“I may be mistaken—that depends on your answer to one question. Do you know the Count of Peschiera?”
Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye of the questioner.
“Enough,” said Randal; “I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity. I speak but to warn and to serve you. The Count seeks to discover the retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own.”
“And for what end?” cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valor and defiance broke from habitual caution and self-control. “But pooh,” he added, striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, “it matters
not to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so grand a personage?”
“Dr. Riccabocca—nothing. But—” here Randal put his lips close to the Italian’s ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the exile’s shoulder, he added—“Need I say that your secret is safe with me?”
Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly.
Randal continued—“And I shall esteem it the highest honor you can bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you in forestalling danger.”
Riccabocca (slowly).—“Sir, I thank you; you have my secret, and I feel assured it is safe, for I speak to an English gentleman. There may be family reasons why I should avoid the Count di Peschiera; and, indeed, He is safest from shoals who steers clearest of his—relations.”
The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered that wise, villainous Italian maxim.