"Let none who look for safety go to Milan."




CHAPTER VII

A week following the day of meetings on the Motterone, Luigi the spy was
in Milan, making his way across the Piazza de' Mercanti. He entered a
narrow court, one of those which were anciently built upon the Oriental
principle of giving shade at the small cost of excluding common air. It
was dusky noon there through the hours of light, and thrice night when
darkness fell. The atmosphere, during the sun's short passage overhead,
hung with a glittering heaviness, like the twinkling iron-dust in a
subterranean smithy. On the lower window of one of the houses there was
a board, telling men that Barto Rizzo made and mended shoes, and
requesting people who wished to see him to make much noise at the door,
for he was hard of hearing. It speedily became known in the court that
a visitor desired to see Barto Rizzo. The noise produced by Luigi was
like that of a fanatical beater of the tomtom; he knocked and banged and
danced against the door, crying out for his passing amusement an
adaptation of a popular ballad:--

"Oh, Barto, Barto! my boot is sadly worn: The toe is seen that should be
veiled from sight. The toe that should be veiled like an Eastern maid:
like a sultan's daughter: Shocking! shocking! One of a company of ten
that were living a secluded life in chaste privacy! Oh, Barto, Barto!
must I charge it to thy despicable leather or to my incessant
pilgrimages? One fair toe! I fear presently the corruption of the