villiers, take this signet ring. She will 
 know you are my agent by it." His voice is so low it 
 can scarce be heard. " As you do to her, may God do 
 to you." 
 
 " Amen ! " 
 
 Then suddenly a spasm convulses the dying man's 
 face. He mutters : " I would tell you of " 
 
 " Yes? " The young man places his ear close to the 
 pale lips, for the roar of battle is growing louder 
 again. 
 
 But the dying man's voice is drowned by a salvo of 
 cannon, and the cry is : " The French return ! " For 
 Marechal de Villeroy is not going to let his first pitched 
 battle with Eugene go against him without another 
 desperate attempt to retrieve the fallen fortunes of his 
 master, Louis XIV. Therefore he has rallied his in- 
 fantry and is trying to retrieve the day with them alone, 
 though the tramp of horse further up the valley shows 
 his cavalry is not far behind him. 
 
 " All officers to their posts ! " cries Prince Eugene, 
 riding up at the head of his staff. With him is Prince 
 Commerci. These able commanders make quick dis- 
 position to repel an assault that they know the French 
 Marechal will be unable to repeat, for Villeroy's losses 
 this day have been enormous. He has been entrapped 
 into attacking perhaps the most brilliant captain of his 
 age, backed by a small veteran army in an intrenched 
 position, its left shielded by the little Venetian citadel 
 of Chiari, seized by Prince Eugene for the occasion
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 13 
 
 from the neutral Republic; its right flanked by two 
 little rivers, the Transana and the Bajona, and its front 
 protected by an irrigation ditch called La Ceriola. 
 The Imperial infantry in solid formation line the ditch, 
 and do not give fire until the unfortunate French have 
 marched up almost to the muzzles of their guns. Then 
 the musketry of twenty-four battalions and the dis- 
 charge of fifty pieces of cannon loaded with bullets 
 mow down the unfortunate brigades of Normandy and 
 Auvergne, and as they give way the Cuirassiers of 
 Commerci and Vaubonne's Dragoons, cantering 
 around the flanks betwixt the ditch and the little 
 River Transana by column of squadrons, deploy and 
 charge the flank of the retreating French infantry, cut- 
 ting down some eight hundred of them. 
 
 With the horse of Commerci, heading his squadron, 
 rides Sydney Villiers. 
 
 Gazing after him, the dying man gasps : " By the 
 love of the Virgin, come back and listen to me ! " then 
 prays : " Dear Lady of Mercy, permit me to warn him 
 of St. Croix." An agony comes upon his face. " Gas- 
 parin St. Croix, the fiend of subtle mind, who will cir- 
 cumvent him and and ah, Dio ! the woman " 
 
 With these words the English officer turns his face 
 away from the dusty leaves of the pale green olive trees 
 and shades his eyes from the sun that is now growing 
 black to him, as if a greater despair than that of dissolu- 
 tion had stricken him. And so, amid crashing shots 
 and the rattle of platoon firing and the clash of cavalry 
 for now the troopers of the French have been 
 brought up to save their beaten infantry Sir Andrew 
 Vesey dies. 
 
 While Villiers, who has had a greater danger thrust 
 Upon him by this sacred trust than even that of battle<
 
 14 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 charges at the head of his squadron, striking at the 
 sabers and lances of opposing horsemen, and in the 
 lust of carnage, combat, and blood, forgets that upon 
 his life now hangs the safety of another that of a 
 hapless English girl, alone in the great but licentious 
 city of Cremona, surrounded by a country in which 
 Gaul and German and Slav and Iberian and the mer- 
 cenary soldiers of all races are doing battle with a bar- 
 barism almost medieval. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PLEDGE OF THE LIVING. 
 
 The sun had set on the defeat of the French at Chiari, 
 that pitched battle, the first of many which were to de- 
 cide whether Italy should be French or Austrian for a 
 century the Italians, as usual in those good old days/ 
 having naught to say about it. 
 
 For the last three centuries, whenever France, Spain, 
 and Austria had crossed swords, they had done most 
 of their fighting on the convenient soil of Italy, a pleas- 
 ant arena for their valiant men of arms, where besides 
 much butchering of foe there was grand foraging of its 
 fair grain fields, fine looting of treasure from its mer- 
 chant princes and retail hucksters, and in addition the 
 loving of beautiful Italian women of all ranks and con- 
 ditions, with sanction of the Church or without sanc- 
 tion of the Church, as circumstances suggested. 
 
 Therefore, imbued with that cunning which came 
 from an excessive timidity handed down to them from 
 the legends Q'f their stricken forefathers and. recorded
 
 THE FIGHTING TkOUBADOUR. IS 
 
 by the ruins of many fair places, the inhabitants of the 
 fertile Lombardian plains and the rich Venetian mead- 
 ows, with their many broad principalities, great cities, 
 and flourishing villages, had been waiting to see 
 which side would win, in order to jump to it, embrace 
 it, and swear they loved it, in the hope of saving for 
 themselves a moiety of the blood in their veins, a little 
 of the goods and chattels in their warehouses, some 
 few of the ducats in their purses, and a slight per- 
 centage of the virtue of the women of their firesides. 
 
 Whether it was France and Spain, or whether it was 
 Austria and England, whose cause most of the small 
 Italian principalities should espouse, would be pretty 
 accurately settled by the issue of the first decisive bat- 
 tle. True, the poor non-combatants might jump 
 wrong, but it was better to be in one fire than between 
 two. 
 
 One State had already jumped too soon. The un- 
 fortunate Duke of Mantua, urged by his minister and 
 frightened by the threats of Louis XIV., had admitted 
 a French garrison not only to his capital, but to his 
 citadel, on a promise of some four hundred and odd 
 thousand crowns per year. But no payments being 
 made, and the French proving themselves very over- 
 bearing guests, the unfortunate duke had, in his de- 
 spair, attempted to stab his prime minister, who was 
 happy to escape with his life from his beloved prince, 
 whom he had betrayed. 
 
 So the rest of Italy, frightened by the ill fate of 
 Mantua, had stood waiting to see whether they should 
 hoist the double-eagle of Austria or the lilies of 
 France. 
 
 Aware of this fact, some months before Eugene had 
 cunningly contrived that at the first point of impact his
 
 16 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 forces would outnumber those of his adversary, Mare- 
 chal Catinat. Immediately after his brilliant march 
 through the Tyrolean Alps he had struck the French 
 Marechal's lieutenant, the Count de Tesse, at Carpi 
 on the Adigio, and crushed him. 
 
 After the defeat of his advanced division, Catinat 
 had rapidly retreated to the line of the Mincio, for the 
 French commander knew that his soldiers were by no 
 means beloved by the Italian peasantry, and feared that 
 their long scythes, in case his whole army was routed, 
 would avenge the outrages they had suffered from his 
 troops. 
 
 Upon the Mincio, protected by the impregnable 
 fortress of Mantua, which has never yet yielded to 
 direct assault, though it has sometimes succumbed to 
 famine and capitulation, Catinat had made fresh dis- 
 positions to resist the advance of the Imperialists until 
 the Marechal de Villeroy, lately appointed by Louis 
 XIV. to the command in Italy, could join him with re- 
 inforcements from Milan. 
 
 But Eugene was not a commander to wait until the 
 French had grown more powerful. He had, therefore, 
 after some brilliant maneuvering, crossed the Mincio 
 just below where it issues from the Lake di Garda at 
 Pischiera. 
 
 Catinat, still fearing to meet him, had fled across the 
 Oglio. Here he had been joined by his chief, De Vil- 
 leroy, who brought with him reinforcements, making 
 the French army vastly more numerous than the bat- 
 talions of the Emperor. 
 
 Finding himself outnumbered, Eugene had taken 
 post at Chiari to protect the blockade of Mantua that 
 he had already begun. To inveigle the French mare- 
 chal to attack this entrenched place, the Austrian com-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 17 
 
 mander had caused, by means of his spies and emis- 
 saries, De Villeroy to think there were but six hun- 
 dred Imperial troops in the village, when his whole 
 army was concealed in the ditch to the right of it. 
 
 In his truculent way the marechal of Louis XIV. 
 had attempted to rush the country houses and the 
 town, when to his dismay the unfortunate French 
 found each casino filled with veteran Imperial troops, 
 each orchard wall crennelled for musketry and each 
 terrace crowned by a field-piece belching fire and 
 death. 
 
 Therefore, beaten back with a loss of gome four 
 thousand killed and wounded, De Villeroy during this 
 night was hurriedly retreating toward the Oglio. 
 
 Not wishing to press a desperate foe whose troops 
 unemployed in the battle outnumbered his worn-out 
 veterans in a ratio of two to one, Eugene had quietly 
 pitched his camp upon the field he had just won. 
 
 Consequently, this evening, seated quite easily in a 
 small mud hut on the outskirts of Chiari, which, is, 
 however, fitted up somewhat more pretentiously than 
 is usual with officers of his rank, the young English 
 captain of Commerci's horse is taking inventory of the 
 effects of his dead compatriot, over whose body the 
 funeral volleys have not long been fired. 
 
 These effects have just been brought to him by the 
 two body servants of the late baronet. The elder, one 
 Giovanni Umberto, a burly Neapolitan, who speaks, 
 in addition to the patois of Southern Italy, a smat- 
 tering of both French and German, seems to imag- 
 ine that his placid carcass goes with the rest of his late 
 master's goods and chattels ; as he, after delivering 
 Sir Andrew's luggage, has abstractedly eaten up what 
 provender he can lay his hands upon, then quietly
 
 1 8 THfc FIGHTING tROUBADOUR. 
 
 rolled himself in a horse blanket and gone to sleep un- 
 der a mulberry tree just outside Villiers's hut. 
 
 The other is a dwarfish Lombardian lad, whose big, 
 .bright searching eyes have a frightened expression in 
 them, and whose voice is soft as that of a lute's strings 
 as he answers a few queries of Captain Villiers in a 
 diffident, pathetic tone. Being dismissed, he wanders 
 off with an aimless, dejected air toward a blazing camp- 
 fire, over which some of the troopers of Commerci's 
 regiment are cooking their suppers with much jest 
 and merriment, their losses in this day's combat hav- 
 ing been but slight, the enemy's very heavy. 
 
 Somehow as he gazes after him the dwarf seems to 
 be familiar to the English officer. He would call him 
 back and question him further, but the effects of Sir 
 Andrew Vesey demand his immediate attention. 
 
 These consist only of the usual impedimenta of an 
 officer upon a hard-fighting and hard-riding campaign, 
 together with a small strongly bound and well-secured 
 valise, as well as a heavy black dispatch box. The keys 
 of these have been delivered to Sydney Villiers upon 
 his return from the last charge upon the French, who 
 have not fled until they have left eight hundred dead 
 upon that little road that borders the banks of the softly 
 flowing Transana. 
 
 Notwithstanding the hard fought battle of the day, 
 the athletic Englishman, who is perhaps twenty-eight 
 years of age, seems scarcely fatigued, and goes to work 
 inspecting the property given into his hand with con- 
 siderable vim, a great deal of curiosity, and toward the 
 close of his investigation a kind of horrified amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 The contents of the valise are soon glanced through 
 by the flicker of a tallow-dip cemented to an empty
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 19 
 
 shot case by some of its own melted grease. They are 
 mostly correspondence between the dead gentleman 
 and his Italian wife, a Tuscan lady, by name Emelia 
 Fiorentina di Castiglione, whose relatives have ap- 
 parently entirely passed away in one of those san- 
 guinary little feuds between her native town of Siena 
 and its neighbor, Lucca. 
 
 The English baronet's love for his wife seems to 
 have been sincere. The affection of his lady ap- 
 pears to have been as warm as the sun under which 
 she lived. The letters of the last year of her life, during 
 her husband's absence in his native country, are chiefly 
 filled with accounts of the beauty of their daughter, 
 Lucy Marianna, whom the Italian lady calls Lucia ; 
 also praises of the girl's wondrously developing voice 
 and marvelous aptitude in the art of la mise de voix as 
 taught in those days most excellently in Italy. 
 
 One or two of the last letters, however, give Villiers 
 some hints of the cause of the dead man's fears. They 
 speak of a certain Giacomo Pasquale, who has a small 
 school of music in the Contrada Galla, a street near the 
 Porto Margherita, Cremona, and his sister, la Sig- 
 norina Tessa, who teaches the art of the ballet, sending 
 even some of her more advanced pupils to the great 
 theaters of Venice and Milan to show their capers on 
 their boards. They tell of the Italian maestro's ex- 
 treme anxiety to place the child Lucia upon the stage 
 of the opera even at her early age of sixteen. 
 
 This has been sternly refused by the dying Italian 
 lady, even in her final sickness; one of her last letters 
 ending with " Signor Giacomo has claimed, in the ab- 
 sence of money to pay the bills for his instruction, to 
 cause our daughter to be bound unto him, to make 
 himself her f>a^rone^sQ as tQ receive back from her earn^
 
 20 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 ings the moneys he claims untruly that he has ex- 
 pended. With the sums demanded from me by the 
 leeches for attendance in my sickness, I am at my last 
 scudo. Should you fail to get remittance to me by means 
 of our friend, Signor St. Croix, who has taken this mat- 
 ter in his hands, I know not, in case of my death, what 
 will become of our dear child. Therefore I pray, as 
 you love me, you will hasten to me as well as forward 
 money, which may travel with greater rapidity than 
 you can in the present distressed state of the country." 
 
 The last letter of the series is very short, and ap- 
 parently written in rapidly declining health. It con- 
 veys the farewell love and kisses of the dying mother 
 to the father, who is now dead also. 
 
 An entry in Sir Andrew Vesey's handwriting in a 
 financial memorandum book shows he has forwarded 
 one year before, through this same St. Croix, who 
 seems to be a silversmith and banker of Cremona, a 
 sum of five thousand crowns. This has apparently 
 never been received by the lady for whom it was in- 
 tended. 
 
 " Can there be a villain in this matter?" cogitates 
 Villiers. "An Italian villain? Tis quite the usual 
 thing in five-act tragedies." Then the thought of his 
 task coming to him, he laughs rather jeeringly : " This 
 is a curious game for you, my hell rake ; you who with- 
 in the year have had many a roistering with Bill Con- 
 greve, the playwright, and young Colley Cibber, the 
 actor, who have brought to your notice the prettiest 
 jades of the London boards; the comely Selby, who 
 even now is playing Miss Prue in Bill's chef d'ceuvre, 
 ' Love for Love/ and has half the town running after 
 her meretricious witcheries ; likewise little Peggy Cole-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 21 
 
 man, whose fascinating shape has caused me to look 
 upon the strumpet with amorous complacency." 
 
 Then his tone becomes determined, a new light 
 comes into his eyes, the good heart of the man brushes 
 away frivolity of youth, and he mutters : " I have 
 given word to dying man and shall keep my pledge, 
 as truly as if I were a psalm-singing Covenanter or a 
 praise-God Puritan ay, better perhaps ! We Villiers 
 have loved women from the day our race began, often 
 well enough to die for them ; vide my great uncle, 
 who fell under the assassin's knife for love of Anne of 
 Austria." 
 
 With this complacent compliment to a nobleman 
 who could equal Rochester himself in debauchery and 
 Charles II. in fickleness, the young captain re- 
 turns to his work. Seeing a few letters tied with a 
 blue ribbon and written in flowing Italian girlish char- 
 acters, he murmurs : " From my ward." For a mo- 
 ment delicacy makes him hesitate to read them. 
 Suddenly he cogitates: "I know too little; I should 
 know all," and proceeds to his task. 
 
 This labor now seems to him more pleasant, for 
 these letters are the fresh outpourings of a young and 
 noble soul to the man she thinks she can trust most 
 upon this earth, her father. They suggest a girl's un- 
 formed mind that is gradually, letter by letter, as she 
 approaches maturity, growing more beautiful, though 
 their naivete shows she knows as yet but little of the 
 selfish world about her. 
 
 Many of the epistles are filled with remarks as to 
 the girl's improvement in the divine art of singing ; 
 how the Maestro Pasquale has taught her the proper 
 position of her voice, so that each note now flows with- 
 out effort through the larynx ; how she has been per-
 
 21 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 mitted to practice nothing but the chromatic and dia- 
 tonic scales, with trills, chords, appogiaturas, and pas- 
 sages of vocalization of different kinds. " It is exer- 
 cise ! exercise ! exercise ! " she writes. " I have sung 
 naught else for four long years. When I have sung 
 these same exercises for two more weary years, to- 
 gether with some added phrases of articulation and 
 pronunciation, my maestro says I shall be the first 
 singer in Italy."* 
 
 " The two years are already past," laughs the young 
 man. " Egad, now Signorina Lucia must be the first 
 singer in Italy." There is a jeer on his face, though 
 he adds quite seriously : " If her report is true I have 
 but little time." 
 
 Save a number of financial memoranda and some 
 legal documents connected with the English property 
 of Sir Andrew Vesey, these are all the papers the valise 
 contains. Sydney now turns to the dispatch box. 
 Opening it, he finds its contents are more pertinent, 
 yet more astounding. 
 
 The first thing he takes from it is a miniature. Two 
 words written upon the case show it is the portrait of 
 the daughter forwarded by her mother to gladden 
 her father's absence. 
 
 Removing its cover, the Englishman's eyes grow 
 bright with admiration. The picture is that of a girl 
 whose figure is just budding into womanhood under 
 the sun of maturing Italy. He is gazing upon a face 
 like the one Guido Reni painted of the dying Beatrice 
 Cenci, though there are no tears behind its eyes, which 
 are bright, laughing, radiant. The forehead, like that 
 of most beautiful women, is broad and low, showing 
 
 * This was almost exactly the method taken by the Maestro Porpora with 
 Cafferelli. and he was admitted to be the greatest singer in Italy in the early 
 eighteenth century, his only acknowledged rival being Farinelli. ED.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 23 
 
 that sentiment dominates reason. The nose is slightly 
 retrousse, giving to the countenance a piquancy that 
 would not otherwise be possible in outlines which, 
 aside from this, are almost classical in their Athenian 
 beauty. The eyes are hazel, the hair chestnut, the skin 
 of ivory, as shown by the rounded neck and nascent 
 bosom which rise above the light gauzy robe thrown 
 about the figure according to the easy method of 
 Italian painters of that day, neglige effects stolen from 
 them by the English school of Sir Peter Lely. 
 
 The whole is a smiling, talking, living girl, whose 
 lips, red as cherries, seem opening to show not only 
 teeth that are pearls, but to let the soft voice of happy 
 maidenhood issue to the air; for this miniature has 
 been paintd by Jacopo Giovanni, the last of the great 
 Venetian school, an artist who has not lost the subtle 
 arts of color and lights of Tintoretto and Correggio. 
 
 Gazing on this, even the self-contained Saxon ex- 
 claims : " By Cupid, what loveliness ! " Then think- 
 ing of the gentle English blood flowing in her veins, 
 and remembering his oath to the dead man, he mut- 
 ters : " They would degrade this goddess into a sing-, 
 ing baud of an open-air Italian theater. Not by this 
 sword arm ! 'Tis the pledge of the living to the dead." 
 
 From now on a strange, restless intensity seems to 
 come into the young man's actions, and a firm resolu- 
 tion into his beating heart that make him capable of 
 things that the Sydney Villiers of yesterday, though a 
 gallant warrior and a bold lover, had scarce essayed.
 
 24 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BIANCA GONZAGA. 
 
 He is about to put the dispatch box aside, as these 
 letters, some I. O. U.'s of the officer's gaming table, 
 and a few rouleaux of Austrian gold and English 
 guineas are the last of its contents, when, lured by the 
 loveliness of the portrait, Sydney takes just one more 
 glance at it. 
 
 Immediately something familiar in the face seems 
 to strike the young man. He mutters : " In childhood 
 all other features change more completely than the 
 eyes," and gazes at the beautiful face of Lucia Vesey 
 intently. 
 
 As he looks a startled expression flies over his coun- 
 tenance. These hazel orbs take him into another 
 world. The present becomes the past of seven years 
 before. The dingy walls of his mud hut turn to an 
 island of exquisite beauty, that little islet called Isold 
 Bella because it is the fairest of all in that lake, whose 
 vine-clad hills and olive groves run down the mount- 
 ain sides to water cold as the streams of the Swiss 
 glaciers that make its depths, that lake whose marvel- 
 ous beauty is half that of the snowy Alps and half that 
 of sunny Italy the Lago Maggiore. 
 
 He remembers how he had been sent to receive his 
 education in Rome, where his family had hoped he 
 might enter the priesthood, for they were intensely 
 Catholic, and had thoughts that their power and in- 
 fluence in the end might assist him to the red cap of a 
 cardinal, though the young man's preference had al- 
 ways been for the sword instead of the censer. 
 
 Having given up all thoughts of entering holy or-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 2$ 
 
 ders, he had, as he returned to England, taken a tour 
 of Northern Italy. There had come upon him one 
 summer his first romance, the one he thought, as most 
 youths do, would be the love of his life. In the smiles 
 of a beautiful Italian woman he had dreamed away two 
 months of amorous happiness. 
 
 As is quite usual in such cases, the lady was slightly 
 older than the gentleman. Taught by the experience 
 of her twenty-two years in the gay courts of Mantua 
 and Milan, the lady Bianca had lured the English 
 youth of twenty just out of school to think he loved her, 
 until one day his blissful dream of her truth to him 
 had been destroyed by the artless prattle of a little 
 child. The occurrence he can never forget it ran 
 this way: 
 
 One bright morning, in the year sixteen hundred 
 and ninety-four, he and the lady of his love had jour- 
 neyed down the Lago Maggiore in a sailboat manned 
 by three stout fishermen from Cannero, whose already 
 crumbling castles were gazed shudderingly upon by 
 their boatmen, who remembered the legends of some 
 two hundred years before when the celebrated Maz- 
 zarda, inland pirates, had held the lake at their mercy 
 and ravaged its fair shores with fire and sword. 
 
 But this happy morning the English youth and the 
 lady of his heart cared little for the stories of the past, 
 being wrapped up in the love of the present. They had 
 only become acquainted at Locarno, higher up the 
 lake, some eight weeks before, where Bianca had fled 
 to escape the dangers of the warring hosts on the lower 
 plains of Piedmont, the Emperor of Austria and the 
 King of France, each jealous of the other's power, hav- 
 ing gone to fighting again. 
 
 So that morning Sydney Rawdon Villiers and his
 
 26 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 sweetheart had sailed over eleven miles of the sunlit 
 lake, whose waters were just rippled by the cool 
 breezes coming down the St. Gothard and Splugen 
 passes, till they reached the show spot of this most 
 beautiful sheet of water Isold Bella that fairy island 
 in the fairy bay, into which empties the flashing tor- 
 rent of the Tosa. Upon this islet Count Vatalio Bor- 
 remeo had some few years before completed his ex- 
 quisite chateau, the beautiful gardens of which rose 
 terrace upon terrace from the lake to the graceful 
 building that seemed to crown the lemon and orange 
 groves and the magnolias, cypresses, and oleanders 
 that were mixed with the cedars and laurels of the 
 north. 
 
 This little island, made supremely beautiful by nature, 
 had been adorned by the wealth of its owner, at that 
 time the richest nobleman in Piedmont. Beyond it rose, 
 out of the blue waters, the Isles del Pescatore and La 
 Madre ; one covered with lemon groves, the other 
 made picturesque by the drying nets and white cot- 
 tages of its fishermen. 
 
 Across the blue water, scarce two miles beyond, 
 were slopes covered with vines and olives, backed by 
 the soft purple-tinted mountains of Northern Italy. 
 Dominating these in the far distance loomed the snow- 
 capped peaks that top the Simplon pass a back- 
 ground of perpetual winter and snow and ice, a fore- 
 ground, of almost perennial summer and living waters, 
 through which the fish flashed sometimes even be- 
 neath the branches of the orange trees that in this al- 
 most enchanted island sometimes sweep over the 
 lake. 
 
 " I can't see, mi carissima," said the young man, 
 " how you should have demurred to come to this islet,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 2 7 
 
 though, of course, you no more knew of its beauties 
 than I did. Still, if Count Vatalio is hospitable we 
 might remain a day or two. This fairy spot would be 
 as proper setting to our love as were the gardens of 
 Boccaccio to the amourettes of Florence." 
 
 He does not note that the lady shivers a little at his 
 words, though the day is balmy and the sun would be 
 burning were it not for the soft breeze. 
 
 " No, rather let us go upon our way, Rawdon," 
 Bianca had remarked. For the young man had with 
 some tact kept his family name from the lady of his 
 amour, and was only known to her as Sydney Rawdon. 
 To this she adds, a curious tremor in her sensuous 
 voice : " You say your affairs call you to England. 
 I long to see your country, my Sydney." These words 
 were emphasized with a look from her great dark eyes 
 that made a rapture in her gallant's heart. 
 
 " Within a month, by God's blessing, dear one, I'll 
 show you London town," answered the young man. 
 
 " Ah, there we can never fear pursuit," murmured 
 the lady. 
 
 " I fear no pursuit ! No one shall tear you from 
 me ! " cries the youth, his tone tremulous with the 
 anxiety of first love, but his eyes ablaze with the fierce- 
 ness of a young animal who will not be robbed of its 
 mate. 
 
 For the two had thought to take the Simplon route 
 over the Alps and so journey through France to Eng- 
 land, these countries at that time being at peace with 
 one another; as the lady has admitted to Sydney that 
 she has a husband to whom she had been wed in early 
 youth but whom she had never loved. At all 
 events, she adores her English gallant now. As she 
 looks upon his manly bearing and foreign airs with the
 
 28 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 liquid eyes of Italian passion, her white hand, flying 
 from the laces of her long-sleeved Venetian bodice, 
 clutches his fervidly, as if she feared to lose him. 
 
 The Italian boatmen are forward tending to furl- 
 ing the sails of their little craft; the gentleman is 
 comely, and the lady in her mobile, passionate face and 
 her lithe, supple but exquisitely rounded figure is of a 
 vivacious loveliness that has made her celebrated in 
 all Northern Italy, a beauty that once seen is scarce 
 forgotten. 
 
 The mainsail of the craft, which is swung amid- 
 ships, gives privacy. The two are in each other's arms 
 with burning kisses and words of love. 
 
 " Mi carissima ! " 
 
 " Adorato mio ! " 
 
 " We'll stay here scarce half an hour, dear one, just 
 to put foot on this enchanted spot ; then cross the bay 
 to Pallanza. From there post horses, and in a week we 
 have crossed the Alps, and are far from the pursuit that 
 makes your tender heart tremble for me, though I fear 
 not your husband or his bravos." 
 
 " My husband and his bravos? " echoes the lady. 
 " Why, do you think he is powerful enough for that? " 
 
 " Certainly. You have not told me ; but I know he 
 must be of some noble family. Your signet ring bears 
 the arms of Mantua." 
 
 " Ah, I had forgotten," Bianca half laughs. " But 
 when across the Alps I will tell you. Now let us land 
 as you decree it. You shall see the beauties of the 
 island ; I will remain upon the shore." 
 
 " You don't care to visit the chateau and stroll over 
 these enchanted terraces?" 
 
 " No, this spot is beautiful enough for me. Besides
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 29 
 
 I am fatigued. Last night, thinking of you, my Raw- 
 don, I slept but little." 
 
 " Bianca ! " 
 
 " Sydney! " 
 
 They are in each other's arms again. 
 
 " Since it makes your mind easier, my sweetheart, 
 I will not linger," adds the young man to his last 
 caress. Then, as the boat slowly drifts toward the 
 shore, he bursts into song his high tenor voice ring- 
 ing out in a soft Venetian barcarole, which tells of the 
 love of gondoliers. He sings it with the execution of 
 a master. What youth could have lived in Italy in 
 those days of song and not learned the art of melody ! 
 
 To this suddenly Bianca cries : " Listen, Trouba- 
 dour! You have a rival." For the Venetian air is 
 taken up from the shore, which is now scarce fifty feet 
 away, and echoed back to them, in the voice of a 
 little girl that is so freshly sweet that Sydney laughs : 
 " A rival, did you say, Bianca. Per Bacco, a conqueror! 
 Not even in the Sistine Chapel have I heard more 
 exquisite notes. Let us see who the prima donna is," 
 he adds. " Then I'll run over the island and return to 
 you in half an hour. Here, jump on shore, my treas- 
 ure ! " 
 
 His strong arms lift the delicate yet voluptuous form 
 of his lady love to the little rocky landing ; and doubt- 
 less, after a glance at the gardens of Count Vatalio 
 Borremeo, the two would have gone merrily on their 
 way to England, did not a lovely little girl of about 
 ten years, who is seated in a skiff that has been 
 drawn ashore and is splashing with her bare white 
 feet and pretty little legs the blue waters of the lake, 
 stop her song and cry suddenly in the same divine 
 voice : " Hola ! Come again, beautiful lady ! " Then
 
 30 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 springing up, she throws a lot of lilac flowers and 
 oleanders upon the object of Sydney's passion, making 
 her for the moment queen of flowers. 
 
 But Bianca seems to shrink from this kindly recep- 
 tion, and turns away, murmuring : " Little one, you 
 are mistaken. You do not know me." 
 
 " Oh, don't I. I know you well. Three months ago 
 you lived at the palace up there ! " The child points to 
 the chateau, and cries excitedly : " Everyone, even 
 Turn Turn, my dwarf, and he's a fool, said the great 
 count loved you." 
 
 " Child, you tell fairy tales," half laughs Bianca. 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't ! And three weeks ago, while 
 the count was here, you came again and stayed two 
 days. I saw you." 
 
 " My God, the days you said were spent at Arona 
 with your brother on leave from the Austrian army," 
 shudders the Englishman, his face growing drawn and 
 white. 
 
 But not heeding him, the lady cries to the girl: 
 " Imp, you rave ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't. I couldn't forget such beautiful 
 eyes as yours. I've seen you twenty times. You are 
 the Lady Bianca Gonzaga. You know me, too I can 
 see it in your flashing eyes. I live with my papa and 
 mamma in that pretty villa at Baveno, only a mile or 
 two on the other shore. Papa says you are the most 
 beautiful woman in Italy. Mamma says you're the 
 worst." 
 
 " Basta ! " breaks forth madame. " You miserable 
 child, you're lying. I'll call your governante and have 
 you whipped." 
 
 w Diavolo ! J (inn *t fear my governante. T'ITI half
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 31 
 
 English, I am ; and can smack myself ! Papa has 
 taught me fisticuffs ! " 
 
 " Then I'll teach you to keep your babbling tongue 
 still myself! " cries the lady, whose eyes are glowing, 
 for she knows the child's words have reached the man 
 in all the world she wants least to hear them. She 
 has seized the little girl with one fair hand and has 
 uplifted a white arm as lovely as that of Juno. 
 
 But it never falls. Her wrist is caught by the Eng- 
 lish gentleman, who says, coldly : " You needn't strike 
 the child for telling the truth." 
 
 " For tetiing the truth ? By the Virgin ! she's the 
 most unblushing " 
 
 " Nonsense ? She has told the truth. I know you 
 now. You are Bianca Gonzaga, who styles herself La 
 Marchesa di Monteferrato, but is known about here 
 as the mistress of Count Borremeo, the richest noble 
 in Piedmont or Lombardy. I suppose his gold " 
 
 But the woman interrupts him with a shudder. 
 " Don't insult me by saying I love aught but you," she 
 whispers. " Rawdon, think how I have adored you. 
 Remember how tender I have been with you; how 
 obedient to yotir wMms, I who have been wont to 
 command. Forgive me, though I have been the mis- 
 tress of Borremeo, I am now only yours." 
 
 " You are not my mistress now! " 
 
 " Gran Dio! what do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean I could pardon your having been the wife, 
 but cannot pardon your having been the mistress of 
 another," answers the young man, with that cruel 
 jealous sentimentality only possible to adolescence. 
 " Besides," lie sneers, " I have heard other gentlemen 
 have been honored with your charms. I might share 
 my bone with one dog, but not with half a dozen."
 
 32 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " My heaven, you are not going to discard me ! " 
 screams the lady, her face growing white with misery, 
 her hands clenching themselves in her agony. Then 
 tossing pride away, for she loves him well enough 
 for that, she begs : " Sydney, think how meek I have 
 been to your slightest wishes. Remember that my 
 passion for you is the love of my life ; that if you leave 
 me my heart dies." 
 
 Her glorious orbs gaze into his, she says proudly : 
 " Look into my eyes ! They tell the truth ! " 
 
 And so they do. For Bianca Gonzaga is a woman 
 who loves most what she loses ; and at this moment she 
 is true as steel to this handsome cavalier who is turning 
 from her. 
 
 But he, lashing himself into a passionate fury, says, 
 with a shudder : " I love you so, I dare not ! " 
 
 " Why not? You kissed them but a minute since ! " 
 
 " Because then I would forgive you." 
 
 " Then look in them quick, Sydney ! " she begs. 
 " Look in them, mi carissimo," and her arms go round 
 his neck, their rounded curves reminding him of the 
 beauties that but this morning he had thought the 
 greatest gift this earth had given him. 
 
 Her lips would cling to his, but with a moaning 
 shiver he breaks her clinging hold of him and springs 
 into the boat. Desperate, he signals the men to push 
 off before her caresses shall make him weak. Though 
 she would follow him, he with a boathook hastens the 
 speed of the little craft. He waves her off, and cries : 
 " Go back to Borremeo, whom you deserted for me ! " 
 then screams to her : " Wretch, don't throw the child 
 in the water is fifty fathoms deep ! " 
 
 For Bianca no more pays attention to him ; she has 
 seized the chick who has looked on affrighted at the
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 33 
 
 result of her disclosure. Raising the little girl on high, 
 she would dash her into the water, were not her arms 
 stayed by a dwarfish boy, who, springing from a neigh- 
 boring orange tree where he has been stealing fruit, 
 flies at Bianca and fights her like a cat. 
 
 The next second a man has run down to the shore 
 and plucked the child from her, shouting out sturdy 
 English curses. 
 
 Then she, looking at him and at the little one, says, 
 in awful voice: " Remember, girl, remember! For 
 this, Corpo di San Marco, I'll make your life the most 
 unhappy on this earth! " 
 
 When Sydney Villiers, seven years ago, had sailed 
 over the blue waters of Lago di Maggiore, he heard for 
 the last time the sweet voice of Bianca Gonzaga ut- 
 tering this cruel oath. 
 
 As this flashes through his mind, the present comes 
 back to the English officer. He is once more in the 
 mud hut on the stricken field of Chiari. He holds the 
 dead Englishman's papers in his hands, and remem- 
 bers that Vesey was the man who came down and 
 saved the child and cursed the woman. He glances 
 at the miniature and knows that these eyes that look 
 at him are the eyes of the little girl who saved him from 
 an unworthy love. He knows now why the dwarf 
 seemed familiar to him. He remembers even the creat- 
 ure's name, Turn Turn, as he heard it by the side of 
 Lake Maggiore. 
 
 This makes him knit his brow. He ponders : " If 
 Bianca guessed my ward's strait, what an oppor- 
 tunity for her revenge." Then he suddenly falters : 
 " Bianca Gonzaga, doubtless by her arts and beauty, 
 she has power with every officer of Louis XIV. in 
 Italy." With this comes the sequential thought : " By
 
 $4 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 heaven ! she may be the mover in the threatened degra- 
 dation of the daughter of Sir Andrew Vesey. 'Twould 
 be like her. Her wits are as bright as her eyes. Dio 
 mio, this makes my task more desperate." 
 
 Pondering on this, the young man mutters gloom- 
 ily: " The army of France stands in array between me 
 and this girl in Cremona, whom I have promised the 
 dead to save. Her enemies are beside her; I am far 
 away ! But, by the blessing of God, my oath I still keep ! 
 'Tis a custom of my family. I suppose it will be my 
 death, but we Villiers have a kind of habit of dying for 
 the sweet lips and bright eyes of woman." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EUGENE DE SAVOY. 
 
 With these thoughts in his mind, Sydney paces the 
 mud of his tent, passing his hand in a kind of help- 
 less abstraction through the long curls of his flowing 
 wig, during which he determines to question the 
 dwarf, Turn Turn. 
 
 This is suddenly broken in upon by an orderly rid- 
 ing up, springing off his horse, saluting, and saying: 
 " Captain Villiers, His Highness, Prince Eugene, de- 
 sires your attendance at once." 
 
 " Where are the headquarters ? " 
 
 " In a casino just outside the moat of the main bas- 
 tion of Chiari. I was directed to guide you there," 
 answers the trooper. 
 
 Twenty minutes afterward, Captain Villiers is 
 ushered by a member of the staff into a pretty little
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 35 
 
 country house, which, though somewhat dismantled 
 by cannon shot, is occupied by the Imperial gener- 
 alissimo as his headquarters. 
 
 Saluting, he stands looking at the most successful 
 commander Austria has ever had, who, though of 
 French birth, together with Marlborough, nearly 
 brought the dynasty of Louis XIV. to ruin. 
 
 At this time Eugene has scarce entered upon his 
 career of glory. As a general officer he has served 
 in the Italian campaigns of a few years before, in com- 
 mand of a cavalry division. Since then he has elec- 
 trified Europe as well as saved it by his crushing de- 
 feat of the Ottomans in the tremendous battle of Zenta. 
 
 His face would be stern were it not for the happy 
 smile of victory upon it, and classic, were his nose, 
 which is large like that of most great men, not so 
 prominent. His eyes are dark, his mouth determined 
 but flexible, his lips in repose being generally parted 
 in a curious kind of half smile. He is habited in the 
 glistening body armor of his day. Around his neck 
 he wears the insignia of that great order of Austrian 
 chivalry, the Golden Fleece. This is his only orna- 
 ment, and one forgets its foppishness in looking at his 
 high jack-boots covered with the mud of Italian 
 ditches that during this hot September evening has 
 become hard caked, though it fills the room with 
 clouds of dust at every movement of his well-shaped 
 limbs. One leg, however, wounded by a spent bullet 
 at Carpi, is still bound up ; to give it ease he is resting 
 it upon a cavalry saddle. 
 
 Two of his staff officers in attendance, at his signal, 
 step out of the room. 
 
 " Come closer, Villiers," Eugene says, affably. " Per- 
 mit me to congratulate you on your conduct in. this
 
 36 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 day's affair. Trust me, word of it shall be forwarded 
 to my master and your king, that your gallantry may 
 receive proper recognition from both." 
 
 " Thank your Highness," replies the Englishman ; 
 adding deftly : " Under your command what soldier 
 could fail to do his duty." 
 
 Even great men like to be flattered. A little smile 
 ripples Eugene's determined lips. He laughs : " Your 
 tongue is as smooth as your cheeks, my boy, and they 
 are as downy as when you fought the Turks with me at 
 Zenta four years ago." 
 
 " I am twenty-eight years of age, your Highness, 
 but, dash it, even the wenches think I am still a strip- 
 ling. Lord Harding thought so, too, last year, one 
 night at White's Chocolate house,* but I proved to 
 him next morning in Hyde Park that if my mustache 
 was short my sword was long," answers Villiers, winc- 
 ing, for his youthful graces are a very sore subject with 
 this hard-riding cavalry officer. 
 
 " Yes, old enough for great things now, eh ? " 
 laughs Eugene. Then he commands : " Come closer 
 to me. This word I have to give you is private beyond 
 most affairs of man." His glance becomes searching 
 as he queries : " You were appointed to-day by the 
 late Sir Andrew Vesey to be the guardian of his daugh- 
 ter." 
 
 " He gave me that trust with his dying lips, your 
 Highness." 
 
 " It is in that view I would speak to you," returns the 
 commander-in-chief. "That unfortunate gentleman 
 explained to me upon taking post as my aide-de-camp 
 the reason of his wishing to serve in Italy. You, I 
 presume, already understand that, Captain ? " 
 * Probably the first rehouse in London; |t was established ij Tg8,-~|5o.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 37 
 
 " Yes, sir," replies Villiers. 
 
 " You know that he wished to get to Cremona as 
 soon as possible ? " 
 
 " Certainly, your Highness." 
 
 " You are aware how he intended to journey 
 there ? " 
 
 " Of course. When you, his commander, marched a 
 conqueror into the gates of that city, Sir Andrew ex- 
 pected to ride beneath your banner, as do all of us," 
 replies the young Englishman. 
 
 " There you are mistaken," remarks the Austrian. 
 " Sir Andrew Vesey, having lived eighteen years irr 
 Italy, was to all intents and purposes an Italian. Under 
 disguise his nationality would never have been 
 guessed. It was my intention, as it was his prayer, that 
 he should go to Cremona in disguise to determine for 
 me not only the feeling of the Lombardians, but the 
 chances of a successful attack upon that town, which is 
 the strategic center of the French position in Lom- 
 bardy." 
 
 " As a spy ! " gasps the young officer. 
 
 " Yes. Sir Andrew himself suggested it, for I could 
 never put such military jeopardy upon any but a vol- 
 unteer. Now his death prevents my obtaining infor- 
 mation that is of great import to the cause of my em- 
 peror." 
 
 " I speak Italian with the fluency of a native, though 
 I have the accent of Southern Italy," says Villiers 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Humph ! An unusual accomplishment among 
 you Islanders, who generally think so well of your 
 own language you acquire the tongues of other coun- 
 tries but indifferently," laughs the Prince of Savoy, 
 though his eyes open excitedly, for here may be the
 
 38 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 solution to a problem that the death of Sir Andrew 
 Vesey had made almost impracticable. 
 
 " Being a Catholic, I was sent as a boy of ten to be 
 educated in Rome. They thought to make me a 
 priest," continued Villiers. 
 
 " But turned out a soldier," interjects the Austrian 
 commander, cheerily ; then he suggests : " You must, 
 therefore, know the customs of this country as well as 
 those of your own." 
 
 " I do. Youth easily acquires the dialect and fash- 
 ions of the land in which it is reared. I once sang like 
 an opera tenor, but the fogs of England, when I re- 
 turned to my native land, took my voice away, though 
 three months under the Italian sun seems to have 
 given my vocal cords new powers. I caught myself 
 singing the other morning a sarabande from Scarlatti's 
 ' L'Onestra Nell 'Amore.' Hang it, I had half my 
 squadron dancing around my tent," laughs the young 
 man ; then he goes on proudly : " Seven years ago, a 
 Lombardian lady, whom I thought I loved, told me 
 my Tuscan was as pure as that of Tasso." 
 
 " Sapristi, we all think we love at twenty," chuckles 
 the Prince, meditatively. To this he adds, his eye 
 lighting up : " By your suggestions I should judge 
 you wish to take the dead officer's place and journey 
 at great military risk to aid his daughter." 
 
 " I do," replies the Englishman stoutly. He is 
 thinking of the beautiful miniature, he sees the glori- 
 ous eyes and imagines he hears the lovely voice. 
 
 " Understand, you will be assisted by the power of 
 Austria ; detachments of troops will meet you at places 
 you may suggest ; money will be furnished you," re- 
 marks the Prince of Savoy.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 39 
 
 " I have plenty of my own, your Highness," an- 
 swers the captain, with Anglo-Saxon independence. 
 
 " Ah, but it is for the service of the emperor you 
 risk your life. Therefore you must let me assist you 
 with my military chest." 
 
 " Then I accept the aid of your money and the sup- 
 port of your troops as you offer them, and in return 
 devote my life, if necessary, to the errand upon which 
 you send me," whispers Villiers determinedly. 
 
 " In that case we thoroughly understand each other. 
 At the proper moment in this campaign, and that will 
 be, I hope, soon, I shall send you on your errand. In 
 case it is successful, Eugene de Savoy will remember 
 that you have done great things for him." 
 
 " I thank your Highness." The Englishman salutes 
 preparatory to taking his departure, but his com- 
 mander by a gesture stops him. Then Eugene's voice 
 grows very low as he asks : " Do you know how Sir 
 Andrew Vesey died ? " 
 
 " Yes ; fighting gallantly under your colors, your 
 Highness." 
 
 " No ! " The Austrian commander's voice is scarce 
 a whisper. " He was murdered." 
 
 " Miscrimus! " 
 
 " Stabbed from behind. We all know that Sir 
 Andrew Vesey didn't turn his back on retreating 
 Frenchmen. I myself saw him charge as gallantly 
 as ever soldier rode. My provost marshal reports 
 that the English gentleman was stabbed from behind 
 where his cuirass joined his taces. Poniarded by a 
 dastard. My provost marshal is looking for the as- 
 sassin. But who can tell who struck the blow in the 
 confusion of a desperate onslaught."
 
 40 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Strange," remarks the captain, knitting his brows, 
 " that I heard no rumor of it." 
 
 " Not at all strange," replies Eugene. " My camp 
 police are keeping it very quiet in hopes of bringing 
 the assassin to military justice. I tell you this, Cap- 
 tain Villiers, so that you may be upon your guard. 
 The man who struck the father of the girl may now 
 strike you, her guardian." 
 
 " Thank your Highness for the warning. I shall 
 take good care of my life, for with this duty upon me I 
 value it more than I ever did." 
 
 But it is not Eugene's errand nor confidence that 
 makes the young man place increased value upon his 
 existence. It is the thought that he may be of aid to 
 the lovely yet helpless girl of the miniature. 
 
 Saluting, he steps from the house of his commander. 
 Gazing out upon the soft Italian night, even the 
 laughter of some staff officers who are dicing in a big 
 headquarters marquee, and the tramp of a large cavalry 
 detachment that is marching toward the picket lines 
 nearer the Oglio, can not destroy the romance in 
 Sydney's mind. He can't help longing to see in flesh' 
 and blood the lovely being the art of Jacopo Giovanni 
 had portrayed, this beauty that a dying father's words 
 have given unto his hands. 
 
 With this in his mind he is perhaps rather slow in 
 mounting his horse. Even as he puts foot in stirrup a 
 strong hand clasps his arm with genial grasp, and his 
 most favorite comrade, Colonel Paul Diak, acting 
 Provost-General of the Army of Italy, whispers in 
 his ear : " Sapristi, you are moody to-night, Sydney. 
 Didn't you hear me calling to you from the staff tent 
 to come and quaff a flagon with me before you left 
 headquarters ? "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 41 
 
 " No, Colonel, I was thinking." 
 
 " Ah, yes, of your young ward," remarks the colo- 
 nel. " A curious legacy, that of to-day's battlefield. 
 Prince Eugene," the provost officer's voice is guarded, 
 " gave you some hint in regard to her poor father's 
 end?" 
 
 " Yes that he was foully murdered ; stabbed from 
 behind while charging the French." 
 
 " That's straight as a drum-major's baton," answers 
 Diak, who is a tall, raw-boned, dashing cavalry officer, 
 whose ancestor had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, 
 but who had left his son to take service under the 
 flag of the country against whom the old Swedish 
 soldier of fortune had periled his life so often. " As 
 aide to Prince Eugene, Vesey had taken the order to 
 your regiment to charge. He joined in the onslaught, 
 but couldn't have ridden as one of your officers, so 
 none of Commerci's troopers can be guilty. He may 
 have been attended by his own body servants, who 
 would have ridden immediately in his rear. There 
 were two of them. I understand they have trans- 
 ferred themselves to your appenage, Villiers." 
 
 " Yes, one, a Neapolitan varlet, has gone to sleep in 
 my horse blanket outside my hut after devouring all 
 the provisions in sight ; the other seems a half-witted 
 d\varf," answers the Englishman. 
 
 " Very well ; contrive to question the fellows inci- 
 dentally," suggests the provost marshal. " In case 
 there is any clew in their words, please let me know. 
 Prince Eugene is more exercised by this treachery 
 among his own troops than he is by any immediate 
 danger from the beaten French. This wretch who 
 murders may also be a spy."
 
 42 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Thank you for the suggestion," returns Villiers, 
 his brow growing contracted, for one spy always fears 
 an opposing spy, and any information received by the 
 French of his secret journey to Cremona will greatly 
 add to the danger of his arrest and execution. Then 
 he asks : " In your investigation, what have you dis- 
 covered about the fellows, Colonel ? " 
 
 " Only this," says Diak. " The boy dwarf, though 
 he is an Italian, came with Sir Andrew from England. 
 The elder varlet, the Neapolitan, entered Vesey's serv- 
 ice immediately after the battle of Carpi, where his 
 English lackey had been killed by a cannon shot. I 
 would question them myself, but the provost marshal's 
 interrogations would put them on their guard. They 
 will doubtless answer more to your incidental in- 
 quiries." 
 
 " Which I will make immediately," replies Villiers, 
 and rides back to his hut. 
 
 On arriving at his quarters, he unceremoniously stirs 
 up with his heavy cavalry boot the sleeping Neapolitan, 
 who rises, and, apparently half awake, answers his 
 questions in a dogged yet seemingly disingenuous 
 manner. 
 
 " You are sure," asks the Englishman, who com- 
 mences the conversation with some tact, " that you 
 have brought me all you late master's luggage ? " 
 
 " Si, signore," replies the man. " I stole none of it. 
 If any is missing, ask the dwarf boy who hides under 
 the manners of a fool the cunning of a monkey." 
 
 " How can you be sure that none is missing when 
 you to-day rode with your master to the front and 
 took part in the battle ? " 
 
 At this Villiers imagines the Neapolitan starts 
 slightly, though he attempts to conceal this with a
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 43 
 
 yawn. He inspects him closely and notices that 
 Giovanni Umberto is a man of large frame and strong 
 stature. He has big black eyes, well shaded by im- 
 mense jet lashes, and a mouth that is hidden by an 
 enormous mustache. The hair upon his face conceals 
 its emotions that are generally vivid in the Latin race, 
 and disguises the Italian's countenance with a placidity 
 that is unnatural to it. 
 
 " Under pardon, your Excellency," answers Um- 
 berto, calmly, though there is a slight quiver in his 
 voice, " I stayed in the rear with the baggage. Sir An- 
 drew thought great of that valise and black box. He 
 ordered me not to leave them." 
 
 " Humph ! Did the dwarf also remain with the bag- 
 gage?" 
 
 " Si, signore." 
 
 " Very well, find Turn Turn and send him to me." 
 
 " Diavolo! You know his name! " cries the Neapoli- 
 tan, astounded, and would depart upon his errand. 
 
 But Villiers calls him back, and commands : " By 
 military law, being my servant, you are now attached 
 to the regiment Commerci, and subject to its regula- 
 tions. The troopers of my regiment ride with shaven 
 faces. See to it that to-morrow morning there is no 
 mustache nor beard, nor hair of any kind except your 
 eyelashes, upon your face, and that they are trimmed." 
 
 " Signore, as Sir Andrew's servant I was not at- 
 tached." 
 
 " No, he was an aide-de-camp. I am a regimental 
 officer. No words, fellow ! To-morrow morning a 
 clean face, or the provost marshal gives you the es- 
 trapado. Salute and find Turn Turn ! " 
 
 And as the Neapolitan, after a bungling attempt at 
 military salutation, turns away, Villiers comments to
 
 44 tHE FIGHTING TROUBAbOtJR. 
 
 himself grinningly : " Sapristi, the next time I ques- 
 tion him Signer Umberto won't hide his emotions 
 from me under mustache or beard ! " 
 
 Some five minutes afterward the dwarf comes 
 crouching into the hut of his new master. 
 
 " Hang it, fool, you're not afraid of me ? " cries Vil- 
 liers. 
 
 " No, signore, I am only afraid of of bad people." 
 The boy looks about the room, then glides to the door 
 and gazes out in a terror that the captain thinks is 
 imbecile. 
 
 " Here, lad, you needn't tremble at me. I am your 
 friend as well as master," he calls, reassuringly ; then 
 questions : " You came with your late lord from Eng- 
 land?" 
 
 " Oh, sieur, don't speak of il signore. I cannot an- 
 swer you for the tears in my eyes. He was so good 
 to me. He took me to England that the great surgeons 
 might cut me up and try to make me straight like 
 other people, though that was no use." 
 
