small brass pieces of cannon, shining with polish. Shot was piled in
pyramids beneath their mouths. He examined the guns admiringly. There
were rows of daggers along shelves; some in sheath, others bare; one that
had been hastily wiped showed a smear of ropy blood. He stood debating
whether he should seize a sword for his protection. In the act of trying
its temper on the floor, the sword-hilt was knocked from his hand, and he
felt a coil of arms around him. He was in the imprisoning embrace of
Barto Rizzo's wife. His first, and perhaps natural, impression accused
her of a violent display of an eccentric passion for his manly charms;
and the tighter she locked him, the more reasonably was he held to
suppose it; but as, while stamping on the floor, she offered nothing to
his eyes save the yellow poll of her neck, and hung neither panting nor
speaking, he became undeceived. His struggles were preposterous; his
lively sense of ridicule speedily stopped them. He remained passive,
from time to time desperately adjuring his living prison to let him
loose, or to conduct him whither he had come; but the inexorable coil
kept fast--how long there was no guessing--till he could have roared out
tears of rage, and that is extremity for an Englishman. Rinaldo arrived
in his aid; but the woman still clung to him. He was freed only by the
voice of Barto Rizzo, who marched him back. Rinaldo subsequently told
him that his discovery of the armoury necessitated his confinement.

"Necessitates it!" cried Wilfrid. "Is this your Italian gratitude?"

The other answered: "My friend, you risked your fortune for my brother;
but this is a case that concerns our country."

He deemed these words to be an unquestionable justification, for he said
no more. After this they ceased to converse.