Valentina turned to Francesco with eyes that beamed admiration and a singular tenderness.
“Oh, what had I done without you, Messer Francesco?” she cried, for surely the twentieth time since his coming. “I tremble to think how things had gone without your wit and valour to assist me.” She never noticed the malicious smile that trembled on Gonzaga's pretty face. “Where did you find the powder?” she asked innocently, for her mind had not yet caught that humour of the situation that had drawn a laugh from Fortemani.
“I found none,” answered Francesco, smiling from the shadow of his helm. “My threats”—and he waved his hand in the direction of that formidable array of guns—“are as empty as Gian Maria's. Yet I think they will impress him more than his do us. I will answer for it, Madonna, that they deter him from bombarding us—if so be that he ever intended to. So let us go and break our fast with a glad courage.”
“Those guns are empty?” she gasped. “And you could talk so boldly and threaten so defiantly!”
Mirth crept now into her face, and thrust back the alarm, a little of which had peeped from her eyes even as she was extolling Francesco.
“There!” he cried joyously. “You are smiling now, Madonna. Nor have you cause for aught else. Shall we descend? This early morning work has given me the hunger of a wolf.”
She turned to go with him, and in that moment, Peppe, his owlish face spread over with alarm, dashed up the steps from the courtyard.
“Madonna!” he gasped, breathless. “Messer Francesco! The men—Cappoccio—— He is haranguing them. He—is inciting them to treachery.”
So, in gasps, he got out his tale, which swept the mirth again from Valentina's eyes, and painted very white her cheek. Strong and brave though she was, she felt her senses swimming at that sudden revulsion from confidence to fear. Was all indeed ended at the very moment when hope had reached its high meridian?
“You are faint, Madonna; lean on me.”