 " You remember his daughter, the little Lucia? " 
 
 " Oh, signore, I adore her. Her voice is like an 
 angel's but I shall never hear it again." The tears 
 run down his cheeks. " She will kill me as she did 
 him." 
 
 "She! Who?" 
 
 " The bad woman." 
 
 "Whom did she kill?" 
 
 " My Lord Vesey." 
 
 " Idiot, that's nonsense," cries the English officer. 
 " Petticoats, in a pitched battle, murdering a cavalry- 
 man in that charge. Begad, that proves you're brain- 
 less."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 45 
 
 Still something in the dwarf's manner impresses the 
 young man, for, after letting the boy slink off, he 
 summons his old servant, an Irish cavalry lad named 
 Teddy O'Bourke, who has looked upon the advent of 
 the Italian servitors with evil eyes. To him he says : 
 * Here, Teddy, you sleep with half an eye open, lay 
 your carcass across the door, with sword by your side 
 and pistol at your hand." 
 
 " Begorra, is it the ghosts of all the Turks you 
 killed at Zenta you're frightened of? " laughs the cav- 
 alryman, and does his master's bidding, as Villiers 
 flings himself upon a couch made of olive branches 
 ravished from a neighboring tree, and, worn out by the 
 fatigues of battle, sleeps the slumbers of the tired war- 
 rior, though Cupid has more to do with his dreams 
 than Mars ; for once he half cries : " Devil, don't 
 throw that child into the lake ! "
 
 46 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 LA PRINCESSA MARIA. 
 
 CHAPTER v. 
 
 AN AMBASSADOR WITH A NOOSE ROUND HIS NECK. 
 
 -From his olive boughs, Villiers springs up early in 
 the morning to witness an interesting discussion be- 
 tween his Irish servant and the Neapolitan, Umberto. 
 The dispute, a common one among soldiers, is on the 
 question of forage and provisions, and soon comes to 
 combat. 
 
 " Ye thavin' foreigner," cries the Irishman, his face 
 glowing with rage, " do ye mark me ! Ye've been stal- 
 in' the bread out of the mouth of an honest man. Two 
 fowls that I had confiscated from a hen roost of a baste 
 of a peasant down the river, and three loaves of barley 
 flour that I requisitioned from his hut with sword and 
 pistol, have gone down your empty Italian stomach 
 while me back was turned grooming his honor's 
 horse." 
 
 " Cos petto! " mutters the Neapolitan, with a careless 
 shrug of his shoulders, as he finishes the last of a 
 chicken. 
 
 " By the heavens above, ye stop 'ating or I'll cut a 
 hole into your stomach that will let thr food put a?
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 47 
 
 quick as ye take it in, ye spalpeen ! " cries the Irishman, 
 springing upon the Italian ; but Umberto's stiletto 
 flashes in the air, and were his wrist not seized and the 
 weapon wrung from him by Villiers, the regiment of 
 Commerci would lack a trooper at roll call, for the 
 dagger has been within an inch of O'Bourke's breast. 
 
 " Here, take your pay, spogliare ! " mutters the 
 Italian sullenly, and throws out a louis to the Irishman, 
 who flips it in the air and bites it to see if it is good, 
 golden coin being scarce at that time in the Imperial 
 army; as his late antagonist is dragged by some half 
 dozen troopers to the guard tent. 
 
 Half an hour later Colonel Diak rides up to see 
 what the Englishman has discovered from the servants 
 of the dead baronet. 
 
 Hearing Villiers's story, the provost marshal calls 
 the dwarf boy up, and the two question Turn Turn. 
 Apparently, partially relieved from some overpowering 
 fear, the boy explains that both he and Umberto, by 
 their master's order, remained with Sir Andrew 
 Vesey's baggage, but admits that during the combat 
 the Neapolitan had left him and only returned while 
 the cavalry were making their last charge. 
 
 This is told in a disconnected and frightened man- 
 ner that throws a good deal of uncertainty on the boy's 
 story. It is all he can or will tell, even though Diak 
 threatens him. 
 
 The French gold coin, however, brings a greater 
 suspicion upon the Italian. It has apparently been 
 turned out from the mint of Louis XIV. during the 
 year. How it could so shortly have reached circula- 
 tion in the Imperial army is something that neither the 
 Englishman nor the provost marshal can explain. 
 
 Diak questions the Neapolitan, and can only get
 
 48 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 from him, even under the estrapade, the dogged an- 
 swer that he has received the coin as wages from his 
 dead master, paid to him within the last month. 
 
 This statement is hardly borne out by the money in 
 the dispatch box of Sir Andrew Vesey, which is only 
 English and German gold. 
 
 " With this slight proof," remarks Diak, " we cannot 
 bring the fellow to court-martial for the murder of 
 his master. Eugene would never approve the sen- 
 tence." 
 
 Remembering his contemplated expedition, Vil- 
 liers dare not have Umberto near him. If this man 
 is the murderer of Sir Andrew Vesey, he is probably 
 also a spy. Villiers's journey to the French lines be- 
 trayed, his life would not be worth a sou-marquee. 
 
 Therefore, the provost marshal, at the English offr 
 cer's suggestion, compromises the matter. He places 
 the unfortunate Giovanni Umberto among the grena- 
 diers of Mansfield's regiment. He instructs the cap- 
 tain of his company to put the Italian in the first rank 
 in every battle, and directs the sergeant of the poor 
 wretch's platoon during times when the regiment is 
 not engaged to make his life a military hell. 
 
 " Egad ! " remarks Diak, " if Umberto isn't shot 
 down in his first combat, he'll take mighty good care 
 he doesn't survive the second, after he's had a few 
 weeks of Sergeant Schwartz's discipline." 
 
 But this compromise adds not greatly to the safety 
 of the English captain, for he has planted a vendetta 
 in the heart of Giovanni Umberto, who bears malice as 
 undying as if he were a Corsican both for the English 
 officer and his Irish servant. 
 
 Still, the man having drifted out of his sight, Sydney, 
 in the hard marchings and the almost partisan engage-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 49 
 
 ments that take place toward the end of the campaign 
 for the main body of the French on November 14 re- 
 treat across the Oglio nearly forgets the wretch who, 
 under his breath, curses him at drill each day as he 
 '. writhes beneath the canes of the energetic corporals 
 and athletic sergeants of Mansfield's grenadiers ; for the 
 Neapolitan seems to have the making of a poor soldier 
 in his stout carcass, apparently liking better to do his 
 killing with sword and poniard rather than with mus- 
 ket and bayonet. 
 
 So the campaign draws near its close, the French 
 losing post after post in the Mantuan territory, until 
 now the only fortified places that fly the flag of Louis 
 XIV. are Goito and the capital city of Mantua, into 
 which the Count de Tesse has thrown himself with a 
 large garrison. 
 
 Then Eugene, having captured Canneto by assault 
 on December 4th makes efforts south of the Po. 
 
 The small princes of Italy, seeing which way the 
 wind of victory blows, are anxious to hoist the Imperial 
 banner over their citadels and capitals. 
 
 The Duke of Modena has privately promised, if 
 Eugene but attack him and so give him an excuse, to 
 surrender every fortress that he holds to Austrian gar- 
 risons. To further this plan, Eugene immediately 
 marches two divisions across the Po. They take Gon- 
 zaga by escalade, and there only remains between them 
 and Modena the little Duchy of Mirandola, with its 
 appenage Concordia, ruled over by Francesco Maria 
 Pico, the capital town of which is filled with a strong 
 garrison of Louis and his Spanish ally, and has been 
 made the depot of supplies for the French south of the 
 Po. 
 
 To carry it by arms will cost the lives of at least a
 
 50 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 regiment. Therefore Eugene enters into negotiations 
 with its Italian potentate for its betrayal. 
 
 In thinking of this affair, the Prince of Savoy 
 chances to remember that Captain Sydney Villiers is 
 familiar with Italy, its people, customs, and language, 
 and, calling him to his aid, brings about a most curious 
 climax to that gentleman's guardianship. 
 
 The young officer is summoned to the headquarters 
 at Gonzaga quite privately one night, and after receiv- 
 ing cordial greeting, the following conversation takes 
 place between him and his commander-in-chief : 
 
 " My dear Villiers," says the prince, " I am about to 
 give you the opportunity you have wished. If you, 
 succeed in this it will prove to me your ability to con- 
 duct the greater errand upon which I wish to send you 
 as soon as we go into winter quarters. Your efforts 
 during this little affair in my behalf will be those not 
 only of the soldier, but the spy and the diplomat." 
 
 " Your Highness surprises me." 
 
 " Yes, it is a curious story I am going to tell you. 
 The Duke of Mirandola burns to be our friend, were 
 the French garrison removed, but fears to be known in 
 the matter. His daughter, the Princess Maria Beatrice 
 Pico, is Austrian to the core. She has proposed to me 
 by secret messenger to engage the French garrison in 
 a carouse and to tender to their officers a fete and a 
 banquet. While in the height of their festivities we are 
 to enter the town, force the citadel, and capture the 
 garrison. This, I hope, will be done," Eugene smiles 
 here, " with the loss of but one man YOU ! " 
 
 " Me your Highness," stammers Villiers. 
 
 " Certainly ; in the capture of Mirandola you must 
 at least appear to die," answers his commander. " For 
 this is the last fortress we shall take before going into
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 51 
 
 winter quarters. In this attack Captain Sydney Vil- 
 liers, of Commerci's horse, must disappear. He will 
 be supposed to be dead, but really he will make his way 
 to Cremona under instructions which will meet him at 
 Canneto, our most western outpost." 
 
 " Ah, oh, I believe I understand your Highness. For 
 my own safety, the French are to think me dead while 
 I go in disguise to Cremona," returns Villiers, eagerly. 
 
 " Certainly," answers Eugene. " But the details of 
 the greater affair must wait until you have performed 
 your mission to the Princess Maria. Here are instruc- 
 tions how to reach her. After reading them destroy 
 them. It is proposed that her fete take place on the 
 1 5th of December, which is the fourth day from this. 
 On that night, if I receive proper word from you, I 
 will have a division secretly outside the gates of Miran- 
 dola. During the time you spend at the court of the 
 princess you are to take cognizance of the strength of 
 the French garrison and the best manner in which our 
 troops may be introduced to the town, the gates car- 
 ried, and the citadel attacked. You will consult with 
 the princess, who is, I am told, an artful minx, and has 
 the French commandant quite enamored of her, 
 otherwise he'd hardly consent to such festivities 
 in time of war. Arrange with her that her fete to the 
 officers and carouse of the garrison may be so con- 
 ducted as to make our attack easy and successful. 
 These details you must communicate to me." 
 
 " In what manner, sir ? I dare take no attendant 
 with me." 
 
 " Of course, I understand that, but I have provided 
 the princess with the means of communicating with 
 me in a cage of carrier pigeons. In case the affair can
 
 52 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 not be brought off in this way, you must get word to 
 me. Mirandola is but twenty miles from here." 
 
 " I know the road," answers the young man ; " I 
 have traveled over it." 
 
 " Remember ! In case I receive no word from you, 
 except the details of how the attack must be arranged, 
 I shall consider that all goes well, and make the as- 
 sault as your paper indicates." 
 
 " I understand you thoroughly, your Highness," 
 answers Villiers, determinedly. 
 
 " Then adieu, I leave you to the arts of love and 
 war," says Eugene, cheerily. 
 
 " Of love, your Highness? " 
 
 " Why not? The Princess Maria is but twenty years 
 old, and said to be the most beautiful woman in North- 
 ern Italy, though, unlike most of her copatriots, she 
 is a blonde." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, is she ? " remarks Villiers, in so cold 
 a tone that Eugene gazes after his retreating emissary, 
 an astonished look in his face, and thinks the English 
 are a cold and stolid race. 
 
 But Villiers is on fire, not with the thought of meet- 
 ing the Princess Maria, but with the idea that he shall 
 soon take his journey to Cremona, where he hopes to 
 put eyes upon the beauty of the miniature. 
 
 Thinking of his ward, he has often wondered : " How 
 shall I rule her wisely. Egad, I, who of all men am 
 least fitted to direct the steps of tender maidenhood ; I, 
 the reckless, gaming debauchee." 
 
 Though in this matter Villiers hardly does himself 
 exact justice, for already he has changed his life in 
 several particulars, playing little at the faro table, which 
 has just become popular in Southern Europe, and risk- 
 ing but few guineas on the dice that are always click-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 53 
 
 ing in the mess tents of the officers. Perchance, also, 
 actuated by his oath to the dead father, or, more prob- 
 ably, by a passion that he finds growing in him for the 
 living daughter, he has sent back to England a certain 
 Agnes Blackford, a lady of considerable beauty, but 
 much less virtue, who has contrived to travel not very 
 far in the rear of Prince Eugene's army during this 
 campaign an act of abstinence that has created con- 
 siderable comment among his brother officers, some 
 of them jeeringly suggesting that the Italian air makes 
 Villiers pious, and that he is now again bearing up for 
 the Church. 
 
 But these comments have not ruffled the young 
 gentleman very greatly. To them he has answered: 
 " I don't suppose that it makes me any worse soldier, 
 or it would make you gentlemen any less warriors, to 
 follow the example of our illustrious leader Eugene 
 himself, who, though half a hundred Venuses smile 
 upon him, during active service only worships Mars." 
 In truth, he is so filled up with the beauty of the 
 girl of the miniature, which he now wears upon his 
 breast, and the thought that he is to be, God willing, 
 her salvation from becoming one of the wenches 
 of the opera, that he cares naught for the sight of other 
 women, and only thinks of getting to Cremona in time 
 to protect Lucia Marianna Vesey from the wiles and 
 power of her artful maestro, Giacomo Pasquale, who 
 would offer her up for the benefit of his own pocket on 
 the shrine of art in every theater of Italy. 
 
 " The little witch with her white feet splashing 
 the water of Lago Maggiore," he thinks, " saved me 
 from one unworthy love then, now the sight of her 
 picture has saved me from another." 
 
 Being anxious to get what informatiow he can about
 
 54 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 her, he has questioned at every opportunity the dwarf 
 boy Turn Turn as to the beloved mistress he left be- 
 hind in Italy, but has obtained little important infor- 
 mation from the lad, save that La Signorina Lucia is 
 beautiful as the angels in an altar piece, and sings like 
 the choir invisible of a Franciscan convent. 
 
 Of Turn Turn's judgment as regards the musical 
 ability of the young lady, Sydney has little reason to 
 doubt, for the dwarf at odd moments plays the man- 
 dolin almost divinely, and sings with a barking kind of 
 falsetto extraordinary love ditties that send the sol- 
 diers into roars of laughter. 
 
 As Villiers returns to his tent for the army, being 
 on the march, are now encamped around the little town 
 of Gonzaga he finds the dwarf engaged in this amuse- 
 ment by the camp-fire to the delight of half a hundred 
 surrounding troopers. " Hang it," he laughs to him- 
 self, " Turn Turn has a voice as vile as that of a maestro 
 di capella. I wonder if I can't do better myself ? " 
 
 And the melody getting into his head of the love 
 song the Italian boy has been singing, Villiers hums 
 the tune over, and then begins to sing it, his voice 
 breaking out strong, clear, and resonant as it used 
 to be in his old Italian days. " Gran Dio ! " he ejacu- 
 lates, startled at his own powers. " In this soft Italian 
 climate I have regained the voice of seven years ago. 
 Egad, I may be able even to sing duets with the fairy- 
 toned Lucia." Then his brow knits as he mutters : 
 " Adieu music, now for the arts of a spy." 
 
 This idea is not entirely pleasing to the hard-riding, 
 hard-fighting officer; but being intent upon his errand, 
 he goes into his quarters, and reads the instructions 
 that have been given to him in writing very carefully 
 four times over; in fact, he memorizes them. The
 
 THE FIGHTINd TROUBADOUR. 55 
 
 paper having fallen to ashes in the flame of his tallow- 
 dip, he considers his actions in the matter very deeply, 
 knowing if arrested by the French he will have the fate 
 of a spy and also aware that on his conduct depends 
 the success of the affair for a surprise that fails is 
 generally very costly to the troops engaged in it. All 
 the next day he makes his preparations very carefully, 
 giving no hint to anyone, and the next night at nine 
 o'clock sallies out of his tent and hurriedly orders his 
 Irish body servant to have his best charger saddled, 
 and to be ready himself to ride out behind him within 
 the hour, though not a word of this to any living man. 
 
 " I am still as a ferret, yer honor," whispers Teddy ; 
 then eagerly asks: " Is it foraging? And what has yer 
 worship done with yer mustache ? " 
 
 At this Villiers storms at him : " Keep your 
 tongue quiet." For he has sacrificed for this adventure 
 a very soft mustache that has been the product of 
 seven years' careful cultivation. 
 
 Within the time appointed, Villiers, attended by 
 O'Bourke, both armed with swords and pistols, and 
 properly provided with a military passport to leave 
 camp, ride out from Gonzaga in the direction of Miran- 
 dola, which lies some twenty miles slightly south of 
 east from Gonzaga, in the fertile plain watered by the 
 two little rivers Secchia and Panaro, and situated 
 about midway between these streams. 
 
 Villiers rides rapidly, for the road, though not one 
 of the great highways of Italy, is quite good, and well 
 traveled by many peasants journeying with their 
 produce into the capital of the little duchy. He knows 
 there are no French garrisons nearer than Concordia 
 on the first named river, and, therefore, trots along
 
 56 **HE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 boldly, for every foraging party of the enemy in Man- 
 tua or Medona has been driven in. 
 
 Just about morning they make the Secchia, but not 
 daring to cross the bridge at Concordia, they make a 
 detour and swim it, something like a mile above the 
 little city. 
 
 From the river bank it is scarce four miles to Miran- 
 dola. Fortunately for Sydney's plan, the country is 
 wooded near the watercourse. 
 
 In a dense thicket of willows, topped by an occa- 
 sional chestnut tree, Villiers signals to his Irish servant 
 to halt. 
 
 "For breakfast, yer honor?" says O'Bourke, joy- 
 ously, and would kindle a fire. 
 
 " Not a spark if you love your life ! " commands his 
 captain, sternly " You have brought two days' 
 rations with you, as I ordered ? " 
 
 " Yes, yer honor/' 
 
 " Then stay here and eat them ! Keep my horse," 
 and Villiers springs off his charger, taking with him 
 a small valise he has carried on the saddle behind him. 
 
 " Oh, wherra, I'm shivering after the cold water of 
 the river," ejaculates Teddy, with chattering teeth. 
 " I stay here. How long? " 
 
 " Till you have eaten your rations, or I return to 
 you." 
 
 " And av you don't return to me ? The inemy are 
 not far away over there, and yer honor's eyes have 
 some desperate, divil-may-care plot in thim." Here 
 Teddy astounds his captain by asking excitedly: 
 " Tare an' ages, yer not after catching that Italian 
 spalpeen ? " 
 
 "What Italian spalpeen?" 
 
 " That divil Umberto, who had his skin taken off
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 57 
 
 by the drillmasters in Mansfield's rigiment. Beware of 
 him, yer honor. I've seen his shaved face as yer rode 
 by him as he stood in the ranks. Av yer had fifty 
 lives, be me soul, and he could get 'em safely, I think 
 he'd lave ye widout one of 'em." 
 
 " Pish ! Umberto is tightly in the ranks of the regi- 
 ment of Mansfield." 
 
 " Begorra, but he isn't ! The Italian Umberto de- 
 sarted yisterday. I was thinkin' as how ye were after 
 trying to catch him." 
 
 At this Viliiers bursts into a sneering laugh, and 
 adds sharply : " Never mind Umberto. On no ac- 
 count leave here for two days ! " 
 
 In case he doesn't succeed in entering Mirandola this 
 will give him a means of retreat. " At the end of that 
 time," continues the officer, sharply, " not hearing from 
 me, you return to Gonzaga." This order he supplements 
 savagely : " Mark me, if you freeze to death, no fire. 
 These are my last words to you ! " and leaves the Irish 
 trooper muttering after him : " Divil take ye, I've no 
 doubt thase are yer last words. Bedad, ye might have 
 made 'em a little kinder." 
 
 But Sydney trudges stoutly on, though once he re- 
 marks jeeringly to himself : " Monsieur le Capitaine 
 Viliiers, Embassador to the Court of Mirandola, with 
 a noose about his diplomatic neck." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GOATHERD COMES TO COURT. 
 
 Half a mile nearer Mirandola there is another clump 
 of trees. In these the English officer, valise in hand, 
 disappears.
 
 58 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 From this same shrubbery there comes, some few 
 minutes afterward, an Italian peasant boy, his bronzed 
 face lighted by very bright sparkling eyes, and crowned 
 with a lot of dark flowing curls. He is lightly dressed 
 in a well-wooled skeepskin, from which his bare legs 
 extend in all the innocence of a Tuscan goatherd. 
 These limbs run down to dirty feet that are covered 
 with rough, untanned leather sandals, carelessly tied 
 by strings of hide. A goat-skin belt supports a pouch 
 that is filled with chestnuts that deftly conceal two pis- 
 tols, each freshly primed and well loaded with a brace 
 of balls. Beneath the weapons of war is the weapon 
 of diplomacy, a purse well filled with golden louis. 
 With a goatherd's crook in his hand, the lad trips 
 along the road that is now lighted by the sun just ris- 
 ing over the plain that leads toward the Adriatic. 
 
 At a good pace, and whistling merrily, the youth 
 soon after turns into a little field path, not seeming to 
 care for the better traveled highway. 
 
 After some three miles of trudging he looks at an 
 old walled city surrounded by its medieval fosse. The 
 sunlight is flashing upon the steeples of its cathedral 
 and the faqade of its ducal palace. Beneath these 
 cluster, street on street, more modest houses of 
 medieval architecture, similar to those of many Italian 
 cities of to-day, though in the nearby fields and suburbs 
 there are some outlying villas and white cottages sur- 
 rounded by their little orchards, which soften a picture 
 that without them would be too precise ; for this is a 
 bastioned city, well defended according to the military 
 skill of that time, and water flows in its surrounding 
 inoat, being brought from the Panaro River some few 
 miles away.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 59 
 
 Upon the ducal palace only is the flag of Mirandola ; 
 its walls and gates fly the lilies of Louis XIV. 
 
 Gazing at its red tiled roofs, its bastions, gray with 
 time, its surrounding groves of orange, almond, and 
 mulberry, all lighted by an Adriatic sun that is even now 
 growing warm and pleasant, the shepherd boy mur- 
 murs : " Mirandola, thou art beautiful as thy name ! " 
 
 This inspection he has made very cautiously, though 
 there are but few people in the surrounding country ; 
 most of the inhabitants of the suburbs, apparently 
 frightened at coming war, have betaken themselves for 
 safety within the walls. 
 
 Suddenly the clank of cavalry from behind him 
 comes to his ears, and this peasant boy, who, to make 
 his inspection more complete, has wandered to the edge 
 of the main highway, throws himself into a dry ditch 
 that skirts it, and is protected by a thick bordering 
 hedge of evergreens. Like most non-combatants, he 
 seems to be frightened of troops of either side, and lies 
 close as a hare and scarce breathing as a squad of pa- 
 trolling horse comes riding past him from the direction 
 whence he came. 
 
 They are going at a slow trot, and laughing to them- 
 selves barbarously at a man they must have made a 
 sudden prisoner, for he is clothed in the garb of Adam, 
 save for a pair of high cavalry boots with long spurs 
 that are on his feet, and a hussar cloak that one of his 
 captors apparently has thrown to him, which, for the 
 sake of decency, he has wrapped about his loins. 
 
 Even as this squad passes the close-lying shepherd 
 boy hears a wild Irish voice crying : " Begorra, 
 slacken yer pace a little. I've trained for a cavalry- 
 man, and not for a foot-racing infantry boy. Divils,
 
 60 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 don't ye know one of yer own kind, one of the Frinch 
 rigiment of Dillon." 
 
 But the French patrol does not seem to understand 
 him, and goes clanking along, the cornet in command 
 laughing to his sergeant at the antics, grimaces, and 
 wild yells of their prisoner, as one of the troopers spurs 
 him to greater speed by the point of a saber delicately 
 applied just under the draping cavalry cloak. In the 
 rear of the squad rides a trooper leading the charger 
 Villiers had left behind him in care of his Irish serv- 
 ant as well as the horse of Mr. O'Bourke himself. 
 
 For a moment the peasant boy has difficulty in chok- 
 ing down a laugh, but when he rises his face has a very 
 serious look upon it, as he mutters : " My rear guard 
 and retreat have been cut off immediately. Poor Teddy, 
 what will they do with you ? " Here catching sight of 
 the flag of France being run up on the citadel, and 
 noticing the guard being relieved at a nearby gate of 
 the city, his hand involuntarily seeks his goatskin 
 sack wherein lie the two horse pistols. 
 
 After a short inspection, he mutters determinedly : 
 " The third bastion to the right of the Concordia gate. 
 Ah, yes, the ducal gardens are immediately beyond it." 
 For there are trees of lemon, almond, and orange that 
 here overtop the walls, which are a little lower at this 
 point. 
 
 Then he very cautiously makes a military inspection 
 of the place, and it is not encouraging. The walls are 
 apparently thick, and the bastions and outworks are 
 constructed in the best art of Vauban. The citadel 
 is at the other end of the town, to the east, nearer the 
 Adriatic. It apparently has also been constructed on 
 the plans of Vauban, and could be taken, unless by 
 stratagem, only by regular approach and bombard-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 6 1 
 
 ment. To surprise the town will be also very difficult, 
 as all outlying buildings have been leveled and all trees 
 have been cut down to some two hundred yards out- 
 side the moat, though opposite the ducal garden there 
 is a grove of chestnut trees, mixed with some mul- 
 berry, and dominated by two tall poplars. This is just 
 outside the line of military destruction. 
 
 The bells of the cathedral are sounding. Glancing 
 at its great clock, he notes it is now seven o'clock in the 
 morning. " It is the time ! ;> he says, determinedly, 
 and wanders toward the grove of trees topped by the 
 tall poplars. 
 
 Here in a little dell he sees a pretty peasant girl, her 
 eyes sparkling vivaciously, though she casts them 
 about anxiously from time to time, as she herds some 
 half dozen geese that wander hissing and quacking 
 before her. 
 
 Upon her shapely legs are stout woolen stockings, 
 well displayed by the short skirts of her class. On feet 
 exceedingly small for a country drudge are a pair of 
 sabots that seem to trouble her greatly. The wench 
 steps as if unaccustomed to their weight. 
 
 To her the peasant boy, his eyes sparkling at the 
 charming sight, trips eagerly, a little quiver of anxiety 
 on his lips. 
 
 Catching glimpse of him, the damsel cries : " Hola ! 
 three cock feathers in your cap, my popinjay." 
 
 And he returns to her: "You wear but two, my 
 goose chaser." 
 
 " You are sure you counted right ? " asks the peas- 
 ant girl, a curious look of interest in her face. 
 
 " Certain ! " answer the shepherd, " as I see you 
 have two eye,"
 
 6a THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 At these words the maid steps quickly toward him, 
 and, changing her conversation from Italian patois to 
 courtly French, murmurs : " You are expected, sig- 
 nore. Only,'' here the minx laughs, " for a peasant 
 boy, your legs, my fine gentleman, are too white? They 
 have not seen the sun for many a day." 
 
 To this the boy returns a muttered : " Basta, didn't 
 I rub enough dust upon them ? " then retorts : " And 
 your ankles, my pert maid, are too shapely for a goose 
 tender, and your pretty feet too small to wear sabots. 
 They make you waddle like the birds you follow." 
 
 " Keep your eyes to yourself, Mr. Jackanapes," cries 
 the young lady sharply. " You will perhaps need 
 them to save your neck from " she makes a hang- 
 man's sign; then suddenly whispers: " Quick, come 
 with me. She who sent me is anxious for you, my 
 pretty page." 
 
 " Page ! " snarls the shepherd boy. " How old dost 
 think me, Sauce-box?" 
 
 " Fifteen, though not well grown." 
 
 " Does fifteen have bristles under his nose ? " 
 
 At this the maid stamps her sabots and slaps at him, 
 for the audacious youth has put an iron arm about her 
 lithe waist, and coolly snatched a kiss. 
 
 " Malapert, I'll have you whipped," she whimpers ; 
 then startles him, for she says contemplatively : " I 
 might have known you were an expert at the kissing 
 art, otherwise why should my mistress want to see 
 your forward face." Then the girl's eyes grow fright- 
 ened ; she says hurriedly : " But she is waiting for 
 you. Don't keep me paltering here. My lady has an 
 impatient temper and quick hand with her her peas- 
 ant girls,"
 
 ?HE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. *>3 
 
 " You mean maidte of honor," laughs the boy. 
 " Lead on. What is your pretty name ? " 
 
 " Metia, signore. But she awaits you. En evant ! " 
 
 "Which way?" asks the goatherd, looking about. 
 " I see no path to your mistress's presence, save by the 
 gates of yonder city, to which I have no passport." 
 
 " There is a way I am to show you," answers the 
 maid, provided you tell me one other thing." 
 
 " And that is," suggests the peasant, " that the Duke 
 Francesco has two thumbs and is sixty next feast of the 
 Ascension." 
 
 " You seem to guess my very thoughts. Come with 
 me," laughs the goose tender. 
 
 "What, into your goose pen?" queries the shep- 
 herd, glumly, for she has opened the gate of the coop. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; it is clean. I have swept it out these three 
 days waiting for you," mutters the girl, who has ap- 
 parently been by no means pleased with her occupa- 
 tion. " Quick, sir." At her word he follows her into 
 the inclosure, and in the very center of a thick copse 
 of closely grown evergreens at the far end of the pen 
 she draws away a lot of boughs and trailing vines, dis- 
 closing to the wondering shepherd a shaft or opening 
 in the earth. 
 
 " There is no chance of this being discovered," sug- 
 gests the shepherd in military contemplation. 
 
 " But little now, sir. Nearly all the inhabitants of 
 the fields about, fearing the march of hostile armies, 
 have taken refuge in the city. It must have been built 
 many, many years ago as a means of access to the 
 Outer country from the ducal gardens, either for the 
 purpose of foray or of flight." 
 
 " You speak quite learnedly for a goose tender," 
 laughs the shepherd.
 
 64 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " And you seem to have military instinct for a goat- 
 herd," rejoins the girl. " I have noticed you counting 
 the cannon on yonder bastion." 
 
 With these words the girl descends a little ladder. A 
 second after the boy follows her. 
 
 From the bottom of the shaft, scarce eight feet below 
 the surface, runs a passage, apparently leading toward 
 the town. Lighting by flint and steel two candles, one 
 for each, Metia whispers : " Follow me ! " and trips 
 along a tunnel scarce five feet wide. 
 
 After some considerable distance the tunnel, which 
 has gradually descended, begins to ascend. " We 
 are under the moat now," whispers the girl. The trick- 
 ling ooze in the masonry of the passage tells her fol- 
 lower she speaks the truth. 
 
 A short time after they are at the foot of another 
 short shaft. Ascending the ladder in this, Metia, after 
 careful examination, pushes open a small trap door, 
 and the light of day greets the shepherd's eyes. 
 
 A moment later he is beside his fair guide in a little 
 summer house of rustic work, covered with trailing 
 vines and running plants, so as to make it quite private 
 from outside observation. 
 
 Gazing from this, the peasant boy sees he is in the 
 royal gardens of Mirandola. The ducal palace is in 
 front of him, nearer to the heart of the town, its rear 
 pavilions extending into the flowery inclosure, which is 
 beautified by fountains and running streams of water, 
 and made private by a wall of moderate height. The 
 bastions of the city in some places come to within fifty 
 yards of this. Without is an armed fortress, within a 
 garden lovely as that of Eden. At least, that is what it 
 seems to the shepherd boy. 
 
 Whispering, " Stay here ! " the goose-girl flits away.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 65 
 
 So he waits some little time, cursing woman's dawdling 
 ways. Once, hearing suspicious steps, he reaches to- 
 ward the goatherd's pouch to feel sure of his horse pis- 
 tols. Finally, to drive away care, he throws himself 
 down upon a bench and goes to singing a little Tuscan 
 love air. 
 
 A moment after it is answered, the song being taken 
 up quite merrily. With the notes on her lips, a young 
 and beautiful lady enters the summer house. She is 
 gowned in the laces of Venetia, and the light silks that 
 are made in Padua, her long bodice being of the latest 
 mode, laced both before and behind, with hanging 
 sleeves from which her white arms come flashing out. 
 As she steps, the youth notes her long train is tucked up 
 over an immense petticoat of shimmering satin to show 
 the pretty feet in little jeweled slippers. Her curls are 
 tied up by ribbons blue as her eyes ; for she is a blond 
 beauty, whose hair is yellow as gold, and skin white as 
 alabaster. She has a little rosebud mouth and piquant, 
 slightly retrousse nose, and an entrancing yet perhaps 
 wicked smile certainly a mischievous one. She is 
 just under the middle height of women, and has a 
 figure graceful as a bird's. 
 
 Behind her, some fifty yards away, stands respect- 
 fully a lady of her court, robed richly, but in black. 
 Obeying a glance, the attendant through all the inter- 
 view never approaches near enough to hear the con- 
 versation of her mistress; but, pretending abstraction, 
 wanders about the garden circling round the little sum- 
 mer house, and acting more as a guard against intru- 
 sion than as a chaperon to her young autocrat. 
 
 The goose girl, who has brought him here, now 
 robed as a maid of honor, carries her mistress's train, 
 and after arranging this with low obeisance says:
 
 66 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Your Gracious Highness, this is the peasant boy who 
 had three cock feathers in his hat, and told me I wore 
 but two." 
 
 " Ah," remarks the lady, who has turned toward the 
 youth, who has risen respectfully to receive her, " you 
 
 are, as your general wrote to me " Then she 
 
 pauses and asks sharply: "Who did he say you 
 were ? " 
 
 " Captain Sydney Villiers, of Prince Commerci's 
 horse, a volunteer by permission of the King of Eng- 
 land to serve in the emperor's armies, and the humble 
 servant of Princess Maria Beatrice Pico, of Miran- 
 dola and Concordia, to do whose bidding he has been 
 sent by Prince Eugene of Savoy," answers the goat- 
 herd, and, sinking on his knee, kisses the fair and 
 jeweled hand that is extended to him. 
 
 " Your words are right, sir. I welcome' you to Mir- 
 andola," whispers the lady ; then laughs archly : " You 
 needn't kiss my hand again," for at her welcome Syd- 
 ney's lips have again sought the patrician fingers 
 that he still holds. 
 
 " Metia," the princess speaks with the tone of one 
 accustomed to command, " prepare yourself for the 
 duties I have told you, but as you value my favor, no 
 word of this to living soul." 
 
 And the Lady Metia, courtesying to the earth, bows 
 herself out of the presence of the princess of this little 
 Italian dukedom, who now turns upon the peasant 
 boy eyes that seem to linger on him as she queries 
 anxiously: " Your master thoroughly understands my 
 message? " 
 
 " Yes, your Highness. I am to remain here to re- 
 port if aught happens to prevent or postpone a carouse 
 given by you to the French soldiers of this garrison,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 67 
 
 and a fete and banquet also tendered, I understand, by 
 you to their officers, upon the evening of the I5th, 
 which is the third night from now. Should I send no 
 word to Eugene, eight regiments of foot and four of 
 horse will be in the woods nearest this town on the 
 night appointed ready to take the Concordia gate by 
 assault." 
 
 " Your words are right, sir. Thank heaven, the 
 1 5th is coming soon; for I am tired of the beastly 
 French," says the lady with a coquettish moue; then 
 her voice grows angry : " Though daughter of the 
 reigning duke, I am no longer mistress here. Colonel 
 de Vivans, Louis's commander, treats this as a con- 
 quered town. He has even threatened to replace our 
 troops and sentries in the ducal palace with those of 
 France." 
 
 " Then it is fortunate the day appointed is so near," 
 answers Villiers. " I shall immediately inspect this 
 city, your Highness, and send my general word as to 
 the best method of making the surprise," adding after 
 a moment's consideration : " I think it can be done 
 successfully. A regiment of foot concealed in that 
 grove of trees, in which is the goose pen, after nightfall 
 can be introduced through the passage under the moat 
 into this very kiosk, and thence into your surrounding 
 gardens. From these gardens, at proper time and sig- 
 nal, they can sally upon the French when wine and 
 merriment make them an easy prey, and open the Con- 
 cordia gate to the army in waiting." 
 
 " You have a quick eye for military vantage, sir," 
 says the lady. 
 
 " No one knows of this passage? " asks Villiers, anx- 
 iously. 
 
 " None, I think, except myself and the Lady Metia,
 
 68 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 The messenger I sent to Prince Eugene went forth 
 that way, but he was blindfolded until he had passed 
 into the grove. Besides, the last time I sent him to 
 Prince Eugene I asked his highness to keep my mes- 
 senger closely guarded until after this affair had come 
 off," remarks the royal lady, with an acuteness that 
 makes Villiers open his eyes. 
 
 " Hush ! I think I hear a noise," the gentleman in- 
 terjects suddenly, and steps cautiously to the door. 
 
 " Yes, one of my peacocks pluming himself outside ! " 
 then she laughs : " But this proves you are indeed a 
 cavalry officer." 
 
 "How so?" asks Villiers, astounded. 
 
 " Your hand sought the hilt of your absent saber 
 from very force of habit. Still, for your own safety, for 
 my safety, remember you are still a goatherd." To 
 this she adds contemplatively : " And quite a boy to be 
 sent on such a dangerous mission." 
 
 " Your Highness, I am an officer who has served 
 in two campaigns, and fought in six pitched battles. I 
 am a man of twenty-eight," answers Villiers, so sternly 
 the princess looks abashed, and murmurs : " Forgive 
 me," then giggles : " Egad, you don't look it." 
 
 " Madame, permit me to prove " 
 
 " That you have reached both the discretion and 
 vigor of manhood ? Your prince by sending you has 
 proved the first." 
 
 "As to the second, with your permission, your 
 Highness, I will prove that when I raise sword for 
 you ! " 
 
 " Pardie, there are other ways than fighting," laughs 
 the princess, her eyes giving a strange emphasis to her 
 speech ; then she suddenly asks, anxiously ; <( You
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 69 
 
 thoroughly appreciate the danger that is to you, to me, 
 if you are found here ? " 
 
 " Certainly, your Highness." 
 
 " You also are aware that my father, the Duke Fran- 
 cesco, knows naught of this matter? " 
 
 " Of course. That is well understand by Prince 
 Eugene. Your father knows as little of this affair as 
 the French commandant, De Vivans, whom we will 
 surprise and capture, by God's aid and that of your 
 Highness," laughs Sydney. 
 
 " But to surprise him we must be as cautious as 
 Naples bravos," remarks the royal lady; adding 
 anxiously : " You were seen by no one save my maid 
 of honor, the Lady Metia, who, I hope, gave you 
 pleasant greeting." 
 
 " Indeed she did, though she criticised my disguise 
 somewhat." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I remember," smiles the princess. " Metia 
 remarked to me that your legs were too white for a 
 shepherd. Besides, your mouth was not full of chest- 
 nuts, and your lips didn't smell of garlic. How did 
 Metia know the last? " The royal eyes are roguish. 
 
 " Egad, your Highness, I never fathom the intui- 
 tions of woman," answers the peasant boy, whose man- 
 ners are gradually becoming those of a cavalry officer. 
 
 " Ah, you are discreet. I like a silent tongue in a 
 lover," says the princess contemplatively. " But you 
 must eat garlic if you wear that dress." 
 
 " I beg you forgive me the garlic, though I can 
 devour chestnuts." The young man puts his hand in 
 his pouch and goes to munching them. " I am hungry 
 enough now for even that, your Highness." 
 
 " del, you are giving hint for breakfast. You 
 military men are always hungry," laughs Maria.
 
 70 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Your breakfast is an easy matter, but how to keep 
 you safe and unsuspected while you are here. The 
 French officers are all about my palace. For our suc- 
 cess, my hospitality to them must be unbounded. Be- 
 sides," here she looks at the young man quizzically, 
 " your legs are so very white for a goatherd's." 
 
 " Then give me hose to put upon them and keep me 
 from catching cold." 
 
 " Too great a luxury for a clodhopper. And then a 
 shepherd in a royal palace? There, shut your mouth 
 and let me think." 
 
 Her blue orbs close, her white brows knit them- 
 selves in pretty frown. After a moment the azure eyes 
 open, and then the sweetly pouting lips. " You were 
 singing when I came to you," she says. " You have a 
 voice like a boy in the Sistine Convent. You speak 
 Italian like a native. You also jabber court French, 
 and yet are English. How is this? " 
 
 " Your Highness, from my tenth to my twentieth 
 year I was educated in Rome." 
 
 " So, then you must know something of our ballad 
 poetry." 
 
 " Madame, I can sing half a dozen Tuscan love 
 songs, besides a comic one telling the story of the 
 wickedness of Macaire and the misfortune of poor 
 Blanciflor. In addition, I know the last couplets of 
 Filicaria, that song of Venice besieged by the Turks." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk of the awful Turks," shudders the 
 lady. " My cousin, the lovely Constancia d'Este, two 
 years ago was carried off from the little peninsula of 
 Comacchio, but fifty miles from here, by the galley of 
 the captain pasha. She is now fourth sultana in the 
 harem of the padishah. They say the captain pasha 
 had promised his master, the sultan, to bring him back
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 7 1 
 
 from his foray the two most beautiful women in Ro- 
 magna." 
 
 " Sapristi! and you escaped? " murmurs the captain, 
 gallantly. 
 
 " Oh," laughs the little royal minx, " it was a mir- 
 acle. I was selected. I had been expected to visit Con- 
 stancia at her villa by the Adriatic, but my post horses 
 were too slow, so I was saved for a a better lover." She 
 gives Villiers a veiled look; then claps her hands and 
 cries merrily : " You shall be a troubadour and help 
 me on the eventful evening entertain the French. Be- 
 fore the banquet there is a ballet given by my maids 
 of honor and ladies of my court. During it you shall 
 sing the love songs of our land, and I will accompany 
 you on the guitar. It is a sweet idea. I shall be your 
 Queen of Love, and you shall be my troubadour, and 
 wear hose and doublet, and have a dagger in your belt. 
 It is a pity you have shaved off your mustache to be a 
 goatherd." She passes her hand lightly over his lips 
 and laughs : " Still, judging by the feel, it must have 
 been a sorry one." 
 
 " Madame," says Villiers, sternly, rising to the full 
 height of his five feet five inches, and wishing he had 
 heels upon his sandals, " for jests about my mous- 
 tachios I have in the duello run my sword through 
 four gentlemen. For ladies I have another punish- 
 ment." 
 
 Her blue eyes look at him calmly as he steps to- 
 ward her. They seem to say : " I dare you ! " 
 
 The next instant, with a little sigh, she draws her 
 lips from his and mutters : " You have committed 
 high treason against my father." 
 
 " It would have been high treason against your 
 beauty had I not done homage to it."
 
 7 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " But if I returned your kiss then I dare not tell 
 papa of you," says the princess, whose face has grown 
 red as the roses of her garden. And in a trice her soft 
 white arms close round his neck, and his salute has 
 been reciprocated with lips dewy with passion as her 
 heart throbs against his like surf upon a rock-bound 
 coast. " I love you, I love you, I love you, shepherd 
 boy," she murmurs as if unto herself, but meaning for 
 him to hear the caress of her voice. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LADY IN WAITING. 
 
 But sharply Villiers starts from her, and his hand 
 furtively seeks the pistols in his goatherd's sack, as 
 Maria's voice dies away in a little tremor. Four gar- 
 deners have passed quite close by the kiosk on their 
 way to some more distant flower beds. 
 
 " My lady in waiting has been remiss," mutters la 
 princessa, her blue eyes gleaming in steely anger, per- 
 chance at thought of interrupted gallantry, perhaps 
 at fear of French discovery, mayhap at both. 
 
 " They are only gardeners, your Highness," whis- 
 pers Villiers, hurriedly. 
 
 " Diavolo! had the gardeners seen a goatherd kissing 
 their princess, their rustic tongues might have chat- 
 tered too loudly. This must not occur again. Bianca 
 has been careless." Then the royal lady claps her 
 hands sharply and calls imperiously: "A word with you, 
 my lady! Madame la Marchesa di Monteferrato, come 
 hither, 'tis I, your mistress, calls you ! "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 73 
 
 These words bring start both to her remiss attend- 
 ant and to the goatherd, who staggers as if he had a 
 pistol ball within him ; for here coming to him is the 
 lady whom he had loved and left seven years ago on 
 that bright summer morning by the shores of Lago 
 di Maggiore. 
 
 Once or twice before this, when he has gazed fur- 
 tively out of the kiosk, Villiers has thought the grace- 
 ful poses of this lady as she has plucked an occasional 
 flower have seemed familiar. Now her name in his 
 dangerous situation gives him for the moment a 
 panic tremor; he guesses the moment Bianca Gonzaga 
 discovers his identity she will be his enemy. 
 
 This is not noted by Princess Maria, whose angry 
 eyes are only upon her lady in waiting. Fortunately 
 la marchesa's glance is also not directed at the goat- 
 herd. Her dark orbs, which grow gradually more 
 pleading as she approaches, gaze only at her stern mis- 
 tress. 
 
 Inspecting the two, Villiers easily sees the little Prin- 
 cess Maria, with all her blond beauty, is a tyrant to the 
 ladies of her household. The half shrinking attitude of 
 Bianca as she approaches her autocrat tells him this, 
 though he wonders what misfortunes can have so hum- 
 bled this lady, who had once been haughtiness itself, 
 to cause her to accept the post of attendant even to so 
 grand a dame as La Princessa Maria Pico of Miran- 
 dola. Their interview takes place some little dis- 
 tance from him, yet gives him some hint of their rela- 
 tions. As the princess steps toward her lady in wait- 
 ing, she speaks sharply : " Bianca, why were those 
 gardeners not stopped, or I at least warned of their ap- 
 proach ? " 
 
 On seeing Maria's face, her attendant, with what is
 
 74 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 apparently a muttered apology or excuse, sinks on one 
 knee and would kiss her mistress's hand, though this is 
 haughtily withheld from her. And the two make a pretty 
 picture, the petite blond despot standing haughtily be- 
 fore the culprit, whose beauty Villiers now sees has 
 been, if possible, increased by an adversity which has 
 chastened it. The big dark eyes that had once been 
 imperious, have grown softer and more appealing in 
 expression, though once or twice into their depths 
 come flashes that show the spirit of Bianca Gonzaga 
 has not entirely been crushed and broken. Besides, 
 her figure as it droops to make obeisance seems even 
 more pliant and willowy than it had been when he 
 last saw her; her gown, though exceedingly rich, be- 
 ing of a plain, soft, clinging, black satin, that outlines 
 each of the many curves of beauty in her form. To 
 this is added, as she kneels down, an escaping foot and 
 ankle of exquisite proportion in hose of black but 
 diaphanous filigree, and a little slipper of the same 
 texture and color as her robe. 
 
 Watching this slipper, Villiers can guess the emo- 
 tions of Bianca Gonzaga, though her face is now hid- 
 den from him. As the princess whispers to her he can 
 see the culprit's foot tremble. A moment after it ex- 
 tends itself as if straining to control a rebellion in her 
 hot blood. 
 
 Their voices now growing a little higher, he can 
 distinguish their words. " Bianca," says the princess 
 sternly, " remember when I rescued you from your 
 creditors in Cremona, after your reputed father had dis- 
 owned you,. that you swore allegiance to Mirandola 
 and became my subject." 
 
 " Madame, have I ever forgotten it? " 
 
 " That was two years ago, and several times have I
 
 THE FIGHTING TROL'SADOUR. 75 
 
 had occasion to humble your haughty spirit. Don't 
 make me do so again. Remember, though I pardon 
 this carelessness, I will not pardon another," continues 
 Maria, then adds, complaisantly: " Now kiss my hand 
 and love your mistress." 
 
 Maria Pico extends her delicate fingers, and her 
 lady of honor, saluting them and again doing obeis- 
 ance, rises to her feet, though Villiers, catching a 
 gleam in Bianca's eyes as she turns away, knows 
 that, though she may kiss her hand, she does not love 
 her capricious mistress. 
 
 The next second the royal lady, consulting a jeweled 
 watch, cries : " Gran Dio ! I shall be looked for in 
 the palace. I can stay here no longer." 
 
 Turning to Villiers, she leads her court lady to him, 
 and says : " Madame la Marchesa di Monteferrato, I 
 present to yen II Signor Montaldo, who is of noble 
 birth, and the famous troubadour who has been en- 
 gaged to assist me in the ballet we give three days 
 from now, and in which none but those of gentle fam- 
 ily take part ! " 
 
 " II Sieur Montaldo kisses your hand, bella donna," 
 remarks Sydney gallantly, and salutes fingers that he has 
 often kissed before ; but the lady does not recall him, he 
 thanks God, though she looks curiously at his goat- 
 herd's costume. 
 
 Also noting this, the princess breaks in : " Signor 
 Mon Montaldo" she stammers a little over the 
 name of her own coining " was captured by bandits 
 two days ago on his way here from Abruzzi, and es- 
 caped from them with little more than his life, his 
 divine voice, and this beggarly goatherd's suit." 
 
 " We must look up something more for him in the 
 way of clothes; otherwise he will be the laughing
 
 7<5 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 stock of the lackeys," interjects la marchesa, a smile 
 parting her red lips. Though she apparently does 
 not believe all her mistress says to her, probably 
 she imagines it is some amour of her volatile 
 princess's, and certainly does not recognize Villiers, 
 who is now speaking Tuscan with the accent and 
 fluency of a native. 
 
 The heavy tan of his long campaign has made his 
 face brown as a Moor's. When Bianca had been his 
 mistress, she had known him only as Sydney Raw- 
 don. At this moment he has a faint hope that in the 
 years which have passed she may have forgotten him. 
 
 " You will honor II Signor Montaldo's commands 
 as you do mine," remarks the princess sharply. 
 
 " Yes, your Highness," murmurs the court lady, 
 and as she courtesies the Englishman notes that, 
 though her eyes droop before her mistress's glance, 
 there is in them a gleam that reminds him of the morn- 
 ing when she would have drowned little Lucia Vesey. 
 If la princessa sees this look she pays no heed to it; 
 at present her face, as she turns it upon Captain Vil- 
 liers, is glowing with Southern passion. But conquer- 
 ing this, she says nonchalantly: "That you may 
 not think I lack in hospi' lity, I have already directed 
 a breakfast to be prepare for you." Her voice grows 
 more strident as she commands her attendant : 
 " Bianca, when you have conducted my honored guest 
 to the rooms prepared for him in the palace, direct 
 Metia to wait upon him." Suddenly her face flushes, 
 her thin lips compress themselves, she cries savagely : 
 " No, not that minx rather Gianetta " but checks her- 
 self, and remarks contemplatively : " Yet no, I dare 
 trust no more women in this affair. Metia it must be.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 77 
 
 Now, Bianca, for one minute I would have privacy 
 with this gentleman." 
 
 " Your Highness is obeyed," whispers the court 
 lady, and bows herself from the august presence. 
 
 Then the august presence grows radiant once more ; 
 la princessa- murmurs : " One last kiss for the shep- 
 herd boy," and gives it with softly clinging lips and all 
 the fervor of an Italian soul. 
 
 " The last kiss ? " 
 
 " Yes, my next shall be for a troubadour. Pish, 
 leave my hand alone, you naughty one. Your ring 
 bruises my fingers. Besides, a shepherd with a signet 
 of sapphire engraved with knightly arms and crest. 
 You make a poor spy, my dashing cavalry boy." 
 
 With melodious yet mocking laughter she darts 
 from the summer house with fairy feet, leaving Vil- 
 liers looking ashamed at the signet ring Sir Andrew 
 Vesey had placed upon his finger as guardian of his 
 daughter. 
 
