"And now, what art thou doing—and where staying?"
As if he feared to lose him, Tomaso held his father tightly by the sleeve, over which the bridle had been slipped, and Vittore clinging to the other hand, they drew him forward between them to the place from which they had come.
"I am glad thou art not dead," said Vittore; "Tomaso grieved for thee sorely, and so did I."
Tomaso laughed happily. "Grieve! Aye, did we! But now we can rejoice."
"But why this haste?" Ligozzi asked, "where dost thou hurry me?"
"Back, father, whence we came, for I was left in trust. It is a path thy horse can follow, and I will tell thee what has happened as we go."
Ligozzi followed without further question, too full of joy for speech, and taking so much pleasure in that it was his son who spoke as for the moment not to heed too keenly what he said.
But when Tomaso, beginning, boy-fashion, with the last, and not the first, came to mention of the Visconti's blow, Ligozzi roused to fury.
"Methought I saw a scar across thy face," he said, "yet in this light I could not see too well. It is only one more wrong to set against the Visconti's name, one deed the more to be avenged."
Tomaso took the clenched hand and covered it with kisses.