The Viper of Milan. Bowen Marjorie

eyes.

      "Who was it?" he whispered at last to the woman near him. "Who was it?"

      She turned a dull face up from the scattered vegetables she was gathering together.

      "Who art thou that thou knowest not?" she asked.

      "I come from Florence," said the lad quickly, "traveling to Verona."

      "To Verona! Thou art not on thy way to Verona here."

      "I know it, but the company we traveled with was bound for Milan. Three days ago we missed them, and thought to find them in the city where we looked to spend the night, but now——"

      He glanced at his companion and could scarce refrain from weeping.

      "To Verona!" said an old peasant, turning sharply at the name. "To Verona!"

      The child dropped again to his knees beside Tomaso.

      "Yes," he said, over his shoulder. "My cousin—he is done to death, I fear me—and I were traveling by way of Milan to Della Scala's court——"

      He broke off, and wrung his hands. "Oh, help me, some one; Tomaso is dying!"

      With a certain dull humanity, kindness it could scarcely be called that was so inert and full of apathy, one or two of them gave what help they could.

      "Thou art from Florence!" said the old man again. "Aye, indeed, I know thou art from Florence, for thy mate here to have had such daring. Why camest thou from Florence to anywhere by way of Milan?"

      For even to the dull mind of the peasantry, Florence, who alone of the cities of Italy had preserved her liberty, seemed a country of the free, a republic of equality.

      "Tomaso's father sent for him to come to him in Della Scala's court, and as last year my father was slain in the wars with Venice, since then I have resided with my cousin—and so accompany him—having naught else to do!"

      The boy looked up bewildered; he was half-dazed with this sudden misfortune.

      "We go to Verona!" he repeated. "We have food and a little money—if only this had not happened!"

      He turned to his prostrate cousin and burst into tears.

      The woman looked at him with pity: the old peasant shrugged his shoulders.

      "Thy cousin was over-bold! As well face the evil one—" he mumbled and crossed himself, "as step into the path of the—" he stopped abruptly and cast uneasy glances around him.

      "And that?" cried the boy, his tears arrested, "that man on horseback?"

      "That was the Visconti! Aye! Gian Galeazzo Maria, Duke of Milan!"

      The lad gazed down the road with interest and new terror.

      "The Duke of Milan! He who lately warred with Florence!" he cried breathlessly.

      "Aye, and beat her!" There was a touch of pride in the answer, for the peasant was of Milan. But the boy did not notice the remark, he was too absorbed in terrified conjecture.

      "And they in the carriage—?" he whispered.

      A silence fell. The crowd shuffled away from him, and turned their faces to the city. Used to scenes of horror as they were, the cavalcade that had just passed them seemed, even to their half hearts, to have chilled the sunlight with its terror.

      A young woman suddenly snatched her child up from the ground and strained it to her, in a passion of distress.

      "Oh, Luigi, Luigi, my little child, it was his father and mother, his father and mother!"

      She grasped the old man's arm. "Marked you how she looked at me?" she cried.

      The peasant checked her outbreak, but looked down the road with gloomy eyes.

      "They will never return from Brescia," he said; "they must be near seventy—old for such an end. However, hush thee, woman, 'tis no affair of ours!" Several anxious voices echoed him.

      "Why should we care!" said one, "'tis a Visconti the less to crush us."

      And Vittore saw the whole band turning off, pushing, driving, and urging their beasts along. He dragged at his still senseless companion in a sudden panic.

      "Help me!" he said. "We would on; I dare not stay alone."

      The old man laughed harshly.

      "Where will you on to? Are we to drag you into Milan to be whipped to death for harboring you; and Verona is in the hands of the Visconti—his last and greatest victory!"

      "But my uncle—Della Scala's court!" cried the boy distractedly. The old man drew himself up in his rags and spoke with a mixture of pride and awe.

      "Mastino della Scala perished in the flames of his burning palace; his wife is a prisoner, yonder in Milan, in the Visconti's hands. Thou hast not much to look for from Della Scala's court," he said.

      "Hold thy peace! Hold thy peace!" cried angry voices. "What hast thou to do with such as he?" and the old man, whose better intelligence made him a source of danger to the others, was dragged away.

      "But thou wilt not leave me here?" said Vittore, in distress. "Where shall I go? What shall I do?" But the peasant folk were not much moved by his misfortunes, too much used to scenes like this.

      "We risk our necks by staying by thee," growled one dark-browed man. "As for thy companion, it is his own mad doing. He is dead, and we may be dead this time to-morrow, and kicked into the ditch like him."

      Even the woman listened blankly to his entreaties, and the throng sullenly departed on its way.

      "Any moment a soldier of the Visconti may come by, or the Visconti himself may return, then anyone found tending one of his victims will be in sorry plight." This, mumbled out with curses at the delay, was their only answer.

      The peasants of Lombardy lived in the shadow of an awful name. Gian Galeazzo Maria Visconti knew neither fear of God nor man, neither pity nor remorse.

      The young Florentine sank down upon the grass, and looked after the retreating train in mute distress. To seek for help would mean to leave his cousin, and he could not move him. Tomaso lay in a deep swoon, for the blow had driven him back upon a stone. Terribly wounded about the face, Tomaso added to his young cousin's distress by his ghastly appearance, his head bound in rough bandages, torn from Vittore's clothing, and now darkly stained with blood. The boy wrung his hands and looked up and down the road—no one in sight.

      It was just after the victory in the long-standing wars between the cities; Verona had fallen into the Visconti's hands; interchange of traffic was for the time laid low; the road was likely to be deserted, and for hours none passed.

      The boy dragged Tomaso's head and shoulders as far into the shade as he could manage, remoistened the bandages about his head, and tried to force down his throat some of the food and drink they carried. But the youth muttered between clenched teeth, and lay with wide-staring eyes, inert and unresponsive. His consciousness had returned, but he was delirious in fever. As the day wore on, new and sickening terror seized on Vittore. The Visconti would return to Milan! Hiding his face in his hands, he sobbed aloud. Since the bright dawn of the morning, what a change in prospects! Della Scala's court a ruin—and Tomaso's father—his uncle, the only parent he had ever known—what of him! And Tomaso too! He must sit there and see him die beside him. As the noontide waned, he had fallen again into stupor, and the boy looked at his changed face distractedly.

      "He is dead!" he cried, "I know he is dead!" But he dared not leave him; besides, Milan held a terror, and he would scarcely dare to enter it. Perhaps when the peasants returned they might have pity on them; if not—again his sobs filled up the lonely outlook. The long hours dragged by; a horseman passed, a mercenary laden with some plunder from Verona; he did not even turn in his saddle. A few peasants slowly came back from Milan, seeking their huts around the neighboring villas. But they were as deaf to his cries as