 To himself he thinks sadly : " By Lucifer, you're 
 not to be trusted. You're getting at your old tricks, 
 my boy. You'll make a pretty guardian for innocent 
 maidenhood." 
 
 This, after consideration, he palliates by muttering: 
 " Military duty ! Did I put slight upon this amorous 
 witch, she would perchance from very pique denounce 
 me as a spy to the French commandant and plot another 
 surprise when Eugene's army thunders at the gates 
 of her capital, and so destroy me forever. I know her 
 kind too well." 
 
 For he is thinking of the Princess Maria's tawny 
 hair and sapphire eyes, that combination which quite 
 often indicates a woman with the passions of a Qeo/r
 
 78 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 patra, the arts of a Circe, and the vindictive jealousy of 
 a Medea. 
 
 Pondering on this in a somewhat disheartened and 
 melancholy style, Sydney's reflections are broken in 
 upon after a few minutes by La Marchesa di Monte- 
 ferrato tripping to him, and saying to him : . " This way 
 quietly, Signor Montaldo." 
 
 Gazing at her, Villiers is now sure that lady does not 
 recognize his bronzed face as that of the gentleman 
 who had been her gallant seven years before at Lago 
 Maggiore. He almost blesses the saber-cut a Turk 
 had given him at Zenta, as it has slightly altered the 
 expression of his face, making it somewhat sterner. 
 
 " You have your instructions, Madame la Marchesa, 
 as to my welfare? " he asks lightly. 
 
 " Yes, both for your comfort and your safety, sig- 
 nore." 
 
 "Safety?" asks the goatherd, opening his eyes: 
 " What danger is there to a wandering troubadour, 
 whose only enemy is the tenor Rialdini, having sung 
 a higher note than he at the festival at Siena? " 
 
 " He whom a princess favors always has enemies," 
 answers Bianca, philosophically. " But quick, this 
 way, sir, or my mistress will think I am again careless 
 in doing her bidding." After a couple of hundred yards 
 of path secluded by myrtle and lilac bushes, they reach a 
 private door in one of the remote pavilions of the palace. 
 This they enter, and, climbing up an old-fashioned stone 
 stairway built medieval fashion within the wall itself, ar- 
 rive at a little suite of apartments quite retired and re- 
 mote from the main portion of the extensive building. 
 Ushered into the parlor of this suite, the soldier, ac- 
 customed to the coarse rations of a rough campaign, 
 giyes a sigh of ecstasy as he looks upon as d.ajnty a
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 79 
 
 breakfast as ever pleased an eighteenth century gour- 
 met. In this room stands Metia, her court dress 
 tucked over her white satin petticoat, prepared to play 
 the waiting-maid, and looking very surly at her duty. 
 
 " You will pardon my absence, Signor Montaldo," 
 says la marchesa. " Metia will see that you want for 
 nothing, while I, under the direction of the princess, 
 will furnish you with a more fitting costume for court 
 attendance than the bandits left you. I bid you adieu 
 for the moment, Sieur Troubadour. You are anxious 
 to begin your meal," she laughs, for Sydney's hand 
 has already reached for knife and fork. 
 
 As Bianca leaves the little sitting-room, Villiers, in his 
 easy campaign way, suggests : " Sit down and join me, 
 pretty Metia." 
 
 But the maid of honor seems a sulky Hebe. " Sig- 
 nore, I was sent to wait upon you as your table 
 wench, half sobs the girl, pouting and blushing. " Be- 
 sides, you have put me in disgrace with my mistress." 
 
 " And this is punishment for it? " asks Sydney, who 
 pities the embarrassment of this young lady who stands 
 like serving maid behind his chair. 
 
 " No, it is only because she dare trust no other lady 
 of her train with her secret. Otherwise 'twere any but 
 me." 
 
 "Indeed! Why so?" 
 
 " You have kissed me, sir; that's the reason," mut- 
 ters Metia, with a blush. " Some chocolate, sir? " and 
 pours it out. 
 
 " Pardie, la princessa laughed about that buss but 
 half an hour ago," says the cavalier. 
 
 " Yes, forty minutes since, when I foolishly hinted it 
 to her, it seemed to make her merry. But on her re- 
 turn from interview with you she boxed my ears and
 
 8o THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 said I was a saucy jade. Were it not that she needs me 
 here to-day, and that I must rehearse for her ballet, 
 I should be in one of the cells in the attic under lock 
 and key, with bread and water for my company, if I 
 didn't suffer worse." Here the girl starts and gasps : 
 " But, oh heavens, if she hears of my fool prating ! " 
 a sudden fear having half palsied her tongue and 
 blanched her rosy cheeks. " Don't think of what I 
 said to you," she falters. " Try some of this trout 
 brought in snow from Lake di Garda. There are also 
 some sardines from Comacchio." 
 
 " Thanks, don't you see I have already eaten both," 
 laughs the soldier, who has been busy at his meal. 
 Then he smiles at her, and says : " Be assured, no 
 word of mine shall compromise such a pretty chit. Sup- 
 posing we mitigate your penance. Be my hostess ; 
 take breakfast with me. Let's have a merry meal of 
 it." 
 
 " And you won't tell ? " Metia's eyes are sparkling, 
 for now she guesses she has naught to fear from the 
 Englishman's tongue. 
 
 " Never, by San Marco ! provided you sit down and 
 chat to me." 
 
 " Of what, signore? " 
 
 " Of anything. Humph say, the French garrison." 
 
 " I know little of them. For some reason my mis- 
 tress apparently has wished me to see naught of the 
 French garrison who took possession of the citadel 
 scarce a month ago; probably because she feared 
 that some dashing young officer of them might make 
 me waver in my faith to her. At all events, La 
 Marchesa di Monteferrato, by the princess's orders, 
 has kept me close as if I were a novice," says the girl, 
 snapping her white teeth together.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 8l 
 
 " And you didn't rebel ? " 
 
 " Gran Dio, I dare not ! " Metia almost trembles at 
 the idea ; then murmurs : " This little court, signore, 
 is ruled in the old-time fashion of Catherine de Medici. 
 There is only one autocrat here my mistress." 
 
 "And La Marchesa di Monteferrato ? " Sydney is 
 trying to discover the exact relation Bianca bears to 
 the princess. 
 
 "Oh, la marchesa!" laughs the maid of honor. 
 " Though mistress of the robes, Bianca Gonzaga is no 
 more than one of us. When she came here first, two 
 years ago, she was as haughty as if she wore a crown, 
 but now she would no more disobey la princessa than 
 any other of her attendants. I saw her the first time 
 her haughty spirit rose in rebellion. For a week after 
 she disappeared. Mon Dieu! " sneers the girl, 
 " Madame Imperious had been under lock and key and 
 tasted her bread and water just as it would have hap- 
 pened to any one of us maids of honor ! " 
 
 " And the duke? " laughs Sydney, though he can't 
 help thinking Bianca Gonzaga scarce loves her tyrant 
 well enough to prevent her offering him up to French 
 military justice if she ever guesses his identity, even 
 though his destruction may be that of her mistress. 
 
 "Oh! la princessa rules him as well as us," re- 
 marks the girl. " Haven't I heard the poor old gentle- 
 man calling out that her extravagance will ruin him. 
 This duchy is but two hundred square miles, yet our 
 princess has a matron of the robes, ten maids of honor, 
 and six ladies of her bedchamber as many as the 
 Queen of France with half a hundred pages and lack- 
 eys in attendance; also an orchestra of most excellent 
 musicians and a private troupe of singing comedians 
 that amuse her in her own court theater, in which, you
 
 8i THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 must have heard, three nights from now she gives a 
 grand banquet to the French officers. Tis as gay a 
 court as any in Italy, though I've had but little of it 
 since the French came here." This last is with a dis- 
 contented pout. 
 
 " And your sister maids of honor ; they are better 
 off?" 
 
 " del! I should think so. Each one now has a 
 dashing soldier for her cavalier, yet I am kept close 
 as a Moslem odalisque. But it was not so till the 
 French came. Since then, I being my mistress's favor- 
 ite, have been set apart to do her private bidding. For 
 the last three days each morning I attended geese in 
 nasty peasant's dress, as you did see. I thought you 
 were some lover of la princessa until I saw how 
 young a boy you were. Oh, what an awful frown ! " 
 
 "What think you now?" Villiers's tone is very 
 stern. 
 
 " That at first it was some other affair for which she 
 wished to see you. But now after interview with you, 
 when my royal mistress boxed my ears until my teeth 
 rattled because she thought you had kissed me, she 
 is in love with you, my pretty page, and jealous as a 
 pussy cat at high moon." 
 
 " Humph ! Your sister maids are beautiful ? " inter- 
 jects Villiers, thinking Mademoiselle Metia's mind is 
 very bright. 
 
 " The loveliest in Italy. This court is so gay, yet so 
 discreet, that our royal lady has always a list of ap- 
 plicants from neighboring nobles that their daughters 
 may enter her service. In fact, when my father, II 
 Cavaliere Bonendo, said to me : ' Girl, which is it, 
 the service of la princessa or the service of heaven? ' I 
 chose the service of la princessa in a breath."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 83 
 
 " How many regiments of French are here ? " 
 
 " Pish, you always go back to the same old subject, 
 the French. Why not speak about some one else? 
 Yourself, for instance." 
 
 " Tell me, sweet," and the captain's arm is about her 
 waist. 
 
 " Two regiments, I think, signore." 
 
 " Here are two kisses for your news." 
 
 " Oh, sir ; there is also a regiment of cannoniers, I 
 believe." 
 
 " Thank you again." 
 
 " Likewise a company of sappers and miners." 
 
 " That makes another kiss." 
 
 "And a hundred of our own troops, Mirandolians. 
 But the clock is sounding. I must go to rehearse my 
 dance in the coming court ballet." The girl springs 
 up. " You must let me go ! " she cries ; for Sydney has 
 a detaining arm around her pretty waist. " I shall be 
 late. The mistress of the ballet, Signorina Tessa Pas- 
 quale, is so indignant if we are not there in time." 
 
 "Signorina Tessa Pasquale?" asks Villiers, open- 
 ing his eyes, for the name seems to be somehow linked 
 with that of Vesey's daughter. 
 
 " Yes, she is the mistress of the ballet at the court 
 theater here, and the sister of the great master of the 
 voice who manages la princessa's singing comedians, 
 Maestro Giacomo Pasquale." 
 
 " The Maestro Giacomo Pasquale, of Cremona? " 
 
 " Yes, he was recommended by Bianca Gonzaga, 
 and came from there. Now you must let me go." 
 
 But the girl has no further need to plead. At her 
 words Villiers's hand has dropped abstractedly, and he 
 is muttering to himself: " By heaven, if this is so, I 
 may be near Bianca Gonzaga's intended victim,"
 
 4 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 For now he guesses if Lucia Vesey is in this town, it 
 is by the influence of La Marchesa di Monteferrato, 
 and that she has not yet forgotten her oath to the child, 
 whose innocent words had once cut short his love for 
 her. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " BY HEAVEN, THAT IS HER VOICE ! " 
 
 For a moment these thoughts of the girl whose 
 miniature he wears upon his breast destroy even mili- 
 tary prudence. Were it not for his goatherd's cos- 
 tume he would immediately make effort to get into the 
 town to see if II Maestro Giacomo Pasquale has here 
 under his charge Lucia Vesey, but looking at his 
 sheepskin mantle, Villiers murmurs : " Deuce take it ! 
 your legs are whiter than ever, my contadino," more of 
 the dust with which he had tinted them having floated 
 from them. 
 
 Personal inspection is interrupted by La Marchesa 
 di Monteferrato entering cautiously. . Giving him 
 greeting, she says pleasantly : " I hope you enjoyed 
 your breakfast, Signor Troubadour. By my lady's 
 commands 1 bring you these. They are not as hand- 
 some as the Princess Maria would wish, but they will 
 do for the ordinary uses of a wandering singer. I am 
 to promise you a much richer garbing for the ballet 
 and the fete." 
 
 From beneath her long court train, which she has 
 gathered up about her, Bianca, taking graceful pose, 
 brings forth a French court costume of the day, with 
 square cut coat of modest black velvet, knee breeches, 
 silken Blockings, and red-heeled shoes, " My mis-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 85 
 
 tress would have sent with it a sword, but those of 
 your calling do not generally carry blade. However, 
 she has added to it this little dagger, with which you 
 may be dangerous. In fact," smiles la marchesa, 
 " no gentleman-of-the-court's costume was small 
 enough. For these we had to rob a youthful page. 
 Pretty Urbano is perchance crying for them now." 
 
 " Madame," says the English captain in a savage 
 voice, " do you think the effeminate hose of a whimper- 
 ing child would fit my legs?" 
 
 " Per Bacco, no, I thought of that and brought a pair 
 of stouter stockings," laughs the lady. Then looking 
 at his massive strength of limb, she cries: "Amore di 
 Dio, you are a little Hercules! " But as she gazes, into 
 her dark eyes floats some souvenir of the past that 
 takes the merriment from them and makes them misty 
 with remembered passion. " Your pardon, signore," 
 she murmurs, " it was my fate once to know a gentleman 
 of about your stature, who one evening at the light 
 words of some gallants at Cannero, about a lady whom 
 he honored, threw two of them into the blue waters of 
 Lago Maggiore. Gran Dio, how the muscles in my 
 English student's arms knit themselves into knots as 
 he handled those effeminate Italian loungers as if they 
 were no more than dice in gamesters' dice box. Then 
 her voice grows bitter as she mutters: " That was be- 
 fore that prating child " 
 
 " Egad! " interjects Villiers lightly, wishing to turn 
 the subject, for he remembers this circumstance very 
 well, " your cavalier must have been a regular crow- 
 ing cock." 
 
 "As you are, I suppose," sneers the lady, flaming up, 
 " a fighting troubadour." With this, angry at sug- 
 gested slight of a man who had once been her gallant,
 
 86 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 she goes on in reckless jeering tone: " Perchance, my 
 troubadour, you will have an opportunity to ruffle 
 your feathers also. In this love affair of yours you 
 are against a military gentleman who may put your 
 
 metal to the test. The princess has " she checks 
 
 herself, the words dying on her lips. 
 
 " Has another gallant, Colonel de Vivans, com- 
 mander of the French garrison," says Villiers, who re- 
 members the words of Prince Eugene, taking up her 
 speech. At this finishing of her sentence the lady 
 grows suddenly pale. She falters with trembling lips: 
 " Madre di Dio, I mean nothing, signore. Forget my 
 speech, made careless by spleen. I was a fool to babble 
 of such matters. I " then clasping his arm nerv- 
 ously with her white fingers, she pleads: "For the 
 love of heaven, no suggestion of my thoughtless prat- 
 ing to a lady who never forgives." 
 
 " You mean the Princess Maria," smiles Villiers. 
 Then his his tone becomes earnest, as he adds diplomat- 
 ically: " Believe me, madame, on the word of a gen- 
 tleman, my lips shall never bring to you her displeas- 
 ure." For he guesses if both the Lady Metia and la 
 marchesa think he can be trusted to betray no careless 
 word, their gossip will shortly give to him most of the 
 mysteries of their lady's court, some of which may be of 
 great use to him in his adventure. 
 
 " You mean it? " asks Bianca nervously. Then she 
 pleads: " Swear it to me by the cross of Christ! " 
 
 "I do!" answers the Englishman. His eyes meet 
 hers. 
 
 She seems to believe them, and, uttering a little sigh 
 of relief, murmurs: " I thank you, sir, for if my heed- 
 less words came to my mistress, it would be the second
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 87 
 
 time I have offended her to-day. Her punishment 
 would not be light." 
 
 " Indeed," returns Villiers, " these are strange words 
 from Bianca Gonzaga, who rumor once said was as 
 haughty as any woman in Italy." 
 
 " That was before misfortune struck me down," sVie 
 breaks out, a kind of despair in her voice, " before the 
 Count Borremeo, enraged by my passion for an Eng- 
 lish gentleman, discarded me; before my father said 
 for my eccentricities I was no more his child, when 
 merchants and money lenders who had fawned upon 
 me persecuted me with their demands, until she res- 
 cued me from them and brought me here to swear al- 
 legiance to Mirandola and become her vassal. Now 
 I am as subject to her commands as any lackey in that 
 court yard. For this little duchy is still one of the 
 tyrant strongholds of Italy, where its sovereign is as 
 despotic as Peter the Great who reigns in barbarous 
 Muscovy. I pray you, therefore, do not ever hint to 
 the Princess Maria I say aught of her enterprises. She 
 smiles on me to-day, but at her frown I may be se- 
 cluded from the world." 
 
 During this Villiers can't help noticing as he in- 
 spects the splendid woman before him that misfortune 
 has made her more spirituelle; not that her beauty is 
 less, for it is even greater. The humbling of her haughty 
 spirit has given softer graces to her movements than 
 those that had pertained to the once imperious Bianca 
 Gonzaga. Still he fears her recognition. Quiet snakes 
 are often the most deadly. 
 
 " But I forget my errand, sir," continues the lady. 
 " My mistress sends you this passport, giving you per- 
 mit to leave or enter the palace at your will, but it 
 will take vou no further than the gates of the town
 
 88 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 over which the French have guard. The princess also 
 commands your attendance at the royal table to sup 
 with her this evening. I am now to introduce you to 
 the chamberlain of the palace, and place you under his 
 protection. Therefore, I pray you, sir, retire and dis- 
 card your shepherd's garb, so that I may introduce 
 you to the Conte Rosario." 
 
 At this suggestion, Villiers steps into his little cham- 
 ber. 
 
 Some fifteen minutes afterward he re-enters his 
 modest parlor, no more the shepherd boy, a soupqon 
 of the romance having gone from him with the 
 goatherd's sheepskin, though even now the saber cut 
 on his face makes him look a warrior page. 
 
 To his horror, his change of raiment seems to have 
 brought him nearer to la marchesa's recollection. As 
 he comes in the lady rises, gazes at him, and cries: 
 " You handsome boy! " then mutters angrily: " Cielo, 
 each moment you remind me more and more of an 
 
 English youth whose love brought " She clenches 
 
 her white hands, and is no longer drooping, but after 
 a moment she continues, a strange repression in her 
 tone: " You will excuse me, sir. I must bring to you 
 II Conte Rosario." 
 
 She turns to leave the room, but as she reaches the 
 door she pauses and looks at Villiers as if some trick of 
 manner had caught her eye, then slowly passes out 
 
 "Powers of hell!" he mutters to himself, "if she 
 discovers I am her gallant of the Italian lake. In this 
 there may be great danger not only for me, but to the 
 arms of the emperor." 
 
 He has some reason to fear Bianca's recognition, for 
 outside the door she is communing with herself: " The 
 more I look at him the greater his resemblance to the
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 89 
 
 man who insulted my love by deserting it." Then she 
 jeers herself with a sneering " Pish, a troubadour who 
 speaks Italian as his native tongue impossible! and 
 yet my Englishman's accent was as true as his. Santos, 
 if it should be! " and something comes into the lady's 
 eyes which shows she is still the Bianca of old. 
 
 A few moments after she returns with an aged gen- 
 tleman, dressed in the latest court costume, with straight 
 cut coat and knee breeches that meet his gartered 
 stockings and jeweled-buckled shoes with red high 
 heels, after the manner of the French court. To him 
 she says: " II Conte Rosario, this is the troubadour, II 
 Seigneur Montaldo, who has been brought by our 
 mistress from Abruzzi for the coming fete. Though a 
 poet and musician, he is of gentle birth. Her high- 
 ness commands you treat him like a noble. In the 
 coming ballet he sings to la princessa's accompani- 
 ment.* My orders were to intrust him to your good 
 offices." 
 
 " Which shall be very great, Sieur Troubadour," re- 
 marks the chamberlain, as the two gentlemen salute 
 each other in courtly style. 
 
 To them Bianca remarks: " Our mistress, Count, 
 suggests that you show Sieur Montaldo the palace. It 
 is well worthy of looking at, Signor Troubadour." 
 There is a strange interrogation in the lady's grand eyes 
 as they gaze on Villiers. " If you like art," she adds in 
 a preoccupied way, " there is a painting by Guido 
 Reni, another by Tintoretto, and a third by Veronese. 
 But this is my hour of attendance on her highness. 
 
 * Court ballets, in which not only the ladies and gentlemen of the palace 
 appeared, but also, at times, the members of the royal family, were very com- 
 mon in the i7th and i8th centuries, Louis XIV setting the fashion in this 
 matter, and even appearing in one himself. ED.
 
 90 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 You will excuse me." With sweeping salutation to 
 both gentlemen, Bianca leaves the room. 
 
 A moment after, at the solicitation of the chamber- 
 lain, Villiers, sauntering about the palace, would enjoy 
 the three great pictures that one hundred years after 
 a marshal of Napoleon ravished from the palace of 
 Mirandola, were his mind not upon the portrait of 
 Lucia Vesey. He also endures a dissertation on court 
 etiquette mixed with Italian art from his cicerone, who 
 tells him that at the coming festival there will be fifty 
 gentlemen pages and fifty lackey underlings to wait 
 upon the guests of royalty; that the far-famed Pico 
 drinking vase of solid silver, which weighs ten pounds, 
 and was fashioned by the great Benvenuto Cellini, 
 will be used as loving cup at the banquet to the French 
 officers. 
 
 Finally, under plea of many duties, the court official 
 excuses himself from further attendance, and begs the 
 Sieur Montaldo to make himself at home within the 
 ducal walls, adding: "At midday is the dinner of 
 the officials of the palace, where, I hope, you will honor 
 us with your company. I believe this evening you are 
 bidden to sup at the royal board." 
 
 Thanks for your hospitality, Monsieur le Comte," 
 answers Villiers," but I have business in the city. There 
 is a certain Giacomo Pasquale, whose instructions, I 
 am told, may even improve my vocalization. I desire 
 some lessons from him, that my singing at our mis- 
 tress's fete may be supreme." 
 
 " Ah, yes, the celebrated maestro of the voice, Gia- 
 como Pasquale," asserts the court official. " His 
 school is on the Contrado Pico, near the Modena gate. 
 " I hope you will be also pleased with our city," and 
 bows himself away.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 01 
 
 This gives the English officer the chance for his 
 military duty, which he feels must come before his 
 efforts for the girl, the lives of too many brave men 
 hanging upon his information. He must immediately 
 inspect personally, as far as possible, the military posi- 
 tion and power of the garrison, to three of whose offi- 
 cers he has already been introduced; for the French 
 stroll about the main portion of the palace with the 
 freedom more of conquerors than of guests and allies. 
 
 However, these men of the sword have paid but lit- 
 tle attention to the gentleman of the voice, though 
 Colonel de Vivans, the commandant of the garrison, a 
 big military dandy, with long mustache, a dashing yet 
 careless soldier had remarked : " Your walk is more 
 that of a cavalryman than a stage strutter. You've 
 saddled a horse somewhere, monsieur." 
 
 " Yes, I each year head the mounted procession in 
 the open-air circus and ride in the races at the annual 
 fete at Siena, your Excellency," answered with proper 
 humility the Englishman, who was very glad that De 
 Vivians did not remember he had crossed swords with 
 him but five months back at Capri. 
 
 To do his work properly, he must first inspect tlie 
 palace, where, if the Princess Maria's plans are carried 
 out, the French officers will be surprised. Therefore 
 he wanders about the great edifice mid lounging lack- 
 eys, pages, and gentlemen in waiting, till he finds him- 
 self outside the court theater in which the banquet will 
 take place. To his ears comes now the sound of 
 fiddles. The ladies of the court are rehearsing for the 
 ballet, " The Queen of Love." 
 
 But unheeding this, Villiers inspects this edifice in 
 which the French officers are to be surprised. It occu- 
 pies a large pavilion of solid masonry, built well out
 
 $2 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 into the ducal gardens. Its main floor is but one story 
 above them. He sees at the foot of two small side 
 stairways doors that apparently lead into the royal 
 gardens. Besides these, there is a broad marble stair- 
 case leading to the first floor of the palace. " If a body 
 of our men can be introduced unobserved by the secret 
 passageway by which I came into the ducal gardens, 
 from there they can easily cut off and secure every 
 roistering French officer," thinks Villiers. " The regi- 
 ment of Staremberg, on account of their green uni- 
 forms being less visible at night, will be best for this 
 purpose," Sydney decides. 
 
 " Sapristi," he sneers, " without leaders, even vet- 
 erans, drunk or sober, are generally helpless. All their 
 officers seized, rushing the Concordia gate of the town 
 will be a bagatelle." 
 
 He glances over the gardens, and determines they 
 are capable of concealing at least a thousand men, 
 though one great danger to this plan strikes his mili- 
 tary eye. The inclosure is overlooked by a strong 
 bastion, apparently held by the French in force. 
 Should Staremberg's infantry, as they are intro- 
 duced into the gardens, be discovered before their 
 time to strike, they will be cut off and probably lost 
 to a man. This chance, however, he decides must be 
 taken in case further investigation shows no other ob- 
 stacle to the success of his plan. 
 
 Then turning his attention to the town, he presents 
 his passport to the sentries at the palace gates and en- 
 ters the city. Mirandola, he shortly discovers, is 
 wholly in the hands of the French, who patrol walls, 
 bridges, gates, and citadel. 
 
 Passing through the medieval streets, which are 
 well filled with townspeople, though Gallic uniforms
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 93 
 
 are very numerous, he contrives to inspect the citadel, 
 and finds to his concern that it is practically impreg- 
 nable to quick assault from outside the walls, though 
 more susceptible of attack from the interior of the city. 
 
 " The only method of capturing this," he concludes, 
 " is first to introduce the main body of our troops 
 through the Concordia gate." This portal is almost di- 
 rectly across the town from the citadel, but after half 
 an hour's brisk walking he contrives to inspect this. 
 Conning the matter over, he determines first, that the 
 French officers must be captured in the palace by the 
 Austrians introduced into the ducal gardens. Then 
 this same force must sally out of the palace through 
 the town and attack and capture the Concordia 
 gate from the inside. This will permit the entry of 
 the main body of Prince Eugene's troops to reduce the 
 citadel. 
 
 His military reconnoissance finished, though dinner 
 has not passed his lips, he thinks : " Now for my ward ! " 
 and turns his steps toward the house of Giacoma Pas- 
 quale, faltering to himself: " Can she be here?" next 
 jeers himself: " You addle-pated fool, why is your 
 heart beating? This girl may not be like her picture," 
 then shudders : " She may be even now transformed 
 into one of those light-headed courtezans who dignify 
 themselves by the name of prima donnas." 
 
 Still, as he walks up to an old-fashioned house, which 
 has been pointed out to him on the Contrado Pico, and 
 lays his hand upon its rusty iron knocker, he notices 
 his fingers tremble. He is about to rap upon its old- 
 fashioned portals, when to him come the sounds of 
 violin accompanied by a harpsichord. Listening, he 
 pauses and mutters: "By jove, I am hearing a vir- 
 tuosQ on the viol of Cremona," for the harmonies on
 
 94 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 that instrument indicate a combination of fingering and 
 bowing that seems to the Englishman entirely new, 
 yet wondrously effective. 
 
 A moment later, over these strains, which are but a 
 prelude, float the clear notes of a woman's melody, 
 fresh as youth, sweet as a silver bell, high ringing, 
 dominant, and yet of that sadly romantic timbre which 
 brings tears into the eyes. As the last note dies away 
 an electric thrill seems to fire yet chill his veins, he 
 mutters: " By heaven, that is her voice! " 
 
 For these strains remind him of the childish notes 
 by the Lago di Maggiore, only glorified, idealized, per- 
 fected by that rigorous training and indomitable prac- 
 tice without which genius is naught and nature but 
 half successful. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A DUET UNDER THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. 
 
 With his heart nearer his mouth than it has been 
 before in this adventure, Villiers brings down the 
 knocker he had held suspended upon the heavy door. 
 
 To his call, it is opened by a slipshod maid of all 
 work, who comes along the hallway with clattering 
 sabots. Entering the house, romance is almost taken 
 from him by the careless keeping of the dwelling, 
 which is dirty in every nook and corner. 
 
 To his demand for an interview with Signor Pas- 
 quale, the servant girl, careless of ceremony, immedi- 
 ately opens a door into a room bare of everything but 
 dust and a few musical instruments, music in sheets, 
 and a score apparently of a half completed opera which
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 litters the floor. In addition, there are a few wooden 
 chairs, most of them dilapidated. The room is of that 
 simplicity which this modern world idealizes by the 
 word Bohemian, which generally signifies discomfort, 
 filth, and careless living. 
 
 The servant girl says in the patois of Ferrara: 
 " That is him who is getting up from the harpsichord." 
 "You wish to see me, signore?" remarks a little 
 Italian of keen, squinting eyes, thin frame, yet in his 
 face burns the fire of art dominated by the lust of gold. 
 Then noting Villiers's court clothes, he bows to the 
 unswept floor, and suggests: "Some message from 
 my honored mistress, La Princessa of Mirandola? She 
 wishes a new march written for her entry in the bal- 
 let?" 
 
 " No; though I am here by her command," answers 
 Sydney, who has great difficulty in keeping his eyes 
 from the girl who has bashfully stepped away from the 
 instrument near which she had been standing. " I 
 have to request your instruction, signore, in some songs 
 the princess desires me to sing at her festival. Permit 
 me to introduce myself as Signer Tomasso Mon 
 Montaldo." Villiers stammers for a moment over his 
 new name, which he has almost forgotten in a lover's 
 agitation, for a quick glance has shown him the girl's 
 face is that of the miniature he wears upon his breast, 
 that the young lady standing in his presence is Lucia 
 Marianna Vesey, bequeathed to his guardianship by 
 her dead father on the battlefield. 
 
 " Then permit me to introduce," remarks Pasquale, 
 " the maestro of the viol, Arcangelo Corelli." 
 
 As Villiers sees bowing before him the first violinist 
 in Italy, he thinks: " No wonder his instrumentation 
 was marvelous."
 
 96 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " You are, signore, I take it, a singer, though your 
 name is, I grieve, unknown to me." 
 
 " Yes, I have sung mostly in Calabria and Southern 
 Italy. But I am not too great an artist to feel above 
 taking instructions from one who is celebrated all over 
 Europe," answers the Englishman. 
 
 At this compliment Pasquale says affably: "Per- 
 haps I have little to teach you, signore, but " Vil- 
 liers is looking at the girl, whose head is turned away 
 from him. She is carelessly strumming over the notes 
 of a piece of music she holds in her hand. " But be- 
 fore you accept instruction from me, signore, let me 
 prove to you I know the art not only of vocalization, 
 but also of building up the voice. Sing for me that 
 little air you have in your hand, Lucia," he cries. 
 
 Seating himself at the harpsichord, he runs his hands 
 over the keys, and his pupil, coming forward quite diffi- 
 dently and modestly, breaks out into one of those little 
 airs stolen from the troubadours of the middle ages, 
 some of which make the beauties of the old masses, 
 others of which have become the airs of nations. 
 
 So, putting up her voice in melody, the maiden sings, 
 while Villiers, in the joy of listening, forgets almost the 
 joy of seeing the exquisite beauties of her figure and 
 her face, which now seems inspired; and this is not 
 wondrous, for she is singing an air that had been stolen 
 from a minnesinger and made the glories of an old-time 
 mass of Claude Goudimel, but which we now call the 
 Marseillaise, to whose strident song the French have 
 shed oceans of blood by guillotine and battle. 
 
 " Now, Lucia, you can go," says the music master 
 in affable command, and, the girl obeying, would de- 
 part, but Villiers, who knows this is no moment to 
 make communication to her, cannot help opening the
 
 THE FIGHTING TfcOUBADOtfR. tf 
 
 door for her. As she passes him, an ecstasy flames up 
 in his eyes. He notes she is even more lovely than 
 her picture. Bowing to her, he whispers: " I thank 
 you, Donna Lucia, for your song." 
 
 At this address, which indicates nobility, she pauses, 
 looks with startled eyes upon him, and replies: " I 
 thank you for your term, signore. I used to be ad- 
 dressed in such manner but not lately. I am only one 
 of," she sighs deeply, " Padrone Pasquale's singing 
 girls, bound to him by the law," and so passes out. 
 
 The scant ceremony in which she has been treated, 
 the lowly manner of her garbing, for the girl is frocked 
 in plainest country cloth, makes Villiers very savage as 
 he turns his eyes upon the master of the voice. 
 
 The violinist has risen and is placing his instrument 
 in its case. He remarks cordially: " Adio, my dear 
 Pasquale. When you come to Venice do not forget 
 Corelli. We will have another instrumental after- 
 noon. Your accompaniment to me is perfect. I also 
 thank you for letting me hear one of the most beautiful 
 voices to which I have ever listened. Her face is lovely, 
 but her voice that supreme E in alt Madre di Dio! 
 It beats a fiddle string! " 
 
 " Diavolo," growls Pasquale, " if the jade made not 
 such a fight against my putting her on the stage, she 
 would be a fortune. As it is, a bird that can sing and 
 won't sing, eh?" he snaps his fingers in brutal sug- 
 gestion " shall shortly be made to sing." 
 
 Despite Villiers's rage at the implied threat of the 
 Italian, these words bring a rapture. They tell him the 
 girl has not been sullied in the common eye and in the 
 opinion of his class by having been made a woman of 
 the stage. " By God's blessing," he thinks, " that now 
 shall never be ! " and bows adieu quite cordially to the
 
 9 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 great violinist, who says: " I will not keep you from 
 your new pupil, my dear Pasquale." As the door 
 closes on Corelli, the Englishman finds himself face to 
 face with Signer Giacomo, who for a day or two will 
 be his music master, and almost immediately, after 
 some conference as to terms, enters upon his duties. 
 
 " Please sing for me the scale, signore," Pasquale 
 says, " first in the diatonic, then the chromatic, ascend- 
 ing and descending. 
 
 Villiers complying with his request, he rubs his 
 hands together and says: "Yes, yes! Now the in- 
 tervals of the third, fourth, and fifth." This being 
 done apparently to his liking, he remarks: " You take 
 your notes with freedom; give me some appoggiaturas 
 and a trill or two. Next sing some melody with which 
 you are familiar, first simply, then with ornamentation 
 and embellishments." This having been done, the 
 maestro smiles on his pupil, and says: "A glorious 
 voice, though I think a little out of training. You 
 have been well schooled, sir, in the Roman method, 
 though I notice with regret in your fioriture you 
 sometimes take the augmented fifth, likewise the triton 
 and diminished fourth. These are intervals the voice 
 achieves with difficulty you approach them with 
 timidity. You had better avoid them in your embel- 
 lishments. Your method I can alter but little, for your 
 voice is now formed. You are much older than you 
 look, signore. Your voice, I should say, is that of twen- 
 ty-eight or twenty-nine; your age seems scarce over 
 twenty-one years. Do I guess right, signore ? " 
 
 At this Villiers, contriving to conceal his rage, mut- 
 ters: " Cospetto, I am as old as my voice, signore." 
 
 "Well, that matters little, though in that cane, of 
 course, you will not last as long as a tenor. That is the
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 99 
 
 sad fate of singers, their dying voices while they yet live. 
 Ah, I have seen them stricken by a flat as if it was the 
 hand of death upon them. A tenor losing his ut de 
 poltrine is like the ordinary man going blind. But 
 you have got many years yet of vocal power. Do you 
 wish after you sing for the princess to enter the royal 
 opera troupe here? I need a tenor. You'd do well for 
 the light roles of opera buffa, in which your diminished 
 stature makes you an admirable comic effect with the 
 audience." 
 
 " I sing not for the common herd," snarls Villiers 
 savagely. " I am a troubadour, the last of my race. I 
 wish to run over with you some Tuscan love songs of 
 Raimon Vidal, also the comic ditty telling of the wick- 
 edness of Macaire and the misfortunes of Blancifior." 
 
 " I know that morceau," murmurs the^ master. 
 
 " Also I would, under your instruction, revive in my 
 mind the songs of Gabriello Chiabera of the victories 
 of the Tuscan galleys; likewise Filicaria's couplets 
 about Venice besieged by the Turks. They have been 
 well set to music." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know them all." With this, the little 
 musical wretch, seating himself at the harpsichord, 
 dashes through them all without the aid of notes. 
 " These are what you want to learn, eh, or rather re- 
 vive? " he asks. 
 
 " Yes, I have been employed in the horse fetes at 
 Siena lately, and have not given my voice the practice 
 that it needs." 
 
 Here unlooked-for joy comes to the troubadour. 
 The maestro says: " Then to make your voice, which 
 apparently has lost its certainty by lack of practice, 
 more sure, your attack more positive, direct, and ac- 
 curate, it is best this afternoon I let you sing in con-
 
 100 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 sonance with another voice, one that is certainty itself 
 in every note. When you sing false her accuracy will 
 show your error." 
 
 " You mean your pupil who sang but now?" asks 
 Villiers, his heart beginning to beat. 
 
 " Yes, she is sure. I have half a dozen other singers 
 in the house, but Lucia's voice is accuracy itself. It 
 is so young, it never flats or sharps. She," says the 
 little man, putting his hands over his face, " is perfect 
 as a singer, all save one thing, which will come by 
 age. Though her voice has soul, it has not romance. 
 Her heart has never yet been awakened. Until that 
 girl feels some grand passion she is an incomplete 
 artist. No singer is ever at their zenith, man or wom- 
 an, unless they have felt not only the joys of love, 
 but also its miseries and despairs. I sang once, sig- 
 nore." Tears are in the maestro's eyes. " You have 
 heard of the tenor Ludovici, who suddenly in the very 
 zenith of his powers lost his voice one night at Naples, 
 and was hissed by the fickle populace from the stage. 
 That was I, Fiordelessa Ludovici, because that day a 
 woman had broken my heart. But to business, signore. 
 Though I no more sing myself, I may perhaps assist 
 you to." 
 
 He claps his hands, calls the maid of all work, 
 and commands: " Send Lucia to me." 
 
 " She is just going to take her lesson, signore," an- 
 swers the girl, " in stage dancing from thy sister 
 Tessa, who has come in from rehearsal at the palace." 
 
 This answer is certified to by Signorina Tessa Pas- 
 quale herself, a bold, big, dashing amazon of a wom- 
 an, with sparkling black eyes, quick strident voice, and 
 firm yet lively face. Coming in briskly, she says 
 brusquely; "Post thou not know, Gia, that this
 
 THE FiGli'iiNG T/icOBAoouk. *6i 
 
 coming hour I make our jade dance to my tune! Your 
 apprentice, Enrico, is already tuning his violin in my 
 dancing room. If you and this gentleman here would 
 like to see a prima donna changed into a ballet girl," 
 she laughs, " I shall be delighted to show you one. 
 That trollop Lucia has such objection to the stage, 
 signore," the woman says, turning to Villiers, " that I 
 think it well for her to be displayed in the activity and 
 costume of the dance as much as possible. From 
 some extraordinary diffidence, though she has the 
 voice of a bird, in public she refuses to sing." 
 
 " Yes, when I have given her supreme attention for 
 four years of my life, when I have expended money 
 on her; hiring the maitre d'armes Ronconi to give the 
 girl lessons with the foils to make her graceful," growls 
 Giacomo. 
 
 " Cospetto! " interjects his sister sharply. " If I were 
 thee, Padrone Pasquale, I would see if my bound girl 
 did not do my bidding. But come, gentlemen, I at 
 least can make the minx caper for you. Our canary 
 bird fears my hand if she fears not yours, my soft- 
 hearted Gia." 
 
 " Madame," says Villiers suavely, fighting down 
 rage, " I am about to take a singing lesson from your 
 brother, who has suggested that it might aid me to 
 sing some duets with your pupil." 
 
 " Pish ! Cecilia, Lucrezia, Seraphina, or any other 
 of your opera jades will do well enough for that, 
 Gia," dissents the ballet mistress. " After my lesson, in 
 which I shall teach Donna Cadenza to bound, pirouette 
 and do toe exercise, she can come to you if you want 
 her." 
 
 " Madame, after such exertion she would have but 
 little breath in her body to sing," returns Villiers diplo-
 
 102 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 matically. " Besides, Maestro Pasquale thinks her 
 voice will aid me more than the others. I have al- 
 ready given him liberal terms, but if a ducat or two 
 more, for I have but a day or two to improve my 
 voice." 
 
 A ducat or two settles the business. 
 
 Pasquale interjects sharply: "Two ducats in addi- 
 tion each lesson, you said, honored signore," then 
 cries: "Tessa, send our nightingale here at once." 
 
 The two ducats appeal equally to the teacher of the 
 ballet. Calling back: " I will have the jade here in a 
 jiffy," she can be heard bounding up the stairs with the 
 vigor of a premier ballerina. 
 
 " It is understood, then, that at each lesson I have 
 the assistance of your apprentice Lucia, I believe, is 
 her name," mutters Villiers. 
 
 " Yes, Lucia Marianna Vesey. Her name is half 
 English after that of her father, from whose northern 
 blood she gets her dogged obstinacy, del, how I 
 have promised her the richest robes for stage display, 
 how I have told her of the fine gentlemen who will run 
 after her pretty face, to induce her to consent to raise 
 her voice upon the operatic stage. But this only seems 
 to make her more defiant," he snarls. " She says her 
 mother declared the artistes of the opera are consid- 
 ered ladies of easy virtue. Bah, why not? Art should 
 have some recreation. Diavolo, if she is obstinate much 
 longer, some day I shall " 
 
 His dissertation is interrupted by his sister's voice 
 upstairs crying : " Quick, hussy Lucia ! thy master is 
 waiting for you." 
 
 Then a sweet voice comes in answer. Though low 
 toned, its penetration is so great Villiers distinctly 
 hears it: " Madame, I am yet in my dancing dress."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 103 
 
 Whereupon Tessa jeers: "Pish, fool, dost think 
 thy short skirts and thy pretty legs in fleshings will 
 frighten that gentleman down there? " 
 
 A moment later Lucia comes in quite modestly and 
 courtesies lowly to her padrone, saying: " I believe 
 you wish my service, signore. I hope I have not kept 
 you waiting, but I was just prepared for Tessa's 
 lesson." 
 
 Her costume indicates this. Apparently she has 
 thrown on hastily a long skirt over her short dancing 
 jupe; for as she courtesies Villiers sees her pretty feet 
 and graceful ankles are robed in the fleshings and 
 slippers of the ballet. Her bodice seemingly is still 
 that of her dancing costume. It is made of common 
 white muslin without any ornament; above it rise 
 shoulders of dazzling snow, as to give her easy move- 
 ment it has been cut away at the neck. Likewise, her 
 superb arms, bare to the very shoulders for purposes 
 of gesticulation, gleam like Parian marble in rounded 
 beauty. For the girl under the sun of Italy has devel- 
 oped gloriously from the maiden of the miniature her 
 guardian wears upon his breast. 
 
 She looks at Villiers bashfully, and falters: " I un- 
 derstand I am to sing with you, signore? " 
 
 " If it so please you," answers the Englishman, with 
 courteous bow. 
 
 " Yes, quick, this exercise of Cavalli, then a duet 
 from Scarlatti's ' I Dolor de Maria,' and this morceau 
 written by the boy Porpora, who is just becoming 
 famous in Naples," commands Giacomo; and, turning 
 to Sydney, he inquires: " You read music, of course, 
 at sight, signore? " 
 
 " I do," answers the troubadour. 
 
 A moment later, Pasquale sitting at the harpsichord,
 
 104 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 the guardian standing beside his lovely ward, lifts up 
 his voice and joins it to her exquisite melody. But as 
 he sings the captain of cavalry finds himself rusty at 
 this exercise, and makes a few mistakes, at which the 
 girl bursts out laughing merrily. 
 
 Her vivacity gives Villiers delight. It shows him 
 that his ward's bright spirit is still untamed, her dear 
 heart is yet unbroken. 
 
 Then the little minx says archly: "Let me help 
 you, Signer - Who - doesn't - know-the-change-in-key," 
 and sings his part over for him. 
 
 Then he, his heart beating as he stands beside her, 
 goes through it once again, at which she claps her 
 hands and cries : " Cielo, you have a noble voice. I 
 shall like to sing with you." 
 
 Hearing this, Giacomo, as he sits at the harpsichord, 
 chuckles: " You have better spirits, child, than I have 
 seen in you for a year. A gentleman to sing with you 
 is what you want. We'll have a plenty of them for you 
 upon the opera stage." 
 
 At this insinuation the girl blushes hotly, and fal- 
 ters: " I am delighted to avoid my dancing lesson, in 
 which Tessa makes me jump and kick and cut my 
 capers, and says it gives me dramatic action, for I 
 love only singing." Then seeing Villiers is not over 
 pleased at this remark, she turns to him, and adds, as 
 if to mitigate her words: "Will you not try with 
 me, signore, the next duetto? " 
 
 Together they sing that great duet from Scarlatti's 
 oratorio, and in it comes surprise and consternation 
 to old Pasquale. In the very midst of its great con- 
 certed passage, he springs from the harpsichord with 
 a muttered oath, and shudders: " Maldetta! Lucia, 
 hast flatted! A false note from you? Can I be-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 105 
 
 lieve my ears! Diarolo, for this, you careless hussy, 
 you shall this night do two hours of scales chromatic." 
 
 His rage is so great that for a moment Villiers fears 
 he will lift his hand and box the fair delinquent's ear. 
 Then heaven help poor Pasquale! 
 
 As for la diva, she has started back as if astounded 
 at herself, and muttered : " I know it, maestro. I 
 flatted that C." 
 
 But all the time her eyes are fixed upon the signet 
 ring of her dead father that glistens upon the finger of 
 the troubadour. 
 
 Catching her glance, Villiers says hurriedly: " Let 
 us sing it over, signorina. Next time, maestro, I 
 know she will not make the same error." 
 
 "Don't let her dare to!" cries Giacomo, reseating 
 himself at the instrument. " Such thing was never 
 heard before. Lucia, you are possessed!" And all 
 the time the girl's lovely face has a curious question- 
 ing as she looks at Sydney. 
 
 But he cries sharply: " Now let us sing," and whis- 
 pers : " Other things afterward," for the tramp of a 
 company of marching French infantry in the street 
 outside tells the spy it is no time for explanation. 
 
 On the repetition the girl's voice rings out pure, true, 
 and accurate, and so the lesson goes on and on, for 
 Villiers could sing with this maiden all the day, and 
 Giacomo is honest as regards his art, and likes to give 
 his money's worth, though he charges high. 
 
 " One more exercise," he says, " I think will be 
 enough for this afternoon," and hands to Sydney 
 and Lucia a duet of Lulli. 
 
 A great deal of this is for voices in unison. That 
 their notes may be in perfect accord, the singers are 
 compelled to look each other partially in the face, and
 
 106 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 the English captain finds soft hazel eyes gazing into 
 his, and a pair of lips, moist as cut cherries, very close 
 to his; and the sweet breath of Lucia Vesey fanning his 
 cheeks to make his heart beat. His blood bounds in 
 his veins. Stimulated by the romantic music and the 
 propinquity of a beauty he has thought of, longed for, 
 and loved these long months, Villiers, inspecting 
 Lucia's eyes, forgets to time the music on her lips, 
 and makes a bungle of his part. The quick ear of Pas- 
 quale catches this on the instant. This is fortunate for . 
 the young lady. As the master springs up from the 
 harpsichord she also makes a slip in her cadence ; for, 
 looking at this man a new light has flown into her 
 eyes. Somehow her heart has got to beating also, not to 
 the rhythm of the music, though it seems to sing to 
 her ears an air more beautiful than even that of Lulli. 
 
 After explaining to Villiers his mistake in courteous 
 voice, Giacomo says sharply to the girl : " You made 
 an error also, Lucia. I never heard you sing so badly. 
 To-morrow morning for this two hours of scales dia- 
 tonic. Now, da capo! " and he seats himself at the 
 harpsichord. 
 
 Villiers and Lucia are very happy to sing the 
 passage over again. Their eyes seem to answer each 
 other with some strange telegraphy. Their lips move 
 in unison. Somehow or other the tenor has, in a 
 romantic passage, seized the soprano's delicate 
 white hand in his strong clasp. Passion gets into their 
 voices, and as they finish the gentleman hears from the 
 lady's lips, after her last sweet note, a subdued sigh that 
 gives to him a rapture. 
 
 But Giacomo breaks in upon their sentiment. He 
 says approvingly: "Your voice, Sieur Troubadour, 
 is improving greatly with practice."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 107 
 
 " Yes, with the assistance of this young lady," an- 
 swers his pupil. " Without her I doubt if I should 
 have made such progress." 
 
 " Then for two ducats more at each you wish Lucia 
 to assist at your other lessons until you sing at 
 the princess's fte?" 
 
 " Yes, those were the terms I understood," and the 
 maestro's hand being extended toward him, the trou- 
 badour adds: " I pay you thus." 
 
 Whereupon Villiers very cunningly produces a 
 doubloon of Spanish gold, which will require change. 
 
 To the Englishman's delight, after hunting in his 
 pockets, Pasquale remarks: "Excuse me, signore, 
 I must visit my sister, who is my treasurer, and get the 
 change from her," then runs hurriedly away. 
 
 As his slippered feet sound on the distant stairway, 
 Villiers finds himself for the first time alone with Lucy 
 Vesey, whose eyes are now upon her father's signet 
 ring, and have strange questions in their lovely depths. 
 
 " I am here," he whispers rapidly, " as the repre- 
 sentative of your father, Sir Andrew Vesey. In proof 
 of it, behold his ring." He offers it to her. 
 
 Kissing her dead father's signet, the girl, with a 
 low sobbing sigh, falters: " At last! Oh, how I have 
 longed to hear his voice ever since my poor mother's 
 death," the tears come into her lovely eyes. " But 
 what can you do for me?" she shudders. "The au- 
 thorities of Cremona have bound me apprentice to 
 my padrone. I am legally his for seven years. They 
 are about to make me sing on the stage publicly an 
 opera woman! My mother warned me against it with 
 her dying voice. She said it would degrade me; that 
 ladies of the opera were thought light-o'-loves by all 
 gallant gentlemen."
 
 Io8 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Please God, that shall never be now," whispers 
 Sydney, speaking Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 To him she cries: " English! I can trust you. I 
 know you are true. You speak in the language of my 
 dear father," then questions hurriedly: " Why is he 
 not here? and you a troubadour?" Her face has 
 wonder in it, and for a second almost suspicion. 
 
 But this fades away at Villiers's impetuous question: 
 " Can I trust you with my life? " 
 
 " O Dio, could I ever betray one who for the first 
 time since my mother's death has spoken to me in 
 
 words of kindness. Besides, I ," she looks him in 
 
 the face, " I I believe you "; next adds, almost ten- 
 derly: " Trust me as I do you." 
 
 " Then," says Villiers, for his instinct tells him that 
 the stern school of misfortune has given this girl, who 
 is still almost a child, self-control and intelligence be- 
 yond her years, " I tell you this. I am, as your father 
 is now, an officer of the German emperor. Therefore 
 he cannot visit you in this town garrisoned by the 
 French. But I, taking my life in my hands, have 
 come here in disguise for a military duty, and also to 
 succor you." 
 
 " Succor me? " she bursts forth. " Impossible! Pas- 
 quale will never let me go. He thinks my voice a for- 
 tune. Besides, that awful woman offers to buy my 
 services from him." Terror has flown into the girl's 
 bright eyes. 
 
 " What woman? " 
 
 " A lady of the court, who once for some childish 
 prank of mine tried to drown me, and has hated me 
 ever since." 
 
 " What childish prank? " 
 
 " I don't know. I do not understand. Something
 
 fTHE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. I Op 
 
 I said to a gentleman who was with her. He may have 
 been her lover; I cannot tell. Something that makes 
 her hate me. Sometimes I think it is by her influence 
 that I am here; that no money ever came to my dear 
 mother through the banker, St. Croix. Oh, how she 
 looked for it; expected it. She couldn't believe my 
 father had ever been so careless as to desert her in her 
 extremity." 
 
