I quenched my laughter to regard him. Of what did he babble? Was he, and were his fellows, too, so ungrateful as to bear a grudge against the man who had saved them?
“You have fooled us finely,” he insisted in a louder voice.
“That, knave, is my trade,” said I. “But it rather seems to me that it was Messer Ramiro del’ Orca whom I fooled.”
“Aye,” he answered querulously. “But what when he discerns how you have played upon him? What when he discovers the trick by which you have thrown him off the scent? What when he returns?”
“Spare me,” I begged, “I am but indifferently skilful at conjecture.”
“Nay, but you shall answer me,” he cried, livid with a passion that my bantering tone had quickened.
“Can it be that you are indeed curious to know what will befall when he returns?” I questioned meekly.
“I am,” he snorted, with an angry twist of the lips.
“It should be easy to gratify the morbid spirit of curiosity that actuates you. Remain here, and await his return. Thus shall you learn.”
“That will not I,” he vowed.