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And it was a proof of his mean insight that he had spread his net in the sight of the bird and had snared his quarry. Having won so briskly the first move in his game, Messer Simone lost no time in making the second move.

"If we succeed," Dante echoed me, slowly, "why, if we succeed, then will not Messer Simone appear indeed to be a very generous and perfect gentleman, who was willing to give this great opportunity for honor and conflict to those that were so hotly opposed to him and his people in the brawls of the city?"

And now I must go and ring the 'Angelus." And the old monk did go, and the "Angelus" was duly rung. But Brother Simone, as he lay upon his fevered bed, was very well able to tell that the rope was pulled by a very uncertain and unsteady hand. "Poor old fellow! he's going fast! I wonder whether there's any chance of their moving me when he's gone?" thought Brother Simone to himself.

Now, I had never in all my life felt any kindly liking for Messer Simone, but I had to confess to myself that he cut something of a flourishing figure just then and just there.

She told him, astonished as he was at this amazing mutiny, that she could not and would not wed Messer Simone, because her heart was pledged to another, and that other one whom she would not name. Madonna Beatrice kept silence thus rigorously the identity of her lover, because of her certainty that the swords of her kinsmen would be whetted against him the moment that his name was known.

"Put your trust in God," Guillaumette Dyonis answered her. "Amen!" returned Simone la Bardine. "But I have not told you the worst. On the Thursday before St, John's day, at three after midnight, two Englishmen came knocking at my door.

But she clinched her bargain with him by assuring him, when she paid into the hands of a sure and trusted third party the overprice agreed upon, which was to make Messer Griffo false to Messer Simone, that after the return to Florence of the Company of Death uninjured by him or his, he would be a very welcome visitor at her house, and might consider himself for a season the master of everything it contained.

This was a case of killing two birds with one stone that mightily delighted Messer Simone, and he made sure that he had found the very stone that was fit for his fingers in the excellent, belligerent Free Companion.

In some occult manner it had leaked out that a number of the youths of Florence were absent from their dwellings. It gradually became known that all those that were thus absent were members of the same party, and that party the one which was held in no great affection by Messer Simone, the party of the Reds.

Meanwhile Simone had been safe upstairs with her mother and grandmother, and none of the officers lodged in the château had after a first hasty inspection set foot in any part of the house but the wing assigned to them. On the third morning they had left, and Scharlach, before going, had put in Mlle.