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The serenade continued, and the two Bravi enjoyed it quite as much as Ortensia herself; but it was not likely that Don Alberto would be satisfied to go quietly to bed after being wounded under the very walls of his father's palace by a professional cut-throat who had been doubtless hired to protect a rival serenader.
But the Bravi had already written to Pignaver as well as to the lady for more funds, on the ground that forty days had passed without affording them the opportunity they sought, and at two ducats a day their account thus came to eighty ducats, already gone for unavoidable expenses. Since they were paid twice over, it was quite natural that their expenses should sometimes be doubled.
The little house in the Via di Santa Sabina was also ready, but he knew nothing of this arrangement, and was willing that the Bravi should keep secret the spot where he was to meet Ortensia, if they preferred to do so.
Suddenly rising to fame, he broke loose from his Roman associations and fled to Naples, where he soon became the wealthiest and the most arrogant artist of his time. He held continually at his orders a faction of bravi who drove from Naples, with threats and insults and violence, every artist of eminence who dared visit the city.
Moreover, the Bravi had not yet come to a definite agreement as to the plan they should pursue, and Trombin's scheme, which seemed the best, was far less easy to carry out than a common murder, and very much more expensive; for it meant kidnapping both Stradella and his wife, and taking them all the way back to Venice as close prisoners, without exciting suspicion by the way, so that the inns at which they had all stopped on their journey southwards would have to be scrupulously avoided on their return.
"You knew that bravi were employed against me by that man of the rue Soly?" "Monsieur!" "Madame, I now call you to account, not for my happiness only, but for my blood " At this instant Jules Desmarets approached them. "What are you saying to my wife, monsieur?"
Ortensia heard a sort of chinking thud, as if a heavy purse had fallen on the stones. This was instantly followed by a scuffle, and she knew that the two men had closed and were wrestling. The whole truth had flashed upon her through the few words they had exchanged, or enough of it to prove that young Altieri had not calumniated the men she had thought her friends when he had called them Bravi.
It casts much curious light, moreover, on the relations between paid bravi and their employers, the esteem in which professional cutthroats were held, and their connection with the police of the Italian towns. It is published in a tract concerning Lorenzino, Milano, Daelli, 1862.
Pignaver nodded and followed the host, who at once led the way in. Some of the people who had been supping when the Bravi had entered were gone away, but others had taken their places. The young Florentine and his beautiful guest had disappeared, and their table was occupied by a noisily gay party, of whom more than half wore masks.
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