The road branches farther on." He waited for no more.

Without word of thanks for the priceless information I had given him, he wheeled his horse, and shouted a hoarse command to his followers.

A moment later and they were cantering past us, the snow flying beneath their hoofs; within five minutes the last of them had vanished round an angle of the road, and the only indication of the halt they had made was the broad path of dirty brown where their horses had crushed the snow.
I have been an actor in few more entertaining comedies than the cozening of Ser Ramiro, and a witness of nothing that afforded me at once so much relief and relish as his abrupt departure.

I sank back on the cushions of my litter, and gave myself over to a burst of full-souled laughter which was interrupted ere it was half done by Giacopo, who had dismounted and approached me.
"You have fooled us finely," said he, with venom.
I quenched my laughter to regard him.

Of what did he babble?
Was he, and were his fellows, too, so ungrateful as to bear a grudge against the man who had saved them?
"You have fooled us finely," he insisted in a louder voice.
"That, knave, is my trade," said I."But it rather seems to me that it was Messer Ramiro del' Orca whom I fooled." "Aye," he answered querulously.