light, so that Tizzo put down the age of the lad at two or three years younger than the sixteen or seventeen which had been his first guess.
“Whatever you may be in other places,” said Melrose, sternly, “when you ride with me, I am the master. Get into the carriage!”
Tomaso, in spite of this sternness, moved in the most leisurely manner to re-enter the carriage, with a shrug of his shoulders and a glance of contempt from his brown eyes.
After he was out of sight, one of the guards refastened the curtains that shut Tomaso from view.
“Why,” said Tizzo, “he’s only a child.”
The baron pointed a finger at him. “Let me tell you,” he said, “that you’re apt to find more danger in Tomaso than in any man you’ll meet in the whole course of your life. To horse, my lads. I’m glad to see you all safely here; and I’ve been true to my promise and found a good man to add to our party. My friends, this is Tizzo. They call him Firebrand because his hair is red; but his nature is as quiet as that of a pet dog. Value him as I do—which is highly. He will help us to get to the end of our journey.”
There were only a few muttered greetings. One fellow with a long face and a patch over one eye protested: “It’s a bad business stirring up hornets and then waiting for them to sting; or making these long halts in the middle of enemy country. Already we’ve been noted.”
“By whom, Enrico?” asked the baron. “Who would think of searching this place? And you covered the marks of the wheels when you drove the carriage into hiding?”
“I covered the marks well enough. But a dog uses its nose, not its eyes, and it was a dog that led the man into the wood.”
“Did you catch the fellow?” asked the baron, anxiously.
“How could we? There was not a single horse saddled. He came on us suddenly, whirled about, and was off. I caught up a crossbow and tried for him but missed,” answered Enrico. “He rode away between those hills, and ever since, I’ve been watching to see trouble come through the pass at us. I was never for making the halt.”
“Tush,” said Melrose. “Everything will be well. Did that stranger who spied on you—did he see Tomaso?”
“He did—clearly—and Tomaso shouted to him.”
“By God, Enrico, do you mean that Tomaso recognized him?”
“I don’t know. It seemed that way. Very likely, too, because a thousand men are hunting for—Tomaso.”
The baron groaned and ordered an instant start. He left Enrico and Tizzo as a rear guard to follow at a little distance, out of the dust raised by the clumsy wheels of the carriage; for his own part, the baron of Melrose went forward to spy out the way.
As they started forward, their horses at a trot, Enrico turned his ugly face to Tizzo and said: “So my lord found his redhead, eh? You’re the prize, are you?”
Tizzo had felt himself on the verge of a mystery. Now he was sure that he was involved in the mystery itself. For some definite and singular purpose, the baron certainly wanted him. It was above all strange that in Italy he should be looking for redheaded young men. Might it be that he intended to use Tizzo to impersonate another character? In any event, it was certain that the baron was not a man to bother over small scruples. And Tizzo determined to be more wakeful than a hungry cat. He had a liking for the baron; he respected his strength and his courage; he hoped that through him the golden door of adventure might be opened; but he half expected that the big man was using him as the slightest of pawns in some great game.
The carriage horses dragged their burden through the hills, where the road wound blazing white among the vineyards and the dusty gray of the olive trees, often silvered by a touch of wind. The day was hot, the work was hard, and presently the team had to be rested.
As they halted to take breath, the baron rode apart with Tizzo, and dismounting behind a tall stone wall, he pulled out his sword. “For the first lesson!” he said, and as Tizzo drew his own blade, Melrose showed him, with the slowest movement of the hand, the details of that maneuver which had opened the guard of Tizzo like a handstroke. For several minutes he studied and practiced that strange combination of ward and counterstroke. He had not mastered it with his hand but he understood it with his mind before they went back to the others.
Tizzo asked him, on the way, why he had not used the irresistible force of that ward and counter earlier during their encounter in the kitchen. At this the baron chuckled. “Because I’m a fool,” he said. “I was enjoying the sight of your good swordsmanship too much to want the thing to end.”
“Yes,” agreed Tizzo, smiling. “And besides, you were wearing a lucky buckle.”
“Luck is the best friend that any soldier ever had,” answered the baron. “When you learn to trust it, you have learned how to be happy. But, Tizzo, trust me, also!”
He said this with a certain gravity that impressed his companion. But when the journey through the late afternoon commenced again, there was still a pregnant doubt in the mind of Tizzo. That matter of the search for the redheaded young man—that unknown role for which he had been selected weighed much on his mind.
He kept his concerns to himself, however, as they drew on into the cooler evening. A wind had begun in the upper sky, whirling the clouds into thin, twisted streamers, but it had not yet reached the surface of the ground.
The carriage was being dragged up a fairly easy slope when the baron halted it by raising his hand. He reined his horse back at the same time, calling: “Enrico, do you see anything in those trees?”
Enrico, staring fixedly at the small grove of willows—thick, pollarded stumps, exclaimed: “I can’t see into the trees, but I can see a dust over them that the wind never put there.”
Now that it was pointed out, Tizzo could see the same thing—a few drifting wisps of dust high above the tops of the trees. If the baron paid heed to such small tokens as these, it proved the intensity of his care.
“If we go on, the road takes us straight past that place,” he said, “Cesare, ride into those trees and see what sort of birds you can stir up.”
But before Cesare could stir to execute the order, something whirred in a streak through the air and Tizzo received a heavy blow against his breastplate. A broken quarrel dropped to the ground, the steel point of it fixed deeply in the armor; and Tizzo heard at the same time the humming clang of the crossbow string, which sounded from the edge of the wood. As though this were the signal, a shout burst out from many throats and the brush at the edge of the willows appeared alive with men.
CHAPTER 5
The baron shouted to get the horses turned. The team was swinging around when a full volley of half a dozen of crossbow bolts darted from the brush and stopped the maneuver. One of the team dropped dead. Two others, badly wounded, began to squeal and plunge, dragging the carriage to the side of the road and smashing a wheel against a rock.
“Charge before they reload!” shouted the baron. “Tizzo! Enrico! With me, friends!”
He