 " Your father never did," whispers Villiers. " Sir 
 Andrew is and always has been true to you." For at 
 this moment he dare not give Lucy Vesey the shock 
 of telling her of her father's death. That might betray 
 them both. 
 
 " Then I again have hope," she whispers; next ques- 
 tions, a curious tenderness in her sweet voice: " And 
 you have risked your life for me? Why, signore? " 
 
 " Because I love " Villiers in a moment of 
 
 sanity replaces the " you " that is on his lips by " your 
 father." 
 
 For the girl's beauty that he has hungered for so 
 long has got into his soul. Had Giacomo robed her 
 to entrance him, he could scarce have garbed more 
 deftly. For the maestro of singing is too cunning to 
 destroy a diva's voice by the tightly laced stays of fash- 
 ion, and the poor thin muslin of her sack betrays every 
 glory of the lithe, graceful, yet divinely rounded figure 
 of Lucia Vesey. 
 
 " You love my father? Give me one proof that he 
 trusts you, and I am at your command in every way, 
 signore." 
 
 " One proof? " 
 
 " Yes one supreme proof! " 
 
 "Then here it is! " and Villiers produces from his 
 breast the girl's face upon ivory.
 
 110 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Yes, I remember it," she says: " It was painted by 
 Jacopo Giovanni, to send to my father. He would never 
 have given it to you except that he trusted you, and 
 you were his envoy to me." 
 
 " Behold another! " Sydney hands his ward the two 
 lines scrawled by the dying man as he lay upon the 
 field of Chiari. 
 
 " His writing," falters the girl. " The same as his 
 letters to my dear mother." Then her eyes open in 
 strange bashfulness. " This says I am to trust you and 
 to obey you." Her eyes look wistfully at him. " You 
 are the officer mentioned in this? " 
 
 " I am Captain Sydney Villiers." 
 
 " Then I obey you," murmurs his ward, and cour- 
 tesies to the floor. 
 
 "And I am your obedient servant! " Taking her 
 little hand, Villiers kisses it both tenderly and gal- 
 lantly; then suddenly whispers: "Hush! Upon your 
 discretion hangs my life and your salvation!" and 
 starts from her. 
 
 " I understand," answers Lucia, and proves her dis- 
 cretion by turning aside and humming over the notes 
 of a piece of music; as this interview, which has been 
 held with subdued voices and many apprehensive 
 glances at the door, is broken in upon by Pasquale, 
 who apparently has been a long time finding change. 
 In fact, he has not got it, for, after prolonged con- 
 sultation with his sister, who is also avaricious and 
 hates to give up money in hand, he appears and mut- 
 ters: "The necessary -coins to make change, signore, 
 we have not in the house. With your permission, I 
 will " 
 
 " Leave it for the next lesson," Villiers cries. " Be- 
 sides, maestro," a sudden inspiration seizing him,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUk. lit 
 
 " though I have apartments assigned me in the palace, 
 still I have business within the town, and it would be a 
 convenience to me to have a lodging that I could 
 call my own and enter at my ease. Your house seems 
 roomy." 
 
 " I have two or three apartments," cries Pasquale, 
 " magnificent ones; a little cold in winter, but a fire of 
 vine branches, which will cost you a little more, will 
 make them summery." Then he calls: " Tessa, quick! 
 I have a lodger." 
 
 And his sister making her appearance, after consul- 
 tation with her, he says: "We have the apartments 
 which you wish, sir; just up one flight of stairs. They 
 will cost you four crowns a week and will be ready in 
 an hour." 
 
 " Yes, in an hour," rejoins Tessa. " I will turn the 
 singing girls Lucrezia and Seraphina out, and put 
 them into your room, Lucia. They can also share your 
 cot. Three in a bed will be warm and pleasant sleep- 
 ing in winter. Your attic chamber is now quite cold. 
 I have been fearing for your voice this week or two." 
 
 " I would not incommode this young lady for the 
 world," interposes Villiers, who, though he wants the 
 rooms for chances of interview with his ward, hesitates 
 to inconvenience his divinity. That is the way one 
 short music lesson makes him think of Lucia Vesey. 
 
 But this young lady, who fears being separated from 
 this man, who represents her only hope of happiness, 
 looking wistfully at him, interjects: " I like company. 
 Alone I am afraid of rats at night after my tallow-dip 
 has burnt itself out." 
 
 " Diavolo! That's why you burn so many candles, 
 wretch ! " cries Tessa angrily. " But slip off that trail- 
 ing skirt and get ready for your dance. You will COHIQ
 
 tia THE FIGHTING TfcOUBADOUfc. 
 
 and see her cut her capers, signore," she says affably 
 to Villiers. " She looks quite well in short skirts. Cos- 
 petto, our nightingale shall kick as high as she sings." 
 
 But at this suggestion such blushes fly over the 
 girl's face, neck, and even shoulders that Villiers, 
 though he knows the sight would be as beautiful as an 
 opium dream, hurriedly dissents. 
 
 So after a little they come to terms as to his rooms, 
 the troubadour, to prevent any suspicion of his object, 
 beating his landlord down to three crowns* rent. 
 
 Then, finding no immediate chance of further word 
 with the girl, whose eyes beam on him in almost 
 pathetic confidence, he takes his leave, Giacomo re- 
 marking cordially to him: "The balance of that 
 doubloon just pays your rent. We hope to see you 
 this evening, signore." 
 
 But this evening Villiers does not return, and Lucia, 
 gazing wistfully for him in her little chamber, gives a 
 cry of joy on being summoned to the music room of 
 her master, for she thinks it is to sing again with this 
 man, whom within one hour she has grown to trust, 
 not only as the envoy of her father, but on her own ac- 
 count, for a strange thrill has run through her veins 
 when his hand had touched hers, something that 
 seemed to make her heart a different one than it had 
 been before. 
 
 This something is so potent that when she, en- 
 during disappointment, sings a solo for Giacomo, 
 the maestro opens his eyes and looks at her strangely. 
 Then mutters wonderingly: "What man has given 
 this child the love without which art is but a placid, 
 soulless, dead thing? Dio, Lucia has found her heart. 
 At last she is a diva! 1 '
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 113 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SIGNAL OF THE SECRET PASSAGE. 
 
 Though Villiers burns to again see his fair ward, 
 the dangers that surround a military outlaw this night 
 prevent him. To a spy the most appalling thing that 
 can confront him is surprise. Himself the unexpected, 
 he shudders at the unexpected to himself. Several 
 such unpleasant contretemps are about to descend on 
 the English captain. One of them comes upon him 
 even as he steps out of Pasquale's house. 
 
 The day is quite well advanced. He has just recol- 
 lected that he has eaten nothing since the morning, 
 and is about to make inquiries from some of the people 
 on the street for a nearby inn or house of entertain- 
 ment, when a boyish arm wearing the uniform of a 
 French lieutenant is passed within his, and its owner 
 says to him affably : " Sieur Troubadour, I was intro- 
 duced to you at the palace this morning. I am Am- 
 brose de Terrail, of the regiment of Picardy. I hope 
 you remember my name." 
 
 " So well you needn't have reminded me of it, Mon- 
 sieur de Terrail," replies Villiers, composing himself 
 after a greeting that he feared meant arrest. " I am 
 delighted to meet you, not because you can do me a 
 favor, but aside from it." 
 
 " You can do me one also," laughs the young lieu- 
 tenant. " But first let me gratify your wish. What is 
 it?" 
 
 " Direction to the best house of entertainment in the 
 town, where I hope you will join me in a bottle of 
 wine." 
 
 " With pleasure. Come with me. The Golden
 
 114 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Juggler is the best place near here, their Neapolitan 
 Lachrima Christi is as good an Italian wine as ever 
 ran down my gullet." 
 
 As the two walk along together, Villiers queries: 
 " And the favor you had to ask? " 
 
 " Only that you tell me the name of the owner of 
 that divine voice with whom you have been singing. I 
 have been standing outside Maestro Pasquale's house 
 for the last hour listening to you. Is she the diva 
 they intend to put upon the stage of the court theater 
 here, the one whose singing is being so whispered 
 about? I love music, I love beauty. Parbleu, does she 
 combine both? " 
 
 " I think she is the girl you are speaking of, mon- 
 sieur," returns Villiers, judging the truth best in this 
 matter, though he almost curses the lieutenant for his 
 love of beauty and love of music. " Still, she is not as 
 lovely as some of the court ladies, I presume." 
 
 "Well, possibly not. Little Gianetta di Persian! 
 is a very pretty little maid of honor," chats De Terrail. 
 " So is the Lady Giulia Visconti. The mistress of 
 them, too, La Marchesa di Monteferrato, have you 
 seen her? She has a regal beauty. But still I am itch- 
 ing for the first appearance of Pasquale's diva that is 
 promised to us the night after the princessa's banquet, 
 though he has disappointed us before." 
 
 " The night after the banquet; ah, yes," answers Vil- 
 liers, the suspicion of a smile playing over his face, as 
 he asks: "You expect a merry winter here in gar- 
 rison?" 
 
 " Very. You see we shall have so little to fear from 
 Prince Eugene." 
 
 " Ah." 
 
 " Yes, our videttes reported yesterday that none of
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 11$ 
 
 his troops had passed the Secchia. To-day we know 
 Prince Eugene has suddenly marched north of the Po 
 again, to protect his blockade of Mantua, which De 
 Villeroy once more threatens." 
 
 At this information Villiers's heart becomes lead in 
 his body, though after two awful mental curses he 
 contrives to mutter in ordinary voice: " You are 
 sure? " 
 
 " Oh, certain. The news was brought in this morn- 
 ing by an escaped sergeant of Dillon's Irish regiment, 
 a brave fellow who had been captured at Canneto, but 
 he made his escape from Gonzaga almost naked, and, 
 stealing two troop horses, succeeded in swimming 
 across the Secchia. He was naked and wet with the 
 water of the river when one of our videttes found him. 
 When they brought him in at first we thought that 
 he was one of the enemy, but as well as we can make 
 out for he speaks a vile mixture of Irish, Italian, 
 French, and German; he is a sergeant of Dillon's Irish 
 regiment, and some fourteenth cousin of the Chevalier 
 Burke, who commands another of our Irish battalions 
 stationed at Cremona." 
 
 " You are sure his information is correct? " 
 
 " Oh, certain! We have no doubt of the fellow now. 
 You see, there are at least three regiments of Irish in 
 De Villeroy's army, and I don't believe Eugene has 
 ten soldiers of that nation under him. Besides, the 
 man had a louis d'or of this year's late coinage; that 
 proves he has seen French paymaster very recently. 
 Our commandant is so well satisfied of him that the fel- 
 low was released within two hours after being brought 
 here and assigned a sergeant's quarters and rations. 
 Egad, that's he, over there." The lieutenant points to a 
 soldierly figure in the crowd in front of il duomo, and
 
 Il6 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Villiers's eyes grow so big they almost start from 
 his head as they encounter those of his trooper serv- 
 ant, Teddy O'Bourke, who, from very force of habit, 
 sends a shiver through him by saluting him. 
 
 Fortunately, the French lieutenant thinks the mili- 
 tary salutation is for him, and returns it. But Sydney, 
 looking around with a sinking heart, sees his Irish 
 servant is following him, though fortunately at a dis- 
 tance and with some circumspection. 
 
 " I rather imagine the man has been in the cathedral 
 thanking Heaven for his escape," remarks the French 
 lieutenant. "All Irishmen are good Churchmen." 
 
 " Yes, and have an eye for pretty girls," laughs the 
 troubadour uneasily, for he has noticed Teddy has put 
 glance on one or two comely females, a great crowd of 
 women being about il duomo, as is usual in most Italian 
 cities. 
 
 " Well, here we are at the Golden Juggler," says 
 young De Terrail, and the two enter that hostlery, 
 Sydney's heart considerably lighter, for he knows the 
 report of Eugene's having marched north of the Po, 
 having come from Teddy O'Bourke, must be a lie in- 
 vented by the ready witted Irishman, to make his com- 
 ing pleasant to his captors. 
 
 Even as he sits at table with his lieutenant friend, a 
 moment's hasty consideration shows Villiers that this 
 helps his plan. The French commandant, being at 
 ease as regards attack, will be more susceptible to sur- 
 prise. But the danger of his servant's presence in Mi- 
 randola strikes the English officer so strongly it would 
 take away his appetite were he not famishing. 
 
 However, reflecting that a spy should be always at 
 his ease, he contrives to chat over the Lachrima Christi 
 of their fyost, which is very excellent, quite easily to
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. lijr 
 
 the French lieutenant. Incidentally, he finds out a few 
 facts as regards the strength of the garrison which 
 agree with the information the Lady Metia had given 
 him ; likewise that De Vivans, though he is a brave, is 
 a rash and careless soldier, and has set himself down in 
 what he considers winter quarters in this capital with- 
 out that care and circumspection as to outposts a' cau- 
 tious commander would have taken, especially when 
 Eugene of Savoy, even if he has recrossed the Po, is 
 still within striking distance of him. 
 
 Then the conversation ranging from military matters 
 goes to the approaching ballet given by the princess, 
 likewise the banquet, Ambrose chatting merrily, and 
 saying: " This is going to be a grand fete. The 
 Princess Maria, who is French to her heart's blood, 
 and between ourselves, is devoted to De Vivans, has 
 planned the thing charmingly. At the great banquet 
 the tables will be set in the theater; I sit between that 
 pert little Gianetta and the beautiful Lady Mirabelle 
 Martana, two as coquettish maids of honor as ever tried 
 for military heart." 
 
 "And caught one, eh?" laughs Villiers. "But I 
 know little of these things. At banquets the trouba- 
 dours sing at the side. They receive the smiles of 
 pretty women no oftener than they drink the wine." 
 
 " Ah, that will not be in your case, sieur. You are 
 noble." 
 " Yes, but still a troubadour and looker-on." 
 
 " And a looker-on sees so much of the play of life. 
 To-night please put your eye on me. I am invited to 
 the royal supper; see which I love most, the Lady 
 Gianetta or Mirabelle! " remarks De Terrail.
 
 Il8 tHE FIGHTING TROUfiADOUR. 
 
 " I'll tell you now," laughs the troubadour, "Am- 
 brose de Terrail loves neither. He left his heart in 
 France." 
 
 " How so? " 
 
 " I see a chain about your neck that betokens a 
 lady's gage d'amour." 
 
 " Sapristi! " laughs the lieutenant. " I see a chain 
 about your neck also, Sieur Troubadour. You love as 
 well as I." He points to the golden links that bear 
 the miniature of Lucia Vesey, then adds: " But I 
 must be at the citadel for change of guard." 
 
 So Villiers and the young lieutenant saunter out of 
 the inn, which is on the Contrada d'Este, and quite 
 near the palace. Gazing languidly about, the emissary 
 of Prince Eugene gives a sigh of relief. His Irish 
 phantom, for he has got to consider Teddy as such, is 
 not in sight. " If the wretch would but keep away 
 from me all would be well," thinks his master, gloom- 
 ily. " He will never guess I live in the palace." 
 
 In this view he remembers he is bidden to the 
 princess's supper, and also that royal invitations are 
 commands. Therefore, after a few light words with 
 De Terrail, and receiving invitation to visit him at his 
 quarters, Villiers bids his new friend good-by, and 
 walks rapidly on his wry through the streets of the 
 city that are now gradually losing their shoppers and 
 promenaders, as the sun is sinking over the distant 
 Apennines. The drawbridges at the gates will soon be 
 raised. 
 
 In expectation of this, quite a line of wagons are be- 
 ing rapidly driven toward the Porta Modena, and 
 many market women and contadini are hurrying to the 
 various outlets of the city, fearing they will be de- 
 tained all night and have to spend a lira for the
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 119 
 
 lege of fighting vermin in the pallets of the poorer 
 osterie of the town ; clean straw and open country be- 
 ing more to their liking. These are leavened with 
 French soldiers getting toward the barracks in the 
 citadel. A few oil lamps are being lighted by enter- 
 prising tradesmen. 
 
 Under one of these Villiers, as he strides toward the 
 palace entrance, which is now only some squares away, 
 sees a military figure and gives a shudder. His Irish 
 phantom is again behind him. 
 
 At first he walks rapidly on, thinking the Irish- 
 man, who is now rigged in the full uniform of a 
 French sergeant, will not see him; but Teddy has 
 apparently been watching for his master, and quickens 
 his steps in pursuit as Villiers increases his pace. 
 
 For a moment the captain thinks of dodging his fol- 
 lower, then deciding it is best to meet this danger, per- 
 mits the Irish sergeant to overtake him, which Teddy's 
 quick steps do very rapidly. 
 
 To Villiers's astonishment his servant doesn't stop 
 as he reaches him, but keeps his pace, and leaves the 
 Englishman startled and staring at him. For as he 
 has passed his master's ear O'Bourke has whispered 
 this pleasant suggestion: " Give me pass to the palace 
 or we are both dead men, yer honor." 
 
 A few moments more Villiers overtakes his man, 
 and, passing also, says: " Follow me. Your French 
 uniform is passport enough. Go in as if you had busi- 
 ness." 
 
 Then thanking heaven, the gloom of the night, which 
 is now rapidly descending, has kept from observation 
 this quick and curious interview, Sydney strides on 
 somewhat in advance of his servant. 
 
 Presenting his pass to the sentries at the ducal gates,
 
 120 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 he saunters in, but inside the courtyard pauses 
 and sees the Irishman in French sergeant's uniform 
 step briskly past saluting the sentry, and walk straight 
 across the courtyard into the main portals of the build- 
 ings. 
 
 A moment after Villiers has strolled by the few 
 lackeys in attendance in the outer vestibule and walked 
 up the great stairway. Reaching the landing, he looks 
 back and sees the Irish sergeant following him, yet at 
 a cautious distance. 
 
 Some French officers are lounging in one of the 
 main reception rooms of the palace. Probably the 
 few careless court officials either do not notice him for 
 the oil lamps and flambeaux are just being lighted in 
 the hi:;h corridors and public rooms of the great build- 
 ing or think the French sergeant is some orderly bear- 
 ing message to his military master, for none give heed 
 or pause to Teddy. With a little hope in his heart, Vil- 
 liers turns into the narrow medieval passageway that 
 leads to his little rooms in the remote pavilion, and 
 hears the military step behind him. 
 
 Two minutes later he has cautiously unlocked and 
 opened the door of his apartments, examined them 
 both, and admitted his Irish servant, whose enlivening 
 remark as he salutes is: " God help us both, yer 
 honor." 
 
 " I was doing very well until you came," rejoins 
 his scowling master; then adds severely: "You had 
 made your point. You were safe in the French bar- 
 racks. All you had to do was to keep your Irish 
 tongue very close and eat French rations every day 
 5tnd walk about the streets of Mirandola."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. IZJ 
 
 The answer that comes startles the English captain : 
 " Bedad, I darsent walk about the streets of Miran- 
 dola." 
 
 " Why not? " 
 
 " Because that bastely Italian Umberto is walking 
 about 'em, too." 
 
 "You saw him?" gasps Villiers, impressed by the 
 danger of recognition by this scoundrel, who he is now 
 certain has been a French spy, at all events employed 
 by some one inimical to Sir Andrew Vesey. 
 
 " I saw him big and ugly as life. And faith, I think 
 he saw ye, but couldn't belave his eyes, you being 
 shorn of moustache and walking with a Frinch lieuten- 
 ant. Keep yer eye peeled for 'em, yer honor. He'd 
 have yer life for every cut he got from Sergeant 
 Schwartz's cane." 
 
 " I'll see the villain does not recognize me," returns 
 Sydney shortly. " Now tell me your story. By all 
 the gods, how came you here? " 
 
 " Faith, that's easy telling. I was taken prisoner by 
 the bloody Frinch." 
 
 " Your German uniform?" 
 
 " Be me soul, that was the luck of it. When ye had 
 gone away, yer honor, and the sun getting up good 
 and warm, I took off every stitch that had been wet 
 swimming the river and put 'em on the bushes of a 
 thicket to dry, and thin, begorra, still feeling a chill 
 in me bones, I commenced to run about dressed in my 
 skin like Adam, barring a pair of cavalry boots to keep 
 the prickles and burrs off of me feet. Be me sowl, the 
 first thing I know a hussar vidette was around me. 
 Frinch, I saw by their uniform, and before I knew 
 much more they had seized me and the horses, but 
 by the blessing of God, they didn't find my uniform,
 
 122 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 which would have told them I was an inimy. So they 
 ran me along quite uncourteously to the guard house 
 in this blessed town of Mirandola. 
 
 " Thin they took me before the gineral, De Vivans, 
 I think his name is; bless his confiding, ginerous heart. 
 I knew there was three Irish regiments in Villeroy's 
 army and divilish few of me nation in the emperor's 
 ranks. So I commenced to jabber about belonging to 
 the rigiment of Dillon and being captured at Canneto 
 and making a hairbreadth's escape half naked with two 
 cavalry horses I stole from Eugene. My being wet 
 and having swam the river half proved me story, the 
 new gold louis I'd got from that baste Umberto settled 
 it. And thin I commenced to talk about me cousin, 
 the Chevalier Burke, who is in the Frinch service in 
 Cremona, I belave. Betwain me Irish and De 
 Vivans's Frinch, he concluded I was surely an escaped 
 sergeant of Dillon's rigiment. Tare an' ages, the news 
 I told him made him so happy he wanted to believe 
 me. Begob, I told him Eugene was in retreat across 
 the Po, trying to save his communications from De 
 Villeroy. It put the gineral in such good humor that, 
 by me soul, he gave me two more louis and ordered a 
 sergeant's rations and quarters for me, likewise this 
 blessed uniform." 
 
 " He'll order something else for you if you are 
 caught," suggests Villiers grimly. 
 
 " Faith and for ye also, yer honor, I'm thinking," re- 
 turns Teddy, though he tempers his unpleasant retort 
 with a jovial smile. 
 
 " To avoid this," says the English captain, after turn- 
 ing the matter over in his mind for a minute or two, 
 " I must get you out of Mirandola this night." 
 
 " Git me out of Mirandola? Faith, I wish ye could!
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 12$ 
 
 The drawbridges are down by this time, and if they 
 were open, how would ye pass me at the gates? " 
 
 " That's my business. I've important work for you, 
 an errand that will give you three stripes upon your 
 sleeves in the army of Eugene, and save you from the 
 noose here." 
 
 " You don't mean it, yer honor." 
 
 " Indeed I do," returns .Villiers, who has now de- 
 termined to make use of Teddy in carrying to Eugene 
 the plan of operations he has formulated for the sur- 
 prise. He could have sent this by a carrier pigeon 
 of the princess, but that would not have guided the 
 regiment of Staremberg to the goose-pen in the little 
 grove in which is concealed the entrance to the secret 
 passageway to the ducal gardens. O'Bourke sent out 
 through this passage can, on his return, conduct the 
 regiment of Staremberg to the very spot, something 
 they might have not discovered easily in the darkness 
 of the night, during which they must make this at- 
 tempt. 
 
 " You will stay here," he orders shortly, " and not 
 leave these rooms until I take you out to freedom." 
 
 " God bless yer honor. Have ye a winged horse, or 
 a Pegagus, as Father O'Rourke said in Latin, for me to 
 fly out over the walls? " 
 
 " That's my business. But to make everything sure, 
 so you may pass the French videttes upon the Secchia 
 safely, slip into that room, strip off your sergeant's uni- 
 form, and get into the sheepskin I have there. For this 
 affair I am going to make you a shepherd." 
 
 " Bedad, is that all I am to wear? It's a cold night." 
 
 " Except those sandals. Step in and obey me while 
 I write the dispatches." 
 
 The Irishman being engaged in his change of toilet
 
 124 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 in the adjoining chamber, his master looks about for 
 paper, but only finds a few sheets of music that he 
 has brought from Pasquale's to run the notes over. 
 Upon these Villiers, sitting down, writes lucidly and 
 accurately his plan of attack, suggesting that the regi- 
 ment of Staremberg be selected to pass by the under- 
 ground tunnel into the ducal gardens, adding: " He 
 who brings you this will guide the surprise party to the 
 spot of entry. In case the attack is to be made as I 
 have planned it, I have verbally directed a certain 
 signal to be given to me by the bearer of this upon the 
 evening of the assault, not later than 8 p.m. Receiving 
 it, I shall know all is well. Not finding it, I shall be 
 sure your Highness has determined it is impossible to 
 carry out the affair. Be very careful of this, for on it 
 will depend probably the lives of the regiment intro- 
 duced into the ducal gardens. If anything should in- 
 terfere with my part of the affair, or prevent or post- 
 pone the entertainment and fete given to the French 
 officers, I shall send your Highness word by carrier 
 pigeon." 
 
 Reading this over very carefully, and making sure 
 that it contains nothing which in case of capture will 
 compromise the Princess of Mirandola, he carefully 
 initials each page. Then he jumps up with a muttered 
 curse, o'erturning the table, for to him come from 
 the next room the faint scream of a woman and a wild 
 Irish yell. Dashing into his little chamber, Villiers 
 starts aghast, for the fair Princess of Mirandola is ut- 
 tering little plaintive cries and gazing with horrified 
 eyes upon Teddy, who is bashfully concealing his shep- 
 herd's legs with his French sergeant's cloak.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 1 25 
 
 " God of mercy, is it a fairy or a banshee, yer 
 honor? " asks the Irishman, with staring eyes. " Begad, 
 she popped in upon me out of the very wall! " 
 
 And in truth the Princess Maria might be a fairy. 
 Dressed in her court costume, she looks graceful as a 
 fluttering slyph, her white arms that she is waving 
 wildly and gleaming shoulders, which are shuddering, 
 coming out of clouds of spangled gauze, a long court 
 train looped up behind over petticoat of shimmering 
 satin, displays petite trembling feet in high-heeled 
 jeweled slippers. 
 
 " O Dio! " gasps the royal lady, with pale, stam- 
 mering lips, " his uniform! We are discovered. We 
 we are undone. De Vivans's spy is striving to conceal 
 himself! " 
 
 "This French uniform is that of my servant, 
 madame, who entered the town to join me. He is here 
 to carry to Prince Eugene the exact memoranda of our 
 surprise," whispers Villiers to the half fainting beauty, 
 adding rather sternly: "It is well you have come, 
 though God knows how you got here, otherwise this 
 would have delayed me, for I must show you the exact 
 details of the affair we plan." 
 
 Supporting her to the next room, for the shock has 
 been great to the princess, and apparently she likes to 
 feel his arm about her, Sydney, after reviving her 
 with fan and wet towel, which shows Maria's beauty 
 is all natural, discusses the plan with her. As he fin- 
 ishes, she claps her little hands, for her spirits have 
 come back to her, and cries admiringly : " Bravo ! It 
 is worthy of Eugene himself. I'll do my part of it 
 if you do yours," adding with arch glance: "I I 
 came here to get a peep of you. The time seemed 
 long till I should see your face at supper." Her lips
 
 1 26 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 seek his as she chides: " You have been away from 
 the palace all this long day. I had hoped to see you 
 in the gardens, my troubadour." 
 
 " I was inspecting the French garrison, in order to 
 properly perfect this plan of operations. Now, 
 madame, I must send this man away immediately," an- 
 swers Villiers shortly, for the princess's lips upon his 
 make him ashamed now that he has seen the woman 
 to whom he has given his love, this day living, 
 still pure, still innocent, in the house of Pasquale, the 
 music master. Therefore, though Maria's loveliness 
 is great, her archness enchanting, her vivacity alluring, 
 and her lips tender, his are chilly. 
 
 She notes this and whispers to him: " Cielo! your 
 lips are cold! Have you not yet recovered from the 
 shock of my sudden appearance? There is a secret 
 passage from my chamber to your apartments," she 
 blushes hotly here, and mutters: " But of that after- 
 ward," and her lips seem to grow more tender. 
 
 But he puts her aside, whispering sharply: 
 " Diavolo, remember my man in the next room," 
 though he cannot help reflecting: " What a change is 
 in me. With these clinging lips upon mine, this fairy 
 form within my arms, four months ago I had been fire 
 as well as she." But Lucia's picture is still upon his 
 heart, and he commands sharply: "Now to busi- 
 ness! " and calls loudly: " Teddy! " 
 
 At this Maria favors the gentleman with a little 
 piquant frown, and says poutingly : " The winter air 
 of Mirandola seems to be chilly, sir." 
 
 " Bedad, your ladyship, it is in this light rig," as-. 
 sents Mr. O'Bourke genially, as he enters in hig short 
 sheepskin sack, bare legs and. sarjdaled feet.,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 1*7 
 
 " Sapristi! " cries her vivacious highness, " we must 
 make our Irishman a better shepherd than this." 
 
 And the little volatile witch goes to ruffling 
 O'Bourke's red hair, and slings the goatherd's pouch 
 upon him with its chestnuts, but cries laughingly: 
 " His breath already smells of garlic. In that he is a 
 more perfect shepherd than you were, my captain. 
 Now, my wild Irish devil," for Villiers has deemed it 
 best to explain to her the curious entry of his man into 
 her capital, " here's five gold pieces to add to those 
 of that fool De Vivans, and if you do your duty truly 
 and are successful, one hundred more!" 
 
 " Be me sowl, I'll buy an estate in Ireland and be- 
 come a count meself. Me ancestors were kings, and 
 made love to pretty maids of honor like other gin- 
 tlemin," returns the grinning varlet. 
 
 Here Villiers, who dare not tell Teddy he is banter- 
 ing royalty, cries sternly : " Silence ! Make up that 
 French uniform in a bundle." 
 
 Then he securely ties the secret message to Eugene 
 upon the under side of the fellow's sheepskin, also 
 concealing it within its folds. "Come with me!" he 
 commands, and to the astonishment of the princess 
 takes four candles from the mantelpiece and puts 
 them in his pocket. 
 
 " To light your way through the subterranean pas- 
 sage ? " she asks. 
 
 " Yes, also to illustrate to my messenger a private 
 signal. My words he might mistake, but my actions 
 he will remember." Drawing her aside, he adds under 
 his voice: " If in an hour I do not return I am dead, 
 your Highness. In that case, for your own safety and 
 that of your ducal father, think no more of this affair." 
 
 " Dead ! " shudders Maria ; then pleads with eyes,
 
 128 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 lips, and tongue: " Don't risk your life. You've made 
 it too valuable to me, mi adorato! Kiss me before you 
 go!" 
 
 With hurried salute the captain leaves her. 
 
 Then he commands: "Take up that uniform, 
 O'Bourke, and follow me." 
 
 A moment after he shows the way down the stairway 
 in the wall to his Irish servant, cursing himself that 
 he is weak enough to let glory make him for one mo- 
 ment appear untrue to the love Lucia Vesey has made 
 burn so brightly in his heart this day. 
 
 Leaving the palace, Villiers cautiously leads Teddy 
 through the garden walks, which are now in the dark- 
 ness quite deserted, and after some search, for he is 
 not very familiar with the place, finds the little kiosk. 
 Opening the trap, which is carefully concealed by a 
 seat of the summer house, he descends the little shaft, 
 followed by his servant, who whispers: "Saints save 
 us! Are ye going down in a well? " 
 
 Carefully closing the opening above them, and light- 
 ing one of the candles, Villiers says to his Irish serv- 
 ant : " Watch carefully. If at the bottom of this shaft 
 when you return two nights from now you place four 
 candles in pairs, each crossed as I am doing, I shall 
 know that you have delivered my message to Prince 
 Eugene, and that the attack is to be made. Do you 
 understand me? " 
 
 " Faith and I do, yer honor." . 
 
 " Now," says Villiers, picking up the candles, " place 
 them to indicate your errand has been done properly." 
 
 " But me errand has not been done properly." 
 
 " Ods, fool! Place them as you will when you re- 
 turn." 
 
 " Ah, now I understand, yer honor," and Teddy ar- 
 
 r
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 1*9 
 
 ranges the four candles at the bottom of the shaft, 
 making with each pair a Roman cross. " Musha, is 
 that to yer liking? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly." 
 
 " Begorra, I could have done it without yer taking 
 on so much trouble about it." 
 
 " Sdeath ! Don't discuss with me an affair of life 
 and death to hundreds of your comrades," mutters Vil- 
 liers. " Now we'll bury that French uniform here." 
 
 Two minutes after, this being done, he says : "Come, 
 I have no time for discussion." With this, Villiers leads 
 the way with lighted candle through the long sub- 
 terranean passage, Teddy following him and shiver- 
 ing a little, as the night is very cold and the masonry 
 immediately under the moat quite wet. 
 
 Coming to the other shaft, Villiers ascends it, and, 
 opening the gate of the sheep pen for his follower, 
 commands: " Note carefully this grove with the 
 two tall poplar trees it is opposite the third bastion 
 south of the Concordia gate. Remember, when 
 Eugene commands, to bring his troops to the goose 
 pen and show them the shaft! Now as quick as 
 your legs will take you to the camp of Prince Eugene. 
 Gonzaga is a little northwest. Look at the north 
 star there; take your course by that." 
 
 " I have no pass to cross the river at Cor.cordia! " 
 
 " Swim it. Don't go near Concordia." 
 
 " Tare an' ages, the night is cold." 
 
 "Exercise will keep your legs from shivering; run! 
 By the morning Prince Eugene must have this mes- 
 sage." 
 
 " Bedad, it's twenty miles." 
 
 " He will give you twenty crowns. Besides, recol- 
 lect what she promised."
 
 1 30 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 "Oh, yer lady of honor, eh?" remarks Teddy. 
 " Bedad, yer honor seems anxious to get back to her "; 
 for Villiers is already descending into the subter- 
 ranean passage. 
 
 Tramping along this as he returns to the palace, 
 the English captain thinks confidently: "The sur- 
 prise is arranged. Barring his death, of which all 
 good soldiers must take their chances, Teddy will ar- 
 rive at Prince Eugene's headquarters to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 But perhaps he would not be so certain of the issue 
 of this affair had he known that Teddy, after getting 
 some miles away, had suddenly scratched his head and 
 uttered a gasp of dismay. " Be me sowl," the creature 
 mutters, " the captain never gave me thim candles 
 to give him the signal with. God help us all, I darsent 
 go back for thim! What shall I do? " 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COVERS FOR TWO. 
 
 Too proud to reproach Villiers, the princess has 
 noticed his kisses have grown cold since last he saw 
 her. This puts her in a raging passion, for royal 
 beauty is not accustomed to be slighted. 
 
 Even as Villiers has left her to get his Irish servant 
 outside the walls, her little foot is patting the floor 
 angrily, and she is communing to herself: " This Eng- 
 lishman of double face came here this morning and 
 seemed as eager for my kisses as I was for his, and now 
 this evening his lips are cold as Alpine snows. Tis not
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 13! 
 
 Contemplation of his desperate military duty makes 
 him so formal and distrait. Men fight the better for 
 loving, and love the better for fighting." Then, being 
 of a philosophical though vivacious disposition, Maria 
 grinds her pretty white teeth together, and queries: 
 " What woman has come between us? This afternoon 
 my gallant was busy at the garrison on military recon- 
 noissance. Only two of my ladies have seen him since 
 his love grew cold, Metia and Bianca. Which one?" 
 
 Returning to her own apartments with a face as in- 
 nocent as an angel's and a mind in its feminine way 
 crafty as Machiavelli's, it chancing to be the hour of 
 attendance of both suspected ladies, by deft ques- 
 tioning she soons determines Metia is the culprit, for 
 the girl blushes when Maria mentions Villiers to her, 
 and twits her with having been kissed as a goose girl. 
 A moment latef she asks jeeringly: "As serving 
 wench, was your gallant again polite? " 
 
 Though her maid of honor is too wary a courtier to 
 acknowledge the second offense, her embarrassed 
 manner gives the princess some pangs and lots of 
 rage so much that she determines Metia shall see 
 the handsome troubadour alone no more, and fears, if 
 Villiers attends the royal supper this evening, by 
 some accident he may get near her maid of honor, who 
 will be seated at the lower table, where his more hum- 
 ble rank has compelled her to place her troubadour. 
 
 " Heavens, how the jade would like to have him by 
 her side!" she snarls unto herself. "If my Sydney 
 sups not at the public table that danger is averted." 
 
 True, she might stand Metia in her anteroom at 
 work at the big embroidery frame, where she and her 
 ladies, mostly her ladies, are working a great tapestry 
 Jion to present to her cousin, the Cardinal d'Este, at;
 
 13* THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 carnival, or keep the girl standing behind her chair 
 upon the dias at the ducal supper table. But this will 
 perhaps look too marked, the princess thinks; besides, 
 another idea appeals more pleasantly to her amorous 
 spirit. 
 
 " Pardie! my poor gallant shall not starve even if he 
 misses royal table," she laughs to herself; then medi- 
 tates: " His raiment looked but too poor for his de- 
 serts! Dieu merci, he shall sup with me alone and in a 
 garb worthy the troubadour of old." 
 
 With this in her vivacious mind, Maria calls to her 
 La Marchesa di Monteferrato. " I dare trust no more 
 women," she thinks. " Bianca has already seen my 
 gallant. Her magnificent but slightly matured beauty 
 has not caught his heart." 
 
 With this she holds consultation with the mistress 
 of her maids, giving her an errand, and Villiers 
 on his return from the subterranean passage, looking 
 at his dress, already soiled with mud and moat drip- 
 pings, and thinking: " These are sorry garments to 
 present at the royal table," suddenly finds a generous, 
 if a jealous, mistress has thought of him. 
 
 A knock is heard upon his door, and, opening it, 
 the Lady Bianca stands before him, followed by a page 
 bearing garments fit for a duke, though of somewhat 
 earlier fashion. 
 
 The boy at her direction placing these before the 
 Englishman, Sydney sees a purple velvet doublet, laced 
 in gold, immense ballooned trunks of violet satin 
 slashed in white and pink, and hose of matching silk, 
 with jeweled cap, belt, and dagger, as well as velvet 
 Venetian boots. 
 
 As Villiers puts a crown into the page's hand and 
 the youth departs, L,a Marchesa di Monteferrato whis-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 133 
 
 pers: " My royal mistress and I found these in one of 
 her old clothes presses." 
 
 " Zounds ! these are worthy of a prince," exclaims 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " They were the property of a great prince, Giovanni 
 Pico, who two hundred years ago was called the 
 Phoenix. He lived when troubadours were plenty as 
 blackberries on the Sabine hills. It is a fitting present 
 even from la Princessa of Mirandola," returns la 
 marchesa, apparently proud of her mistress's wealth, 
 though once or twice she looks rather curiously at the 
 gentleman before her. 
 
 " It is a magnificent one," answers Villiers, as he 
 notes the jewels on the cap are diamonds and the orna- 
 ments of the belt and poniard sheath are jewels set 
 in gold. 
 
 " After the manner of her race, the Princess Maria is 
 generous to her friends," murmurs the court lady. 
 " She also sends to you, Sieur Troubadour, this purse," 
 tendering an embroidered bag heavy with golden 
 coins. 
 
 " I beg you return those to her highness," mutters 
 the English soldier haughtily. " For her clothes and 
 decking I thank her highness humbly. Her gold I 
 can only return with my humble thanks." 
 
 " 'Tis but the douceur of a troubadour," suggests 
 la marchesa, a strange light glowing in her eyes. 
 
 " It is one I am not accustomed to accept from 
 ladies," dissents the captain in Anglo-Saxon firmness. 
 
 " Then I am to return it to her highness? " 
 
 " Yes, with my homage." 
 
 " This will astound her. Of course, she expects to 
 remunerate you for your services." 
 
 " Tis a remuneration I cannot accept," says Vil-
 
 134 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Hers angrily. " She knows I am a ," he pauses 
 
 here and snaps his jaws together, " a troubadour." 
 
 " And a very curious one," thinks la marchesa, " one 
 too haughty to receive the guerdon of his service." 
 This adds to her suspicion of the man, who, every time 
 she looks at him, reminds her more strongly of him who 
 deserted her and scorned her love at the babbling of a 
 child. She is delighted, however, to return the purse 
 to her girdle, for the money in it had been her own, 
 and she had offered it as if from the princess to see 
 if this man was really a troubadour who sang for hire. 
 
 " This note from my mistress," she says simply, and, 
 placing a perfumed missive in Villiers's hand, makes 
 her adieu, wondering: " How can I make sure he is 
 the man who flaunted me?" 
 
 As for the object of her thoughts, he, in his chamber, 
 has opened the billet doux, and read: 
 " MY SHEPHERD BOY: 
 
 " I deem it not wise you sup at the royal table ; too 
 many French officers will be present, and that will 
 be unnecessary contact and therefore dangerous. 
 
 " Though I banish you from my hospitality, I accept 
 yours. Garb yourself in the magnificence I send and 
 wait and see what will be done for my troubadour by 
 his QUEEN OF LOVE." 
 
 Villiers looks out of his chamber into his sitting- 
 room, and sees lackeys setting his table with snowiest 
 of damask, sparkling Venetian crystal, and the deli- 
 cate china of Sevres. A few minutes after they silently 
 depart, leaving behind them cold partridges, oysters, 
 a great game pasty, fruit, and champagne cooled in 
 ice. These, with half a dozen other delicacies, sweet- 
 meats, and confections, upon table decked with flow- 
 ers, make a supper fit for Lucullus.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 135 
 
 There are covers for two. He guesses the princess's 
 plan. 
 
 In an instant he has locked and bolted at top and 
 bottom the strong door of his sitting-room, which 
 leads to the outer corridor. In a short ten minutes he 
 has arrayed himself in the gorgeous vestments of a 
 prince of troubadours. 
 
 Then feeling that all chance of intrusion from the 
 outside is eliminated, he sits himself down to await the 
 appearance of her highness, very well guessing the 
 secret path she will take to his hospitality; only, being 
 extremely hungry, he grows impatient and soothes 
 himself with a Broseley clay pipe and Virginia tobacco, 
 these luxuries having been brought in as an addenda 
 to the supper. 
 
 He is in the midst of his second pipe when he hears 
 from his little chamber a sweet soft voice, whispering 
 half bashfully, half timidly: "Where are you? My 
 troubadour, where are you? " 
 
 A second after the Princess Maria stands at the 
 door of his sitting-room, and gives a little cry of joy, 
 for a troubadour as handsome as ever strode castle 
 hall, with strained hose upon his muscular legs denot- 
 ing the play of every muscle, and the lithe body of a 
 military athlete in tight-laced doublet, with jeweled 
 cap upon his flowing locks, stands before her. 
 
 To him the royal minx springs, nestles in his arms, 
 and cries: "Mi Madrc, but thou art a pretty popin- 
 jay. Now you are decked for love and music." 
 
 "And eating also, your Highness," suggests Vil- 
 liers, turning longing eyes upon the magnificent table. 
 " You forget, my Princess, I have not supped." 
 
 " Oh, forgive me for being so careless of your great 
 appetite, my military gentleman," she laughs, then
 
 IJ<5 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 pouts : " I am hungry also, though I had forgotten it 
 at sight of you. I only played with the wing of a 
 pullet, and appeared to taste champagne at my father's 
 table. The duke hinted he feared I was in a decline. 
 But I don't look it, do I? " She rises on to the tips 
 of her little slippers to increase her height, and stands 
 before him, her white arms extended, the picture of 
 youth, beauty, and love. 
 
 " Sapristi, your Highness," grins the cavalier, " you 
 look more fit to be eaten than to eat." 
 
 At this Maria gives him a little playful pat, and cries: 
 " So that's the reason you haven't asked me to your 
 supper, signore," adding: " You will have to be my 
 servitor, for I dare have no lackeys here to wait on 
 us." 
 
 " That would have destroyed half the pleasure of the 
 banquet. It is my delight to wait on beauty such as 
 yours," whispers Villiers. His eyes cannot help grow- 
 ing a little impassioned at the rare loveliness of his 
 charming guest. 
 
 For the princess looks like a fairy, perhaps not a very 
 good fairy, but still a very lovely fairy, as she drapes 
 her gauzes about her and sinks into a chair at the sup- 
 per table, and, gazing archly at him, says: "You 
 call me ' your Highness ' and ' Madame ' and ' Prin- 
 cess.' My name to you is Maria when we are together. 
 Give me a kiss for my condescension, and call it to me. 
 It will be the first time I have heard it from your lips." 
 
 And Villiers, muttering to himself, " Military duty," 
 does so, and his salute is warmer than the kiss he had 
 placed upon the same lips this afternoon. Noting this, 
 her eyes grow bright with joy. Together they run 
 through the first course of their meal, he attentive 
 as a lover should be to every little want of his charming
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 137 
 
 mistress, and she giving him little caresses between 
 times, their chairs grow closer and closer together 
 as the champagne that is now flowing begins to give 
 their eyes greater brightness. 
 
 To him the princess is whispering: " It is well, my 
 English captain, you told me of the lies of your Irish 
 follower, otherwise De Vivans's delight, as he boasted 
 to me that Prince Eugene had fled from him across the 
 Po, would have made me fear our plans had gone 
 amiss. But it will be so much greater surprise for our 
 braggart French commandant when we spring upon 
 him our attack two nights from now. After these 
 swashbuckling French are under our heels, I'll make 
 you my prince indeed. What think you of being Syd- 
 ney of Mirandola, my shepherd lad?" 
 
 But before he can answer this the princess rises 
 and whispers: " Gran Dio! some one listening in your 
 chamber! " The next instant Bianca Gonzaga steps 
 into the sitting-room and courtesies profoundly; her 
 soft, sensuous voice murmurs : " I have come, your 
 Highness, to tell you that the duke has asked after 
 you." 
 
 " What did he wish to say to me?" 
 
 " Your Highness, it was some question of the wines 
 to be served at your grand banquet." 
 
 "Idiot!" cries her mistress, "to trouble me with 
 this. Dost think lam the butler of the palace?" Then 
 she sneers : " But, Madame la Marchesa, you have 
 stepped in upon us conveniently. We need a serving 
 wench. Quick! Tuck. up thy court train, and wait on 
 us at supper." 
 
 " Your Highness, my mistress, of course, I stand 
 behind your chair if you command," murmurs Bianca,
 
 138 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 her eyes, that have been imperious, drooping under the 
 princess's steely glance, " but this gentleman " 
 
 "I pray you will not serve me, Madame la Marchesa," 
 cries Villiers, rising up, " I am campaigner enough to 
 help myself." 
 
 " Thou'll wait upon him if I order it, Bianca," says 
 her mistress in low but dominant tones. " You know 
 your compact with me. Diavolo! shall I have to 
 humble again your imperious spirit? " 
 
 " Your Highness, I beg you not," interjects the Eng- 
 lishman, who fears this will make the haughty marchesa 
 not only his enemy, but that of the princess also, 
 whether she recognizes him or not. " Did not my 
 hand assist your Highness properly?" 
 
 " Delightfully," whispers the princess, looking into 
 his eyes; then her voice grows stern, as she says: " To 
 discipline thy spirit, Marchesa, behind my chair for the 
 next course. 'Twill teach you not to interrupt my 
 privacy with foolish message." 
 
 With low courtesy of submission, Bianca tucks up 
 her long court train over her white petticoat of satin, 
 and stands in full costume of ceremony, with gleaming 
 shoulders and polished arms glistening like the snowy 
 marble of Carrara, and eyes flashing like a Juno's, be- 
 hind her mistress, assisting her highness to a larded 
 quail, and at Maria's gesture pours out a glass of wine 
 for the princess's lips, as with a little laugh of triumph 
 the royal minx goes to chatting on the glories of her 
 coming ballet. " 'Twas called ' The Queen of Love,' " 
 she remarks to Villiers, " but since you are here I have 
 renamed it ' Venus and the Troubadour.' In it you 
 will sit at my feet and sing thy love songs to my guitar. 
 These after supper we will rehearse." Then glancing 
 carelesslv over her white shoulder at la marchesa, she
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 139 
 
 continues: " Bianca here is Juno, queen of the gods. 
 She is haughty enough to even like to be queen of me. 
 Madame, pour out champagne for us, and as we drink 
 tell us the glories of my ballet. Thou hast rehearsed 
 them oft enough to know." 
 
 " Your Highness enters first as Venus with courtly 
 train of gods and goddesses," answers la marchesa. 
 " Then the Lady Metia is to trip the polka, that new 
 dance imported from Hungary. In it she will look like 
 a sylph." 
 
 " Never mind how that hussy Metia looks," cries 
 Maria, her eyes flashing. " Go on with your pro- 
 gramme." 
 
 " Then the ladies Floretta and Giulia dance the 
 sarabande. Afterward " 
 
 But here her mistress screams: " Basta, jade, you 
 are spilling wine all over me! " 
 
 For with trembling hand la marchesa is standing, 
 her gleaming eyes riveted upon Villiers's neck, just 
 where the low cut doublet leaves it. Her glance is 
 fixed upon a mole. She knows it well, she has kissed 
 it many times by the shores of Lago di Maggiore. 
 " Your Highness, I I was awkward," she stammers 
 in confusion. " My foot slipped upon the oaken floor." 
 
 " Pish, you make but a poor soubrette, my haughty 
 lady of honor," jeers her mistress. " Now you are dis- 
 ciplined, you can retire and bring to me my guitar, but 
 remember my privacy is not again to be intruded on. 
 I charge you, stand in my chamber at the door of this 
 secret passage and look to it." 
 
 With lowly courtesy Bianca takes her leave, her 
 eyes giving Villiers one fleeting flash. She knows her 
 man. 
 
 And the guitar being brought, even as la marchesa
 
 I4& THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 waits in the princess's chamber, she mutters : " It is 
 he who deserted me at the babbling of a child. The 
 child I have in my grip now for the other. Diavolo, 
 if I play upon their passions I'll have both him and 
 my mistress, who tramples on my pride." 
 
 But the two upon whom Bianca places her ban 
 think not of her. Their supper being finished, the 
 princess has seized her guitar and laughed: " If you 
 have voice equal to your doublet you will be the jewel 
 of my entertainment, my troubadour. It is best you 
 come not to rehearsal. Every appearance that makes 
 you prominent is a danger to you. To-night together 
 we will rehearse your Tuscan love songs. Sing as if 
 you loved me." Her cheeks grow red as poppies. She 
 droops her eyes, but gives him a kiss tender as tears, 
 yet warm as fire, then cries: " No, no, have done! " 
 For the champagne surging in his veins has given an 
 unexpected ardor to the troubadour's salute. 
 
 " Here are the ditties. Give your voice to them for 
 a little while! " she cries. 
 
 And she is such an enchanting witch that, though 
 he doubts her, almost fears her, Sydney, recalling the 
 art of his boyhood and with the voice of his youth 
 given back to him by the practice in Pasquale's music 
 room, sings the soft amorous couplets to her accom- 
 paniment as if she were the queen of love itself. 
 
 " Dio, you have a voice that makes me weep," she 
 falters, " so strong and with such a lovely ut de poitrine, 
 I must kiss you for it." 
 
 She has dropped her guitar. She is in his arms, 
 giving him exquisite coquetry, alluring bashfulness, 
 and a tender witchery that would fire an anchorite's 
 heart. " Per Bacco, you mean to commit high treason 
 now," she murmurs.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. I4T 
 
 Another moment and Sydney Villiers will forget the 
 face he truly loves in a counterfeit passion for this royal 
 Circe, when suddenly, with a shriek of rage, the 
 princess starts from the troubadour's knee, where she 
 had been lightly sitting, flees into the next room, and 
 he can hear her cry: " Bianca! Maldetto! Again! 
 This will teach you not to intrude! " and to the Eng- 
 lishman's ears comes the sound of vigorous slaps. 
 
 He glances in and sees Bianca's stately shoulders 
 growing red under the princess's vindictive and agile 
 hands. 
 
 " Cospetto, would you dare high treason, hussy!" 
 cries the little despot: for once la marchesa has raised 
 her statuesque arm as if to smite her tyrant in return. 
 
