with crags and eminences, through which the river worked strenuously,
sinuous in foam, hurrying at the turns. Angelo watched all the ways from
a distant height till set of sun. He saw another couple of soldiers meet
those two at the inn, and then one pair went up toward the vale-head. It
seemed as if Vittoria had disconcerted them by having chosen another
route.

'Padrone,' said Jacopo to him abruptly, when they descended to find a
resting-place, 'you are, I speak humbly, so like the devil that I must
enter into a stipulation with you, before I continue in your company, and
take the worst at once. This is going to be the second night of my
sleeping away from my wife: I merely mention it. I pinch her, and she
beats me, and we are equal. But if you think of making me fight, I tell
you I won't. If there was a furnace behind me, I should fall into it
rather than run against a bayonet. I 've heard say that the nerves are
in the front part of us, and that's where I feel the shock. Now we're on
a plain footing. Say that I'm not to fight. I'll be your servant till
you release me, but say I 'm not to fight; padrone, say that.'

'I can't say that: I'll say I won't make you fight,' Angelo pacified him
by replying. From this moment Jacopo followed him less like a graceless
dog pulled by his chain. In fact, with the sense of prospective
security, he tasted a luxurious amazement in being moved about by a
superior will, wafted from his inn, and paid for witnessing strange
incidents. Angelo took care that he was fed well at the place where
they slept, but himself ate nothing. Early after dawn they mounted the
heights above the road. It was about noon that Angelo discerned a party
coming from the pass on foot, consisting of two women and three men.
They rested an hour at the village where he had slept overnight; the
muskets were a quarter of a mile to the rear of them. When they started