What farewells may have been spoken between them, what premonitions may have troubled one or the other that they were destined never to meet again, I do not know.
I remember being rudely awakened one dark morning early in the year, and lifted from my bed by arms to whose clasp I never failed to thrill.
Close to mine was pressed a hot, dark, shaven hawk-face; a pair of great eyes, humid with tears, considered me passionately.

Then a ringing voice--that commanding voice that was my father's--spoke to Falcone, the man-at-arms who attended him and who ever acted as his equerry.
"Shall we take him with us to the wars, Falcone ?" My little arms went round his neck and tightened there convulsively until the steel rim of his gorget bit into them.
"Take me!" I sobbed.

"Take me!" He laughed for answer, with something of exultation in his voice.

He swung me to his shoulder, and held me poised there, looking up at me.
And then he laughed again.
"Dost hear the whelp ?" he cried to Falcone.

"Still with his milk-teeth in his head, and already does he yelp for battle!" Then he looked up at me again, and swore one of his great oaths.
"I can trust you, son of mine," he laughed.