 " My mistress," sobs the maid of honor, with flam- 
 ing cheeks, " this, in the presence of a gentleman, when 
 I came to tell you your father has been stricken with a 
 fit." 
 
 " Sapristi! He has a fit after every full meal." 
 
 " But the leeches say this is serious. Your High- 
 ness is being inquired for. You 
 
 " Santos, then I must go," mutters the princess. 
 " Bianca, you should have notified me of your com- 
 ing," she says somewhat deprecatingly. " The purse 
 of gold I gave you for the ballet master, Pasquale, you 
 can keep. Precede me!" 
 
 As her lady's steps die away she bursts out crying 
 as if her heart would break, places two kisses on Vil- 
 liers's lips, and murmurs: " God keep you, dear one, 
 while I am torn from you." 
 
 " You fear your father's illness may prevent our 
 plan to surprise the French," whispers the captain, 
 concern flying into his face. 
 
 " No, I think not. My father has 3 fit after every
 
 142 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 gourmandizing. It is probably not at all serious, 
 though, of course, I am expected to be near. Adieu, 
 my loved one." 
 
 With another teary salute she glides from him 
 through the secret passageway, whose door closes 
 noiselessly, and leaves Villiers, looking at the blank 
 wall, muttering dazedly: " It must be God's mercy 
 that keeps me from the arms of others till I gain her, 
 of whom I am not worthy."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 BOOK III, 
 
 THE SINGING GIRL FROM CREMONA. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " AN IDEA WORTHY OF MACHIAVELLI." 
 
 The next morning with heavy head Villiers awakes, 
 and in his duties as Prince Eugene's emissary tries to 
 avoid reproaching conscience. He rises late, and takes 
 his way to breakfast with some of the under officials of 
 the palace, to whose good offices he has been assigned 
 by II Conte Rosario. 
 
 Chancing to pass the doors of the court theater, he 
 hears the thumbing of a couple of violins, and steps 
 onto the stage in search of information as to the duke's 
 health, for his highness's death or serious indisposition 
 would put an end to the fete and consequently destroy 
 the chance of French surprise. 
 
 Here he notes that the princess's ladies are under the 
 direction of their dancing mistress Tessa practicing 
 their steps for the ballet of Venus and the Troubadour. 
 
 He sits down idly and watches the ladies Mirabelle 
 and Guilia displaying their graces in the sensuous sara- 
 bande, though these do not seem to please the mistress 
 of the ballet very greatly. Then Tessa shrieks: 
 " Silenzio! Silenzio! " for the maids of honor, the prin-
 
 144 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 cess not being present, are chatting and laughing like 
 so many magpies, and little Gianetta di Persiani is 
 romping with two young pages who are to dance in the 
 minuet. 
 
 But during this Villiers gets the information he is in 
 search of. Pretty Metia, seeing him, trips to him and 
 whispers: " Good morning, Sieur Troubadour. You 
 will not be able to rehearse to-day. Our mistress is 
 indisposed and will not be upon the stage this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "The princessa indisposed?" 
 
 " Yes, she has been with her father most of the night 
 and now is drowsy." 
 
 " And her father ? " 
 
 " Oh, the duke is getting well, as usual. This evening 
 he will be ready for another feast and likewise for 
 another indisposition," whispers the girl, archly ; then 
 laughs: "Have you not had breakfast this morning? 
 Am I again to serve the shepherd boy ? " 
 
 And this putting Villiers in mind of his breakfast, 
 and also relieving him of any fear of hindrance to his 
 military coup, he strolls away to meet two or three un- 
 der-chamberlains, a master-of-the-pages, and one or 
 two other gentlemen of the palace. Chatting with them 
 over breakfast, he discovers to his concern that a re- 
 inforcement of six hundred infantry has just come 
 into town, having been forwarded from the French gar- 
 rison at Modena. The disposition of these troops, and 
 how they will affect the plan he has formulated and for- 
 warded to Prince Eugene, must be discovered. 
 
 This is not a difficult matter, though it gives him 
 several long walks which take him well into the after- 
 noon. 
 
 The arriving troops are quartered on an open
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 145 
 
 piazza, or square, just outside the citadel. This only 
 adds their strength to the garrison ; they can be 
 brought to reinforce the guard at the Concordia gate 
 not much more rapidly than if they were cooped up 
 within the citadel itself. 
 
 This off his mind, Villiers again turns his steps in the 
 afternoon toward the Contrada Pico, for the transient 
 and illusive passion for the princess has passed from 
 him even with the fumes of the wine that had intensi- 
 fied it. 
 
 " How the devil could I have so forgotten myself 
 even on account of Eugene's coup? " he communes 
 with himself. " Hang it, she tempted me. If it were 
 not my military duty, I would never see naughty little 
 Maria again." 
 
 A few other similar suggestions with which men are 
 wont to palliate their vagaries in love are in his mind as 
 he mounts the steps that lead to Pasquale's house, raps 
 on the door, and enters to find himself much more 
 ashamed than he had been before. 
 
 For at his rap, not waiting for the slattern girl to 
 answer it, come light footsteps. The door is thrown 
 open and his ward, her eyes bright with happiness, 
 whispers to her guardian : " I knew your step, so I 
 saved Brigita the trouble." Then she makes Villiers 
 very happy by, after a low courtesy, showing him into 
 the music-room and announcing : " Maestro Pasquale 
 is busily engaged on a new march her highness, la 
 princessa, has ordered for the entry of herself and the 
 troubadour in her new ballet. He says I can teach you 
 as well as he the simple airs you wish to learn. At all 
 events, this morning we are to have an hour or two of 
 practice. Giacomo has given me the notes of the songs. 
 They are to be sung to guitar accompaniment, I be-
 
 146 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 lieve. I know the instrument. Or would you first like 
 to go up to the rooms you have hired? They are pre- 
 pared for you." 
 
 Then not waiting for his words, she whispers: " I 
 knew you engaged them so as to have eye on me, my 
 guardian," adding with pretty pout, " but you came not 
 home last night. Pasquale says you have apartments 
 in the palace, and from these Tuscan love songs 1 
 judge you are to be the troubadour in the grand ballet. 
 Is it so?" 
 
 " Yes," answers Villiers, who deems it best to tell this 
 girl at least a portion of the truth. 
 
 Here she shocks him by whispering: " I have some 
 awful news for you," but suddenly pauses and says : 
 " That is Tessa's foot on the stairs. The maestro also 
 will be listening now he knows you are here. So, first 
 a song to show them I am doing my duty by my pupil." 
 
 With this she sits down and thumbs the guitar in 
 pretty pose, though her garments are but of the plainest 
 and cheapest kind. 
 
 Still Villiers knows it is a butterfly within a moth's 
 cocoon, and looking at her pure, fresh face, his heart 
 smites him again as he sings one of the love songs he 
 had voiced the night before to other accompaniment 
 and to other ears. 
 
 But the true passion is better than the false passion ; 
 and without the stimulus of champagne the troubadour 
 sings more sweetly and more ardently to the dear face 
 of Lucia Vesey than he did to the more meretricious 
 beauties of the Princess of Mirandola. 
 
 "Admirable! " cries his pretty instructress, clapping 
 her hands. " How passionate and fiery you are. Oh, 
 you sing better than a stage tenor, fofr you mean your 
 words."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 147 
 
 Then she suddenly mutters: " No, no; gran Dio, 
 of course I dreamt not that," and such blushes fly over 
 her exquisite face that Villiers, looking at the chaste 
 diffidence of a maid's first love, thinks : " Perchance I 
 sang too ardently." 
 
 And perchance he did sing too ardently, for Bianca 
 Gonzaga in a nearby room, holding out to the maestro 
 Pasquale a purse of gold, the princess's guerdon for his 
 new Venus march, drops it onto the table with a thud, 
 and thinks: " Diavolo! the troubadour has a truer fer- 
 vor in his voice than he had last night singing to my 
 devilish mistress. A moment later she gasps : " By 
 heaven, he is singing to Lucia, the jade I hate. This 
 is very curious. Is it possible the man of which this 
 child robbed me has given to her his heart? " 
 
 Whereupon she asks a few deft questions and finds 
 that Villiers has apparently come to take lessons of 
 Giacomo, and has had his voice assisted to accuracy by 
 the true tones of Pasquale's singing girl. 
 
 On hearing this she affrights the padrone by jeering 
 harshly : " Santos, Maestro, if Monsieur Troubadour 
 sings with thy diva a few more love duets, you will have 
 an elopement in your musical family, and be minus an 
 apprentice that you value very highly." 
 
 " Maldetto! what do you mean? " 
 
 " Listen to the voice of the Sieur Montaldo and you'll 
 know what I mean. Love rings in every accent. 
 Hark! Now he has finished; their tones grow low. 
 He is whispering to her, perchance even more passion- 
 ate words than those in Tuscan couplets." 
 
 Having planted this little dagger in Pasquale's mind, 
 Bianca goes away, a very curious idea in her crafty 
 mind. 
 
 But Villiers, who doesn't guess the deft suspicions
 
 148 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 that have been drawn from his love songs, knows he 
 has something more important this morning than even 
 talking passion to Lucia Vesey. Into her pretty little 
 ear he suddenly interjects: " Now the awful news you 
 had for me! " 
 
 His brows contract and his eyes grow stern as the 
 girl whispers to him: " The night after the princess's 
 grand fete and ballet I am to be forced upon the stage 
 of the public theater here to sing. The role is an- 
 nounced to me. I am to perfect myself in the part of 
 Euridice in Monteverde's ' Orfeo.' I'd glory in sing- 
 ing it were not my mother's dying words within my 
 ears ; besides, you'd think me then a lady of the opera, 
 to whom gallants feel free to proffer love you'd not 
 respect me ! " 
 
 The lovely eyes fill with tears. 
 
 " But you refused?" 
 
 " Of course I did, but Tessa has made an awful 
 threat. If I sing not, she says I shall dance, and her 
 brother, who is somewhat under his sister's influence, 
 declares if my lips do not open, at least my feet shall 
 fly. They will put me on the stage before the observa- 
 tion of a crowd in the dress that filled me with shame 
 when I thought that you should see me in it yester- 
 day." 
 
 " By the blessing of God, that shall never be. Don't 
 fear," whispers Villiers, " put that from your mind. 
 
 By the time you mention I will have a power that " 
 
 but he checks himself here. He will not reveal to 
 Lucia a military secret." The risk of his own life 
 seems small, to give this girl's tender soul relief from 
 a fear he now sees crushes it ; but the lives of a thou- 
 sand brave men would depend upon her care and se- 
 crecy. Therefore he dare not speak.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR, 149 
 
 Still Sydney feels he must take this load off Lucia's 
 mind. The trembling sadness in her voice as she has 
 told him makes him know her heart is stricken with an 
 awful grief. Putting his mind upon this subject, sud- 
 denly an idea comes to him, and he says to her briskly ; 
 " Go on with our lesson. Have no fear. I will save 
 you from it. I were but a poor agent of your father 
 if I could not keep you from this. Only you must say 
 naught of my interest in you to Pasquale, except that I 
 am a man who notes a pretty face." 
 
 " You think my face pretty, sir? " she asks; then re- 
 marks in archest innocence, " I am glad of that." 
 
 " Pish, you must have been told you are beautiful 
 before." 
 
 " Oh, lots of times, but not by you." Her tones give 
 him rapture, and he answers : " You shall be again." 
 
 But she, growing bashful, for his gaze has grown too 
 ardent, cries: " Now the song of the Venetians and the 
 Turks, the couplets of Filicaria," and runs into that 
 strange pathetic melody of love and war and hate, play- 
 ing to his voice a kind of obligato accompaniment, its 
 staccato notes coming like little screams of misery upon 
 his words, and sometimes going into strange wails as 
 he sings that direful ditty. As he finishes, she says : 
 " The guitar is not grand enough for this. You should 
 have an orchestra to punctuate such passion and de- 
 spair." 
 
 But here the lesson is broken in upon by the maestro 
 himself, who has suspicion in his eyes, but who says, 
 rubbing his hands : " I have just received a gift of one 
 hundred silver ducats from the princess for my grand 
 march for her ballet. Oh, sir, I am inspired! The 
 tripping entry of Venus and the troubadour will be 
 made glorious by my voluptuous music." Then cast-
 
 ISO THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 ing a curious glance at Lucia, he commands : " Girl, 
 go and practice the music of your part. I think she's 
 found a heart at last for roles of passion," he adds to 
 Villiers. " You'll come and hear her three nights from 
 now at the public theater on the Strada Modena. Per- 
 haps you'd like a box the court will be there. She 
 sings in Monteverde's ' Orfeo.' Last night she ren- 
 dered for me that grand aria of the stolen Euridice 
 with such passion and such pathos, I said: ' By Her- 
 cules, my little Lucia has found her heart at last! ' " 
 
 At this the maid, suffused with blushes, runs bash- 
 fully away, though there is agonized entreaty in the 
 wistful glance she darts at Villiers. 
 
 With this glance in his heart after Lucia has left the 
 room, the troubadour makes a proposition to the sing- 
 ing master which takes away that avaricious gentle- 
 man's breath. He says : " I wish a voice like that one 
 just passed from us to sing with me at the great fair 
 in Siena. I wish to hire the services of your appren- 
 tice, Lucia, from you, binding you from this moment 
 not to let her sing except in my company. For it I 
 pay one hundred golden ducats." 
 
 " The jade would make more ducats singing for me 
 if I could get her to raise her voice in opera," dissents 
 Pasquale. 
 
 " Two hundred ducats." 
 
 " Her voice is magnificent." 
 
 "Three hundred ducats golden ducats! Tis but 
 some six weeks to the festa of Siena." 
 
 " You are rich for a troubadour," says Giacomo, 
 laughingly. 
 
 " I have the pieces to pay on the instant," and 
 Villiers produces from his belt the gold he had 
 brought from the camp of Prince Eugene, and chinks
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 151 
 
 it in front of the music master, whose eyes light up with 
 avaricious fire. 
 
 But suddenly he pauses with his hand almost upon 
 the money, and says : " I can not sell you Lucia's ser- 
 vices, sir, without consultation with Tessa and another." 
 " When can I have your answer? " 
 " This afternoon, signore." 
 
 " I will wait here for it," and Villiers goes up to 
 the chamber he had hired and sits there making pre- 
 tense of looking over accounts and practicing the music 
 of the troubadour, likewise sending the slattern Brigita 
 to a neighboring osteria to buy and bring in for him a 
 flask of Chianti, some bread, and sausages. Staying 
 his stomach with these, he finds the apartments not 
 worth the money he pays for them ; but still he thinks 
 them very cheap; for to him, as he sits, come the sweet 
 tones of the nightingale he loves, singing the glorious 
 music of Monteverde's heroine, and once taking a note 
 so high, and yet so pure, it makes him start. 
 About this time two shocks come to him. 
 Glancing idly out of his window at the people pass- 
 ing by along the Contrada Pico, which is now growing 
 dark, Villiers suddenly starts, and carefully shielding 
 himself from exterior observation by the window's 
 draping curtains, looks cautiously forth. The street, 
 that had before been uninteresting to him, suddenly is 
 filled with the excitement of life and death. 
 
 Past his window, on the other side of the street, 
 strolls Umberto, released from the German uniform of 
 Prince Eugene, and deserted from his army. A recog- 
 nition by this man means certain death. Therefore, 
 Sydney keeps very close behind the draperies, though 
 he suddenly grows pale, for something in Umberto's 
 deep-set eyes, as he passes carelessly along the Con-
 
 15* THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 trada Pico, indicates to the watching Englishman that 
 the Italian has an interest in the house of Pasquale, the 
 music-master. 
 
 But still the fellow wanders on and not even looking 
 over his shoulder, gradually passes out of sight. 
 
 After a moment Villiers springs up briskly and 
 strolls from the house. " Danger confronted firmly is 
 confronted best," he thinks. " I'll see if the fellow has 
 really an eye on me! " But in the street, which is al- 
 ready gloomy with the shadows of evening, he finds no 
 trace of the Neapolitan. 
 
 " Still there's no telling from what dark corner of 
 these old streets a bravo like he may pop out upon you," 
 cogitates the Englishman. " Though I don't see Sig- 
 nor Umberto now, I may when I least expect him! " 
 
 And this reminds him of a resolve he had made on 
 first hearing from Teddy of the Italian's being in Mi- 
 randola. As a troubadour he has only worn a dagger ; 
 striding to an armorer's, Villiers adds to his equipment 
 a cut and thrust basket-hilted Toledo. He would much 
 prefer a cavalry saber, but it answers to his testing, 
 and being a strong, heavy, and very long blade, with an 
 edge keen as a razor's, it is much better fitted for real 
 business than the light, pretty rapier of a court gentle- 
 man. 
 
 With this secured about his waist in a strong belt, 
 the English officer feels much more at his ease, as he 
 returns to the house of the music master and gets an 
 awful shock. 
 
 The slipshod Brigita opens the door for him and 
 tells him Pasquale has come in but a little while and 
 would see him instantly. 
 
 As he steps into the hallway he hears the sound of
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 153 
 
 subdued sobbing upstairs. It is so musical his heart 
 responds to it. He knows it is Lucia. 
 
 " If they have laid hands upon her," he snarls to him- 
 self, " by heaven, I'll beat every note out of Pasquale's 
 body," and enters the music-room of that maestro in 
 a very ugly frame of mind which is scarcely improved 
 by the communication which he receives from the mas- 
 ter of the voice, though such is the peculiarity of the 
 shock that for a moment it knocks all fight out of the 
 dashing British captain. 
 
 " My dear Signer Montaldo," murmurs the music 
 master, " it is with great sorrow that I am compelled 
 to refuse your generous offer for the services of my 
 late apprentice, Lucia." 
 " Your late apprentice? " 
 
 " Yes, I already had given the promise to sell her 
 services to a court lady in case I ever disposed of them. 
 That court lady I have consulted with, and she has 
 bought the services of Lucia, who will be placed at once 
 undei her protection." 
 
 " You mean La Marchesa di Monteferrato? " gasps 
 Villiers. 
 
 " Diavolo, you have guessed her name. She has an 
 ear for music as well as you. She likes this girl. Lucia 
 is to be sent to her apartments in the palace within the 
 hour. The fool is crying up there, as if a place at couri 
 might not get her gallants by the score. In the last 
 day or two I have noticed she liked the attention of 
 handsome gentlemen. At court there are higher born 
 gallants than you, Sieur Troubadour. But let me play 
 for you the march I have composed for the entrance 
 of Venus and the troubadour in the ballet of the 
 ' Queen of Love/ Listen! " and seating himself at the 
 harpsichord he thumbs and pounds it in the pride that
 
 154 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 all concert masters have for their compositions, which, 
 technically correct, seldom have the inspiration of the 
 true composer. 
 
 However, Villiers thinks it is a good enough march 
 for him to tramp after the princess's train upon the 
 boards of the court theater. In fact, for a few minutes 
 one note is the same as another to his dazed brain, as 
 he wonders : " What is the meaning of this strange 
 phase in Lucia's fate? " 
 
 After a little, remembering Bianca's oath, he divines 
 it has much more serious import to his ward than even 
 Tessa's threat to display Lucia in the ballet at the pub- 
 lic theater. 
 
 Without taking steps that would be the death of any 
 military outlaw, Sydney knows that he can not prevent 
 Lucia's being surrendered to la marchesa's govern- 
 ment and moved to the palace. " There I can also, 
 thank God," he mutters, " watch over my inamorata "; 
 adding grimly: " If that Jezebel does aught to injure 
 her, Bianca's white shoulders will feel something 
 sharper than her mistress's hand." Then he half shud- 
 ders to himself : " Egad, Italian intrigue is making me 
 as familiar with the stiletto as any Visconti or Colonna 
 who hires bravos." 
 
 After a moment he says, falteringly: " Signor Pas- 
 quale, can I see Lucia before she is sent to la mar- 
 chesa?" 
 
 The answer that comes petrifies him. " With pleas- 
 ure, Sieur Troubadour. In fact, the Lady Bianca 
 Gonzaga asked that you kindly give your escort to my 
 sister when she conducts my singing-bird to the palace. 
 The evenings are dark, the streets ill-lighted. It is 
 not always safe for unattended females after nightfall 
 in Mirandola."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 155 
 
 " Indeed," stammers Villiers. 
 
 " Sapristi ! " remarks the maestro of the voice, joc- 
 ularly. " Do not tempt the hussy, my troubadour, to 
 run away with you to Siena." 
 
 To this Villiers is too astounded to answer. 
 
 But he would be more astounded and more petrified 
 did he guess that la marchesa has said to herself: 
 " Basta, an idea worthy of old Machiavelli! I will 
 place my dastard between his true love and his false 
 love, betwixt Lucia Vesey and Maria of Mirandola. 
 Corpo di Bacco! My vivacious princess will in her 
 jealous rage perchance destroy them both and may- 
 hap ruin herself. Diavolo, the jade is noble I'll have 
 a new maid of honor for the princess." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " MORBLEU, YOU ARE A FIGHTING TROUBADOUR! " 
 
 A moment after Lucia flits down into the hall with a 
 wrap thrown over her shoulders, ready to be taken to 
 the palace. As she awaits the coming Tessa, Villiers 
 contrives a few words with her, and these are mostly 
 words of warning. Though he doesn't guess the aw- 
 ful subtlety of la marchesa's plan, he knows that Bi- 
 anca Gonzaga means only evil to the child she had 
 cursed that morning by the lake. 
 
 So, as Lucia stands before him, the traces of tears 
 upon her cheeks, Villiers, keeping his spirit in check, 
 says these two things to her : " As far as it is possible, 
 do la marchesa's bidding." 
 
 " That is my order, and, of course, I will obey my 
 guardian," whispers the girl.
 
 156 T^HE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " In case you think she means any ill to you, contrive 
 to get word to me. I shall be near to you. I shall 
 live at the court again." 
 
 " Oh, you only came to take lessons from Pasquale 
 to get word with me?" laughs Lucia, her eyes grow- 
 ing bright. "Why, it is like a romance!" she cries, 
 then gives a fiery blush and hangs her head. 
 
 But Villiers suddenly checks blushes by asking some 
 questions about St. Croix, the banker. From her he 
 learns only that her mother had expected St. Croix 
 would receive for her the sum of money that would 
 make the last hours of her life easy and opulent. This 
 money had never come. 
 
 The Englishman is yet uncertain whether la mar- 
 chesa knows anything of the bravo who had destroyed 
 Sir Andrew Vesey. 
 
 But this matter is shortly settled in his mind, though 
 in a curious and hideous way. They are hardly one 
 hundred yards from the house of Pasquale, that gentle- 
 man looking affably after them from the open door and 
 jeering in Italian humor: " Tessa, don't let the trouba- 
 dour run away with our diva." 
 
 Villiers has just got Lucia between him and the stal- 
 wart ballet mistress, and is enjoying the melody of the 
 girl's sweet voice, as she is asking if he thinks la mar- 
 chesa will permit her to see the great fete of the prin- 
 cess, when .a ragged and dirty beggar comes up behind 
 him and implores alms. He will be most happy if the 
 generous and honored signore will give him a lira. 
 
 Not caring to be interrupted in his pleasant conver- 
 sation, the Englishman refuses to make the Italian hap- 
 py, and turns again to listen to Lucia's prattle, when the 
 beggar coming up behind him treads on his heels and 
 again implores, this time more truculently.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 157 
 
 To his jabbering Villiers remarks curtly : " Fellow, 
 trouble me not again, or my hand will give you some- 
 thing heavier than a lira." 
 
 " Diavolo! The light hand of a singing man," jeers 
 the mendicant, " would not hurt a summer fly." 
 
 But Villiers cares nothing for the fellow's jibes. 
 There are plenty of beggars in the streets of every 
 Italian city, and this one is scarce more insolent or 
 more dirty than his fellows. A moment after he has put 
 the matter entirely out of his mind, for, having rejoined 
 his charge, he hears Tessa rating her. 
 
 " Sapristi, minx. You like to see a show, but do 
 not like to do your part of it. You are the most un- 
 grateful baggage. You could have sung in the opera 
 here and made us rich, we who have given you bread 
 and wine these many days." 
 
 " La marchesa has bought my services from you. I 
 saw your brother counting the gold. It made me feel 
 as if I were a slave," half sobs Lucia. 
 
 Villiers is about to add his word to this, and probably 
 the three would have gone into a triangular and vigor- 
 ous discussion did not at this moment Mr. Beggar 
 again intrude himself upon the scene and cry : " Mal- 
 detta, insulting a lady! " and with his dirty hand pull 
 the Englishman's cap from off his head. 
 
 Tessa's words not having added to his suavity, Vil- 
 liers turns about and astounds the beggar of Miran- 
 dola, for he gives him something no Italian mendicant 
 had perchance felt before, a blow after the manner of 
 Anglo-Saxon fisticuffs straight from the shoulder and 
 strong upon the jaw ; under it the lazzarone goes down 
 into the dirt of the medieval street with a shriek for suc- 
 cor: " To me, comrades! A beggar is being killed! " 
 With this two or three more of his trade and class
 
 I $8 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 come flying to his aid. In a moment the Englishman 
 finds himself attacked by three stalwart Italian lazzar- 
 oni. They are waiting for him to draw his rapier, 
 then they will knife him. 
 
 But not thinking the scum of the Italian streets 
 worthy of his sword, he suddenly lays about him with 
 his fists, and before they can lay hands on stilettos they 
 go down like ninepins under his science of the box, a 
 thing at that day unknown in Italy. 
 
 Turning from the astonished ruffians, who lie piled 
 one on top of the other in the gutter, Villiers, to his con- 
 cern, discovers the attentions of these scoundrels have 
 been with an object. 
 
 At the scuffle, Tessa has foolishly dragged her charge 
 as far away from it as possible. Lucia is already some 
 hundred feet from her protector. In the dim light 
 Villiers sees Tessa tossed roughly upon one side and 
 the giri of his heart seized by three or four banditti 
 and dragged quickly into a dark side street. 
 
 Running up, he calls to Tessa : " Fool, why did you 
 not stay by me? 'Tis your diva they want!" Then 
 he cries loudly: "Aid!" -v 
 
 But no gendarmes are near, and the few passers-by 
 seem loath to follow him into the gloomy recesses of a 
 very low quarter of Mirandola. 
 
 But without waiting for assistance, Villiers, guided 
 by the melodious yet shrill cries of Lucia, follows after 
 his love through some hundred yards of djfk alleys, 
 the fetid odor of their filth sickening him as he runs. 
 His quick feet would shortly overtake the ruffians, im- 
 peded by their half-fainting burden, did they not sud- 
 denly hurry the girl into a small side house. 
 
 In the gloom he can't tell which house, and pauses to 
 look about him, when, hearing a low, jeering laugh
 
 THE LIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 159 
 
 above him, the Englishman looks up and sees to his as- 
 tonishment the Neapolitan Umberto upon a little iron 
 bridge or balcony that runs from the second story of 
 one house to that of another on the opposite side of 
 the street, which here is scarce fifteen feet wide. 
 
 An oil lamp hanging overhead throws a dim and 
 sickly light upon the scene. At one end of the balcony 
 a woman in the careless way of the lower order of Ital- 
 ians is publicly suckling a child. Perched on the rail- 
 ing at the other end is a half-nude boy calmly eating 
 macaroni, two cats upon a nearby roof are looking on. 
 The next instant Umberto is joined by three stout 
 ruffians carrying the struggling Lucia in their arms, 
 and the woman and the boy with frightened cries run 
 away, while all the numerous dwellers in the low houses 
 about fly like rats from a sinking ship, apparently fear- 
 ing either the bandits or the gendarmes, or both. 
 
 Looking over the railing of this bridge, which is not 
 sixteen feet above the alley, with his burly arms 
 stretched over it and his chin resting between his hands, 
 the Italian bravo gazes in triumph at the English offi- 
 cer. 
 
 "Diavolo!" he jeers. " Spione, I have you. Spy 
 of Prince Eugene, I'll have many gold pieces for thy 
 head from De Vivans, the commandant here. Twas 
 to lure you to your capture we seized that shrieking 
 girl. We have watched the house of music in w r hich 
 you made your lair and now the reward will be all our 
 own. I could have given you up by word of mouth 
 to the French commandant, but that wouldn't be as 
 many gold pieces as if we bring you bound to him, cap- 
 tured by our own hands; eh, Alessandro? What say 
 you, Dominico? Have I not told you true, Sparta? 
 See, he must be a military man! Look, how he holds
 
 l6o fHE FIGHTING TROUfiADOUR. 
 
 his sword. A cavalry officer, eh? I know him well. 
 Capitano Villiers, this will avenge me for the stripes 
 and canings you brought upon my shoulders from the 
 drill-masters of the regiment of Mansfield. Now, 
 which way will you follow us, eh, to get this girl? 
 And you will have to follow us to save her. For with- 
 in that room I'll make the jade my own! " He points 
 to the next house and gives a brutal gesture : " She is 
 a pretty wench. If you come not to her aid, you will 
 hear her cries and screams while I do fondle her and 
 take her to my breast. Ah, you are coming! Which 
 way? " 
 
 For at his monstrous threat Lucia has given out a 
 sighing moan that has made her lover half insane. 
 
 " Two stairways lead to this bridge," continues Um- 
 berto, scoffingly ; " when you come up it is to death 
 or capture; and if you beat us, of which there is little 
 chance, for we are four stout men, we will run our little 
 miss away by the one you don't come up. But if you 
 will surrender yourself to us I will spare the girl my 
 embraces," adds the ruffian affably. " Now have your 
 choice you to give yourself up to us, to be trussed like 
 a pullet and turned over to De Vivans to be hung as 
 a spy, or look on her undoing. Ah, that makes you 
 wince! Cospetto, he's going to hold up his hands for 
 us that we may tie them! " Then suddenly he snarls: 
 " Fools, heed him not! " 
 
 For Villiers has cried : " Knaves, the girl you hold 
 is of the train of the princessa and maid unto La Mar- 
 chesa di Monteferrato ! " 
 
 At this the three other ruffians hesitate, but Umberto 
 jeers: " Sapristi! The maiden of a princess in 
 coarse cotton cloth that a beggar would disdain? Be- 
 sides, if you, my singing fellow, are not a spy of Prince
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. l6l 
 
 Eugene, why should you fear being taken before De 
 Vivans, the French commandant? " 
 
 At this the reassured ruffians burst into a mocking 
 laugh, for Lucia's garments are scarce as good as those 
 of the beggar woman who has gone away. 
 
 " See how he shivers as he looks upon my handling 
 of this wench," jeers Umberto, as he draws the shrink- 
 ing Lucia nearer to him. " The noose will hurt him 
 worse than did the canes of the drill sergeants of the 
 regiment Mansfield as they scored my back. But, 
 Corpo'di Bacco! it is her eyes give him the torture." 
 
 For Umberto's hint of hanging a spy has put an 
 agony into Lucia's face. At first she had begged Vil- 
 liers: " Save me! Save me! " now she pleads: "Save 
 yoitrself! " For she remembers her guardian's words 
 and knows that he is doomed if even suspected by the 
 French. 
 
 But here into the girl's despairing eyes flies a fleet- 
 ing flash of joy ; for he has answered her : " With- 
 out you, pure and immaculate, what is my life to me, I 
 who adore you! " 
 
 This tells Umberto he has the Englishman close as 
 if he had gyves upon his wrists. He whispers in 
 hoarse gloating: " Quick, Capitano, it is booty or 
 beauty! " He has already slipped a ruffian arm about 
 the girl's slight waist and drawn her to him. 
 
 All this time the little court of the Italian street has 
 been like a torture chamber to Villiers, though only 
 once he had raised his voice to shout for aid and that at 
 the very first. Since then he has not dared to call as- 
 sistance, for he sees in the lustful eyes of the Italian 
 that he means his devilish words. 
 
 " Sapristi! Make thy choice quickly, for she is an 
 engaging wench and I am commencing to love her,"
 
 162 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 laughs Umberto, chucking Lucia under her pretty chin. 
 " God of mercy, no! " 
 
 " Quick, signore, for I am going to kiss her," whis- 
 pers the Neapolitan. His thick lips are nearing the 
 pale, shrinking mouth that gives one gasping moan. 
 
 "Spare her! Put her beside me safe, and I am 
 your captive," whispers Villiers in despairing voice. 
 
 But here the girl, with one white hand keeping her 
 lips from being sullied by trie ruffian's kiss, sobs out: 
 " Not your life ; MINE ! I shall not live, but I shall die 
 happy, for I know you love me." 
 
 Into the Englishman's eyes comes for one moment 
 rapture, then he replies hoarsely : " Umberto, when 
 she passes out of that street safe, I am your prisoner." 
 " Pisha, how shall I believe thee?" 
 " I give you the word of an English officer." 
 " Diavolo! We want better proof. Throw up to me 
 thy sword and poniard." 
 
 With a long drawn breath that means hope has fled, 
 for he knows he is no better than a dead man, Villiers is 
 unbuckling the long cut-and-thrust rapier from his 
 belt, the one he bought to aid him in such extremity, 
 which by the Italian's artifice has been made useless as 
 a bit of straw, when suddenly Tessa stands beside him 
 and whispers: "I have brought you aid," and the 
 bright young voice of Ambrose de Terrail cries : " Mon 
 Dieu, is it not the diva whose voice has charmed me! " 
 for the girl has given a scream at Tessa's words. 
 
 " I am with you, troubadour! " And the young lieu- 
 tenant comes on as gallantly as even his great ancestor, 
 for he is of the family that gave to the world the Cheva- 
 lier Bayard, the truest of all the many knights that 
 made the glory of old chivalry. "What shall I do?" 
 he asks. 
 
 r*
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 163 
 
 Villiers, throwing his scabbard away, cries : " Up 
 one stairway, you; up one stairway, I! They cannot 
 escape us. You take the right house, I the left! 
 Now, ruffians, run away if you can! " 
 
 As the two fly into the houses on either side of the 
 street, Umberto gives a scream of rage, but he is a ruf- 
 fian of ready resources. The right window opening 
 on to the bridge has a strong shutter of iron grillage. 
 This he shuts and locks, the key turning hard in the 
 rusty wards. This cuts off the attack of De Terrail. 
 Leaving the girl half swooning on the balcony, he 
 heads the three other ruffians; together they rush down 
 the left stairs to overwhelm the single man who comes 
 against them. 
 
 But Villiers, though he now has the heart of a devil 
 in him, still remembers that he has also a head upon his 
 shoulders and fights with this as well as with his hands. 
 In the darkness, Umberto and his ruffians think the 
 Englishman is running up the stairs, and bolt down to 
 overwhelm him. 
 
 But he has stopped at one side of the steps, and as 
 Sparta, the first ruffian, passes the Englishman, he 
 gives a scream and sinks down in his blood. " Look 
 out for him, behind! " shrieks the dying wretch. 
 
 But the sword of the troubadour stings once more. 
 Allesandro gives up his life to a thrust and withdrawal 
 that disembowel him. 
 
 Umberto and the other ruffian scream and retreat 
 up to the bridge, but here their escape is cut off. De 
 Terrail is thundering at the iron grating and trying to 
 get upon the bridge from the other house. As Umberto 
 turns and crosses swords with Villiers, who has sprung 
 up after him, his follower, Dominico, seizes the half 
 swooning girl to make her a sacrifice to his rage. His
 
 1 64 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 knife is already raised above her when De Terrail, who 
 is a quick French boy, finding he can not reach the 
 scoundrel with the sword, pulls out a pistol, and at six 
 feet distance sends the bandit to Hades by a bullet 
 through the heart. 
 
 Then it is only man to man ; Villiers and Umberto. 
 The lieutenant is now running down stairs to cross 
 the street and come up the other way to help the trou- 
 badour, but Villiers feels he is good for half a dozen 
 bandits, now he knows his love is safe. For Umberto 
 can never reach Lucia and live while Villiers's sword 
 is crossed against his. Still the Neapolitan tries malig- 
 nantly to draw his poniard and slay the shrinking girl 
 with his left hand, while he guards himself with the 
 rapier in his right. 
 
 But this is fatal to him. Even as the villain draws 
 the dagger, the Englishman's long, low thrust en tierce 
 has reached him. Full against his breastbone comes the 
 basket handle, and with a moan Umberto sinks upon 
 the ironwork of the little bridge, which now is dripping 
 red. 
 
 As this happens, De Terrail stands beside Sydney, 
 sword in hand. Looking at his French uniform, which 
 gleams beneath the little flickering oil lamp, Umberto, 
 the blood running out of his mouth, points at Villiers 
 and tfies to kill him by his dying words: " Spionc ! 
 spione! " he gasps. " Frenchman, spione! " 
 
 " By heaven, a spy as well ! " cries De Terrail, 
 thinking the wretch is confessing his own treachery; 
 and his quick sword cuts the throat of the bandit who, 
 had he but spoken one word more, would have slain 
 Villiers with his last breath. * 
 
 But unguessing this De Terrail says, admiration in 
 his toneg; " J noted your work upon the stairs, and
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 165 
 
 now this other fellow. Morbleu, your sword is strong 
 as your voice: you are a fighting troubadour." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE NEW MAID OF HONOR. 
 
 Then the two men clasp hands, and, Tessa calling 
 from the street, De Terrail runs hastily down to her. 
 But Villiers scarce heeds this. He has got Lucia in his 
 arms and she is whispering to his ear words that make 
 him happier than one of the princes of the earth, for 
 she is saying: " Dear one, thou wouldst have given 
 thy life to save me from these men. You would have 
 surrendered yourself to a spy's death for me. Ah, that 
 is true love! " 
 
 But his lips stop her lips. He looks warningly to- 
 ward the retreating figure of the French lieutenant, 
 and she, knowing his danger is still upon him, whis- 
 pers: " Don't fear me now. I am dumb for very love 
 of you. Cielo, 'twas like a romance of old, and what 
 will my father say to your suit? " For Villiers's eyes 
 as well as his lips tell her he means honest marriage, 
 not light badinage and love play. 
 
 Then, her shame and agony having been greater 
 than she can bear, the girl gives a little sigh, and loses 
 consciousness within the arms that within one day 
 she has grown to love and trust. 
 
 A hurried thought and Villiers hastily searches the 
 dead Umberto, not that he fears there is aught com- 
 promising to him on the ruffian's corpse, but still there 
 may be things within his pockets that may aid Villiers 
 in his military adventure.
 
 l66 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 A quick examination gives to his hand a little 
 packet containing a letter, one or two papers, and a 
 purse of golden louis, new coins that flash under the 
 dim rays of the little lamp. " These to say masses for 
 the dead villain's soul," thinks the English captain. 
 " The papers I must examine at my leisure." 
 
 Then bearing the maiden in his arms, he walks down 
 the bloody stairway and steps over the corpses of two 
 men, who if they could but cry out five words would 
 give him death, for the French lieutenant is just out- 
 side in the street. 
 
 Coming to De Terrail and Tessa, Villiers still carry- 
 ing his precious burden, they walk along the dark 
 alleys and stumble over the heaps of filth common to 
 the low quarter of a medieval Italian tawn, their only 
 greeting being from a few howling curs, who are trying 
 to find subsistence in the garbage. 
 
 " She is heavy; let me assist you," says Ambrose, 
 as Villiers staggers through a pile of ashes, broken 
 glass, and bones. 
 
 " No, no; her weight is nothing to me," mutters the 
 Englishman, who would not give up Lucia to an 
 angel's carrying, though in truth he seems weak, but 
 it is the agitation of a mighty joy. Her soft, rounded 
 arms are clinging to him. He feels the lovely contours 
 of her fair body, the exquisite graces of her young 
 limbs; and now, God be praised, sentiency is returning 
 to her. She is whispering in his ear: " Dear one, I am 
 strong enough. Let me walk now." 
 
 But he answers to her: " No, no; not until we 
 gain the broad streets." 
 
 "Yes, yes! You are too weak!" She makes a 
 little bashful struggle; for, feeling herself in his arms, a 
 rapture has come to her that gives her a strange dim"-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 167 
 
 dence, then suddenly murmurs : " Dio! you are like a 
 Hercules. How tight you hold me!" and in a very 
 dark corner of the alley gives a little half affrighted 
 " O O oh," for he has placed upon her lips such a 
 kiss as they had ne'er received before. But they are 
 now coming to the broader streets; under the flickering 
 lamps Villiers is more discreet. 
 
 Here the girl's hard training is of use to her, for 
 had she been brought up in delicate luxury she might 
 have been hysterical. But her danger being over, she 
 grows strong and self-reliant, and to Villiers's whis- 
 pered " Remember! " as he places her upon the 
 pavement of the Contrada Pico, she returns : " With 
 my life ! For if you die, I die also ! " 
 
 Therefore it is in good heart that he links his arm 
 into that of De Terrail, and the two young men walk 
 behind Tessa and her pretty charge, escorting them 
 to the palace of Mirandola. The streets are broader 
 now, the lights more numerous; the passing crowd is 
 greater. There are many French soldiers walking 
 the pavements, and the lieutenant laughs as Villiers 
 keeps his hand upon his sword hilt. " Dost think she 
 will be stolen again in this great crowd? " Then some 
 faint suggestion of the situation coming to Ambrose, 
 he adds roguishly : " When I heard your voice sing- 
 ing with hers I thought it was too ardent to be that 
 of any of the hackneyed stage tenors." 
 
 " Oh, yes, we troubadours love quickly," whispers 
 Villiers. 
 
 "And shortly," laughs Ambrose; then he whispers 
 to him words that make the Englishman start. " It 
 is bruited about the palace that the princess has great 
 interest in thee. Diable, you should have seen De 
 Vivans twist his moustachios as the thing was told to
 
 1 68 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 him as he dined at mess to-day. You know until some 
 eight days since he was first favorite in the royal eyes." 
 
 "Since then?" queries Villiers, a strange idea fly- 
 ing through his mind as he remembers that eight days 
 is just the time the princess must have sent her mes- 
 senger to Prince Eugene. 
 
 " Since then they have been at armed neutrality, 
 though De Vivans has not lost his passion for the 
 beautiful Maria, and would fly to her should she but 
 give her royal hand a single beckoning. Of course, 
 outwardly they are the same as they were before, he 
 the commandant of the garrison and representative of 
 our king, she an ally, yet her town held as if it were a 
 conquest. But we are at the gates of the palace." 
 
 For now the lights of the great building flare up 
 before them, and torch boys are standing at the en- 
 trance, and the grandees of Mirandola are coming in 
 sedan chairs and old state coaches, attended by their 
 footmen and their valets, to pay their respects to 
 royalty. To Villiers's inquiring glance the lieutenant 
 whispers: "It is the evening the princess generally 
 receives. Her hospitality is regal, a supper fit for the 
 gods, wine fit for Frenchmen, the music of her royal 
 orchestra, and as many pretty girls and gay court 
 ladies as ever made a gallant wish to dance the 
 minuet." 
 
 " Or lead them into secluded corners. But as I said 
 before, I am a looker-on, a troubadour," returns the 
 Englishman, who is now gazing upon Lucia and won- 
 dering what fate has for the girl of his heart within 
 this palace. 
 
 At the entrance it is apparent Tessa and her charge 
 are expected. A page in waiting says: " Madame la 
 Marchesa di Monteferrato is anxious for you. She has
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. l6p 
 
 been waiting for you an hour. Quick, bring the young 
 lady this way," and bows humbly before Lucia, though 
 his eyes stare at the maid's poor frock and cloak. 
 
 At this Villiers looks astonished, as does the lieu- 
 tenant, for such greeting is not often accorded to a 
 premier ballerina and a girl who is destined to make an 
 opera lady. 
 
 But with one hand clasp that is all he can give her 
 Villiers lets Lucia go. Tessa, conducted by the 
 page, leads the half-frightened girl away. 
 
 Then in the inner courtyard the two gentlemen 
 bid each other a kindly adieu. " Remember me for- 
 ever as your friend, well-wisher, and good comrade," 
 whispers the Englishman, adding hastily: " Perhaps 
 some day I may be able to be of as much service to 
 you as you were to me," but stops himself before his 
 speech grows more indiscreet. 
 
 " Egad," answers Ambrose, " we should be good 
 comrades. We have drunk wine together; we have 
 fought side by side. I shall brush some of the dirt 
 from my uniform and make myself more presentable." 
 Then raising his voice, he calls:-" Here, lackey, show 
 me to a gentleman's retiring room! " and goes away, 
 while Villiers, who knows the path to his own apart- 
 ments, speeds hither. 
 
 His rooms have been put in order, otherwise they 
 are the same as when he left them this morning. He 
 lights a lamp and hurriedly looks over the packet taken 
 from the dead Umberto. The paper contains merely 
 a statement of account, the brigand having received 
 ten louis for some service, and is to receive twenty 
 more on proof of its completion. In perusal of this 
 Villiers shudders, half guessing what the service is. 
 
 Seven louis are in the bravo's purse; one he had
 
 17 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 thrown to O'Bourke that morning in the camp. Two 
 others the ruffian must have expended. Seven are left. 
 But the inspection of the letter makes the reader knit 
 his brows and mutter: " If she had no hand in it, at 
 least she knew Sir Andrew Vesey was to be done to 
 death. For it simply reads: 
 
 " CREMONA, Anno Domini 1701, 
 
 " the 4th day of December. 
 "Madame la Marchcsa di Monteferrato: 
 
 " This letter will introduce to your august notice one 
 who has been of service to me. You know his name. 
 If his tale proves he has done my bidding, pay him 
 twenty golden louis, for this matter is as much to your 
 interest as it is to that of 
 
 " Your most obedient and humble servant, 
 
 " GASPARIN ST. CROIX." 
 
 " By heavens," reflects Villiers grimly, " Bianca 
 was interested in this crime. The bravo had been 
 hired by the banker to put out of the way a 
 creditor who would have demanded five thousand 
 crowns from him, and furthermore have proved him to 
 be as despicable a commercial sinner as lived upon this 
 earth, and this woman for hatred of the daughter aided 
 him. No mercy for her! This letter must have been 
 smuggled into the camp of Prince Eugene after Um- 
 berto did the murder at Chiari. The ruffian came to 
 this town to collect from la marchesa the balance of the 
 blood money of poor Sir Andrew Vesey. Catching 
 sight of me, he thought to make another winning with 
 my head, and, giving his whole attention to my cap- 
 ture, delayed delivering the missive." 
 
 Then horror entering his heart he shudders: " That 
 diablesse gave the father death so that his daughter
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 171 
 
 should be unprotected. What devilish wrong does she 
 mean to Lucia now! " 
 
 Even as he thinks this, astonishment greater than 
 has come to him before this day strikes the Eng- 
 lish captain. It is from the mouth of a page who raps 
 upon his door. At the summons, Villiers, putting the 
 paper hurriedly into his bosom, stepping to the door, 
 opens it and looks out. 
 
 " The Princess of Mirandola's compliments and 
 commands to the Sieur Montaldo," whispers the young 
 court messenger with bow of ceremony. " She bids 
 him to her levee, and would introduce him to her new 
 maid of honor." 
 
 " Her new maid of honor? " A question is in Syd- 
 ney's accents. 
 
 " Yes, the Lady Lucia Vesey." 
 
 " The Lady Lucia Vesey? " 
 
 " Yes, sieur, the Lady Lucia has been placed under 
 the princess's protection by La Marchesa di Monte- 
 ferrato." 
 
 " Of course, I obey the princess's commands most 
 dutifully," stammers the captain, closes his door, and 
 sinking into a chair, mutters: " By Italian craftiness, 
 this is beyond my Saxon brain! If Bianca had hum- 
 bled Lucia, crushed her to the dust, treated her as a 
 scullion wench, I would have understood it, but to 
 exalt her, to place her in her true rank ! Diavolo, it 
 is more dangerous to my love than if she were in the 
 kitchen. The dagger or the poison cup is for the palace 
 hall, the cudgel is for the palace buttery and kitchen. 
 One kills, the other only bruises. Powers of heaven, 
 in some way la marchesa means my darling's death." 
 
 Then he wonders how in the name of chance it comes 
 about Lucia has been elevated, not degraded; that
 
 ^2 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Bianca has not only been willing to give up her control 
 of the girl she hates, and place her in the suite of her 
 mistress, but how she has succeeded in gaining for the 
 unknown maid a post in which many noble families 
 are anxious to place their daughters. 
 
 But this has been easy. With the subtlety of a 
 demon, Bianca has reasoned, for the princess to be 
 jealous of her, Lucia must be under her royal eye and 
 be deemed of rank sufficient to make her highness 
 notice her. 
 
 Therefore she has gone to the Princess Maria with 
 this specious tale: " I have just discovered the daugh- 
 ter of an English gentleman who lived in Cremona, 
 but, journeying to his own country, has perchance 
 met bandits or some mishap on the way and never re- 
 turned to his wife and daughter. His wife, Emelia 
 Castiglione, is of the best blood of Siena. The Eng- 
 lish gentleman is cousin to a belted earl, but from him 
 no moneys having come I learned this from the 
 banker St. Croix, of Cremona and her mother hav- 
 ing died, the girl has been bound apprentice to the 
 singing master Giacomo Pasquale, who intends to 
 place her upon the stage. The money you so gen- 
 erously gave me last night to make thy chiding 
 hand seem lighter to me, your Highness, I have used 
 to prevent this girl's blood being sullied by her being 
 placid among the women of the opera. Her beauty is 
 worthy of the maids about you. Her voice is as lovely 
 as ever made melody divine. My own funds, in ob- 
 taining her release from Pasquale, have been ex- 
 hausted; I can make no proper provision for the young- 
 lady. Will you not, in your beneficence, add her to 
 your train?" 
 
 " She is noble?" queries the princess.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 1 73 
 
 " Oh, of better blood than many of those about 
 you." 
 
 " Yes, I know the Castigliones," says Maria. "And 
 her father, you say " 
 
 " Is cousin to the Earl of Orford." 
 
 " Oh, I have heard of that great nobleman. These 
 English earls are richer than most Italian princes," 
 remarks la princessa. " But if she has appeared upon 
 the public stage that settles it; I cannot admit the girl." 
 
 " She has not appeared, your Highness. She has 
 never sung except her lessons to her singing master." 
 
 " You swear she is noble? " 
 
 " Yes! " And with that word Bianca makes Lucia 
 worthy to take place at court, for in those days the line 
 was drawn twixt the common herd and those of gentle 
 blood as strong as the wall of China against the outside 
 barbarians. 
 
 "And as to her robes? " 
 
 " Ah, that can be easily arranged, your Highness, now 
 that I have your royal word," and la marchesa sinks 
 down before her mistress and kisses the royal hand that 
 the night before had slapped her stately shoulders till 
 she writhed. 
 
 " Very well, when she is properly gowned send her 
 to me. I'll listen to my new singing bird," laughs the 
 princess. 
 
 This is shortly done, for the maids of honor are 
 under Bianca's authority when the princess's hand is 
 not upon them, and they are very anxious for her favor. 
 Calling Metia to her, the Marchesa di Monteferrato 
 says: " Your form, I think, is about the same as the 
 new court lady that comes to us to-day. Wilt for a 
 day or two, my pretty one, lend her a frock or two? 
 Others shall spon be returned to thee in place of them,"
 
 174 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 This Metia, wishing the marchesa's favor, and being 
 a good-natured girl, is very happy to do, as she has 
 an ample wardrobe. 
 
 Thirty minutes after the page left word with him, 
 Villiers, arrayed in the fine garments that Maria had 
 sent to him the night before and looking like the trou- 
 badour of old for he wishes to appear his finest, now 
 that the bright eyes of Lucia Vesey will be upon him 
 enters the salon of the Princess of Mirandola, to be 
 astonished at the luxury of the little court. 
 
 A thousand wax lights make the scene bright as 
 midday. A grand orchestra fills the air with music. 
 
 The great entrance hall is filled with footmen in ducal 
 liveries, and gentlemen pages are showing in the court 
 dames and demoiselles, and arranging their great trains 
 as they make obeisance before the dias upon which 
 Maria sits, like a fairy princess, beside a man infirm 
 from age and dissipation. 
 
