"I know something of him, unless I much mistake; a dangerous rogue and spy—place him apart, well guarded—in a separate compartment. Pinion him. To-night we will put him to the question."
And again he glanced toward the German's tent. Conrad had not appeared, and the prisoners wound away out of sight into what was once Barnabas Visconti's summer residence, and where Barnabas Visconti not long since had died.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN FOR A GAME OF CHESS
The day was wearing into evening when Conrad gave a last look in the little polished mirror hanging on the tapestried walls of his tent, and prepared to set out on a tour of inspection, including a visit to Carrara, who in this moment's interval, he thought, could not have gone astray.
Della Scala had been gone four hours or more, but to the light-hearted German it seemed he had only an instant ago turned from his tent.
He had employed the time in writing some verses (in imitation of the fashionable Petrarch, a production with which he was perfectly satisfied, and put aside to be fair copied by some one, a better adept in spelling than himself), in teaching Vittore to dance, and in changing his doublet.
Count Conrad was very careful of his doublets. He had a great many, and kept them carefully locked in the large coffer that stood at the head of his tent bed.
The one he donned to-day was elegant in the extreme; peacock purple over an under garment of rose, curiously slashed with cream. Vittore, who had become his page, was silent at the magnificence.