'And in the meantime,' grumbled Visconti, 'we are measuring our fish before we've hooked him.'
Lampugnani's face took on a very odd expression.
'What the devil's behind that?' hectored the bully.
'O, little!' purred the other. 'I fancy I feel him nibble, that's all. Perhaps you don't happen to know how he hath cut his connection with the palace?'
'What! When?'
They all jumped to stare at him.
'This day,' he said, 'in offence of some carrion of Galeazzo's which he had nosed out. The poor boy is particular in his tastes, for a shambles—ran like a sheep from the slaughter-house door, taking his Patch with him, and a ring her Grace had loaned him for a safe-conduct. I heard it said she would have been ravished of anything rather—by him. 'Twas her lord's troth-gift. The castle is one fume of lamentation.'
Montano, rubbing his lean hands between his knees, went into a rejoicing chatter:—
'We have him, we have him! Gods! who's here?'
Their intentness had deafened them some minutes earlier to a more mouthing note in the thunder of the rain, as if the swell of the tempest had been opened an instant and shut. The moment, in fact, and a master-key, had let in a new comer. He had closed the latch behind him, and now, seeing himself observed, stood ducking and lowering in the blinking light. The philosopher heaved a tremulous sigh of relief.