 This is her father, the Duke Francesco, and. seeing 
 him at least well enough to leave his chamber, a great 
 relief comes into Villiers's military mind. The 
 princess's ballet and banquet will surely take place on 
 the evening of the morrow, the evening that he hopes 
 and prays will bring surprise and capture to the French 
 garrison within this town. 
 
 But military strategy is soon replaced in his brain 
 by admiration of the gorgeous spectacle before him, 
 which seems to surround one lovely girl, and it is not 
 the Princess of Mirandola. 
 
 Immediately behind the royal party stands la 
 marchesa in full court panoply, her white shoulders 
 flashing from a jeweled stomacher, and looking as regal 
 as her mistress. Behind her are some half dozen maids 
 of honor, pert and pretty as they stand up and cast
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 175 
 
 glances at the gallants making their bows over Maria's 
 hand, and sometimes casting envious looks upon the 
 beauties of their new sister, who stands in the place of 
 honor. 
 
 For Lucia Vesey, holding the royal handkerchief, 
 scent bottle, and fan, has been placed but a step or two 
 behind the princess, and a little at her right hand. 
 
 Gazing at her, Villiers wonders at the graceful ease of 
 the girl. He attributes this in his old-time way to her 
 gentle blood, but it has probably come to her, at least 
 in part, by her stage training. The methods of exer- 
 cise, dance, and gesture that had been intended to 
 make her easy upon the boards of the theater have 
 given her an astonishing grace in the halls of a palace. 
 In this scene, that is dazzling to her eyes almost as full 
 sunshine is to one who has been blind, she is at all 
 times graceful. But this day, dressed like a drudge, in 
 the solitude of an attic chamber ; to-night, gowned as 
 an attendant upon a princess, surrounded by the lux- 
 uries of a court and bowed to by the courtiers of a 
 palace, Lucia Vesey seems in every pose and move- 
 ment as much a lady of the monde as any of her sister 
 maids of honor, though in her face and attitude there is 
 the unaffected loveliness of bashful modesty, a charm 
 that is lacking in some of the high-bred minxes. 
 
 Her graces are such that the princess seems to be 
 proud of her new attendant, and sometimes as she re- 
 ceives gallants she murmurs to them: " This is my last 
 maid of honor, the Lady Lucia Vesey. She is of very 
 noble blood, her father of high English family, the 
 cousin of the Earl of Orford, her mother one of the 
 Castigliones of Siena. Besides, she has a romantic 
 history. She has just been rescued from bandits in a 
 low quarter of the town by that clashing young French
 
 176 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 lieutenant, Ambrose de Terrail. Behold! For it, he 
 wears already on his breast my order of Santa Mar- 
 gherita, which I have just bestowed on him." 
 
 " May it please your Highness," says Lucia, cour- 
 tesying to the carpet, for the girl cannot bear to 
 hear the glory taken from the man she worships, 
 " though the sword of the brave Terrail did noble work, 
 for which I shall forever thank him, still it was not his 
 blade that killed the bandit who had seized me. It 
 was that of the Chevalier Montaldo, your troubadour, 
 who is even now about to bow to you." 
 
 At this the princess, casting eyes upon her maid of 
 honor, and seeing that the girl is as fair a rosebud as 
 ever twined about a throne, isn't so well pleased at the 
 ardor of her remarks about the Troubadour Montaldo, 
 though just here she catches a gleam in Villiers's eyes 
 that would make her as happy as the queen of the air, 
 were she quite sure that it was meant for her. 
 
 But turning, she proffers her royal hand, and as he, 
 sinking upon one knee, salutes it, says: " Thrice wel- 
 come. Though your glory and gallantry by sweeter 
 lips than yours have been told unto my ears ; " then 
 laughs: " Mon Dieu, I've heard the Lady Lucia's 
 glorious voice ring into the air. Let me tell you, trou- 
 badour, if you sing with my maid of honor you will be 
 but considered a quacking crow." 
 
 " Your Highness, I have sang with her, and know 
 I am a crow." 
 
 " Par die I You are more modest than most singing 
 gentlemen," giggles Maria, though the music of her 
 laugh is tinged by a harsh vibration. Then she queries: 
 " When did you sing with her? " 
 
 " In order to make my voice a little nearer to the 
 merits of your guitar accompaniment, your Highness,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 177 
 
 for the fete of to-morrow evening, I visited the house 
 of Pasquale, the singing master, and there by his direc- 
 tion, to make my tones more accurate, sang some duets 
 with the young lady you have just placed within your 
 train." 
 
 " Indeed, sang duets with her?" the princess whis- 
 pers, and thinks she will not like her new maid of 
 honor as well as she had thought she would. 
 
 Just here, fortunately, the Comte de Vivans, the col- 
 onel commanding the forces of his Majesty, Louis XIV., 
 steps up to thank the princess for having decorated his 
 lieutenant. After chatting with Maria for a moment, 
 he turns to the duke, and, bowing to him, says: " Egad, 
 your Highness, this flight of Prince Eugene and his 
 army gives us gentlemen of the sword plenty of time 
 to devote to the lovely women of your court, and 
 makes us certain of a merry winter." 
 
 " You do not fear Eugene? " queries the princess 
 archly, a little roguish smile on her red lips. 
 
 " Fear him! No, this town cannot be taken by as- 
 sault," remarks De Vivans, stroking his moustachios. 
 " Neither can it be by famine. We have already three 
 thousand barrels of flour, besides provisions of all 
 kinds, in the citadel. I shall never surrender." 
 
 " But how about my townspeople; they might 
 starve? " suggests the Duke Francesco anxiously. 
 
 " Your Highness, do you think I would surrender 
 Mirandola if all thy subjects died, so long as my sol- 
 diers had meat and drink sufficient," returns the 
 French commandant in affable indifference. 
 
 "Oh, but what will 7 do in that case?" queries 
 Maria. "We may have enough to live upon in the 
 palace, but delicacies like fresh partridges from the
 
 17$ THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 mountains, and fish and oysters from the Adriatic, 
 would be impossible." 
 
 " Ah, if the Princess of Mirandola suffered, then, of 
 course, I would " 
 
 " Surrender? " laughs the lady. 
 
 " Only to your Highness," whispers the French 
 commandant, and as he does so gives Villiers, who is 
 standing at respectful distance in the throng of cour- 
 tiers, a glance that shows he has heard some word 
 of the troubadour, and doesn't like him. 
 
 " You are sure Eugene has retreated across the 
 Po?" asks la princessa eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, sure as grenadiers head the column," laughs 
 the officer. " My scouts have gone as far as the 
 Secchia, five miles from here, and no sign of him. 
 Besides, the report I had yesterday from the Irish ser- 
 geant of Dillon's regiment makes the thing certain." 
 
 " Ah," whispers the princess, who, womanlike, will 
 play with fire. " the Irish sergeant has again to-day told 
 you his story?" 
 
 " Parbleu, your Highness, there was no necessity 
 of it! " returns the French commandant, so confidently 
 that Villiers finds it difficult to refrain from smiling; 
 for in truth De Vivans thinks the Irishman is still 
 in town. 
 
 Not being attached, Teddy had, of course, no need 
 to answer at roll call, his name being not upon the 
 garrison roster; and the commissary, finding the fellow 
 does not report to him, has concluded it wisest to say 
 naught about O'Bourke's absence, as it adds a ser- 
 geant's rations and allowance to the plunder that he is 
 already lifting. 
 
 Here the princess, catching warning in Villiers's eye, 
 thinks it wise to conclude the conversation. Turning to
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 179 
 
 the duke, who has risen to retire to his private apart- 
 ments, she says: " I will preside for you at the supper 
 table if your Highness is too fatigued," and courtesies 
 to the very floor in old courtly style before the father 
 she twists about her little finger. 
 
 Then casting eye about, she says to one of the cour- 
 tiers in her father's train: " Baron di Castalargo, will 
 you lead the Lady Lucia in to the dance and present to 
 her enough gallants to occupy her moments pleas- 
 antly." 
 
 Rising, she offers her hand to Comte de Vivans, 
 who, representing the King of France, will lead her to 
 the minuet. Upon his arm she sweeps toward the 
 ballroom, the ladies Laura and Violetta holding her 
 long court train, but over her white shoulder she 
 throws a glance at her troubadour to tell Villiers that 
 she would sooner he were by her side than any other 
 cavalier in Christendom. 
 
 A burst of music from the band shows that Princess 
 Maria has given signal for the dance. A moment later, 
 as she treads the stately minuet, the royal minx almost 
 curses her rank. Were she but a plain lady of the court 
 she could, without remark, seek the side of the English 
 captain and look into the eyes she has longed for ever 
 since she was torn from him by her father's illness the 
 night before. 
 
 However, the Lady Lucia is but a simple maid of 
 honor. So, after she has stepped a figure with the 
 Baron di Castalargo, who is a stately gentleman, and 
 also tripped a gavotte with Lieutenant de Terrail, who 
 has eagerly sought that honor, Villiers, whose eyes 
 have never left her graces, wanders to her side. Though 
 some instinct in him tells him it is dangerous, he can- 
 not keep from the woman whose voice he wishes to
 
 l8o THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 hear, the woman whose eyes as she dances have sought 
 him, reproach in their exquisite depths. To him her 
 bashful but arch glances seem to say: " Others have 
 approached me in my new station to do me honor, and 
 you who hold my heart in your hand keep from my 
 side." 
 
 As Lucia passes on De Terrail's arm, Villiers steps 
 to her, and, bowing over her fair hand, asks if he can- 
 not have the honor of a dance. 
 
 " Of course," says the girl lightly, " I have given to 
 one of my preservers my hand for the gavotte, why 
 should I not give to the other my company in the 
 minuet? " 
 
 " He is paying you a great compliment, Lady 
 Lucia," remarks the lieutenant. " But yesterday Sieur 
 Troubadour told me he never danced, and now " 
 
 " I have changed my mind. Don't you think I have 
 good cause, De Terrail? " and Villiers looks at Lucia. 
 
 Noting his glance, her bosom of gleaming snow, 
 which rises above the tight-laced stomacher of glisten- 
 ing satin that outlines a figure which has been made by 
 exercises of the dance and fence perfect in contour, 
 begins to throb. From her lithe waist a court train of 
 floating gossamer is gathered up over one superbly 
 rounded arm that seems ivory tinted through the 
 gauzes that it supports. Even the jupe and under 
 petticoat, from which the train is raised, are lacey, light, 
 ethereal. To him she seems a sylph as she places 
 dainty hand upon his proffered arm. 
 
 A moment later, as they walk together, he feels her 
 light touch on his arm, and whispers to her: " I would 
 sooner talk with thee than dance with thee." 
 
 " Then I know a nook," Lucia suggests eagerly,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. l8l 
 
 "What! Have you learnt already?" mutters Vil- 
 liers, a dog-in-the-manger snarl in his voice. 
 
 " Oh, the Baron di Castalargo led me to it," laughs 
 the girl, delighted at his jealous tone. " But he is 
 rather old, and married, I believe, so please pardon 
 me," she courtesies mockingly. 
 
 Then in the crowd, which fortunately is large enough 
 to give privacy to the actions of anyone except prin- 
 cess or grandees, she flits in arch invitation, yet with 
 a bashful grace, toward an old stairway draped with 
 banners. Behind this, quite out of the general ken, 
 is a chair and footstool. Upon the chair in unaffected 
 grace she seats herself, and motions Villiers to her 
 little feet. How quick a woman learns the coquetry of 
 love. 
 
 " This all seems real to you? " he asks. 
 
 " It didn't till I bit my finger three times," she 
 laughs, and holds up a white digit reddened by her 
 pretty teeth. 
 
 "Are you happy in this change? " 
 
 " So happy that sometimes I fear I shall go crazy 
 from very joy! " 
 
 "And a little dazzled?" Villiers half smiles at the 
 enthusiasm in her gleaming eyes. 
 
 " Yes, dazzled and perhaps confused ; but I thank 
 Tessa's lessons in stage dancing that I am not awk- 
 ward. I never tripped over my court train once, and I 
 can courtesy as low and gracefully as Lady Metia or 
 Mirabdle, or any of the rest of them. They watched 
 me, thinking I would make some gaucherie," laughs 
 the girl, " but the princess petted and praised me, and 
 said: 'Gentle blood,' that's what she said to me, 
 ' will show itself! 'Twas in thee, maid. I would have 
 known that thou v.ert noble h?id you with a besom in
 
 1 82 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 your hand been sweeping out a manger.' And I am 
 noble once again! " she breaks out, the tears welling 
 up into her grand eyes. "In my class, in my rank; 
 free to mate " 
 
 " With me." 
 
 " Oh, I hope so! " Then her face grows anxious; 
 she whispers: "Santos! should papa not give me to 
 you." 
 
 " Pish, I am your guardian; I'll give you to myself! " 
 interjects Villiers, wincing at the thought of the girl's 
 grief when she knows of her father's murder. "And 
 as your guardian I would have you hold your place as 
 high as any of your comrades of the princess's cham- 
 ber. A full pocket makes a proud head. Here's fifty 
 goldpieces to pay for a few of the folderols and nick- 
 nacks a fine lady needs." He holds out a purse to her. 
 " Nay, nay, don't shake thy pretty head, 'tis thy fath- 
 er's money, and now 'tis yours. I would have given it 
 to you before, but Pasquale or his sister had robbed 
 you of it. I am your guardian, and command you take 
 it quick." 
 
 " Well, if you tell me to, of course I obey," laughs 
 his ward. " Otherwise, you are so stern to me, I may 
 be punished." Then at his glance of reproach she 
 prattles : " No, no, thou art goodness to me personi- 
 fied. But so is everyone now. La marchesa has been 
 to me as though I were her child. I think she has re- 
 pented of disliking me. These beautiful robes are at 
 her hands and the Lady Metia's, who has been very 
 kind to me also. And oh, it seems to be such a differ- 
 ent world to yesterday." 
 
 "Ah, this coming to court makes the charm? " re- 
 marks her cavalier, a little surlily. 
 
 " No, it has been a beautiful world since since we
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 183 
 
 first sang together," whispers the girl; then suddenly 
 astounds him by the passion in her voice as she breaks 
 forth : " What betrothal could be as strong as ours, 
 dear heart, when you, in that low, fetid alley, proved 
 your adoration by offering for my poor safety your 
 great life." 
 
 "And you are my own true love? " whispers the Eng- 
 lishman, an awful rapture in his heart. 
 
 " So long as you are true to me," answers the girl, 
 a passion in her voice that makes him know she is a 
 woman as regards his loyalty to her. 
 
 And this smiting him with his amour with the prin- 
 cess, the gentleman goes on, a kind of hang-dog warn- 
 ing in his tones: " Do not let your eyes, Lucia, re- 
 proach me as they did to-night for not being ever at 
 your side, as I would like to be. Within the next day 
 or two, if I keep away from your dear company, know 
 that it is both for your safety and your good." 
 
 " For my safety? For my good? How so? " The 
 hazel eyes open wide in mixed amazement and re- 
 proach. 
 
 " That I cannot tell you, but as you love me, trust 
 me, who have trusted you with my life. Remember 
 my dread situation here. For if you look at me as you 
 did this evening, the anguish in your eyes will make 
 me so weak, perchance it will be my ruin and yours. 
 Remember that, and do not trust la marchesa." 
 
 " Why not? She has repented. She kissed me 
 twice." 
 
 "And so did Lucretia Borgia when she said: ' God 
 be with you,' and meant it for: 'Get ye to God.' 
 W'hate'er she does, distrust it! Though be careful you 
 
 do not indicate this to her. And further ' But 
 
 here Villiers snaps his jaws, and, rising hastily, bows.
 
 1 84 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Lady Metia, I am pleased to see you," he says affa- 
 bly. 
 
 " Cielo! you do not look so happy to see me as you 
 say. Neither does Lucia, but I am come to you as 
 your friend. It would be well for you not to be seen too 
 much in the company of one gallant. Our mistress 
 thinks it best we make our favor to gentlemen quite 
 general. Lucia, the princess is asking for you! Run 
 to her, quick! " 
 
 As Lucia departs, Metia would step after her, but 
 Villiers's detaining hand is upon her white wrist. 
 He wants some information from this young lady, 
 and, leading her to Lucia's seat, says: "A few words." 
 Then the natural gallantry of all men coming to 
 him, he adds: " You have not treated me well in the 
 last day or two. Since you were kind enough to feed 
 a hungry shepherd boy you have not been near me." 
 
 " For thy safety; for mine. La princessa has been 
 very stern with me since she discovered you kissed 
 me, sir. In fact, she has hinted to me I am to permit 
 no attention from you. I do not think it would in- 
 crease her favor for Lucia if she had seen her sitting 
 by you close as I did. But is not Lucia lovely? We 
 are all wondering why she came so suddenly to court; 
 some protege of la marchesa, for Bianca borrowed from 
 me the robe in which I " 
 
 Here even as she babbles Metia grows white to the 
 lips, for la princessa, passing on the arm of Henri d 
 Pasteur, colonel of the regiment of Picardy, the second 
 in command of the French garrison, sees her seated by 
 the gallant she had intended should never feel sweet 
 Metia's witcheries again. 
 
 With one cold steely glance of haughty condemna- 
 tion on her trembling maid of honor, Maria of Miran-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 185 
 
 dola sweeps on, La Marchesa di Monteferrato follow- 
 ing her, and the ladies Laura and Violetta bearing her 
 train, and enters by a side door the supper room. 
 
 But on Bianca's face, as she furtively glances back, 
 there seems a strange amazement and disappointment. 
 Perchance no schemer had ever felt her plots go more 
 awry. 
 
 Her eyes of hate had been stronger than the prin- 
 cess's eyes of love, her more lowly position probably 
 permitting her making better use of them. Bianca had 
 noted Villiers led apart by Lucia. She has thought to 
 place the first jealous suspicion in the princess's heart 
 against her new maid of honor by giving Maria the sight 
 of Villiers's tete-a-tete with Lucia. But while suggest- 
 ing to the princess this quiet way to the supper room, 
 Metia has taken Lucia's place, and on that unfortunate 
 beauty the princess's rage has fallen. Instead of cast- 
 ing her mistress's suspicions on Lucia, Bianca has 
 turned all suspicion away from her, thus making her 
 insidious task more difficult than it had been before. 
 
 As the door closes on the royal party, Metia, her 
 cheeks very pale, her pretty lips having no color in 
 them, whimpers: " I I always draw the bad number 
 in the the lottery. My mistress's anger that should 
 have been for Lucia will be for me. Please let me go! " 
 for Villiers would ask a question or two more of her. 
 " You have done me harm enough, sir," sobs the girl, 
 tears coming into her lovely eyes. Then her face 
 grows pale with a mighty apprehension. She falters: 
 " My heaven, should la princessa hate me for this, 
 what fate may she not give to me," and flies from him, 
 leaving Villiers appalled. 
 
 " If Maria punishes Metia for my slight gallantry, 
 what might she not do to Lucia, who has my heart
 
 186 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 and soul ! " meditates the Englishman. " By heaven, 
 this is a warning! " 
 
 And thinking of Maria's jealous mind and tyrant 
 nature, to him comes the first little inkling of the subtle 
 deviltry of Bianca Gonzaga. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT DUEL. 
 
 Then suddenly in this man's mind arises the dire 
 thought that on the good faith of Maria Pico hangs 
 not only his fate, but that of a thousand brave men who 
 are to be introduced on the evening of the morrow into 
 the ducal gardens. 
 
 "A word from her little riant, piquant, jealous, 
 treacherous mouth to De Vivans and I am hung out 
 over their battlements, and no warning can come to 
 Prince Eugene that his plan has failed and that the 
 detachment will be cut off if it enters the walls of Mir- 
 andola. If I flaunt Maria or am too cold to her, in 
 some fit of jealous pique may she not run back to 
 the arms of that moustachio-stroking Frenchman, 
 and as she kisses tell the tale that will destroy not only 
 me, but everything I love and honor on this earth? 
 God teach me to do my duty both as a lover of Lucia 
 and an officer of Prince Eugene. By heaven, I'm in a 
 cruel predicament." 
 
 With this in his mind he strolls into the big sup- 
 per room, and, seating himself at one of the humbler 
 tables in the royal banqueting hall, looks at the prin- 
 cess, who seems like a beneficent fairy as she pre-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 187 
 
 sides at the feast; De Vivans, in full uniform, stretch- 
 ing his long legs at her right hand, and doing good 
 work with knife and fork upon the breast of partridge, 
 though he pauses now and then to gaze upon Maria 
 as they both sip the sparkling wine of Champagne. 
 
 During this the royal lady casts a few hurried 
 glances at her troubadour, and, to her discontent, notes 
 he looks very glum, grinding his teeth into a pullet's 
 wing. 
 
 Attributing this surliness to his interrupted tete-a- 
 tete with the Lady Metia, she gives him a nasty glance, 
 and throws her eyes about for the other culprit, but 
 her unfortunate maid of honor has discreetly retired 
 out of royal view. 
 
 Then Villiers's glance searching for Lucia, he sees 
 that lady seated affably beside Lieutenant de Terrail 
 at one of the lower boards and drinking champagne 
 a wine, he thinks grimly, cannot have passed her sweet 
 lips lately with decided pleasure and vivacity. For 
 in truth the girl seems now in another world, a world 
 of mirth and happiness. She has discarded the dull 
 routine of Pasquale's house, with its long tedious exer- 
 cises, trills, scales, notes, and appoggiaturas, its badly- 
 cooked cheap food, of which to get enough she had to 
 struggle with half a dozen other singing girls, for the 
 delicacies of a royal table, this bright scene of courtly 
 revelry, and the admiration of a hundred gallant faces. 
 Besides, in her heart there is a joy that makes her feel 
 as elated as if she sat upon the ducal dias herself. 
 
 " What are the triumphs of art," she thinks, " to the 
 triumph of love? " and turns her eyes upon the trou- 
 badour with such a glance that it makes the room, 
 even in his desperate strait to him a heaven. For- 
 tunatelv this is not noticed bv Maria, who in her in-
 
 1 88 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 souciant, bantering way has drawn the French officers 
 about her into a discussion of the late campaign, and 
 is now listening to some braggadocio military talk of 
 Monsieur de Vivans and his second in command, Henri 
 de Pasteur. 
 
 Some of this is said in a loud voice, and it coming 
 to the ears of the troubadour, Lucia's face grows 
 anxious as she sees him grow red with rage, then pale 
 as death, as his hand seeks his sword hilt, which for- 
 tunately he has not, a troubadour at court only wear- 
 ing a dagger. 
 
 For the colonel of the regiment of Picardy, Henri de 
 Pasteur, speaks from the other side of the Princess 
 Maria. In arrogant voice he says confidently: "Your 
 Highness need not fear. No officer of Prince Eugene 
 dare attempt these works. I have crossed swords with 
 them too often not to know their only successes have 
 been when they have been behind breastworks and 
 ditches, as at Chiari. In the open field they fly from 
 us. Dost think they would attempt, when we are forti- 
 fied and intrenched, what they dare not on the field 
 of equal battle? Bah, how Eugene always flies from us 
 there." 
 
 Then, for the life of him, Villiers cannot help giving 
 the gentleman answer : " Your pardon, Monsieur le 
 colonel," he says from the humble end of the board, 
 rising to give his speech effect, " I have seen, though I 
 am a man of peace, Prince Eugene lead an army. It 
 was against the Turks at Zenta. If you had seen him 
 then, if you had fought under him then, you would not 
 say Eugene feared any troops on earth. He didn't 
 that day when he saved Christendom from the Otto- 
 mans." 
 
 " Oh, we will not doubt Eugene's courage," says
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 189 
 
 the French officer. "He is a French prince, born in 
 France. It is said when the news of Zenta came to 
 Marly our monarch toasted him. But against French 
 troops it is a different matter than against barbarous 
 Turks." 
 
 " Who have been the dread of Europe for three hun- 
 dred years," cries Maria, deftly putting an end by her 
 royal lips to a discussion that is drawing, she knows, 
 too much attention upon Eugene's spy. Her words, 
 of course, prevent the French colonel replying, 
 especially as, turning about, she jeers the troubadour 
 by saying: " Sieur Montaldo has sung so often of the 
 Turks in Venetian couplets that they are very buga- 
 boos to him, as gentlemen of the sword are usually 
 to gentlemen of the voice." 
 
 The wit of royalty is generally well received, and a 
 loud laugh comes from the ladies and gallants at the 
 supper tables. 
 
 But Villiers answers naught. Though he grinds his 
 teeth together at her slurring words, he knows a 
 brighter wit than his has taken him from a discussion 
 that might have brought suspicion on him; and with 
 suspicion ruin to the spy. 
 
 But the slight from the princess's lips in the 
 very presence of the woman he loves annoys him, es 
 pecially as he hears some young officers and some fair 
 ladies of the court remarking at the putting down of a 
 simple troubadour. 
 
 He glances at Lucia and sees in her face that his 
 shame is her shame, and wonders miserably does she 
 too think me a coward. But he need not fear for the 
 opinion of his love. She has heard him offer to make 
 a brave man's sacrifice for her. She has seen him meet 
 four swords for her salvation, and the girl's bright
 
 190 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 mind immediately suspects that it is his critical posi 
 tion in this town garrisoned by the French that causes 
 a gentleman, whom before she had thought quite 
 haughty and at times rather arrogant, now so ex- 
 tremely humble. 
 
 But if Villiers wishes for an opportunity to dis- 
 play his courage, it comes quite shortly, though in 
 rather an unexpected way. 
 
 The princess a little after this rises. At her sign the 
 whole company gets to their feet. Casting one plead- 
 ing glance at the troubadour, she retires, her ladies fol- 
 lowing after her. This glance unfortunately De Vivans 
 notes. He has heard some light words about the trou- 
 badour and the princess that have put him into no good 
 humor with the gentleman of the voice. 
 
 This look on another man, from the woman whose 
 love he has been suing for again, drives him to 
 frenzy. For the colonel commandant in the arms of 
 Maria Pico had passed a pleasant month until she grew 
 tired of his sabreur graces, though for her his passion 
 is as warm as when first his lips met hers. 
 
 He growls to himself : " Can I, commandant of the 
 garrison and representative of my king, bring this gen- 
 tleman of high notes to book? " But after a little quick 
 thought he concludes that it will neither be to his dig- 
 nity nor his duty to his royal master to cross swords 
 with a wandering minstrel. Still some one else might 
 do it for him. Therefore, the officers of the gar- 
 rison moving about one with the other, he contrives 
 to get beside a certain fire-eating lieutenant of his regi- 
 ment, one Gaston de Belcourt, a Gascon noted for his 
 skill in fence, and likewise for his love of showing it. 
 
 " My colonel," says that gentleman, " did it not do 
 us all good to see how the beautiful princes? flouted
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. Ipt 
 
 the arrogant knave who talks of battles as if he had 
 smelt powder and drawn sword ? " 
 
 " They say he drew a good blade to-night to save 
 that pretty maid of honor." 
 
 " Excuse me, colonel, but it is quite well known here 
 that Ambrose de Terrail is too modest in his story. It 
 must have been his sword that cut the ruffians down. 
 Just look; the creature is but a boy in stature. Be- 
 sides, how meekly he took the suggestion that sing- 
 ing historical ballads had made him a poltroon. 
 Diable, I have a mind, with your permission, Monsieur 
 le Colonel, to see what this windslinger who cuts the 
 throats of bravos can do with me." 
 
 " He will fight you, I think, if that is what you wish," 
 says De Vivans, looking Villiers over carefully. 
 
 " You think he will? With your permission I'll try 
 him." 
 
 " With my best wishes," laughs the colonel, and 
 looks pleasantly after his hulking lieutenant, who is a 
 big fellow of extreme length of arm and rapier reach. 
 
 Walking down the tables until he gets within con- 
 venient distance of the troubadour, who is now drink- 
 ing his Chiante rather sadly, the bright eyes of Lucia 
 being no more here to please him, Monsieur De Bel- 
 court, raising up his voice, says quite merrily: " Gen- 
 tlemen, I am about to propose the health of one who, 
 though he doesn't wear a sword by his side, is still 
 said to be a match for half a dozen ruffians of the 
 street, a child whose mustache is in futuro, the boy 
 troubadour Montaldo." 
 
 " Boy troubadour? " snarls Villiers, rising angrily. 
 
 " Or perchance baby troubadour," jeers the big lieu- 
 tenant; " you look scarce weaned." 
 At this there is a burst of laughter from the sur-
 
 1 92 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 rounding officers, many of whom have drunk too lib- 
 erally of the princess's wine. 
 
 "And that explains your favor with the fair sex," 
 goes on the sneering officer, " the ladies think you but 
 a child at nurse, and fondle you as such, and at their 
 innocent caresses you plume yourself, thinking they 
 have given triumph to a man, when they, poor dears, 
 think they are dandling a suckling on their knees." 
 
 " Does that feel like a suckling's blow?" says Vil- 
 liers savagely, and his insulter goes down with an Eng- 
 lish fist planted straight between his eyes. 
 
 In a second half a dozen of his comrades are up with 
 their hands on their swords, crying : " Kill the scclerat, 
 who insults an officer of ours! " 
 
 But De Terrail, standing beside Villiers, says: " He 
 drew sword with me as gallantly as ever gentleman 
 drew blade. Besides he is noble. Is a man because 
 he wear not our uniform to endure an insult which 
 would make any of us wish the blood of his best 
 friend? " 
 
 " That's all I want his blood. Keep back, gentle- 
 man. He is my prey! " cries De Belcourt, getting up. 
 
 " You shall have it if you can take it," answers the 
 troubadour, a wild joy lighting his face. 
 
 " You will meet me? " 
 
 " With the greatest of pleasure. Will any gentle- 
 man here be my second? " 
 
 "I will!" cries Ambrose. 
 
 And within two minutes the affair is arranged; cut 
 and thrust rapiers, the men to meet within half an hour 
 under the bastion that flanks the palace gate. 
 
 " The moon will be quite well up by that time, sig- 
 nore," blusters the French bully. " Of course, you 
 know you have seen your test sunrise."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 193 
 
 At this a few of his brother officers laugh. Gazing 
 it Villiers's short stature, they generally imagine De 
 Belcourt, who is notorious for his deadly sword play, 
 will have an easy matter of it; still one, a grizzled 
 veteran of good birth, who had once been maitre 
 d'armes in a cavalry regiment, though he now wears 
 an ensign's uniform, steps beside De Belcourt and whis- 
 pers to him : " Be very careful in this affair. Your 
 boy has the activity of a monkey, and I think the 
 strength of a little Hercules. If he knows much of 
 the sword you will not have an easy matter of it." 
 
 " Nom de Dieu!" answers the gentleman to whom 
 this unpleasant advice is given, " did I not spit the 
 Baron de Montraile, who was considered the best 
 swordsman in Milan? I know their Italian method. 
 The minute I destroy his straight point, bah, he is 
 gone! " 
 
 He grins viciously at Villiers, who is holding hasty 
 consultation with his second at the other end of the 
 long room and apart from the rest of the French offi- 
 cers, for these mostly side with their comrade, though 
 they generally know that the insult has been unpro- 
 voked, and that the Gascon has done a very scurvy act. 
 
 Now the news of such an affair flies about a palace 
 with the rapidity of lackeys' tongues. The serving men 
 in the supper room have whispered it to those in at- 
 tendance in the corridor. The court pages have all 
 heard of it, and one, an imp scarce twelve years of age 
 and the favorite of the princess, thinks he may venture 
 with his news into his mistress's apartments, for he is 
 very young, and is treated like a spoiled child by Maria, 
 who generally laughs at the rogueries of her petit 
 Alfonzo. 
 
 So, passing the gentlemen in waiting outside the
 
 194 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 door of the princess's apartments by saying : " A mes- 
 sage for her royal highness," the imp gets into the 
 first room of the princess's apartments, an antecham- 
 ber full of her maids of honor, who are chatting about 
 their gallants and giggling over their conquests. 
 
 "Do any of you love the poor troubadour?" cries 
 the child. " Don't all give tongue at once! And don't 
 all cry your lovely eyes out! That big French devil, 
 Gaston de Belccmrt, is going to spit Montaldo as he 
 would a frog. He first called the troubadour a suck- 
 ling boy. Then poor Montaldo declared he had been 
 weaned at least, a year, and to prove he was no babe 
 felled Frenchy to the earth, and now De Belcourt is 
 going to run the poor Sieur Montaldo through the 
 body and cut his high note throat at the bastion by the 
 gate." 
 
 At this announcement there is a little scream from 
 most of the young ladies, which fortunately drowns a 
 sobbing, gasping sigh from one of them. But just at 
 this moment the grinning Alfonzo receives such a ciiff 
 beside the ear that it turns him round so that he can 
 receive another sounder one upon his other cheek. 
 
 " Thou lying ape! " cries the princess, who at men- 
 tion of her troubadour has stepped hurriedly from 
 the inner apartment. "Thou jabbering Cupid \ Kill 
 my troubadour? Why, doesn't De Belcourt know that 
 Montaldo's arms are steel his embrace strong as a 
 Hercules' ! " She stops her careless and excited words, 
 which, happily, are smothered by the boy's screaming, 
 and, giving to Alfonzo another sounding slap, orders 
 hoarsely: " Fetch me a lackey to take this imp out 
 to the courtyard and horsewhip him till he uses his 
 tongue in other ways than lying." 
 
 "It's true! It's true! I saw the Frenchman's long
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 195 
 
 sword half drawn. Don't have me whipped for telling 
 the truth! " implores the boy. 
 
 And Maria, guessing his words are true, and rather 
 fearing that her glances may have had something to 
 do with this matter, for she now imagines De Vivans 
 caught one or two of them, runs hurriedly into 
 her chamber and calls : " Marchesa, to me quick ! " 
 and whispers to her : " God help me ! God help me if 
 they murder the only man I've ever loved ! " For this 
 lady always thinks her last passion is the truest. 
 
 By this time Villiers has left the supper room in 
 company with his second. He will not permit himself 
 to think of Lucia. The fear of never seeing her bright 
 face again might lessen the firmness of his nerves, for 
 he knows his man means blood. De Terrail is also 
 whispering to him: " I would it were any other that 
 you met. De Belcourt always kills. He has no mercy. 
 Besides, he is an expert." 
 
 " Don't fear for me," answers the Englishman. " I 
 am an expert, too. Ten years in Rome, I know the 
 best method of the Italian school, and that's not the 
 straight point always. But I'll show you the trick in 
 half an hour." 
 
 " Then I'll call for you at your rooms in twenty 
 minutes." 
 
 " Thank you. Bless you for standing by a stranger 
 against even one of your own nation. Don't think I 
 will forget it." 
 
 The two young men clasp hands again, and Villiers, 
 going to his apartments, enters them and locks and 
 bolts the outer door carefully behind him. Then he 
 steps into his inner chamber. A curious smile lights 
 up his face; he murmurs: " I expected you, your High- 
 pess. Thank God that you are here."
 
 196 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 For before him stands the Princess Maria; her face 
 pale, her eyes agonized. " Forgive me, forgive me, 
 dear one," she murmurs, " for the slur my lips put on 
 you this night. That was to save your life, but it 
 didn't," she gasps. " Those French brutes are going 
 to kill you." 
 
 " Not with my consent, madame." 
 
 " I know I treated you badly," she falters, " but, mi 
 adorato, I couldn't dance with you. Your apparent 
 lowly rank would have made it dangerous for you, for 
 me. Oh, how I longed to clasp your dear hand. And 
 for revenge on me you called that Metia to your side. 
 Didst thou make love to her? If so, I'll have the little 
 minx's blood! " The royal eyes are blazing. 
 
 "I love Metia? Absurd, your Highness." 
 
 " Of course, it's absurd. You love but me. God 
 bless you for the words." Her arms go round him; 
 then she pleads: " But you you must not risk your 
 precious life. Tell them you cannot fight, you are a 
 troubadour." 
 
 " Tell them I am a coward? They would despise me 
 as you would, too," mutters Villiers in so stern a 
 voice, she droops her streaming eyes, but still en- 
 treats : " I cannot bear the danger on your life." 
 
 " You must! Wouldst thou love a dastard, 
 madame? " 
 
 " No, no; I love a hero. I I don't fear for you if 
 they but give you equal combat. Your arms are strong 
 as if you were Achilles, and I have brought you this 
 sword, made by the greatest armorer in Toledo. Its 
 spring, they say, is perfect; its weight admirable." 
 
 In an instant she has picked up from the table a 
 bright shining weapon, and, Villiers taking it from her 
 hand, hefts it and tests it and. driving it full force
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 1$) 
 
 against the stone wall, finds that he holds a blade such 
 as a man might use to fight for woman's honor or for 
 woman's love. 
 
 " God bless you. You will take my gift to guard 
 your gallant life," half sobs the princess. Then her 
 eyes grow luminous; she murmurs: " Now we must 
 only think of each other. Miserimus, if he kills you 
 before you prove your love to me." Then her embrace 
 is so tender it would make a hermit weak. 
 
 " Madame, we have other things to think of now 
 than dalliance." 
 
 " Oh, heaven, what do you mean? " For he has un- 
 clasped her white clinging arms and put her from him. 
 " You said you thanked God I was here," she sobs. 
 
 " Yes, for something more than even love." His 
 voice is very low. "A thousand brave men to-morrow 
 night will be in yonder garden. On our action hangs 
 their safety and their lives. In case I fall to-night " 
 
 " Oh, misericordia, no! " 
 
 " You must take message to the officer in com- 
 mand." 
 
 "And you dead, what will I care for plots and sur- 
 prises. I'll send a pigeon to Eugene to say the plan is 
 spoiled." 
 
 " For my military honor, you must not. For my 
 memory, have courage to go down into yonder kiosk 
 and show the officer how his men can reach the win- 
 dows of the theater and enter the palace of your father. 
 If you are at the foot of the shaft in the garden-house at 
 eight o'clock to-morrow evening, you will be in time. 
 There, I think, you will meet a tall cavalry officer 
 named Paul Diak. Trust him as you would me! " 
 
 " But I'll not love him as I do you."
 
 198 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Pish, these instructions are in case I die. Forget 
 me; there are others in the world." 
 
 " To me there are no others in this world." Despite 
 him, her arms close around him, for few men can be 
 brutal to a woman they see despairing at thought of 
 losing them, and to unclasp Maria's embrace would 
 have taken almost savage strength. 
 
 So she, her white bosom beating against his breast, 
 sobs: " If you die, my life is dead, also," and her voice 
 rings true, for the princess is a woman who loves most 
 the man she fears to lose. Then she commences to up- 
 braid herself: " Dear one, 'twas my glance put De 
 Vivans on you ; " next shudders, " They don't mean 
 to give you a living chance. Their swords will all be 
 in your body because I adore you." 
 
 " No, the French officers are gentlemen. They'll 
 grant me a fair fight. That's all I ask, and, barring 
 some unlucky chance, I'll " 
 
 " Comeback to me! Come back to me! " He feels 
 the rounded muscles in her white arms contract and 
 hold him as if they could not let him go. 
 
 " Come back to me, and I'll love you as if you were 
 a king," she sobs ; then suddenly she screams : " Oh, 
 mercy, that accursed knocking at the door ! " 
 
 " Quiet! They will hear you," whispers Villiers, for 
 De Terrail is thundering on the outside portal, and 
 calling: " If you would be in time, Montaldo, come! " 
 
 " What do I care who knows my love for you! " she 
 pleads, desperately. " Give me a kiss, just one. Your 
 lips have not sought mine all this night. It may be the 
 last." She draws his face to hers with frantic strength, 
 and her lips linger cm his as if they never would leave 
 them.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 199 
 
 But a hoarse cry is without: " Montaldo, come! 
 Our time is short." 
 
 So he, breaking from her, closes the door of the 
 chamber, and, with her sword in his hand, passes 
 through his sitting-room and opens the portal into the 
 corridor. " I am ready," he says, shortly. 
 
 He looks at the princess's sword within his hand. It 
 is as fine a rapier as ever left Spanish workshop. But 
 suddenly he thinks: " She gave it to me, she who 
 is making me untrue to my love even as I go perhaps 
 to death. It might be a curse upon me. The other was 
 a good blade." With this he tosses the princess's gift 
 to one side and takes the plainer weapon with which 
 he had let out the lives of three hard fighting bravos. 
 " Diavolo ! " he thinks, grimly, " good steel, will you and 
 I make it a quartette of villains to-night? " 
 
 He is already passing along the corridor following 
 his second, who seems rather gloomy, and tries to give 
 the Englishman some advice and points as regards his 
 antagonist's sword play. " Be very careful of his lunge 
 en quarte after disengagement," Ambrose suggests. 
 " Beware of his riposte du tac au tac. It comes quicker 
 than lightning, and is always in good line. He has taken 
 lessons from Labat himself." 
 
 By this time they have issued from the palace, pass- 
 ing both ducal and French sentries, for Villiers has not 
 done taking observations for the morrow, and notices 
 the palace is well occupied by guards from De Vivans's 
 garrtson. 
 
 A short two hundred yards and they turn from the 
 little street to enter a grassy esplanade, which is im- 
 mediately behind the bastion nearest the palace. Here 
 are gathered a number of French officers and a clump 
 of gentlemen of the court, a lot of boys, some of them
 
 2OO THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 carrying torches, a couple of surgeons with tourni- 
 quets, knives, forceps, and other cheery instruments to 
 duelists, besides a tag-rag of court pages, lackeys, and 
 hangers-on at the palace. 
 
 In an open spot stands De Belcourt and his second, 
 Captain Morran, of his regiment. The moon has rise"n 
 well over the bastion and puts a pale, subdued, yet 
 ample light upon the scene, for these men will fight 
 like masters of the sword, by touch of blade, which is 
 a sixth sense to them. 
 
 Five minutes later, their blades being measured and 
 found to be within required length, for absolute pre- 
 cision in that matter was not the custom at that time 
 in European duels, the two men are about to take posi- 
 tion, when suddenly De Belcourt's second remarks: 
 " Your man, De Terrail, wears a medallion on his 
 breast. It might turn my principal's point." 
 
 Ambrose is about to hold forth his hand for Lucia's 
 portrait, but Villiers says shortly: "See, I place this 
 behind my back; there it cannot protect me! " 
 
 " Diable! " jeers his adversary, " it looks as if it were 
 a miniature he wears upon his breast. I'll run my 
 sword blade through both his and the lady's heart." 
 
 This scoff at his divinity destroys the last drop of 
 mercy in Villiers, if he had any of it before, for his 
 opponent. 
 
 Twenty seconds later De Belcourt and he stand face 
 to face. Both have thrown off jackets and doublets, 
 Villiers standing in the ruffled shirt of a troubadour, 
 trunks and stockings, having wisely kicked off his Ven- 
 etian boots that there may be no chance of slipping on 
 the greensward; the French lieutenant fronts him in 
 his uniform trousers, plain white shirt, with sleeves 
 rolled up to the shoulder, showing a massive right
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 2OI 
 
 arm, the muscles playing easily under his white skin, 
 their tendons seeming to be whipcord. 
 
 The disparity in size between the men would seem to 
 make it a laughable affair, and one or two young 
 French officers giggle at the sight. For Villiers, with 
 his boots off, stands scarce five feet five against the 
 other man's six feet one, and the long arms of the taller 
 man give to him much longer reach of sword, an awful 
 handicap in this battle to the death. 
 
 To some words of his second, the Frenchman, just 
 as he has taken his position, has answered : " Don't 
 talk to me. I'll kill this boy whose mustache is not yet 
 grown. He shall grow it in his grave." 
 
 But Villiers heeds not a taunt which was meant to 
 make him lose his presence of mind. 
 
 So the two, standing before each other, salute and 
 take position and begin their sword-play warily. A 
 few straight quick thrusts and disengagements to dis- 
 cover each other's favorite defense and attack, then Vil- 
 liers, fencing cautiously, keeps almost out of distance. 
 " Diable! " thinks the Frenchman confidently, " he 
 uses our style of rapier play, not the Italian. At this I 
 have him, sure. Sapristi, Montaldo thinks so himself. 
 He keeps quite out of distance." 
 
 And Villiers does think so, for in the opening passes 
 he has discovered that De Belcourt has an attack en 
 quarte, that with his great length of reach might make 
 a maitre d'annes very wary. Besides, he finds the 
 fellow's wrist is steel, his position perfect, his rapier 
 point always straight for his heart. To win he must 
 bring his head to aid his hands. Therefore, as he 
 fences, to the astonishment of the lookers-on and the 
 dismay of his second, the troubadour now seems to be
 
 J02 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 apparently sluggish in his movements with both hand 
 and foot. 
 
 Noting this also, De Belcourt thinks he has even an 
 easier job than he had expected. With such an ama- 
 teur he dare try a time-thrust, even those most danger- 
 ous ones which are not made across his opponent's 
 blade. " I'll recover quick enough," cogitates the 
 Frenchman, savagely. " Besides, my rapier will be 
 through his heart. He will never touch me. Just wait 
 till that moon goes behind a passing cloud." 
 
 Half a minute afterward the moon goes out of sight, 
 and as darkness falls upon him, Villiers, closing his 
 distance, incautiously fences in. 
 
 " Now is his death! " grins Belcourt, and, with light- 
 ning play of wrist, disengages his rapier, and lunges 
 straight at the Englishman's heart. As he thrusts he 
 gives forth a little cry of triumph, he is so sure he has 
 the troubadour. 
 
 And the lookers-on in the gloom think he has him, 
 too, for Villiers is almost prostrate. Quick as a cat 
 he has dropped almost upon the ground, his toes grip- 
 ping the greensward, his left hand supporting his body, 
 his long straight cut-and-thrust rapier pointed straight 
 in line with his adversary's waist. Then, even as De 
 Belcourt's rapier flashes over his head, his frame, as if 
 bent from a spring, flies forward in riposte and a good 
 long foot of his bright steel issues from De Belcourt's 
 back, just under the left shoulderblade, and glistens red 
 in the light of the moon, just emerging from its cloud. 
 Then he is back again in position, fearing his adversary 
 may have strength for a dying thrust, but his opponent 
 staggers forward and falls beside him. 
 
 " By heaven, they're both killed! " cries De Terrail. 
 
 " No, but Gaston is," remarks the French maitrc
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 203 
 
 d'armes. " The troubadour did the trick of the Italian 
 Menzoni at Rome." 
 
 "Diavolo!" mutters an old grizzled Italian cour- 
 tier, " it was the stroke of that Scotch Chevalier Crich- 
 ton. My grandfather told me of that wondrous riposte 
 the Scotchman, who was the wonder of Italy, made in 
 Mantua the night Gonzaga murdered him." 
 
 " You are hurt, Montaldo?" asks his second, step- 
 ping forward. 
 
 " Not a touch, but the other man is dead." 
 
 Then there is a hoarse murmur from the surround- 
 ing officers, one or two of whom dissent as to the legiti- 
 macy of the stroke. But the grizzled maitre d'armes, 
 stepping forward, remarks: "As fair a duel as ever I 
 saw, and I have crossed swords forty times as second or 
 principal. If any of you doubt it, let him talk to me, 
 Achille de Laville! I stand for the honor of the French 
 army! " This settles some remarks De Belcourt's sec- 
 ond has been making. 
 
 " Will you come with me to my quarters in the 
 citadel?" whispers De Terrail. 
 
 But Eugene's spy, though he would like of all things 
 to see the interior of the French stronghold, says 
 hastily: " No, I'll I'll go to my chamber at the music 
 master's." He thinks De Terrail has done, perhaps, too 
 much for him, and he fears if to-morrow night Eugene 
 wins this place, it may injure the gallant young French- 
 man's prospects in his service. 
 
 " You had better go to the palace," remarks his com- 
 panion. " It's safer there." 
 
 But Villiers believes: "It is not safer there!" and 
 says shortly: "I should have too many people run- 
 ning after me to hear the details, my friend." 
 
 " Ah, yes, that pretty maid o,f honor," murmurs his
 
 204 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 second. " What would Mademoiselle Lucia Vesey saj 
 to the other lady's miniature? " 
 
 At this Villiers bursts out laughing, the strain seem- 
 ing to be lifted from him for the moment. 
 
 So the two calling a link boy to light them on their 
 way, stride through the deserted streets, and, at Pas- 
 quale's house on the Contrada Pico, bid each other 
 adieu. A moment after getting answer to his knock, 
 the Englishman is admitted, and, ascending to his little 
 rooms, goes to sleep, to dream of the girl he heard this 
 very day making melody within the attic, above his 
 head. 
 
 And all this night the Princess of Mirandola waits 
 panting in the chamber of the man who has been fight- 
 ing this death duel : at times listening for a coming 
 step, her white arms extended, to close upon him as he 
 enters. For she sighs: " If he lives he will surely 
 come to the kisses of the woman whose heart is with 
 him." 
 
 At last tired with waiting and worn out with grief, 
 she shudders: " God of mercy, the man I love is 
 dead! " and, going through the secret passage to her 
 chamber, wrings her hands. Beside her, for she has 
 been told to guard her niistress from surprise, is the 
 statuesque figure of Bianca Gonzaga. To her Maria 
 sobs: "I have a broken heart; my troubadour is 
 dead." 
 
 But the other, fighting down a smile of triumph at 
 her tyrant's misery, says placidly: " The Italian trou- 
 badour dead? The news came two hours ago that he 
 killed the French swashbuckler, ran him straight 
 through the heart, and now he's gone away with his 
 second, and probably they are cracking a bottle of 
 wine or two over his victory."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 205 
 
 "Carousing when I was breaking heart for him?" 
 sobs Maria; then suddenly breaks forth: " Diavolo! 
 How I love him, this little giant with the strength of a 
 Hercules. He who twists me round his finger. He 
 who spits these Frenchmen like so many larks! " 
 
 To this Bianca says, a cold sneer in her voice: "An- 
 other was grieving for him also, and now is happy. 
 Listen!" 
 
 And the princess pauses, and hears from a nearby 
 chamber the sweet voice of Lucia Vesey in prayer to 
 God, singing, because that is the language of her soul, 
 a Te Deum Laudamus for the life of the man she loves. 
 
 As its last glorious notes die out upon the air antonish- 
 ment falls upon the stately marchesa, for her mistress 
 says suddenly : " Down, wench ! Upon thy knees with 
 me, and thank God also for the life of him I adore! "
 
 206 
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 A WILD NIGHT IN MIRANDOLA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE MILITARY GAUNTLET OF DE VIVANS. 
 
 Quite early the next morning Villiers awakes to 
 the din of a musical house, Pasquale's singing girls get- 
 ting to their exercises betimes. Trills, runs, scales, 
 and appoggiaturas from many lips, likewise the 
 tones of instruments strike upon his ears. For a 
 moment he cannot think where he is, but after a little 
 time, his location coming to him, he listens to hear the 
 voice he loves. Then not finding it, the myriad of in- 
 cidents of the preceding day come crowding upon him. 
 For a moment they seem to him as if they were a 
 dream. Lucia placed in the rank that is hers by right 
 and maid of honor to the princess; the fight with the 
 bravos, and the midnight duel. 
 
 Finally the stain of De Belcourt's blood upon his 
 finger makes him know his dream is fact. 
 
 Upon this crowds the question of what the for- 
 tunes of this day bring to him, the spy. He springs up 
 and mutters : " To-night is the night ! " and gets into 
 his dothes quite rapidly.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 207 
 
 Knowing now that his game with la princessa is 
 drawing to a very critical climax, he doesn't hurry his 
 steps toward the palace, but, stepping downstairs, says 
 to Pasquale: " I pray you another lesson, maestro. 
 This evening is the one in which I sing in the prin- 
 cess's ballet." 
 
