"What see you, signor?' exclaimed my astonished host.
"That abominable hunchback, Peter of Pisa, Friar Truffle, or whatever you call him."
"Impossible!" said the Visconte. "Most improbable, indeed! at such an hour of the morning, and in a place where the cliffs descend sheer downwards to the sea!"
"Monsignore, on my honour I saw his ill-omened visage peering between the rose-bushes."
Luigi snatched a sword from the wall, and we made tremendous havoc among the full-blown roses, searching so far as we dared to venture along the beetling rocks; but no trace of the eaves-dropper could be discovered. Indeed, the dangerous nature of the place, when I surveyed it, led me to suppose that I might have been mistaken, and that the apparition was an illusion of a heated imagination; for my head was now beginning to swim with the effects of the champagne. Santugo, however, took the precaution of bolting the casements, and drawing the curtains; after which we stretched ourselves once more on the couches to listen for any sound that announced the approach of an intruder.
"Ha! what is that?" exclaimed Santugo abruptly, as a dropping or pattering sound was heard on the floor.
"The deuce! my wound bleeds!" said I, on finding that the slight sword thrust which I had received in the morning had broken out afresh; probably in consequence of my exertions when searching for the hunchback.
"A wound!" rejoined Santugo, with astonishment; "I knew not that you had been hurt this morning in your skirmish with the voltigeurs."
"A mere scratch, Visconte," I replied, with a jaunty carelessness, half affected, as I unbuttoned my uniform coat, and found with surprise that the sleeve and white kerseymere vest were completely saturated with blood. Through my neglect, and the heat of the climate, the wound was becoming more painful than I could have expected so slight a thrust to be.
"Sancto Januario! you never said a word of all this!" cried Luigi, alarmed by seeing so much blood. "Olà, there!" he added, springing to the door. "Giacomo Salvatore! Andronicus! you Greek vagabond!"