a length of thread," said I. She scuttled off to do my bidding, like
nothing so much as one of the rats that tenanted her unclean sty. She
was back in a moment, all servility, and wondering whether there was a
rent about me she might make bold to stitch. What a key to courtesy is
gold, my masters! I drove her out, and eager to conciliate me, she went
at once.

With my own hands I effected in my doublet the slight repair of which it
stood in need. Then I donned my hat, and, cloak on shoulder, made my way
below, calling for my horse as I descended.

I scorned the wine they proffered me ere I departed. That last night's
draught had quenched my thirst for ever of such grape-juice as it was
theirs to tender. I urged the taverner to hasten with my horse, and
stood waiting in the squalid common-room, my mind divided 'twixt
impatience to resume the road to Pesaro and fresh speculations upon the
means I was to adopt to enter it and yet save my neck--for this was now
become an obsessing problem.

As I stood waiting, there broke upon my ears the sound of an approaching
cavalcade: the noise of voices and the soft fall of hoofs upon the thick
snow carpet. The company halted at the door, and a loud, gruff voice was
raised to cry:

"Locandiere! Afoot, sluggard!"

I stepped to the door, with very natural curiosity, a company of four
mounted men escorting a mule-litter, the curtains of which were drawn so
that nothing might be seen of him or her that rode within. Grooms were
those four, as all the world might see at the first glance, and the livery