Facino's bewildered glance sought the dark, comely face of Stoffel. He smiled grimly. 'Am I a fool, Stoffel, that a boy should instruct me in the art by which I have lived? And would you trust a hundred of your Swiss to this same boy?'
'With confidence.'
But still Facino hesitated. 'You realise, Bellarion, that if the passage is forced before I arrive, it will go very hard with you?'
Bellarion shrugged in silence. Facino thought he was not understood.
'Such an action as you propose will entail great slaughter, perhaps. Buonterzo will be impatient of that, and he may terribly avenge it.'
Bellarion smiled. 'He will have to cross first, and meanwhile I shall count upon his impatience and vindictiveness to hold him here when he should be elsewhere.'
CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE OF TRAVO
The morning sunlight falling across the valley flashed on the arms of Buonterzo's vanguard, on the heights, even as Facino's rearguard went splashing through the ford, which at its deepest did not come above the bellies of the horses or the breasts of Bellarion's hundred Swiss, who, with arbalests above their heads, to keep the cords dry, were the last to cross.
From his eyrie Buonterzo saw the main body of Facino's army straggling in disorder over the shallow hill beyond the water, and, persuaded that he had to deal with a rabble disorganized by fear, he gave the order to pursue.