The Chronicles of Count Antonio. Anthony Hope

the horse Tommasino had ridden; it was hamstrung, and its throat had been cut. Antonio, seeing it, in sudden apprehension of calamity, cried aloud; and to his wonder his cry was answered by a voice which came from a clump of bushes fifty yards on the right. He ran hastily to the spot, thinking nothing of his own safety nor of anything else than what had befallen his friends; and under the shelter of the bushes two men of the Duke's Guard, their horses tethered near them, squatted on the ground, and, between, Tommasino lay full length on the ground. His face was white, his eyes closed, and a bloody bandage was about his head. One of the two by him had forced his lips open and was giving him to drink from a bottle. The other sprang up on sight of Antonio and laid a hand to his sword-hilt.

      "Peace, peace!" said Antonio. "Is the lad dead?"

      "He is not dead, my lord, but he is sore hurt."

      "And what do you here with him? And how did you take him?"

      "We came up with him here, and surrounded him; and while some of us held him in front, one cut the hamstrings of his horse from behind; and the horse fell, and with the horse the lady and the young lord. He was up in an instant; but as he rose, the lieutenant struck him on the head and dealt him the wound you see. Then he could fight no more; and the lieutenant took the lady, and with the rest rode back towards the city, leaving us charged with the duty of bringing the young lord in so soon as he was in a state to come with us."

      "They took the lady?"

      "Even so, my lord."

      "And why did they not seek for me?"

      The fellow—Martolo was his name—smiled grimly; and his comrade, looking up, answered: "Maybe they did not wish to find you, my lord. They had been eight to one, and could not have failed to take you in the end."

      "Aye, in the end," said Martolo, laughing now. "Nor," added he, "had the lieutenant such great love for Robert de Beauregard that he would rejoice to deliver you to death for his sake, seeing that you are a Monte Velluto and he a rascally——"

      "Peace! He is dead," said Count Antonio.

      "You have killed him?" they cried with one voice.

      "He attacked me in treachery, and I have killed him," answered Antonio.

      For a while there was silence. Then Antonio asked, "The lady—did she go willingly?"

      "She was frightened and dazed by her fall, my lord; she knew not what she did nor what they did to her. And the lieutenant took her in front of him, and, holding her with all gentleness, so rode towards the city."

      "God keep her," said Antonio.

      "Amen, poor lady!" said Martolo, doffing his cap.

      Then Antonio whistled to his horse, which came to his side; with a gesture he bade the men stand aside, and they obeyed him; and he gathered Tommasino in his arms. "Hold my stirrup, that I may mount," said he; and still they obeyed. But when they saw him mounted, with Tommasino seated in front of him, Martolo cried, "But, my lord, we are charged to take him back and deliver him to the Duke."

      "And if you do?" asked Antonio.

      Martolo made a movement as of one tying a noose.

      "And if you do not?" asked Antonio.

      "Then we had best not show ourselves alive to the Duke."

      Antonio looked down on them. "To whom bear you allegiance?" said he.

      "To His Highness the Duke," they answered, uncovering as they spoke.

      "And to whom besides?" asked Antonio.

      "To none besides," they answered, wondering.

      "Aye, but you do," said he. "To One who wills not that you should deliver to death a lad who has done but what his honour bade him."

      "God's counsel God knows," said Martolo. "We are dead men if we return alone to the city. You had best slay us yourself, my lord, if we may not carry the young lord with us."

      "You are honest lads, are you not?" he asked. "By your faces, you are men of the city."

      "So are we, my lord; but we serve the Duke in his Guard for reward."

      "I love the men of the city as they love me," said Antonio. "And a few pence a day should not buy a man's soul as well as his body."

      The two men looked at one another in perplexity. The fear and deference in which they held Antonio forbade them to fall on him; yet they dared not let him take Tommasino. Then, as they stood doubting, he spoke low and softly to them: "When he that should give law and uphold right deals wrong, and makes white black and black white, it is for gentlemen and honest men to be a law unto themselves. Mount your horses, then, and follow me. And so long as I am safe, you shall be safe; and so long as I live, you shall live; and while I eat and drink, you shall have to drink and eat; and you shall be my servants. And when the time of God's will—whereof God forbid that I should doubt—is come, I will go back to her I love, and you shall go back to them that love you; and men shall say that you have proved yourselves true men and good."

      Thus it was that two men of the Duke's Guard—Martolo and he whom they called Bena (for of his true name there is no record)—went together with Count Antonio and his cousin Tommasino to a secret fastness in the hills; and there in the course of many days Tommasino was healed of the wound which the Lieutenant of the Guard had given him, and rode his horse again, and held next place to Antonio himself in the band that gathered round them. For there came to them every man that was wrongfully oppressed; and some came for love of adventure and because they hoped to strike good blows; and some came whom Antonio would not receive, inasmuch as they were greater rogues than were those whose wrath they fled from.

      Such is the tale of how Count Antonio was outlawed from the Duke's peace and took to the hills. Faithfully have I set it down, and whoso will may blame the Count, and whoso will may praise him. For myself, I thank Heaven that I am well rid of this same troublesome passion of love that likens one man to a lion and another to a fox.

      But the Lady Lucia, being brought back to the city by the Lieutenant of the Guard, was lodged in her own house, and the charge of her was commended by the Duke into the hands of a discreet lady; and for a while His Highness, for very shame, forbore to trouble her with suitors. For he said, in his bitter humour, as he looked down on the dead body of Robert de Beauregard: "I have lost two good servants and four strong arms through her; and mayhap, if I find her another suitor, she will rob me of yet another stalwart gentleman."

      So she abode, in peace indeed, but in sore desolation and sorrow, longing for the day when Count Antonio should come back to seek her. And again was she closely guarded by the Duke.

CHAPTER II.

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COUNT ANTONIO AND THE TRAITOR PRINCE.

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      Of all the deeds that Count Antonio of Monte Velluto did during the time that he was an outlaw in the hills (for a price had been set on his head by Duke Valentine), there was none that made greater stir or struck more home to the hearts of men, howsoever they chose to look upon it, than that which he performed on the high hill that faces the wicket gate on the west side of the city and is called now the Hill of Duke Paul. Indeed it was the act of a man whose own conscience was his sole guide, and who made the law which his own hand was to carry out. That it had been a crime in most men, who can doubt? That it was a crime in him, all governments must hold; and the same, I take it, must be the teaching of the Church. Yet not all men held it a crime, although they had not ventured it themselves, both from the greatness of the person whom the deed concerned, and also for the burden that it put on the conscience of him that did it. Here, then, is the story of it, as it is still told both in the houses of