 " Sapristi, yes! Tessa has already gone to give the 
 court ladies their last rehearsal," remarks the man of 
 music. Then he chuckles playfully: "Are you as good 
 a singer as you are a fencer, Sieur Montaldo? Corpo di 
 San Marco! I have heard wondrous tales about you. 
 Three bravos spitted in the street fight, and then Mon- 
 sieur le Lieutenant of De Vivans's regiment done to 
 death by moonlight in a duel. And our singing bird is 
 doing very well, too, a maid of honor to la princessa, 
 but la marchesa only bought Lucia's time from me 
 until after carnival. Cospetto! that will be a fine ad- 
 vertisement for my little diva and make her worth more 
 ducats on the stage than ever." He rubs his hands to- 
 gether complacently, but wouldn't be so happy if he 
 knew the thoughts of the troubadour gazing at him and 
 humming over a little piece of music. 
 
 For Villiers is communing with himself: " If I 
 strangle this gentleman now, how will it affect to- 
 night's strategy? " Apparently thinking new compli- 
 cations will not aid the cause of Prince Eugene, he cries 
 cheerily, giving the musician a playful slap upon the 
 shoulder that makes him quiver. "At the harpsichord, 
 dear maestro, and teach me the music of Filicaria! " 
 
 At this both of them go for an hour or two. Then 
 Sydney suggests affably: "I think I will do -well 
 enough, don't you, maestro? " 
 
 " Yes, if the princess does not bungle her accompani- 
 ment on the guitar, or from stage fright you do not
 
 08 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 lose your voice, you will do well enough for me to say 
 I taught you. Four ducats more for this last lesson, I 
 believe. Thank you ! I'll be behind the scenes to-night 
 at the court theater with Tessa to see that you do justice 
 to my training. Adio, till this evening, honored trouba- 
 dour." 
 
 A few minutes later Villiers, striding from the house 
 of Pasquale, thinks it well to see if preparations 
 are in progress for the jubilee of the French soldiers 
 on this night he hopes to strike them in a way that will 
 make Louis, their master, cry out from his gilded 
 throne at Marly. This he does in a lazy, dilettante 
 sort of way, fortunately rinding himself not over prom- 
 inent, for the town is full of people come in from the 
 country to see the great fete Maria of Mirandola makes 
 to her allies, the French. 
 
 Lingering over his breakfast in the Golden Juggler, 
 and sipping another bottle of their Lachrima Christi 
 with good appetite, Sydney's heart beats high as he 
 sees great wagons loaded with immense hogsheads of 
 Marsala, Chianti, and other country wines going up to 
 the citadel for the carousing of the garrison; likewise 
 whole bullocks that are to be roasted before the open 
 fires; goats ready for the spit, great bags of chestnuts 
 newly roasted, and lots of other tempting things for sol- 
 diers' palates to make them sluggish in the hour of their 
 need. 
 
 About this time the sound of fifes and drums make 
 him look quickly forth. To his concern, he sees a 
 strong force being marched toward the Concordia 
 gate* and also the other portals of the town being well 
 reinforced. For De Vivans, though he lets his men 
 make holiday, is too formal a soldier to neglect to 
 thoroughly police and outpost his garrison. In fact,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 809 
 
 Villiers glumly cogitates the French would be quite 
 safe within these walls, were it not for the secret en- 
 trance to the ducal gardens. 
 
 This strengthening of the forces at the Concordia 
 gate makes it necessary he communicate in some way 
 to Prince Eugene, so that additional men may be 
 sent in through the secret passage to reinforce the 
 regiment of Staremberg, when, having taken the palace 
 and the French officers at banquet therein, they rush 
 out to capture the main portal of the city to permit the 
 entry of Eugene's army. Besides, his general must be 
 also warned not to attempt the Concordia from outside 
 the walls; reinforced as it has been, Eugene will never 
 be able to carry it by quick assault. To communicate 
 with his chief, Villiers must use the carrier pigeons of 
 the princess. 
 
 " By the Lord Harry," he reflects, " I wonder did 
 Maria wait for me in my chamber all last night. 
 Diavolo, if she did there will be wild reproaches. I 
 must have a tale to tell her," and perfects this in his 
 mind as he strides toward the palace, where he is def- 
 erentially bowed to by the court chamberlain and the 
 rest of the Italian gentlemen, who think Montaldo the 
 Tuscan's blade has done their country great honor the 
 night before. 
 
 " Corpo di San Marco! " remarks Conte Rosario, as 
 he walks up the stairs beside him, " Sieur Troubadour, 
 I would have known you were of noble blood without 
 my princess's commendation. The way I saw you 
 handle sword last night, the true Italian fashion; 
 straight point ! and skip to one side or the other like 
 Capo Ferro, as I in my youth (the poor old gentleman 
 is now seventy) pinked many a gallant on the streets of 
 Cremona and Ferrara. I was a \vild boy then. Egad,"
 
 8IO THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 he simpers, " the pretty ladies of the court eh ? But I 
 won't tell tales. Still we know a thing or two, don't we, 
 you and I ? We have likewise some pretty demoiselles 
 here, the new maid of honor. Have you seen her ? Quite 
 naive, with lovely, innocent eyes, and form like Psyche. 
 But you will not see her now, though your eyes are look- 
 ing round for her. The ladies are all at rehearsal in the 
 theater ; all tripping to the music of violins their dances 
 for this evening. Or are you going upon the stage ? " 
 
 " No, I shall pass into the gardens," murmurs the 
 troubadour. " I wish to sing alone my songs for this 
 evening." 
 
 " Well, if you have such piercing high notes as you 
 Tiave piercing lunges, do you take me? You'll make a 
 hit to-night as you did last night, eh? The side stair- 
 way leads to the nearest garden entrance." 
 
 " Thanks," remarks Viiliers, " I know the way quite 
 well." For this is the entrance by which he intends to 
 introduce the troops to cut off the carousing French 
 officers. So taking his leave of the bowing chamber- 
 lain, he passes into the ducal gardens. 
 
 The sun is bright, the fountains are playing briskly, 
 the grounds are lovely as those of Hesperides, though 
 they are nearly empty, for they are set apart entirely 
 for the use of the court ladies and gentlemen, and these 
 are generally preparing for the grand fete of the even- 
 ing, it being now quite well into the afternoon. 
 
 Viiliers has no time to lose, and quickly, though 
 cautiously, makes his way toward the little kiosk that 
 holds the key to the military situation. Looking about 
 it, he sees that the seat which conceals the entrance to 
 the shaft has not been disturbed. In fact, to increase his 
 confidence, there is dust upon it. Likewise he casts an 
 anxious eye to the bastion commanding the garden,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 211 
 
 To his concern he sees the guards have been doubled at 
 this point and there are three field pieces in position. 
 " With these loaded with grapeshot and langridge, and 
 turned upon the ducal gardens, our men would be cut 
 off," he thinks, and his face grows serious as he reflects 
 that, even without opposition, through this narrow 
 subway it will take nigh onto two hours for the regi- 
 ment of Staremberg to enter the garden quietly and 
 in the darkness dispose themselves for effective attack. 
 Just here he is interrupted by dainty fingers pinching 
 his ear. 
 
 " Guess who ? " cries a sweet voice. " I saw you 
 from the windows of my chamber, and couldn't fail to 
 join my troubadour." Then to his astonishment the 
 Princess Maria suddenly breaks out: "You darling! 
 What a grand fight you made last night, and 'twas for 
 me. Nay, nay, don't deny it! Did I not love you, De 
 Vivans would not hate you and have put his bully upon 
 you. But after to-night no more of them ! " This in a 
 whisper under her breath. To it she adds archly : " I 
 don't believe Bianca would see me if I kissed you," and 
 puts very tender lips on him, glancing laughingly to 
 where, some hundred feet away, court etiquette is rep- 
 resented by la marchesa. 
 
 This lady now keeps watch that mademoiselle's inter- 
 view with the Englishman is not intruded upon. 
 
 Then Villiers's words bring Maria joy: "You are 
 the very one I wish to see," says the Englishman 
 eagerly. 
 
 " I should hope so," laughs the minx. 
 "Your rehearsal is finished?" 
 " Yes, it went off to perfection. My ladies danced 
 like sylphs. Besides, I have a new one." 
 "Indeed! Who?"
 
 212 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " My new maid of honor, of course ! Lucia, she trips 
 the minuet as prettily as any of them. I like her very 
 much. Last night she sang a Laudamus for your safety 
 from the Frenchman's sword." 
 
 But Villiers dare not let the princess run on; the joy 
 in his face would be tray the secret of his heart. He 
 says shortly: " Bring your sweet lips to business, your 
 Highness." 
 
 " Of course, I will ! There ! There ! " The theres 
 are two swift kisses." 
 
 But he, holding her at arm's length, whispers sternly : 
 " This is love, not war. I speak to you of war. You 
 have means of communicating with Prince Eugene. 
 There have been changes made in the guards at the 
 gates and at that bastion. This information I must 
 send to my general at once." 
 
 " Of course, I have the carrier pigeons, three of 
 them, that the prince sent to me." 
 
 " Then this message must be forwarded in duplicate 
 by two of them immediately." 
 
 "Write them!" The princess extends to him a 
 little gold-decked note book with jeweled pencil. 
 " Write them very small; one on each page," she adds. 
 
 And Villiers, hastily addressing Prince Eugene, jots 
 down the position for the regiment of Count Starem- 
 berg to occupy after it enters the ducal gardens, and 
 adds: "Let the regiment pass through the little tunnel 
 immediately after dark. If no warning from me at the 
 bottom of the shaft in the garden, all is well. But the 
 men must not attack until I give the signal. Then 
 let a detail enter the left door of the pavilion, which 
 will be open, and capture the great stairway. At the 
 same moment let a company mount by the little garden 
 ladders they will find about the grounds to the wh>
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 213 
 
 dows of the stage of the court theater in the great pavil- 
 ion. From there they will command the French offi- 
 cers at banquet in the main body of the theater. Cut 
 off from escape by the great stairway, the half drunken 
 French officers will be our prisoners. This achieved, 
 their uncommanded, carousing men in the citadel and 
 at the gates of the town will be an easy capture. Trust 
 me to join the regiment of Staremberg in the garden, 
 and to give the signal at the proper time. V." 
 
 This he carefully duplicates, and she, looking over 
 his shoulder, laughs: "Bravo!" and claps her little 
 hands; adding: "All will go well to-night. Already 
 the wine is being broached in the citadel, and the 
 French soldiers are beginning to make merry. The 
 carrier pigeons are kept in a little cage in my cham- 
 ber." Her eyes gaze at him questioningly. " Dare 
 you join me there? 'Tis high treason! " she murmurs, 
 " but you've committed that before." 
 
 " I dare anything for my cause." 
 
 "And nothing for me? " 
 
 " You are part of my cause." 
 
 " In that case," laughs the witch, " wait until I have 
 left here ten minutes; then go to your apartments, 
 where you will hear from me. It is safer that we be not 
 seen walking together. A troubadour is scarce of 
 fitting rank to be intimate with a princess. But 
 still " 
 
 She kisses her hand archly at him, and, leaving the 
 kiosk, would run away ; but she gets no further than la 
 marchesa, scarce a hundred feet distant. This lady 
 stops her mistress with a warning glance. Together 
 the two face le Colonel de Vivans, who is stroking his 
 long moustachios angrily. 
 , A moment later the princessa poutingly strolls away
 
 314 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 by the side of the French commandant, who is ap- 
 parently saying words to her which she doesn't like, 
 for once or twice Villiers notes her pretty feet kick the 
 gravel of the walk with impatient tread. 
 
 Looking at this from the retirement of the kiosk, 
 the Englishman jeers : " Ods gunpowder and grape- 
 shot! The French fellow seems to be infernally jealous 
 of the pretty princess. Will the little Circe by any 
 chance again turn to his arms? By heaven, that would 
 be very dangerous, both to me and to my cause." But 
 after consideration, he concludes: "And yet I think 
 not. She has known Arvid de Vivans for a month, she 
 has known me but two days. The new broom sweeps 
 the cleaner with ladies of Maria's fickle yet intense 
 temperament." 
 
 Therefore, quite confidently as soon as the French 
 commandant and Mademoiselle Maria are out of sight 
 Eugene's emissary steps to his little chamber. Here 
 he waits in anxious impatience, for speed is vital. Then 
 the sliding panel opens, a white hand beckons to him, 
 and the soft, sensuous voice of Bianca Gonzaga mur- 
 murs in a kind of eager triumph: " Come! " 
 
 Passing through the opening, Sydney follows la 
 marchesa through a passageway apparently built with- 
 in the very walls of the building. "Are there any 
 steps? " he asks, hurriedly. 
 
 " No, it is straight walking, and pleasant greeting, I 
 think, for you, sir." Bianca's voice startles the Eng- 
 lishman, it is so constrained ; but what this indicates he 
 does not just at this moment discover. 
 
 After perhaps one hundred and fifty feet of walking 
 Villiers feels the white hand of his conductress pressed 
 against his face; she whispers: "Stop! Don't enter
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 215 
 
 till I signal you. The trick of this panel is exactly the 
 same as the other. See where I press the button." 
 
 With this she passes out of the passageway by the 
 secret door. A moment later it opens for him, and to 
 Bianca's word the Englishman steps into fairyland. 
 
 It is a boudoir, connected on one side with the cham- 
 ber of the Princess Maria; its walls and ceiling all danc- 
 ing Cupids and bright Grecian skies. The sun, which 
 is now declining, comes into it through a great con- 
 servatory, which adds to the beauty of the suite. Being 
 deftly heated, tropical plants grow under its dome of 
 glass at all seasons of the year. As Villiers looks, he 
 notes to his astonishment, amid growing orange trees 
 and palms, the pineapples and bananas of the tropics. 
 
 At the side there is another room; soft curtains drape 
 the arch which leads to it. From it a sweet voice com- 
 mands : " You may retire, Bianca ! " 
 
 With low courtesy la marchesa, passing out of the 
 room, gives one hasty curious glance toward another en- 
 trance to this boudoir, a little one far to the right, appar- 
 ently leading to some cloak or dressing-room. 
 
 " This way, my troubadour," whispers Maria, eagerly. 
 
 In a second, for communication to Eugene is press- 
 ing, Villiers has stepped into a chamber, whose mag- 
 nificence makes him start. 
 
 Decorated by the brush of a great artist, its shep- 
 herds and shepherdesses, gods and goddesses, in their 
 nude beauties, look down upon him from its walls. 
 Before him stands the Princess of Mirandola, her face 
 flushed, but looking light as a fay, for she has thrown 
 away her prim court robe and is in an afternoon 
 negligee of shimmering satin and lace of Valenciennes 
 from which her white arms flash as she beckons him to 
 her.
 
 l6 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " You need fear no prying eyes or intruding lips. 
 This chamber is my own. Four lackeys three rooms 
 from here guard its entrance. My confidant stands 
 within the second chamber. None dare enter here un- 
 less I summon them," she remarks, motioning him to 
 take seat beside her. 
 
 "The carrier pigeons, your Highness?" asks Vil- 
 liers eagerly. 
 
 " You always think of your mission first and me 
 last," she pouts. " But they are here." 
 
 Her delicate hand points to a little gold-tipped cage 
 which contains three birds of passage. 
 
 Tying one of his notes under the tail of a carrier 
 pigeon, and looking cautiously to see he is not noticed 
 from without, Villiers opens the casement, throws it 
 into the air, and watches the bird as, after circling 
 higher and higher, it darts northwest toward Gon- 
 zaga. 
 
 Three minutes after he dispatches the second with 
 the duplicate message, the princess warning him: 
 " Only show your hand. Every lackey knows this is 
 one of the windows of my private apartments." 
 
 " You are sure these dispatches will reach Eugene? " 
 queries the Englishman anxiously. 
 
 " Certainly ! Your general keeps an officer waiting 
 for them. Even if he is already on the march, this 
 officer is to follow him." 
 
 " Then all is prepared." Villiers emits a slight sigh 
 of relief, and thinks the surprise of the French is now 
 arranged. And so it would be, were there not a wom- 
 an in the compact. 
 
 Replacing the little cage with its third imprisoned 
 bird in a corner of the room, La Princessa Maria whis- 
 pers : " I am doing great things for your master and
 
 THE LIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 217 
 
 for you, at imminent risk to myself. If this succeeds, 
 your rank, my Sydney, at least will be that of a col- 
 onel." 
 
 "And your duchy will have safety from the French 
 forever, your Highness," returns Villiers, " for trust 
 me, Louis XIV. and his Spanish cousin are already 
 beaten. Their armies will never cross the Po again in 
 this war. The crown is secured to your father, my 
 pretty one, by your courage." 
 
 "And I am to have no other reward from one whom 
 I have made a colonel?" murmurs the lady, " I who 
 have waited for you two days to make me happy. Tis 
 two hours before my ballet; two hours of happiness and 
 joy." 
 
 The eager entreaty in her eyes tells Villiers the crisis 
 of his enterprise is upon him. Military duty and diplo- 
 matic common sense suggest to him that to slight 
 Maria now will be both dangerous to his general's 
 cause, and even his own safety. Besides, the lady has 
 an arch loveliness that might make a man forget even 
 his marriage vows. The compliment of her eyes is a 
 most subtle one. They say she adores him. When 
 rank implores and beauty allures with every art of fas- 
 cination, 'tis hard to be stern to the wooing of a wom- 
 an whose one plea is " I love you! " 
 
 Her arms are already about him. She is nestling to 
 him. Her lips have made his answer hers. Even now 
 she has perched herself upon his knee like a naughty 
 fairy. 
 
 Under these alluring eyes and these entrancing lips, 
 Villiers's truth to Lucia Vesey is like to be as chaff in 
 furnace flame. 
 
 When, by act of Providence, the same fair face which 
 has already stepped between the Englishman and two
 
 2l8 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 unworthy loves, gives him respite in another. The 
 hand of Maria, who is coquetry itself, is playing with! 
 the locks that cluster about his neck. She is laughing: 
 " My fighting troubadour! That's what I'll call you, 
 my little giant." When suddenly her delicate fingers 
 encounter a chain. " 'Tis the talisman last night 
 that you refused to remove before the duel," she 
 murmurs. " I heard account of it from Rosario's 
 lips. Let's see what is thy charm. Is it a piece 
 of the Holy Sepulchre or the True Cross ? " Her 
 hand is dallying with it, when suddenly her eyes that 
 have been trusting, flame with a jealous fire; she cries: 
 " This bauble is a miniature God of my soul, the pic- 
 ture of some lady love! " 
 
 With sudden motion her agile fingers pluck Lucia's 
 portrait from his neck. 
 
 Fortunately the likeness has a cover. Before Maria 
 can open this, Villiers has seized her hand, and though 
 she fights with him and slaps his face with all her dainty 
 might, he holds her at arm's length with his left hand, 
 and, with his right, secures and replaces the picture of 
 his betrothed beneath his doublet. 
 
 " Diavolo, now I know you love her! " screams the 
 royal lady, stamping her little feet, one of which in the 
 struggle is bereft of its tiny slipper. " Forswear ner, 
 or I'll never forgive this insult to my love, and if I ever 
 find her! " Maria's face is such that Villiers knows 
 now, for Lucia's very safety, she must never see the 
 miniature. Quick thought tells him it is best to carry 
 the war into Africa ; he says, sternly : " Why should I 
 eschew all former affections when you have not cast 
 them away? " 
 
 " Don't dare to hint that I do not love you with my 
 whole heart and soul!" cries the princess, reproach
 
 THE FlGfiTlNG TROUBADOtlfc. a 1 9 
 
 in her voice and tears coming into her eyes to make 
 them more alluring. 
 
 " Perhaps within the minute yes ! " mutters Sydney 
 coldly, though his heart is very savage. Maria's vicious 
 slaps have stung not only his cheeks, but his pride. 
 " Cruel one, of whom do you accuse me? " 
 " Of Monsieur le Colonel de Vivans, eh? " jeers the 
 gentleman, then starts aghast; for a flaming blush flies 
 over the fair face, which a moment after grows pale as 
 death, and perhaps as deadly in its malice. 
 
 " That traitorous Metia has betrayed me! " she cries. 
 " For this I'll have the skin whipped off the jade's white 
 back. She has prated till you think me false to you." 
 " The Lady Metia said naught of your amour. I 
 have a quick eye," whispers Villiers, who is frightened 
 at the fate he may have brought upon the girl. " This 
 speaks for itself." 
 
 From beneath a couch where it had been petulantly 
 kicked, though Sydney did not know this, he plucks 
 a military gauntlet, and sneers: "This looks as if it 
 might fit monsieur le colonel, my dear lady?" 
 
 "Ah, you are jealous. Thank God, you are jealous. 
 That proves you love me." 
 
 " I'll never love you unless you apologize to me for 
 the degradation your little hands have brought to me. 
 Being a gentleman, I cannot chastise those pretty 
 cheeks as they deserve. I can only make my bow to a 
 lady who doesn't respect my dignity." 
 
 With these words, which he hopes are an easy retire- 
 ment from a position he knows now he will never ac- 
 cept, Sydney would retire by the secret passage. 
 
 But she has flown to him and caught him at the slid- 
 ing panel, and sobbed : " I'll forgive you when you 
 grant me that miniature that I may destroy the face I
 
 436 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 hate! " and suddenly pauses and mutters: " What noise 
 is that?" 
 
 " Pish, 'tis but the pigeon crying for his mates," 
 says Villiers. 
 
 " As I do cry for you," she begs, despairingly. " Give 
 me that picture, dear one. Let it not stand between 
 us. Give it to me, and you shall strike me in return if 
 it pleases you. Chastise my petulance. I love a man 
 who dominates me. Give me the minx's pert face as 
 proof of your pardon." 
 
 " That I shall never do! " whispers rW gentleman 
 sternly. " I don't ask apologies; I donV, wish " 
 
 " Beware! " Maria'* eyes are flaming like fire opals. 
 
 In this dread moment of his life, Fugene's spy dare 
 not let this lady know he has done with her. Therefore, 
 he jeers in amorous severity : " For thy rebellion, my 
 pretty vixen, you shall sob out your penitence on this 
 breast that bears the picture of your rival. You shall 
 kiss me and know it stands between our beating hearts, 
 You shall " 
 
 But he has made a mistake in the character of Maria 
 Pico. " Santos, you confess I have a rival! " she mut- 
 ters. Then standing with white arm uplifted and blue 
 eyes cold as steel, she whispers: "Another insult and 
 your head will fall, ay, even if mine falls with it! I 
 give you until after the ballet to surrender that picture 
 to my hand. Do that and I shall be as wax to you, for 
 you shall be my fire." For one second her eyes grow 
 tender in an agonized entreaty, but of a sudden she is 
 again a Qytemnestra, and says in voice that is hard as 
 the steel that has again come into her blue orbs: " But 
 if not, remember no slight I bear, without revenge! 
 Go, ponder on it, and know Maria Pico means her 
 word! " then cries to him: " Go, quick! "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 221 
 
 For la marchesa's voice floats in to them from a dis- 
 tant apartment: "Your Highness, your father de- 
 mands audience. I think he wishes to ask whether he 
 should wear pink and gold or blue and silver at to- 
 night's fete." 
 
 " Go, quick! " Maria whispers, " but remember upon 
 your answer hangs more than perhaps you guess," then 
 seizing his hand and fondling it, she sobs : " God forgive 
 you for your cruelty to me." 
 
 A second after she has shut the secret panel upon her 
 retreating gallant and strides away with pale face and 
 trembling lips to give audience to her royal father. 
 
 A moment later, into this chamber now left vacant, 
 Bianca Gonzaga comes. 
 
 After one hurried, suspicious, searching glance, la 
 marchesa glides, serpejit-like, toward the little entrance 
 draped by the curtains. Behind it is a small dressing- 
 room ; in it a girl standing with embroidery frame that 
 has just dropped from her hands, and a bosom beating 
 as if it would burst from the corsage that veils its beau- 
 ties. 
 
 To her she says affably : " Lucia, 'tis strange you have 
 not yet finished your tambour work for me. I hope no 
 one disturbed your labors. But it is time you dressed 
 for the evening's revels." 
 
 To this the girl gives no answer, only moves from 
 the room with slow yet trembling footsteps and a 
 stricken look upon her young face, which shows she 
 has endured the first great agony of a woman's love. 
 
 Gazing after her, Bianca, in devilish glee, thinks: 
 " By Satana, I have broken your heart, my pretty jade! 
 Now for the others whom I hate,"
 
 222 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 VENUS AND THE TROUBADOUR. 
 
 In his own apartment, pondering on Maria's words, 
 Villiers for a moment thinks she means in case he plays 
 not Adonis to her Venus to denounce him to the 
 French. But he shortly reflects that this would prove 
 to De Vivans that she had played double. " The em- 
 peror would never forgive her. Louis XIV. would 
 probably not pardon her. Betwixt the two fires she 
 would not remain long mistress of her little dukedom. 
 The minx would have to hate me very strongly before 
 she would dare do that. Anyway, by heaven, military 
 duty can be hanged when confronted with my love for 
 Lucia." 
 
 Then the instinct of a soldier coming to him, he 
 gazes cautiously and eagerly from the window of his 
 chamber. It commands a view of the bastion nearest 
 the secret tunnel through which the regiment of Star- 
 emberg must gain the ambush of the gardens. Dark- 
 ness is already coming, but he can see that the palace 
 attendants have broached a cask of wine for the 
 French soldiers on duty at this bastion. " So far, la 
 princessa has kept her bargain with Prince Eugene," 
 he thinks. " Sapristi, she has gone too far to dare to 
 break it now." 
 
 The clock in a neighboring church strikes seven. 
 Sitting there, he watches the great palace begin- 
 ning to light up, and its illuminated halls shedding 
 their glows into the darkness of the night. The great 
 windows of the pavilion in which the royal theater is 
 situated arc now ablaze, From them he hears the dis-
 
 thE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 223 
 
 tant hum of the stage mechanics setting the scenery 
 for the princess's ballet. He steps out into the main 
 corridors, which are now bright with a thousand lamps, 
 the lackeys standing at their posts, the pages at their 
 duty, though no guests have yet arrived. Beyond them 
 at the palace entrance he sees that the French sentries 
 have been doubled, though from the babble of the at- 
 tendants in the halls, as he strides through them, he 
 judges that there has been a wild time in the garrison at 
 the citadel with the princess's wine and provender, 
 one of the pages remarking: " The officers will not be 
 here quite yet. They are looking at their soldiers, at 
 their dances and their sports." 
 
 Just then Villiers glances at the great clock in the ves- 
 tibule. Its hands point to ten minutes to eight. He 
 hurriedly goes to his chamber and puts on the poorest 
 suit he has. Under his cloak he buckles on his two 
 big horse pistols that he had brought with him in the 
 goatherd's sack. Examining their primings carefully, 
 he finally replaces them with fresh gunpowder. Then 
 he belts onto his side the blade that had done such 
 good service on the night before. 
 
 Thus equipped, with beating heart and silent steps, 
 he goes along the little passage and down the private 
 stairway that lets him out upon the ducal gardens. 
 These in the darkness, to his delight, he finds deserted. 
 Everyone is in the lighted palace, for even the lackeys 
 are interested in a revelry that will reach the royal but- 
 tery and kitchens. 
 
 With quick tread he at last gains the little kiosk. No 
 one is there. After careful reconnoitering, he lifts up 
 the seat that hides the entrance to the shaft, and cau- 
 tiously in darkness descends to the bottom of it. 
 
 He has a candle in his hand and flint and steel.
 
 424 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Here he will strike a light and see if Teddy's signal is 
 awaiting him. But suddenly his arms are clasped 
 tightly from behind by strong grasp. A big hand is 
 clapped tight over his mouth, a knife flashes before his 
 eyes, and into his ear is whispered: " Speak above a 
 whisper, and you die ! " 
 
 For one instant he thinks it is the end of him, and 
 the affair also; but as the words strike his ear he sud- 
 denly gasps: "Paul Diak; I recognize your voice!" 
 
 " God bless you! And you're Villiers; I know your 
 voice, too. O'Bourke, release him! " 
 
 " Faith and I will. Bedad, yer honor, we feared it 
 was some sneaking Frinch spy coming down." 
 
 " You see," remarks Diak, " your man said he 
 couldn't give you the signals without he had your 
 candles." 
 
 " Pish, any candles would have done." 
 
 " So I thought, but I didn't understand him and 
 deemed it best to come here and wait for you and tell 
 you by word of mouth that all is well." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 " The regiment of Staremberg is already in the wood 
 outside. Our cavalry has captured the only French 
 vidette that had not sneaked in, perhaps against or- 
 ders, to join the revelry in the town. Eugene's army is 
 but two hours' march away, just the other side of the 
 Secchia. They will be at the main gate at the latest by 
 half-past ten o'clock, but will not make any attack or 
 movement until our signal from the Concordia gate. 
 Besides the regiment of Staremberg, six hundred 
 men of Mansfield's are in the wood, immediately be- 
 hind us." 
 
 " The prince, then, got my carrier pigeons."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. *2$ 
 
 " Yes, Palfi, of his staff, killed his horse to overtake 
 him with your messages." 
 
 " Then all goes well. You can begin in half an hour 
 from now, when the first strains of the royal orchestra 
 come floating through the open windows of the ducal 
 theater, to introduce your men into the gardens. How 
 long will it take you to get them in? " 
 
 " At least an hour and a half. You see, only one man 
 at a time can ascend or descend the ladders." 
 
 " That will be soon enough. When the time comes 
 I will myself step into the garden and give the signal to 
 you. Where will you be? " 
 
 " At the head of my men, of course," whispers Diak. 
 " The prince has been so kind as to permit me to lead 
 the attack! " 
 
 " Then I'll meet you in the clump of trees just behind 
 the central fountain. You know the place, O'Bourke." 
 
 " Indeed I do, sir. I know every foot of the blessed 
 town. But did ye meet Umberto? " 
 
 " Umberto is dead." 
 
 " God bless ye. How did ye murder him ? " 
 
 But Diak cuts in: "There is a bastion commands 
 this place. From the wood in the still night I heard 
 the French sentries challenging." 
 
 " Yes, they have three field pieces, but I think are 
 half-drunk with the princess's wine," answers Villiers. 
 " But still if we are discovered before full entry is made 
 our men will certainly be cut off. Four hundred 
 French, I know, are stationed immediately inside the 
 Concordia gate. So adieu till we clasp hands at the 
 fountain. Remember, don't attack until I join you 
 and give the word." With silent greeting Villiers 
 passes up the shaft, his heart that had been heavy beat- 
 ing rapturously.
 
 226 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Ten minutes after he is in his chamber, and, looking 
 placidly at the entry of some lackeys, who, by the or- 
 ders of the high chamberlain, place before him a slight 
 refection. 
 
 Of this the troubadour eats naught, and only drinks 
 a pint of wine, which will clear his voice, for, like most 
 amateurs, Sydney is proud of his attainments, and 
 laughs confidently to himself: " Egad, I'll sing the 
 revenge out of that witch's heart." 
 
 For the soldier part of the affair being arranged to 
 his liking, he has a kind of ambition to shine as min- 
 strel as well as warrior. " Besides, Lucia will listen to 
 me and sneer if my voice breaks," he thinks, and pro- 
 ceeds to his little chamber. There he makes as gor- 
 geous a toilet as ever minstrel made, of doublet of 
 slashed satin and hose whose silk displays each mus- 
 cle of his well-developed limbs. 
 
 He sighs as he has to discard his sword, but his two 
 horse pistols, buckled in a belt round his waist beneath 
 his doublet, are concealed in his large slashed balloon 
 satin trunks. 
 
 He has hardly finished this, when a court official en- 
 ters, bowing to the earth, and says : " Mademoiselle la 
 princessa begs your attendance at the ballet, Sieur 
 Montaldo." 
 
 And following him, he goes on his way to play trou- 
 badour, and, with the noose of a spy around his neck, 
 to sing in the camp of his enemies. 
 
 Directed by the attendant, Villiers soon stands mid 
 a group of the humbler courtiers under the blaze of the 
 myriad of wax lights of the throne room of the ducal 
 palace and watches the royal lady. The princess 
 is seated beside her aged father, the Duke
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 22^ 
 
 Francesco, receiving with regal hauteur and courtly 
 ceremonial the officers of the French garrison. 
 
 These, some eighty of them, are headed by Colonel 
 le Comte de Vivans. Each, in turn, after being wel- 
 comed by the father, sinks on one knee and salutes the 
 fair hand of the daughter. 
 
 Villiers notices De Vivans's moustachios linger very 
 long over the white fingers. " Diable, that military 
 dandy is still begging the little witch for her favor and 
 forgiveness," he sneers. 
 
 He also notices that the sweet little despot's face is 
 very haughty, and that her beautiful eyes give no re- 
 sponse to the ardent glances of the French command- 
 ant. For this evening Maria Pico seems beautiful 
 enough to charm the heart of any man. She is in full 
 court robe of ceremony, whose close-laced bodice out- 
 lines the blended loveliness of a Venus and the grace- 
 ful lines of an Atlanta. From its jeweled radiance 
 spring white arms, dazzling shoulders, and bosom of 
 snow in that generous display which was the fashion 
 of her time. A long train of royal purple velvet, borne 
 by four pages, adds to the dignity of her figure by giv- 
 ing it apparent height. 
 
 Behind her stand six court ladies, each beautiful, 
 though none of them approach the glory of their mis- 
 tress ; for there are no maids of honor present, these 
 are all dressing for the ballet. So Villiers sees not the 
 face he looks for. 
 
 In close attendance on Maria is La Marchesa di Mon- 
 teferrato. A sprinkling of counts, cavaliers, and knights 
 of the little duchy, each in the elaborate French court 
 dress of that period, are headed by the lord high cham- 
 berlain. 
 
 " Hoity toity ! " think.s Villiers, " Mirandola has granr
 
 228 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 deur enough for the court of an empire, and yet but a 
 hundred soldiers in its beggarly army." 
 
 But his reflections are broken in upon by the Duke 
 Francesco excusing himself to his guests on account of 
 failing health, and hoping that they will enjoy a pleas- 
 ant evening at the hands of his daughter, to whom he 
 leaves their care and entertainment. 
 
 The prince being escorted out by his immediate at- 
 tendants, his daughter says: " Here I have not ladies 
 enough to mate you French gentlemen, but we will 
 show you the beauties of my court in the ballet en- 
 titled, ' Venus and the Wandering Troubadour,' in 
 our court theater. There, after you have gazed 
 at our dances, the tables will be brought in and 
 I and my nymphs will descend from the stage to 
 permit you gallants to drink our health at our banquet, 
 when we hope the evening will be to your liking. Mon- 
 sieur le Comte de Vivans, as representative of your 
 great master, Louis XIV., his most Christian majesty 
 of France, will you do me the honor to escort me? " 
 
 Immediately to the strains of sweet music from the 
 grand orchestra, she leaves the throne room for the 
 theater, De Vivians gallantly striding beside her. 
 
 In careful precedence of rank, the assembled ladies 
 and gentlemen file after her. 
 
 As this takes place, a court official touches Villiers 
 on the arm, and murmurs: " Her highness has com- 
 manded your attendance upon the stage, Sieur Trou- 
 badour," and shows him the way behind the wings of 
 the court theater, which, after the manner of that day, 
 has but little scenery, only enough to indicate a lovely 
 rustic scene with high Olympus in the background, 
 upon a stage that slopes quite rapidly from its rear to-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 220 
 
 ward its footlights, though these are hidden, as the 
 curtain now is down. 
 
 The whole is lighted by wax tapers in a hundred 
 candelabra. The heat from these would be excessive, 
 but several windows open at the rear upon the ducal 
 gardens. Taking a peep through one of those the 
 captain's heart beats high; he thinks he perceives in 
 the gloom signs of moving men and the gleam of a 
 bayonet, though the men are very silent and the 
 bayonet gleams but once. 
 
 At the front of the house he hears the audience enter- 
 ing, and a moment later the strains of an opening over- 
 ture come floating in behind the curtain from the royal 
 orchestra. 
 
 The stage is filled with a crowd of aristocratic shep- 
 herds, a bevy of gentle nymphs, with two or three gods 
 and goddesses thrown in. These are chatting with that 
 peculiar envy which seems to always sway, behind the 
 footlights, both amateur and professional. 
 
 " Sapristi," says a gentleman habited as a shepherd, 
 " if the Baron di Rivoli, who plays the god Mercury, 
 puts so much white paint upon his face, the audience 
 will indeed think him supernatural." 
 
 " Violetta," whispers a nymph of extremely short 
 skirts, " have I rouge enough upon my lips? " 
 
 " You had enough," whispers Violetta, roguishly, 
 " until that handsome Jupiter kissed you behind the 
 scenes." 
 
 "Ah, then you had better put on more also," retorts 
 the kissed one, " or else your French captain, who is 
 sitting in the audience, may think you not as beau- 
 tiful as you'd like." 
 
 During this time Villiers, though he uses his eyes 
 very well, catches no sight of his divinity, neither of
 
 236 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 pretty Metia, and wonders at it, for Lucia is to trip in 
 the minuet and Metia is to dance the polka of Hun- 
 gary. 
 
 Just here Bianca, robed as Juno, comes upon the 
 stage in regal loveliness, a flush of triumph on her 
 spirituelle face. To Tessa Pasquale, she orders haugh- 
 tily : " Ballet woman, the Princess will soon be here, 
 so quick, get your procession ready,'' and passes su- 
 perciliously on. 
 
 " Sapristi" murmurs Giacomo to his sister, " what a 
 magnificent figure to head a march of Amazons, though 
 slightly passe for regular training." 
 
 " Diavolo, she would be superb," mutters Tessa. 
 " How I'd like to have Madame Haughty under my 
 thumb ! I'd soon make her languid joints as supple as 
 a contortionist's. I'd make her proud limbs 
 
 But here a hush falls upon the company. The Prin- 
 cess of Mirandola is standing by the abashed ballet- 
 mistress laughing at her words. Glancing at Bianca's 
 imperious beauty, she giggles as if a very roguish idea 
 had struck her mischievous brain. 
 
 Maria has replaced her jeweled corsage and long 
 court train of regal purple velvet by a white gossamer 
 floating thing, which permits each line of her lithe, 
 graceful figure to show in willowy loveliness. Its 
 spangled train she has gathered over one of her white 
 arms. For the artful minx knows that she is more 
 graceful, lightly robed than in stiff and courtly 
 stomacher. 
 
 Her eyes blaze as she whispers into Villiers's ear: 
 " Sweet troubadour, here's where you kneel at my feet 
 and look your love." She sinks into the throne of 
 Venus, which occupies the center of the stage, but is
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 23! 
 
 almost at the rear of it. " Here take your pose that 
 you may know it at proper time." 
 
 And he, obeying her, she whispers: " You have re- 
 pented. Dieu merci, I can see it by your eyes." For 
 despite himself at near sight of her loveliness, Vil- 
 liers's eyes have lighted up, as would any man's; for 
 her perfumed hair is trailing over his cheek and min- 
 gling with his locks, and he can feel her heart throb- 
 bing against his shoulder. 
 
 " You have only to sit and look at me while my 
 ladies and courtiers dance, and at my signal and to my 
 guitar you will sing as if you loved me," she whispers. 
 Then she claps her hands, and, raising her voice, de- 
 mands: " Master of the stage, is all prepared?" 
 
 " Yes, your Highness," answers that official, bow- 
 ing till she can see the back of his periwig. 
 
 Attended by her troubadour, she sweeps from the 
 stage and orders that the spectacle begin. A moment 
 after nymphs and satyrs, and shepherds and shep- 
 herdesses having proper poses and groupings, the 
 hammer taps and the curtain rises. 
 
 From behind the scenes the troubadour gazes 
 u^on his enemies of the French garrison mixed with 
 court ladies and officials of the duke, as mid crash of 
 orchestra the ballet of " Venus and the Troubadour " 
 begins. 
 
 It opens with a march of shepherds bearing fruits 
 and flowers, singing the glories of Mount Ida. Next 
 comes the royal entry. 
 
 "Attend me, sir," the princess whispers to Villiers, 
 " a lit fie at my right hand following my train." 
 
 Th'/r; to the march of Pasquale the procession 
 of Venus enters upon the stage, headed by four royal 
 trumpeters clad in scarlet huntsmen's coats; next come
 
 2J2 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 a bevy of nymphs strewing flowers before Maria Pico, 
 who enters as Venus, her gauzy train spangled all o'er 
 with gold, which floats to royal length behind her, the 
 same being supported by four roguish little boys as 
 Cupids, clothed only in fleshings, and having silvered 
 wings upon their shoulders and bows and arrows in 
 their hands. 
 
 Behind her walks the troubadour, carrying her 
 guitar. Then come the gods and goddesses of high 
 Olympus, all properly and discreetly mated, husband 
 and wife, a strapping nobleman as Jupiter, with the 
 stately marchesa, whose superb figure gives a majesty 
 to Juno leading them, though Vulcan bringing up the 
 rear and striding alone, his hammer over his shoulder, 
 is looking jealously at the troubadour. 
 
 Four maidens robed as Hebes, bearing wine in 
 golden goblets for the princess's refreshment while she 
 is on the stage, follow after. 
 
 The princess and attendants, after marching twice 
 round the scene, take their appointed places, Venus 
 sitting on the throne and giving the troubadour a sign 
 to throw himself at her little feet that are covered with 
 pearl embroidered satin slippers. 
 
 She waves her hand and the dances begin. A bevy 
 of wood nymphs flit o'er the stage. This is followed by 
 a sarabande tripped by two maids of honor, the 'adies 
 Floretta and Giulia, whose fair forms float in this 
 graceful dance to the rhythm of softly played lutes and 
 hautboys. 
 
 Then takes place the Minuet de la Cour, with six 
 noble demoiselles in robes of brocade, and six gentle- 
 men pages in slashed velvet doublets and hose of violet 
 silk, who tread the courtly measures to the melodies of 
 LulJi,
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 233 
 
 In it for the first time this night Villiers sees his 
 sweetheart and betrothed. In simple white satin, above 
 which her shoulders and bosom gleam like polished 
 marble, and with a face as white as marble also, the 
 Lady Lucia treads the measures with a courtly grace. 
 Her eyes seem gems set in alabaster, but their gleams 
 at times seem to be veiled with tears. 
 
 " Hang it," thinks her sweetheart, " the music has 
 got into her emotional soul." For his sweetheart's face 
 as she sees him reclining at the princess's feet has 
 sometimes a sorrow, sometimes an agony upon it. 
 
 " Pardic, my Lucia's satin slippers must be teasing 
 her, her face seems so unhappy. Tis strange she 
 pinches them, her feet are like Cinderella's," giggles 
 Maria to her troubadour. 
 
 But Villiers snarls to himself: " By heaven, some 
 one has been cruel to my darling. If it is Bianca, when 
 this affair is over ," and watches his divinity, little 
 thinking it is the wrong he has done her that is break- 
 ing her tender heart. But the dance being ended, with 
 one reproachful glance she glides from the stage. 
 
 The applause at this divertisement has scarcely 
 ceased, when Maria gives her signal. After tuning her 
 guitar, Villiers sinks upon one knee and presents it to 
 the royal lady, and to the princess's accompaniment 
 sings his first amorous song, some wild Tuscan coup- 
 lets in appoggiaturas, trills, and cadences. Happy in 
 the voice of his youth, fired by the music of the soft 
 cadenzas, despite himself, Sydney looks love at Maria, 
 and her eyes answer him. 
 
 As his last note strikes the air there are great bravas 
 and hand clappings, even from the ladies and gentle- 
 men on the stage. Villiers thinks they must be for
 
 234 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 la princessa's guitar playing. All courtiers applaud a 
 royal artist. 
 
 But Venus herself taps him with her fan, leading the 
 applause, which comes echoed back from the audi- 
 ence. Bending to him, she places her white hand 
 upon his shoulder and whispers : " Bravo, my sweet 
 troubadour and shepherd boy combined. Sing again, 
 and let your dear eyes look as they did at me before." 
 
 So the Englishman once more lets loose his voice in 
 melody, and, feeling proud of his returning powers, 
 makes greater hit than before with the princess, whose 
 blue eyes close in ecstasy and grow soft with thought 
 of reciprocated passion. 
 
 But even as she gazes at him, Villiers notices that 
 Maria's eyes change from soft to threatening. They 
 are not upon him now, but on the trembling Lady 
 Metia, who has entered modestly to dance the polka of 
 Hungary before her royal mistress. 
 
 At first he guesses la princessa must be jealous of 
 the beauty of her maid of honor, for agitation seems to 
 lend new loveliness to the girl as she stands posed to 
 make her bounds, the orchestra playing the prelude 
 to her dance. 
 
 For one moment he thinks the maid is o'erpowered 
 by bashful modesty; that being exposed in the light 
 gauzes of a sylph to the gazes of a crowd have made 
 the gentle figurante so bashful that her exhibition is a 
 torment; for Metia has been robed for this performance 
 by the costumer of the ducal theater, and he has dis- 
 played her beauties with an artist's hand yet liberally. 
 
 Her neck and bosom of dazzling white rise over a 
 corsage of silver gauzes as if floating in a cloud, from 
 which her white arms, bare to her dimpled shoulders, 
 wave to the rhythm of th music. From lithe waist to
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 235 
 
 graceful knees her skirts of tulle of varying colors 
 make a rainbow, from out of which escape limbs 
 superb in proportion, yet graceful as a fawn's, encased 
 in stockings of transparent web. Upon her little feet 
 are slippers of the dance sandaled by satin ribbons 
 high up upon her delicate ankles. 
 
 But Metia's face now startles the gazing troubadour, 
 for he sees it is no fright of stage, but some o'erpower- 
 ing terror of life, perchance even death, that makes the 
 girl dance as if the sword of Damocles were hanging 
 over her fair tresses. 
 
 Her face grows agonized; her beautiful eyes are 
 raised as if in appeal to heaven. At each circle of the 
 polka, even as she tosses her dazzling limbs in air, her 
 imploring glances seek the royal face, whose threaten- 
 ing stare seems to drive the flying Metia to despairing 
 efforts. Her feet fly faster and faster, the flesh tints of 
 her graceful limbs flashing under the wax lights of the 
 scene, until as if hoping by the vigor and elan of her 
 dance and her success upon the stage to win the royal 
 favor, she sinks kneeling at the foot of her royal mis- 
 tress, whose eyes look upon her with the fixed cold 
 stare of a Medusa, and seem to have a Medusa effect 
 upon the trembling figurante. 
 
 " You know your fate to-morrow," whispers the 
 princess with an icy menace. 
 
 Even as the applause breaks forth from the audi- 
 ence, Metia rises, and, with a helpless sigh, staggers 
 off the scene, and, though they demand her, makes no 
 reappearance. A moment more and Zambo, the court 
 fool, comes forth to do his comic punchinello dance 
 with his unfortunate wife, pert little Gianetta de Per- 
 siani, a maid of honor. At her imploring appeals, 
 made soubrette fashion, for the clown's love, which are
 
 236 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 resisted haughtily by the acrobatic Zambo, who throws 
 a back somersault each time she falls upon her knees 
 before him, the audience bursts into guffaws. Then 
 the fixed unforgiving glance of la princessa, that has 
 followed the retiring Metia, gives way to roguish 
 merriment. She laughs : " Bravo, Zambo ! Idiot 
 clown, do somersaults again!" Which the court fool 
 does until the audience throw him money, for he is not 
 of noble birth, and gathers up their douceurs eagerly. 
 
 The next instant there is a fandango of shepherds and 
 shepherdesses, and as this finishes Venus descends 
 from her throne to be escorted in triumph from the 
 stage; the curtain falling on her exit. 
 
 Turning cruel eyes about, she commands: " Where 
 is Metia?" 
 
 But her maid of honor answers not the summons. 
 
 " However, it does not matter much," she remarks. 
 " Marchesa, you have my orders as to the lady." 
 
 " Yes, your Highness," answers the mistress of the 
 maids, making obeisance. 
 
 Suddenly the little witch of varying impulses says af- 
 fably : " The affair, I think, pleased our guests. Mas- 
 ter of the stage, your scene was beautiful. Your lights 
 unexceptionable. You and your men shall partake of 
 wine and refreshments in the buttery. It is already 
 ordered, you can retire to it." 
 
 Then to the troubadour she speaks: " Thanks, Sieur 
 Montaldo, for the glories of your voice. You will do 
 me the favor of singing at the royal banquet the coup- 
 lets of Filicaria." 
 
 " Your Highness's commands are my law," answers 
 Villiers, bowing to the stage. 
 
 " Thank God," she whispers to him. 
 
 Then all the scene men having left the stage, she
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 237 
 
 commands the ladies and the company that they make 
 ready for the banquet. 
 
 Les coulisses are soon deserted, though the Mar- 
 chesa di Monteferrato is still in attendance. " Remain 
 here, Bianca, and see we are not interrupted," Maria di- 
 rects, and leads Villiers to the rear of the stage. 
 
 Secluded by the set piece of Mount Ida, she whispers 
 to him: " Now, Dicu nierci, I have won in Cupid's 
 war. Give me the miniature of my rival." 
 
 To surrender anyone to her vengeance, after he has 
 seen the terror of the lovely Metia, would be a dastard 
 act. Should the princess get one glance of Lucia's face 
 Villiers knows his adored will be in danger. 
 
 He says haughtily : " Any other request, your 
 Highness, but I pray you not that one." 
 
 " You shan't refuse me ! " she cries petulantly. " I'll 
 have no half-love, Signer Troubadour. I want all 
 your heart. Give me each throb and I'll make you 
 happier than you ever dreamt you'd be. Besides, the 
 rank," her voice is very low now, " Eugene must give 
 you for this affair, I'll make you a princess's consort. 
 That portrait! give it to me that I may know that none 
 stand between my heart and yours," she begs him, 
 with soft pleading words. 
 
 But he says: "Any other favor, save that." 
 
 " You must! You shall! You're mine, and I will 
 have it." 
 
 " Never! " 
 
 " Beware ! " A little threatening is coming into the 
 despot's pleading tone. " Give me that accursed face, 
 that I may grind it under my heel." 
 
 " That you shall never do." 
 
 " You defy me? " 
 
 (< No, your Highness ; but I refuse you."
 
 238 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 "Think! More than I have said may hang upon 
 your words." Her eyes are steely now. " It is your 
 last chance. Remember, Maria Pico pleads but once! 
 Think! Think!" 
 
 " Of what? " 
 
 " Of those men out there! " 
 
 " Good God ! " 
 
 She points through the open windows, and Villiers, 
 following her hand, knows that a portion of the regi- 
 ment of Staremberg are already concealed in the 
 shrubberies of the gardens, he sees the bushes swayed 
 by moving men. " Don't drive me to madness. Those 
 men cut off and surprised are dead men. There is a 
 French gallant who can be kind to me if you are not. 
 One word to De Vivans and those men die." 
 
 " Pish, you dare not. Prince Eugene would never 
 forgive." 
 
 " Prince Eugene would never know, save that his 
 plan had failed, and that his men were massacred. 
 Would you be alive to tell him? " she says in awful jeer, 
 then suddenly gasps, tremblingly : " No, no ! Of course, 
 I meant it not ! " 
 
 For at the cool logic of this devilish insinuation the 
 troubadour's jeweled stiletto flashes over her. With 
 one strong hand he has seized her white throat, and 
 holds Maria helpless. 
 
 " Would you poniard me," she gasps, her face pale 
 as the death that threatens it. 
 
 " Yes to save those men." His tone proclaims her 
 life hangs on a thread. 
 
 " That would not save them," she falters, for his hand 
 is very firm upon her. " The outcry of my death would 
 come too soon. Surprised before they have force 
 enough, th? men already in the garden are dead men.
 
 tHE FIGHTING TROUBADOUfc. 239 
 
 Besides, you didn't think for slighted love I'd I'd be 
 such a fiend, my Sydney? " 
 
 " Still, swear to be true to our cause by even the cross 
 of Christ," mutters the man, " or you die." 
 
