THE POPE'S MOUTH Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do.

He had not found it difficult to outstrip the lieutenant (who had to visit Brescia on his way) and reach the gates of Verona in advance of him, where he obtained entrance among a body of grape-gatherers and others descending from the hills to meet a press of labour in the autumnal plains.

With them he hoped to issue forth unchallenged on the following morning; but Wilfrid's sword had made lusty play; and, as in the case when the order has been given that a man shall be spared in life and limb, Barto and his fellow-assailants suffered by their effort to hold him simply half a minute powerless.

He received a shrewd cut across the head, and lay for a couple of hours senseless in the wine-shop of one Battista--one of the many all over Lombardy who had pledged their allegiance to the Great Cat, thinking him scarcely vulnerable.

He read the letter, dizzy with pain, and with the frankness proper to inflated spirits after loss of blood, he owned to himself that it was not worth much as a prize.