"Devils! Messer!" He crossed himself. "God forbid there should be a model for such found anywhere," he said.
"Yet methinks thou hast in thy city yonder," said Francisco with a bitter smile, "one who well might sit for the fiend himself: Visconti."
"The Duke? Ah, my friend, hush, hush, thou art a stranger, take care! Even in this lonely spot such words are far from safe. Who art thou, messer, who dost not live in Milan and yet speak with such a look of the Visconti?"
"Do not all who know the Visconti speak with such a look of him?"
The painter gazed at him in silence.
"But thou askest for my name," continued the other. "I am Francisco di Coldra, one who has suffered much from the Visconti."
"In the sack of Verona, perhaps?" asked Agnolo after a pause.
"The sack of Verona was three months ago. The prisoners have been in Milan twenty days!"
These words were inscrutable, and the little painter did not even try to understand them; but they kindled a memory that would not be repressed.