 " Of course. I'll swear by by anything you wish, 
 even the crucifix ! " For he has forced the cross 
 of his poniard to her lips. " Besides, my my love for 
 you shall not be so exigent. Why should I be jealous 
 of a portrait ? " she prattles, attempting a smile, for 
 at her oath he has released her. " It is that jade, Metia, 
 she who slandered me about the French commandant's 
 wooing. But that traitoress knows her fate. I'll teach 
 her to malign me to the man I love most in all this 
 world. Come, sing at my banquet, dear one, till we sur- 
 prise De Vivans." She presses hot lips to his face 
 which is turned from her. " My absence will be noted. 
 Join me after decent interval, and after the banquet, 
 when you are in my arms, I'll woo that picture from 
 you." 
 
 " You need not woo my picture from him, your 
 Highness," says a voice so sadly sweet, that it makes 
 Villiers start and tremble, and his face grow agonized. 
 
 " My God! Lucia! " he gasps. 
 
 For coming from behind side scene, where she had 
 sat in silent misery, is the fair form of the woman he 
 loves. She now stands beside her royal mistress, and 
 says to him : " My picture, sir. Thou art not worthy 
 to wear it. I'll keep it till I find a truer heart than 
 thine to let it rest upon." 
 
 " Diavolo! This is the woman you love!" screams 
 the princess. " O mother of God, I have the right one 
 now! Your mistress! " 
 
 " By heaven, no." 
 
 " The Lady Lucia brought to my court to jeer me ! "
 
 340 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 and before Villiers, who has been crushed by this hor- 
 rible denouement, has presence of mind enough to 
 drive his poniard into her false heart, Maria Pico has, 
 with quick steps, fled to the door leading from the stage. 
 
 Here, turning blazing eyes upon her victim, she says, 
 hoarsely and with strange significance: " But you are 
 still my troubadour ! I shall take measures that you do 
 not leave my palace until you sing for me at my ban- 
 quet ! " The next second, followed by Bianca, whose 
 face is lighted by the joys of Satan, the princess has 
 stepped from behind the scenes and into the halls of the 
 revellers. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TRAPPED AT THE BANQUET. 
 
 Quick as thought Villiers steps to the open window 
 to give the signal to the troops in the garden. The last 
 glance of Maria's face has shown him the eyes of a 
 serpent, but looking cautiously out, the spy sees with 
 a sigh there are not yet enough men to do the work; 
 they have to be brought in so slowly and carefully to 
 avoid alarming the French troops at the nearby bas- 
 tion. 
 
 "My picture, please!" The soft voice of Lucia 
 Vesey is commanding. 
 
 " My heaven, you don't understand." 
 " Perhaps not all, but I guess enough. Good-by." 
 She would go from him, for he has silently handed 
 her the miniature, but suddenly his hand is on her arm: 
 " You don't know to what danger you are going," he 
 says, hastily. " There are daggers in Italian courts. 
 Her eyes meant murder to some one. By heaven, it 
 shall not be you."
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 241 
 
 " Unhand me, sir." 
 
 " I've promised your father to guard you." 
 
 " How have you done it? " she sighs. " Broken my 
 heart!" 
 
 " Still I'll guard you. Your father's words, you 
 read them, gave me authority over you. Whether you 
 love me or love me not, still I must save you from a 
 woman who will stop not even at death. Wait here till 
 I can save you, and save the men out in that garden 
 whom I have perhaps murdered." 
 
 There is an agony in his voice. He is about to run 
 out to follow Maria, to implore her to forgive him, to 
 make dastard of himself to save the brave men who will 
 be cut off if Maria opens her lips to De Vivans. But 
 now a low despairing sigh floats to them from behind 
 a little pile of unused stage paraphernalia. 
 
 "Some one overheard!" falters Lucia. 
 
 " Then he must not live to take his news to the 
 French commander," mutters Villiers. 
 
 Stiletto in hand, he steps cautiously toward the 
 sound that startled them. Bending over, he looks be- 
 hind the scenery. The figure of a despairing Niobe 
 greets his eyes. It is the Lady Metia. The girl has 
 thrown herself upon her face. Beneath the blaze of 
 wax lights her sculptured limbs look marble, being ex- 
 tended in a kind of shuddering abandon, as if hope 
 had left her. 
 
 At his step she starts up, and would sweep past him, 
 but he stops her. Choking down a sigh and wiping 
 away a tear, she says, in haughty reproach : " I pray 
 you leave me, signore. You have already done me 
 hurt enough with my mistress." 
 
 "You overheard?" he whispers. 
 
 " Yes, but I was told of my fate before I danced.
 
 24* THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 La princessa accuses me of having revealed her amour 
 with the French commandant to you. For that I have 
 been condemned." 
 
 " To what? " asks Villiers. 
 
 But a shudder only answers him. 
 
 " No, don't tell me," whispers Sydney, for he re- 
 members the cruel threat Maria had made that after- 
 noon. 
 
 " It is not for my tongue I am to be punished," re- 
 marks the girl bitterly, " but because my royal lady 
 thinks you have turned an amorous eye upon me." 
 
 "Oh, heaven! Two mistresses, and you my be- 
 trothed! " moans Lucia, and sinks down upon a stage 
 bench. But Villiers, after one heartbroken glance, turns 
 his attention to the other. 
 
 " By heaven, no word of mine, Lady Metia, has 
 brought you to this pass," he mutters, hoarsely. 
 
 " That doesn't matter to a jealous mind like hers. It 
 is enough that she suspects. For that I must suffer, 
 you and five hundred brave men must die," falters 
 Metia, with a despairing sigh. 
 
 " Do you believe she dare do this fiendish thing, after 
 making proffer to Prince Eugene?" 
 
 " I know she will! You saw her eyes as she left 
 you. To-morrow she may be sorry, that is her way, 
 fand cry over your dead body. But to-night Maria will 
 betray you, by every drop of her wayward blood." 
 
 " Then," says the Englishman, shortly, " there is but 
 one chance for you, my girl, to escape your punish- 
 ment, for me to escape my doom, for you to save the 
 lives of those brave men she would betray in 
 yonder garden. Have you the courage to do my bid- 
 ding? " 
 
 " Try me! " whispers Metia. " Try me! "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 243 
 
 " Then mark me. You are not expected at the ban- 
 quet? " 
 
 At this the girl gives a little shuddering jeer, and 
 mutters: " No, I am to be imprisoned. Even now the 
 princess's tire women are looking for me to lock me 
 tightly up in a garret cell." 
 
 " Then, while you are free, do this for yourself and 
 humanity. Slip out you know the way, by the private 
 staircase that leads to my apartments through it into 
 the garden. There ask the first German soldier that 
 you meet to show you immediately to Colonel Paul 
 Diak. Give him the words of the night, 'England and 
 Austria,' so that he may believe you. Tell him as he 
 hopes to see his friend Villiers alive, he must immedi- 
 ately put a strong detachment into this theater quietly 
 by these windows. The garden ladders are long 
 enough for this low story. Also he must send force 
 enough to secure the main stairway of the palace, and 
 cut off the retreat of the French officers. Show Diak 
 the private entrance by which I entered. He must 
 introduce the second detachment that way." 
 
 " Why not by the nearer doors of the pavilion ? " 
 asks the girl, by her speech showing her quick mind 
 has grasped the military situation. 
 
 " Because," answers Villiers, " if your royal mistress 
 means treachery, those pavilion doors will be already 
 closed and barred, though she promised they would be 
 open. Now quick, before la marchesa or the head 
 chamber woman see you." 
 
 With resolve in her eyes, Metia is flying toward the 
 stage entrance, but suddenly pauses and falters : " Too 
 late! " and Villiers utters a despairing groan, for stand- 
 ing before the girl upon whose message depend so 
 many lives are four women in the uniform of the prim
 
 244 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 cess's chamber. One of them says, in sorrowful com- 
 mand: " Lady Metia, we have orders for you." 
 
 A second after, two women clasp the girl's white 
 hands in theirs and lead her, shuddering, away. 
 
 " By heaven, those men in the garden are murdered 
 because I wouldn't be the princess's paramour," shud- 
 ders Villiers, turning to spring from the window. 
 What's a broken leg or even death if he with his dying 
 breath can give his comrades warning? 
 
 He is preparing for his desperate leap, when there 
 is a light touch upon his shoulder and a sweet voice 
 whispers to him: " I'll take the message. I know the 
 palace well. I've seen the private entrance to the gar- 
 dens." 
 
 " God bless you! For my sake? " 
 
 " Not for yours! My father may be with those be- 
 trayed men within the gardens. Dost think I'll stand 
 here and let him die! " answers Lucia, her eyes ablaze. 
 
 "Then quick! You heard the password to give to 
 the German soldier, ' England and Austria.' If you suc- 
 ceed in delivering your message and are willing to do me 
 another service, pass unobserved into the upper gallery 
 of the theater and sing for me one high note, and it 
 may save my life." 
 
 Thinking this may be the last of her, he would take 
 her in his arms, but she breaks shudderingly from 
 him, and flies with quick step away, leaving him alone 
 upon the deserted stage, whose lights are still burning 
 bravely, the scenic attendants being all now busy in the 
 princess's kitchen with their royal mistress's drink and 
 food. 
 
 Lingering here for some minutes, all the time he 
 dare, Villiers approaches the stage entrance, and, pass- 
 ing out, coolly locks the (Joor and pockets the key.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 245 
 
 but starts while doing so, for he sees a few French offi- 
 cers loitering near, and the glance a captain gives a 
 lieutenant indicates they have an eye upon him. 
 
 A bowing lackey says: " Her highness, the Princess 
 of Mirandola, commands her troubadour, the Sieur 
 Montaldo's, attendance at her banquet." 
 
 " I am at her highness's orders," mutters Sydney, 
 trying to keep his nerves well controlled, for he knows 
 that if this affair goes badly, within the hour he will be 
 swinging from the battlements. 
 
 He nonchalantly strolls toward the main entrance of 
 the theater. Casting one glance down a side stairway 
 toward the garden door of the pavilion, he knows he is 
 betrayed; for this is being barricaded quietly, and al- 
 ready a guard, made up hastily of sentries gathered 
 from other parts of the palace, bar all entrance from 
 the garden. 
 
 " By heaven, that demon has told the French com- 
 mandant," he thinks. " She is the murderess of those 
 brave men already in the ducal gardens, who, lured 
 there by her diplomacy, will now be cut off and put to 
 the sword. Killed because her miserable vanity has 
 received a rebuff! " he shudders, then cogitates sav- 
 agely : " But I, who have brought these poor devils 
 to their strait, will save them or die with them." 
 
 With this resolve he enters the little theater. In 
 fact, he apparently has no choice in this matter, for 
 great care seems to be taken that the troubadour slips 
 not away. Three French officers are sauntering in 
 front of him. Four more stout lieutenants are loung- 
 ing behind him, all of their eyes suspiciously upon him. 
 
 Of this he appears to take no notice. This may be 
 but an accident, but, in any event, he knows the spy
 
 $46 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 must now play only the troubadour if he wishes to save 
 the trapped men in the garden. 
 
 In the theater from whose pit the chairs have been 
 removed two long tables are spread. Around these 
 the French officers are seated. The lackeys are al- 
 ready bearing away the first courses of the ban- 
 quet. 
 
 At the head of the first is seated as hostess the Prin- 
 cess Maria Pico, looking still the queen of love as she 
 did upon the stage. 
 
 At her right hand, the post of honor, is Colonel le 
 Comte de Vivans; below him, according to military 
 precedent, are ranged the principal officers of the gar- 
 rison. Between each of these officers is placed a court 
 beauty, robed as she danced in the ballet. Henri de 
 Pasteur, colonel of the regiment of Picardy, is seated 
 at its foot. This table is nearest the stage, the orches- 
 tra having been removed to the gallery, in which they 
 are now discoursing the melodies of Lulli, Scarlatti, 
 and Cavalli. 
 
 At the second table, which is nearest the main doors, 
 are the under officers of the garrison, the senior 
 captain of De Vivans's sitting at its head, he being 
 faced at its foot by a captain of the regiment of Picardy; 
 between them thirty or forty lieutenants and ensigns. 
 
 The feast is going merrily on. Already the first 
 courses have been devoured. Quail from the hills 
 about Mount Cimone are just being placed before the 
 guests, and champagne, bottled after the new fashion 
 with strong corks that pop when opened, sparkles as it 
 is drunk from crystal Venetian goblets. Flowers have 
 been thrown upon the tables, myrtles, laurels, the blos- 
 soms of orange, pink oleanders, and roses from the 
 royal conservatories.
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 247 
 
 " Come hither, troubadour," commands the princess. 
 " Come and sing for us." 
 
 " Yes," cries De Vivans, harshly. " Jongleur, come 
 here. We want you. You do not leave this banquet 
 till the end." There is a kind of sneering triumph in 
 the colonel's voice that tells the spy he is discovered. 
 
 " Till the end," he thinks. And, bowing to the earth, 
 murmurs humbly: " Would you like Chiabera's song 
 of the victories of the Tuscan galleys over the pirates 
 of the Mediterranean, or Filicaria's couplet of Venice 
 besieged by the Ottomans ? " 
 
 " Tune my guitar and sing Filicaria's glorious song. 
 It's got more love in it ! " laughs Maria, archly. 
 
 Sitting down, he brings the instrument to proper 
 pitch, yet notes as he does so some word must have 
 been passed among the officers, for they drink but 
 little, passing the bottle quietly, and every now and 
 then a captain or lieutenant, after some whispered 
 words from De Vivans, passes carelessly out of the 
 doors. As these open for them, Villiers sees a detail 
 of the soldiers of the garrison are at its entrance the 
 jaws of death are yawning for the spy. 
 
 " Sing for us, troubadour," commands the princess. 
 " Sing, boy, sing! " Her tone is haughty; her address 
 careless. 
 
 Villiers has little hope now. Women of her tem- 
 perament seldom slur the object of their hate until 
 he's helpless. 
 
 " I'll sing for your Highness," he assents, " but with 
 your permission I crave a glass of champagne to give 
 my voice the elan that it should possess to do its duty 
 to these, thy guests." 
 
 " Here, drink my wine," cries Maria; ihe siren 
 laughs in his face, and hands him the royaJ goblet;
 
 348 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 though her eyes can't help telling her victim that, like 
 the swan's song, it shall be his last. 
 
 " As you sing, troubadour, we will pass the loving 
 cup," remarks Colonel de Vivans, and, picking up the 
 great tankard of Benvenuto Cellini filled with some 
 gallons of generous Burgundy, he quaffs and sends the 
 silver vase down the table. 
 
 This loving cup seems to be some signal. The ofrU 
 cers, after drinking, remain standing, and some stout 
 captains and lieutenants draw gradually near their 
 commander and the troubadour. 
 
 There is an unholy triumph in the French colonel's 
 eyes, for, after he has destroyed the men of Prince 
 Eugene assembling in the gardens and seized the spy 
 she hates, Maria has promised him, because he gives 
 her treachery to the French pardon, she will again, this 
 night, enter his arms and be his leman. Now he only 
 waits till the citadel has sent him force sufficient to cut 
 off and butcher the hapless regiment of Staremberg 
 then he will strike! 
 
 Therefore, De Vivans is playing with his victim, and 
 the royal lady is playing with her victim, as their prey 
 is now singing to them a sweet song that he guesses 
 must be his last. 
 
 It is the couplet of Filicaria of the wars of Turks 
 and Venice, and tells of battle and of blood, of love and 
 lust, and beautiful women carried to the harems of the 
 Turks, and warriors dying to save their sweethearts 
 from the infidel. 
 
 Listening to this from the rear of the great balconv. 
 old Pasquale murmurs to himself: " Pest! My pupil is 
 not doing me justice. Hang it, he slurs a high note 
 every now and then." 
 
 For in truth, Villiers finds singing with his heart in
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 249 
 
 his mouth is not so easy an accomplishment. Still he 
 goes bravely on, and begins the last dread stanza, a 
 weird mixture of love and death. 
 
 The loving cup is placed before him, nearly empty 
 now. About him are gathering four strong sub-offi- 
 cers, who bear him no love for having killed their fel- 
 low the night before. He thinks he hears the distant 
 roll of drums. The commandant's hand is gradually 
 going nearer to his sword hilt. The princess's eyes 
 flame like fire opals. It is the last cadenza ! 
 
 As the troubadour reaches the high closing notes, all 
 start astonished at the marvelous melody that joins 
 his voice. For from the distant gallery a woman's 
 tones float pure as pearls,, brilliant as diamonds in the 
 air, in sweet trills and marvelous appoggiaturas. 
 
 Then hope makes Villiers's voice a clarion. He 
 sings like one inspired, and, joining the glorious 
 melody with the last high note floating strong, clear, 
 and resonant on his lips, the troubadour, as he takes 
 his ut de poitrine, seizes the great loving cup of Ben- 
 venuto Cellini, and with it brains De Vivans as he 
 stands by the princess's side. 
 
 At this there is a shriek from the ladies. The ban- 
 quet is in confusion. The officers spring toward him. 
 
 But turning, Villiers springs for life onto the stage. 
 For there at the worst he can throw himself through 
 the open windows. The French with a roar of rage are 
 close behind him. If he had a hundred lives they'd 
 have them all. But he has drawn both his big horse 
 pistols and cries: "Back!" 
 
 Then he gasps in astonishment, as they do all. For 
 an Irish voice is crying: " Begad, up with the rag! " 
 And the green curtain flies up to show such stage tab- 
 leau as was never seen by affrighted audience before.
 
 250 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Three hundred soldiers of Staremberg's regiment 
 with muskets primed, cocked, and leveled, tier on tier 
 occupy the mount of High Olympus, facing the af- 
 frighted banqueters. 
 
 The voice of Colonel Diak cries: "Surrender, 
 French, we have ye!" 
 
 The court beauties have fled screaming from the 
 tables, and are huddled up at the back of the theater. 
 The musicians are flying from the balcony. There is a 
 rattle of musketry outside. The French sentries are 
 driven from the main doors, and the soldiers of Eugene 
 come rushing in to the pit of the theater from the great 
 stairway. 
 
 Over this rings the voice of the Cleopatra of the 
 feast, though her lips tremble pale as a ghost's: " Cap- 
 tain Villiers, I charge you as a man and a gentleman 
 to tell your master, Prince Eugene, I kept my word 
 and gave this fortress to you." 
 
 Turning to her the troubadour, who is a soldier now, 
 laughs a ghastly laugh, and says: "Ask there your 
 paramour. He'd tell how true you were, Jezebel, but 
 he's dead." 
 
 " Surrender your swords, gentlemen of France," 
 cries Diak. " It's no disgrace when you haven't even 
 a fighting chance. Quick, throw them down before we 
 break your ladies' hearts by killing you before their 
 faces." 
 
 After one quick glance about him, both to the front 
 and rear, and seeing they are sure cut off, Henri de 
 Pasteur, noting that four of his officers who have tried 
 the main entrance of the theater are already bay- 
 oneted, sullenly holds out his sword to Diak, and at 
 his command the others throw down their weapons. 
 
 " No, Monsieur le Colonel," cries the generous sol-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 251 
 
 dier of fortune, " hand it to Villiers here. He won this 
 night." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A FIGHTER, BUT NO MORE A TROUBADOUR. 
 
 But Sydney has other work to do. Something in 
 la princessa's eyes makes him know he has to do it 
 quickly. The regal lady has cried : " Room for the 
 Princess of Mirandola," and would pass through the 
 German troops, who salute her deferentially, for roy- 
 alty in those days was bowed down to. 
 
 " I pray you, Diak," he implores, whisperingly; 
 " arrest the princess at once. Otherwise she will make 
 sacrifice of her maid of honor who brought you here 
 in time." 
 
 " Good God! poor Vesey's daughter. She said she 
 thought her father was among us. I didn't dare tell 
 her he was dead," whispers the Swedish soldier, and 
 springs off the stage, followed by Villiers. Making 
 his way to the princess, he lays deferential hand upon 
 the royal arm before she reaches the entrance of the 
 theater. Bowing to her, he says: "Your Highness 
 must permit me to conduct you to your chamber. 
 There you must remain until I have further orders 
 from Prince Eugene." 
 
 " You would dare arrest me in my own palace? " 
 cries Maria, her eyes flashing. 
 
 " On such a night as this, most certainly, your High- 
 ness." 
 
 "Ah, 'tis your prattling, my boy poppinjay," she 
 cries to Villiers, " which has brought me to this pass." 
 
 Then, giving the Englishman a glance sharp as a
 
 252 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 stiletto, she places her pretty hand coquettishly upon 
 Paul Diak's strong arm, and, looking up into his face, 
 murmurs: " Dieu mcrci, at least Eugene is now repre- 
 sented by a gentleman of height sufficient for me to 
 consider him a man." For De Vivans being dead 
 and Villiers lost to her, the royal minx is already look- 
 ing for another gallant. 
 
 To this Diak laughs: "Egad, your Highness, but 
 my friend did a giant's work here, I think," and looks 
 grimly at the dead body of the French commander. 
 " But with your permission, I have no time to waste, 
 please come with me, your Highness." 
 
 He leads Maria to her apartments, through the great 
 halls, decked and lighted for festival and filled with 
 white-faced courtiers, hallf-fainting maids of honor, 
 and trembling lackeys, pages, and palace hangers-on. 
 Here, notwithstanding the princess has whispered 
 very tender words to him, Diak places a double row of 
 sentries outside the royal doors, Villiers cautioning 
 them for their lives not to let the lady pass from her 
 chambers. Then, knowing a trick about the palace 
 that the others do not, the troubadour takes a ser- 
 geant's guard to his deserted apartments and, placing 
 them in his little bedroom, orders : " Let no one pass 
 from here." 
 
 "No one pass from here!" gasps the sergeant. 
 " How could they? There is no one here! " 
 
 " Begad, ye don't know the trick of the fairy wall," 
 cries O'Bourke, who is at his master's side. " If a 
 pretty ghost or two comes out upon ye, bayonet her 
 on the spot." 
 
 But the Irishman does not wait jabbering long, for 
 his master has rushed away, and, finding the head tire- 
 woman of the princess, he says to her: " You took tht
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 253 
 
 Lady Metia under your charge. Show me where she 
 is!" 
 
 The voice is that of command, and the woman, obey- 
 ing him, leads him up the great stairways to the gar- 
 rets above. In one of these, under lock and key and 
 strongly bolted in, he finds the pretty maid of honor. 
 
 " You have won," whispers the girl to him, wiping 
 the tears from her red eyes, for she had been sobbing 
 in her loneliness. "She, my tyrant, is dead?" 
 
 " No, but she is no longer your tyrant. Come with 
 me." 
 
 A few minutes after he has found Lucia in the gal- 
 lery of the theater, from which she has looked upon the 
 strange scene below her with a curious and haughty 
 indifference. This indifference is still on her face as 
 she turns to him. 
 
 " God bless you," he whispers. " You saved me." 
 
 But she answers him only : " Take me to my father." 
 
 " How can I, when Prince Eugene's army has not 
 yet entered the town. Quick, with me for your own 
 safety. I must see you are secure from that little 
 royal dlablesse! " 
 
 With this he takes the two girls, though Lucia shud- 
 ders from Metia, and putting them in an apartment, 
 places a strong guard about it, and commands : " Let 
 no one enter here, for your lives, men ! " 
 
 All this has not taken three minutes. Suddenly there 
 is a roar of artillery from the bastion. " Great heavens, 
 they have opened fire upon the ducal gardens! " cries 
 Villiers. 
 
 But Teddy says : " Diviliih little harm they'll do. 
 We're all in the palace, even the six hundred men of 
 Mansfield's. They'll only kill the marble Cupids and 
 Venuses in the fountains! "
 
 154 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 Springing down the great stairway to the lower floor, 
 Villiers finds O'Bourke is right. The regiment of 
 Staremberg, save a strong guard for the palace, is 
 formed in column; behind them the six hundred men of 
 Mansfield's just brought in. The great palace gates, 
 from which the French sentries have been swept away, 
 are thrown open. Down the main street they go, 
 straight for the Concordia gate. 
 
 " We'll get little opposition; their officers are all cap- 
 tured. I have seventy of them locked up under guard 
 in the big dining-room," whispers Diak to Villiers as 
 they head the column. 
 
 " But a few of them left the banquet to notify the 
 citadel before you came. Hark, the drums are beating 
 in that stronghold. Those who are not too drunk will 
 come, besides the four hundred men at the Concordia 
 gate. 
 
 But to their luck they meet these in the streets. The 
 guard at the Concordia gate is coming up to charge 
 the palace. This makes their destruction easy for the 
 strong column of Eugene's infantry. The French 
 and Austrians clash together in front of the great cathe- 
 dral, and the twelve hundred Austrians make short 
 work of the four hundred Frenchmen, surprised, con- 
 fused, and by no means in fighting trim, some of the 
 princess's wine having reached even them. Jum- 
 bled together they half fight, half run down the main 
 street to the Concordia gate, where the Austrians en- 
 ter its portals with the flying French. Here the Ger- 
 man grenadiers make short and savage work of the 
 weak guard at the portals and about the walls; bay- 
 oneting those that resist and chasing the others from 
 the works; for the French opposition is half-h?3rted
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 255 
 
 now; a long column of Eugene's division is already 
 thundering at the outworks. 
 
 Three minutes after the gates are opened and the 
 regiments of Nigrelli and Bagni come pouring in; 
 behind them rides Prince Eugene and his staff. 
 
 " We have got the palace and this gate, your High- 
 ness, all but some other portals and the citadel," cries 
 Diak, saluting. 
 
 " Then, Commerci," orders his highness, to that 
 general, as he rides beside him, " direct Nigrelli, with 
 four companies, to carry the Ferrara gate. Do you 
 yourself take the rest of his regiment and carry the 
 Modena. Then let both commands converge on the 
 citadel." 
 
 And that prince saluting and riding off, Eugene 
 says, anxiously : " Is Villiers alive ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Highness," calls Sydney, as he steps to- 
 ward his general and salutes. " But I have had as 
 tough a struggle for my life as ever man had and 
 lived." 
 
 " Well, I have had many a close intention for my 
 life," says the fighting prince, " and, barring a stiff 
 knee, am as good as ever. Egad, you've come off bet- 
 ter than me, not a scratch in this campaign. But you 
 know that you must disappear in the next day or two; 
 you remember the Cremona matter? " he laughs. But 
 the smile leaves Prince Eugene's face, and it becomes 
 stern and menacing as he learns from his two officers 
 how Maria of Mirandola would have given to death 
 the brave men introduced almost at her suggestion 
 into the ducal gardens. 
 
 But the citadel is yet to be captured, the other gates 
 secured, and the town policed, and Eugene remarks 
 shortly : " After the place is fully ours, I'll see her
 
 56 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 treacherous highness. At present, gentlemen, we have 
 other work to do," for the sound of musketry now 
 comes from the Modena gate toward which Commerci 
 has led his column. But this does not last long. 
 
 With the Modena and the Ferrara gates in their 
 hands, some half hour after, they demand the surrender 
 of the citadel. In command of this there is only a 
 young lieutenant, but he makes a gallant fight, though 
 nearly all his mea are drunk, and there are no other 
 officers to support him. The outworks, however, are 
 shortly captured, a thing quite easy, for wine-soaked 
 men do not well defend a half-ruined battlement, only 
 the fortifications that face the outer country having 
 been kept in repair. Noting this, Eugene sends an 
 honorable offer into the fort by flag of truce, together 
 with a notification that the French commandant, De 
 Vivans, is dead, and the second in command and nearly 
 all the officers of the garrison are captured; where- 
 upon the lieutenant comes under the same flag of truce 
 to Eugene, to whom he says: " Your Highness, give 
 me your royal word that every officer of this garrison, 
 save me, is captured or dead, and I perforce must ac- 
 cept the terms you offer, which, I thank your High- 
 ness, are honorable." 
 
 "You have my word; likewise you can see the 
 swords of your surrendered chiefs," answers the Prince 
 of Savoy. 
 
 And an orderly, arranging before the subaltern some 
 eighty swords of honor, he bows and sighs: " That is 
 proof sufficient, your Highness. When I return to my 
 works, I'll order the chamade to be beaten and make 
 surrender." 
 
 Just here Villiers, stepping forward, says hastily: 
 " Your Highness, I implore for this gentleman most>
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 57 
 
 courteous treatment. He was my second last night 
 in a duel, when for my honor I fought one of his com- 
 rades. He has drawn blade beside me to save the 
 daughter of Sir Andrew Vesey from outrage. He is 
 my friend." 
 
 He extends eagerly toward Ambrose de Terrail his 
 hand, but the other, looking at him, shudders : 
 "Diabie! a spy, not a troubadour?" 
 
 "A captain, no, a colonel, in the armies of the em- 
 peror, monsieur lileutenant. I introduce you to Col- 
 onel Villiers," says Eugene haughtily. 
 
 But the Frenchman, folding his arms, murmurs : " I 
 take not the hand of a spy, even though he were a gen- 
 eral," and makes the Englishman's heart sad as he 
 turns from him. 
 
 Five minutes after Ambrose de Terrail, the ranking 
 officer of the French garrison of Mirandola, marches 
 out at the head of his surrendered men, and Eugene 
 finds in the citadel things that are of great use to him 
 all this winter: thirty-five hundred barrels of flour 
 and great store of provisions and munitions of war, all 
 intended for the garrisons of Louis XIV. south of the 
 Po. 
 
 But Villiers, looking at the haughty face of the 
 ,young lieutenant, who gives him no glance- and 
 'thinking of the loved one that he has lost, feels, 
 though he is colonel in the army of the emperor, that 
 being even a successful spy carries with it pangs he 
 had not guessed when he began this enterprise. 
 
 This night the officers of Prince Eugene make ban- 
 quet in Maria's palace on the provisions and delicacies 
 intended for De Vivans's officers, and drink the flow- 
 ing Burgundy from the refilled and battered drinking 
 horn of Benvenuto Cellini, and the hero of the affair,
 
 58 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 though he sits in the post of honor beside his great 
 general, is not a happy man. 
 
 His chief says: " You seem sad to-night, my col- 
 onel." 
 
 " Yes, your Highness," answers Villiers, " for I have, 
 lost a gallant friend, and I fear likewise the woman of 
 my heart, through that royal diablesse upstairs, who 
 has already sent message three times to you begging 
 for interview." 
 
 " Oh, yes, the Princess Maria," smiles Eugene, then 
 whispers : " Tell me your story." 
 
 Whereupon, in low tones, the Englishman relates to 
 his commander the wondrous tale of the pnncess and 
 the troubadour. 
 
 Listening, Eugene's brow grows very black, then he 
 suddenly smiles: " Leave it in my hands; though they 
 say I don't love the fair sex, still a man who is indiffer- 
 ent to their charms sometimes has more influence with 
 them than those who worship them. As regards the 
 daughter of Sir Andrew Vesey and the pretty Lady 
 Metia, who tried to bring warning to the brave men 
 about to be sacrificed in yonder garden, they are, of 
 course, under my protection and are safe. You, I be- 
 lieve, are the guardian of your affianced. 'Twere 
 strange if the power of one who has her in his hands 
 should not weigh something with her." 
 
 " You don't know her, sir. Lucia was trust itself, 
 and for one day loved me, I think, very greatly. As 
 such, the wound at my suspected untruth to her is all 
 the sharper. By the arts of Bianca Gonzaga she must 
 liave seen me in the princess's chamber." 
 
 " Diable! " chuckles his highness, " did you for mili- 
 tary duty go to the last ditch, my troubadour? They say
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 259 
 
 the princess is beautiful as a fairy, and loves very ten- 
 derly for the moment." 
 
 " Your Highness, by the blessing of God and a 
 talisman, that has been taken from me, I was saved." 
 
 "And the fair Lucia, of course, doesn't believe it." 
 
 " No, your Highness, she never will." 
 
 " Pish, thou dost not know a woman's heart. Thou 
 hast told thy tale to her? " 
 
 " No, only to declare my truth." 
 
 "Ah, yes, but play upon the carrier pigeons that I'd 
 sent to Maria. I'll lay down your opening trenches 
 for you before the lady's scornful heart, then you after- 
 ward shall make the assault in person. Dare you try 
 it?" 
 
 " In this very theater, your Highness, I faced the 
 swords of seventy French officers." 
 
 " Pish, that's not as hard as encountering bright 
 
 eyes. I know it myself I Pest, but I'll not think 
 
 of that," mutters the prince, who everyone knew had 
 loved once, and, in losing one, had lost forever his 
 love of all women. But here his royal highness 
 remarks : " Don't make too much ado over the Lady 
 Metia. Her safety shall be my personal attention. But 
 I must have some sleep to-night to be ready for my 
 morning's interview with the Princess Maria and her 
 royal father, who, I hear, has just had another fit from 
 indigestion or from fright at the racket my brave fel- 
 lows made about his palace." 
 
 So his highness leaving the company, Villiers puts 
 better heart into his face and quaffs the wine of mirth, 
 laughing once at Diak's story of the Irishman who 
 cannot give a signal except he has the selfsame can- 
 dles with which it has been shown to him. 
 
 " Bedad," says Teddy, who is standing behind his
 
 260 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 master, engaged in bringing wine and putting a little 
 of it under his jacket in the royal pantry: " Would yer 
 excellencies like to hear a better story? It's of the 
 chamber of a troubadour, with a fairy tripping into me 
 through the walls. Sure an' the darlint looked as if she 
 expected to meet somebody else. She " 
 
 But Villiers stops the fellow's jabbering by crying: 
 " Enough of you, sirrah, for to-night. Take this bottle 
 and away with it. But see you report to me sober in 
 the morning, or the provost marshal will have a word 
 with you." 
 
 " Bedad, yer honor, one bottle would never fell an 
 Irish soldier," answers O'Bourke, and goes merrily 
 away, for he is chinking twenty crowns in his pocket 
 from the military chest of Prince Eugene for bring- 
 ing to him message from Mirandola. He has also 
 promise from the Princess Maria of a hundred louis 
 in case of the success of the affair, and feels proud as 
 a marquis; but these last he never receives, the royal 
 lady seeming to go frantic with rage when a day or two 
 after he demands them. 
 
 " By the bye," says Diak, stroking his long mous- 
 tachios contemplatively, " as commander of the palace 
 I've assigned myself your old quarters, Villiers. Prince 
 Eugene, you being unattached and practically on his 
 staff, wishes you close to him." 
 
 " As you please," answers the Englishman. Then 
 after one searching look at the tall dashing soldier of 
 fortune, he remarks: " I hope you'll find my little 
 chamber to your liking." 
 
 Rising early the next morning, for Villiers knows 
 Eugene is not a man to let the grass grow under his 
 feet, and will soon march out of Mirandola, the Eng- 
 lishman goes hurriedly toward the rooms occupied by
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 261 
 
 his sweetheart and the Lady Metia. He is now in full 
 Imperial uniform, but the wine having passed from his 
 head, his face is again dejected, he once more doubts 
 receiving forgiveness from his betrothed. 
 
 In the great corridor, immediately in front of the 
 royal apartments, before which sentries are still pac- 
 ing, showing that the princess is yet und^r arrest, 
 stands La Marchesa di Monteferrato, whose oeauty is 
 more spirituelle than ever, her eyes flashing in a kind 
 of unholy triumph as she gazes at the downcast face 
 of the passing Englishman. " Though I have not his 
 life, I have destroyed his hope of love," she thinks. 
 " Besides, I have ruined my tyrant. Maria's father's 
 dukedom will be taken from him. She will no more be 
 a princess." 
 
 But hardly thinking of la marchesa, Villiers passes 
 quickly to the apartments occupied by his sweetheart 
 and the Lady Metia. Sentries are still in front of their 
 doors, showing Prince Eugene has not forgotten to 
 take very good care of these young ladies, whom their 
 princess hates. 
 
 Passing the saluting sentries, Villiers knocks upon 
 the door. It is opened to him by his sweetheart. As 
 he enters the room Lucia's face and dress tell him she 
 has already heard she is an orphan. 
 
 " You know? " he gasps. 
 
 " Of my poor father's murder? Yes! His high- 
 ness, Prince Eugene, an hour ago, when he took 
 the Lady Metia from me, told me I must look to you 
 for direction now,- and in this matter I pray you let me 
 enter a convent." Then she breaks forth passionately: 
 " Oh, why did you not tell me that I was bereft before? 
 Fancy my wearing only a night ago the garb of gayety, 
 when my dead father's murder was not avenged."
 
 262 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 This speech is altogether too Italian for the Eng- 
 lishman. He says hastily: " Thy father's murder must 
 be left to other hands than yours. You are an Eng- 
 lish girl. As such I mean to send you to the nearest 
 relatives of your father. In that happy country you 
 will forget the sorrow of to-day, and and even the 
 man who loves you." His voice is broken, to him has 
 come a horrible glimpse of the imagination. In it he 
 sees his sv eetheart rich, beautiful, and noble, and sur- 
 rounded by the gay beaux and dandies of St. James's 
 and the Mall. To her he falters: " Other gallants will 
 woo you. You are too young to think of aught but a 
 happy life." 
 
 Then even in his misery she gives him comfort. 
 "Other gallants will never woo me!" she shudders: 
 " I've I've had my heart broken once. That is enough 
 for me, signore." 
 
 " Broken once! " There is a gloating triumph in his 
 voice; then he pleads sadly: " Let me who wounded 
 it heal it." 
 
 But she turns upon him almost fiercely, and says: 
 " That was the plea of Prince Eugene for you. He said 
 that you had only acted as a gallant soldier would in 
 desperate strait to save the lives of a thousand men 
 that she would doom to death because you would not 
 debase yourself with her. If that is the duty of a gal- 
 lant soldier,! pray I see no more of gallant soldiers. Be- 
 sides, the Lady Metia also said the princess hated her 
 because you had whispered love into her ears also. Oh, 
 don't try to deny. I heard her words with suffering 
 heart last night." Then Lucia's glorious eyes blaze ; 
 she cries : " Oh, who would think that you would have 
 ill-treated a poor girl who had put her trust in you, 
 who was your betrothed, who gave her heart to you
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 263 
 
 across that little balcony even when a ruffian's hands 
 were on her, when she bade you to save yourself, not 
 think of her. And you forgot her in a day. Oh, God 
 forgive you ! " 
 
 " I care not if God forgive me, if you do." 
 " Hush ! don't blaspheme. In all the misery of Pas- 
 quale's sordid house, where I, his bound girl, felt like 
 a slave, I still had trust in God. And yet I was happier 
 there than now, before you came to make me know the 
 happiness I mean the misery of love." 
 
 " By heaven, you shall also know its happiness! " 
 whispers Villiers, who, now that she will discuss the 
 matter with him, feels reviving hope. Especially as 
 instead of shuddering from him Lucia is gazing at 
 him, perchance because in his dashing cavalry uniform 
 this gentleman looks even more engaging to the female 
 eye than when he was a troubadour. " Did Prince 
 Eugene tell you," he asks, " that I was forced by 
 the princess to send the carrier pigeons from her win- 
 dow, where she kept them, that if I did not the affair 
 for which I risked my life was naught? Did he tell 
 you I would never have been his spy had it not been 
 in hope of rescuing you from your bondage, and pre- 
 vent them putting my darling for I loved you then, I 
 had seen your picture upon the public stage and 
 making you an outcast to the courtly world, in which, 
 please God, now duchesses shall envy you your beauty 
 and distinction ? " 
 
 "And for love of me you endured the danger of the 
 hangman's noose?" 
 
 " By heaven, I did." 
 
 " For love of me of my poor picture? " The girl's 
 eyes are growing bright through all their tears. 
 
 "Of course, I did!"
 
 364 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " Then swear that since I gave my word to you you 
 have been true to me." 
 
 " Again I do." 
 
 " And though that devil threatened you with 
 death " Lucia is calling Maria bad names now 
 " you would not give her my picture. I remember 
 that ; even as my heart broke, I remember that !" Then 
 she astounds this man, for one of woman's varying pas- 
 sions coming over her, she suddenly hands him her min- 
 iature, and commands: " Guard it again for me! " 
 
 " You mean " 
 
 " Oh, I am weak perhaps, but I mean " 
 
 She gets no chance to say what she means, for Vil- 
 liers remembers that ladies grow more tender at the 
 touch of wooers. The strong arm of the little giant 
 flies about her pliant waist. Her lips are closed by 
 his. After a moment, for his kiss is long, he whispers: 
 "You have forgiven me, now all is well! Last night 
 in sorrow and ashes I repented I had been Eugene's 
 spy, but it has a happier ending. Egad, I'm ready to 
 be his spy again." 
 
 At this there is a piercing shriek, and Lucia now is 
 suppliant: " For the love of heaven," she begs, " don't 
 leave me desolate. Think how I would suffer with your 
 dear neck in danger of the cord." She is on her knees 
 to him, her clinging hands clasp his: But he draws her 
 'to his breast and whispers : " There is one way to keep 
 me from the adventure of Cremona." 
 
 " What is it, my dear lord? " 
 
 "The altar!" 
 
 At this the tears are burnt out of her eyes by fiery 
 blushes. "The altar!" 
 
 " Yes, and within a day or two! Dost think I could 
 desert my bride after enjoying the glories of her love! "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 265 
 
 " O Dio ! " sighs the girl, " thou art very master- 
 ful ! " and is as wax within his arms. 
 
 Coming from this interview, Villiers is soon after 
 summoned to the quarters in the palace that Prince 
 Eugene occupies. At his entry Diak and another offi- 
 cer withdraw, though noting Villiers's face as he passes 
 him, the Swedish colonel pauses and laughs: " Diable, 
 what a change in you over night. You have now 
 something better in your head than champagne, my 
 troubadour! " 
 
 A moment later he is bowing before the prince. 
 
 To him his general says affably: " I have made ar- 
 rangements for the Lady Metia to be forthwith sent 
 under escort to my emperor. Letters will go with her 
 that will insure her a very honorable position in the 
 court of Vienna. I have charged my own fortune with 
 her maintenance and also her dower as the daughter 
 of a noble house, for there are gallants in Austria the 
 child is beautiful, and doubtless will wed. One inter- 
 view with the Princess Maria egad, she is a little 
 witch, and would have made love to me had I been soft 
 as the troubadour," laughs the prince " showed me 
 that Metia is not safe with Maria still Princess of 
 Mirandola." 
 
 " Your Highness will not dethrone her father? " 
 
 " Of course not. The Duke Francesco did not know 
 his daughter's passions were going to make ducks and 
 drakes of his plans. He feared the French; therefore 
 he made Maria his emissary to me. He was true 
 enough. Besides, if I dethrone one Italian prince, 
 none of the others would dare open their gates to me. 
 They'd fear I might dethrone them all. No, in Italy 
 we want allies, not enemies. But your affair? The 
 young lady Lucia, I believe, is her name who is as
 
 266 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 beautiful as any demoiselle I have ever seen, and has a 
 voice like an angel, wishes to be permitted to enter a 
 convent. What do you, as her guardian and as her 
 lover, say to this? " 
 
 " That as her guardian I will not permit it. She 
 is of a fortune so great in England, she might com- 
 mand an alliance with an earl. As her lover, I won't 
 let her marry an earl, because I'll marry her myself." 
 
 "Ah, the carrier pigeons did the business, eh? " 
 
 " No, your Highness, it was because I would never 
 give her picture to the princess." 
 
 " Diable, for so little a thing as that. However, wom- 
 en are very curious. But I have another adventure for 
 you, my prince of spies. Every French officer here 
 will be kept under arrest, so none will ever recognize 
 you to denounce you. Within a week you must be in 
 Cremona. I have heard from there, there is' a 
 priest 
 
 Just here Villiers astounds his highness. He points 
 with ringer of right and left hand toward two locks of 
 gray, one upon either temple, and says: " These came 
 from being spy once ! " then snarls : " Now no man 
 can ever call me boy again. But I have enough gray 
 hairs for twenty-eight. Command me, if you wish my 
 sword. I'll face bullets and steel for you, but not the 
 noose. Besides, the reason that I wanted to be spy 
 was to win a face that I had learned to love on ivory. 
 In addendum, your Highness, two days from now I 
 wed." 
 
 " Diable! " 
 
 " Yes, you will leave Mirandola shortly, and I will 
 make Lucia a better husband than a guardian." 
 
 " You have the consent of Lucia's guardian? "
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 267 
 
 " Yes, I gave it to her suitor before I asked the 
 young lady." 
 
 At this both gentlemen burst out laughing. 
 
 " Well, I'll stand up with you at your wedding and 
 give the bride away," says Eugene enthusiastically. 
 " Perhaps from the ladies of honor of the princess the 
 six bridesmaids may be culled, eh?" 
 
 " But her highness will never consent." 
 
 " Oh, trust me. Maria is wax in Eugene's hands at 
 present; she fears to lose her kingdom. Besides, she 
 knows that you are gone, and, by the bye, Paul Diak is 
 favorite now. But I have not time for more." His 
 highness sounds a hand bell, and an orderly comes 
 in. To him he says : " Ask the Prince Commerci to 
 report to me if the two regiments of horse I ordered 
 are making reconnoissance toward Modena." A second 
 later, that gallant leader of cavalry, who is to die in 
 the next campaign, striding in, salutes and says: 
 " Your Highness, the reconnoissance is already made. 
 There are no French troops between us and Modena." 
 
 " Then I can stay for your wedding, my boy. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 And Sydney, passing out, in the anteroom gives a 
 curious look at Diak, who flashes at him a sardonical 
 grin, and laughs: " You missed a very good thing, Vil- 
 liers, I'm afraid." 
 
 " I hope you found your quarters pleasant ones, col- 
 onel?" answers the troubadour. 
 
 But Villiers cares for only one good thing, his sweet- 
 heart, whom he has persuaded that under the circum- 
 stances of a quick campaign, with marching troops, 
 "her best safety is a husband's guidance ; that her dead 
 father would wish to know that she had a husband's 
 care. In fact, he has laughed to her : " If I don't
 
 268 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 claim you, I'm afraid Pasquale will under his bond of 
 apprenticeship." 
 
 To this she has answered: "Pish, foolish one, I 
 sang my first and last high note in a theater last night, 
 and that was only to help out a poor troubadour, who 
 betwixt ourselves was making a bungling of the song 
 of Filicaria." 
 
 So word of these nuptials coming to the Princess 
 Maria's pretty ears, that sprightly despot claps her 
 hands, and, in the privacy of the royal chamber, re- 
 marks to la marchesa, who haughtily is in attendance 
 upon her: " Bianca, this happy news seems to have 
 made your dark eyes sad and drooping. Since yes- 
 terday you have not seemed in your usual buoyant 
 spirits. Is it because that night you hoped I would 
 give Eugene's officer to the French and so ruin my 
 little duchy? Diavolo! how you start and tremble! " 
 
 For this and some other light bantering side , re- 
 marks of her royal mistress seem to put a curious dread 
 into the fair body of la marchesa. 
 
 With this Maria sinks laughingly upon a seat, and, 
 looking at her confidante, into whose spirituelle eyes a 
 flash of terror has flown, she says: "Mi bclla, Tessa, 
 the ballet mistress, greatly admired your superb fig- 
 ure as you strode as Juno in my fete. She thinks, with 
 proper training, you'd make as fine a figurante as ever 
 flashed her limbs before the footlights! " 
 
 " Tessa, the ballet mistress, dare to admire me ? " re- 
 plies Bianca haughtily. " I hardly understand your 
 Highness ! " 
 
 "No; but you will!" laughs Maria, clapping her 
 hands in a kind of roguish glee. Then her voice and 
 eyes become menacing. " Now that Villiers has es-
 
 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 269 
 
 caped me, the question is what shall I do with you ! " she 
 mutters. 
 
 " With me, your Highness? " 
 
 " Yes. For to me has been brought the knowledge 
 that you, in company with the banker St. Croix, of Cre- 
 mona, who, fortunately for me, is not within my hands, 
 have conspired as to the death of a noble English 
 gentleman, Sir Andrew Vesey." 
 
 " God of heaven, your Highness, I knew naught of 
 his death till afterward." 
 
 " Pish ! That story will do you little good, when I 
 hold the letter in my hands that says you were to pay 
 twenty louis to Umberto, who did the murder." 
 
 " The letter! I've never seen it!" 
 
 " No, for Villiers killed the bravo who was to take 
 his hire from you. This," she holds the paper up, 
 " will be fine reading for your judges if I appoint a trial 
 for you. To their stern questioning in the torture 
 chamber you will shriek out a different story." 
 
 " God of mercy, madame," shrieks the exquisite mis- 
 tress of her maids, falling on her knees before her auto- 
 crat, " it is not for this you condemn me; 'tis because 
 I by accident left Lucia Vesey in that little dressing- 
 room to hear words in this chamber between you and 
 your troubadour." 
 
 " Aha, you confess it. I made a shrewd guess at it, 
 however, when I saw in a room unused these six 
 months an embroidery frame half broken in a wom- 
 an's agony and six skeins of colored wools all torn 
 to bits. 
 
 " But with my usual mercy I have concluded to give 
 you choice of two evils: Trial for murder before the 
 high court of Mirandola. You will guess what chance 
 you have when I appoint the judges."
 
 370 THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 
 
 " No, no, anything but that! " Bianca's eyes are full 
 of tears, and she is kneeling brokenly before her mis- 
 tress. 
 
 " Then this to you, since you accept nay mercy : 
 Your spurious rank is taken from you, for you are 
 only kin by courtesy to the Duke of Mantua. Be- 
 sides, he has already discarded you. After proper 
 and severe confinement at my pleasure I shall bind 
 you to Tessa Pasquale to be taught to dance for me 
 at my fetes ; but thou shalt not have the privilege of 
 ladies of the stage : never shall gallant make love 
 again to thy false, sweet face, for when not dancing 
 for me thou shalt be kept in prison. Who says that 
 this is not mercy to a murderess ? Go, I am tired of 
 you ! " And two matrons of the woman's prison of 
 Mirandola being in attendance for the purpose, the 
 next minute the haugkty marchesa, her white wrjsts 
 tightly bound, is being conducted in a closed con- 
 veyance to the stern confinement, cruel stripes, and 
 all the other luxuries of a medieval prison. 
 
 But Bianca being gone, the little fairy tyrant tosses 
 up her hands and sinks down sobbing as if her heart 
 would break ; for the dashing Diak having loved will 
 shortly ride away. 
 
 Bianca's fate does not seem to make Mirandola 
 sad, and the second day from this, in the private chapel 
 of the palace, Lucia and Villiers are wed quite privately 
 some maids of honor standing behind their comrade 
 as bridesmaids, Eugene himself placing the bride's 
 hand within the groom's. 
 
 The Princess Maria, hanging on Diak's arm, looks 
 on quite merrily: " Par die," she laughs, "my sweet 
 Lucia makes a pretty bride. This from my royal father 
 and myself! " and throws over the bride's fair neck a
 
 TtfE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR. 3"Jl 
 
 circlet of glittering diamonds, for she wishes to please 
 Eugene of Savoy, in whose hands she knows rests the 
 fate of her haughty little self and her small dukedom. 
 
 At the close of the ceremony the great general re- 
 marks as he salutes the bride: "Thy music master, 
 Pasquale, my child, who has been to me with a heart- 
 breaking tale of ruin at the loss of your fair services, 
 says that thou hast the loveliest voice in Italy. I ride 
 from here this evening, could I not have a song from 
 you to cheer me on my way ? " 
 
 " If you will deign to listen, your Highness. Am I 
 not the wife of your troubadour?" answers Lucia 
 prettily. 
 
 "Egad, my fighting troubadour!" laughs Eugene. 
 " Sing both of you to me the couplets of Filicaria, only 
 don't brain me, Villiers, as you did poor De Vivans." 
 
 " Quick, run for a guitar, Gianetta," cries Maria to 
 her pert maid of honor. 
 
 And the instrument being brought, both bride and 
 groom raise up their voices in melody so divine that. 
 its like was never heard in the palace of Mirandola be- 
 fore nor since. 
 
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