"I doubt me if they could teach your lordship any new tricks," Il Gobbo replied, somewhat dubiously.
The Grand Chamberlain smiled darkly.
"Good Il Gobbo, the darkest of my tricks you have not yet fathomed."
"Perchance then the gust of rumor blows true about my lord's palace on the Pincian Hill?"
"What say they about my palatial abode?" Basil turned suavely to the speaker.
There was something in the gleam of his interrogator's eyes that caused Il Gobbo to hesitate. But his native insolence came to the rescue of his failing courage.
"Ask rather, what do they not say of it, my lord! It would require less time to recite—"
"Nevertheless, I am just now in a frame of mind to shudder soundly. These Roman nights, with their garlic and incense, are apt to befuddle the brain,—rob it of its power to plot. Perchance the recital of these mysteries would bring to mind something I have omitted."
The bravo regarded the speaker with a look of awe.
"They whisper of torture chambers, where knife and screw and pulley never rest—of horrors that make the blood freeze in the veins—of phantoms of fair women that haunt the silent galleries—strange wails of anguish that sound nightly from the subterranean vaults—"