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Why, I hear they had to hang you up by the heels to let the water run out of your mouth. Come, Stanny, my boy, this won't do." "Uncle Barto!" "The same: master of the steamship Burlington Castle, deep in deals timbers for huts and other sundries, now lying in Balaclava, waiting to be discharged. But, my dearest lad, you've had a narrow squeak. Tell me, how did it happen, and when?"
'The Signorina Vittoria, returned Barto his articulation came forth serpent-like 'she is not a spy, you think. She has been in England: I have been in England. She writes; I can read. She is a thing of whims. Shall she hold the goblet of Italy in her hand till it overflows? She writes love-letters to an English whitecoat. I have read them. Who bids her write? Her whim!
Barto rushed to him, but Luigi, with a vixenish countenance, standing like a humped cat, hissed, "Would you destroy my reputation and have it seen that I deliver up letters, under the noses of the writers, to the wrong persons? ha! pestilence!" He ran, Barto following him.
It was this: Barto Rizzo, aware that Lieutenant Pierson was the bearer of despatches from the Archduke in Milan to the marshal, then in Verona, had followed, and by extraordinary effort reached Verona in advance; had there tricked and waylaid him, and obtained, instead of despatches, a letter of recent date, addressed to him by Vittoria, which compromised the insurrectionary project.
He will write to her: you will be the bearer of his letter to the signorina. I must see her reply. She is a good patriot; so am I; so are you. Good patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her reply to this Lieutenant Pierson." Barto stuck his thumb and finger astride Luigi's shoulder and began rocking him gently, with a horrible meditative expression.
'You can't guess? I cannot help you. 'You will not! said the irritable woman. 'Have you noticed no one passing near you? 'A woman brushed by me as I entered this street. I remember no one else. And my Beppo seized a man who was spying on me, as he said. That is all I can remember. Vittoria turned her face to Ammiani. 'Barto Rizzo has lived in England, he remarked, half to himself.
Carlo spoke a stern word in an undertone; counselling him to be gone. "If you will not what was she to do?" Barto cut the question to interrogate his strayed wits. "Look at me, Countess Alessandra. I was in the prison. I heard that my Rosellina had a tight heart. She cried for her master, poor heathen, and I sprang out of the walls to her.
The ladies came forth bearing wine and minestra, meat and bread, on trays; and quiet eating and drinking, and fortifying of the barricades, went on. Men were rubbing their arms and trying rusty gun-locks. Few of them had not seen Barto Rizzo that day; but Angelo could get no tidings of his brother.
You shan't go: I'll tell you everything everything. I can't tell you anything more than I have told you. She gave me a cigarette there! Now you know: gave me a cigarette; a cigarette. I smoked it there! Your faithful servant!" "She gave you a cigarette, and you smoked it; ha!" said Barto Rizzo, who appeared to see something to weigh even in that small fact.
Wilfrid read the miserable copy of Vittoria's letter, utterly unable to resolve anything in his mind, except that he would know among a thousand the leader of those men who had attacked him, and who bore the mark of his sword. Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do.
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