There, in the library out of which he had just gone, a strange scene awaited him. The curtains had been pulled over the windows and the lights were all out except a single one above the big table in the center of the room. On this table lay a dozen different weapons, hunting and target rifles, duck and bird guns, and a variety of pistols. The Marchesa Soderrelli stood over this table, piles of cartridges in little heaps before her on the polished mahogany board. The others were not anywhere to be seen.
The Marchesa started when the door opened. "Thank God!" she said; "they missed you. I heard the shot. I thought you were killed."
"They got the horse," said the Duke.
Then a memory seized him and he crossed to the table, took up one of the rifles, threw open the breech, and passed his finger over the firing pin. He tossed the weapon back onto the table and tried another, and still another.
The Marchesa explained: "I have every gun in the house; two or three of the rifles will do, and the pistols are all good."
The Duke took up one of the pistols, sprung the hammer, broke it and felt the breech plate with his thumb. Then he laid it on the table.
"These weapons," he said, "are all quite useless."
The Marchesa Soderrelli did not understand.
"They may not be of the best," she said, "but they will shoot."
"I fear not," replied the Duke.