Adventure Magazine Cover — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

158 He saluted and left, looking somewhat offended that I said naught, but sat there smiling; he thought, doubtless, at my near strangling of him as I awoke; but really, it was with pleasure at my dream. I thought of it, in every detail, as I dressed and put on my armor; the picture of the room, with its lamp-light and its fire and its cat and the little girl, was before-mine eyes as I ate the strong soup of onion and cheese from my iron pot; and it was over this same that I was smiling so happily when we rode toward our rendezvous six hours later. Once more I looked forward to outwitting the Mantuan functionaries in the matter of pay; the plan for the taking of the marsh- gate so dully dreary last night now seemed delectable; my heart was high again. ANITA CHAPTER XII OF RICARDO SALVIATI HE name of the town to be taken was Savello; and, after I had joyously screwed up the hts Mantuans to the highest price my-reputation would warrant, we took it; a miserable little place, but beyond ex- ample hard-working, and so placed that heretofore it had been able to barter its commerce between Mantua and _ Siena, making each in turn outbid the other, and so prospering exceedingly. How I scorned it, though its capture had added so brightly to my reputation! And how little did I think that those very qualities of money-grubbing and dishonesty which, visible in the port of its inhabitants as we paraded through the city, did so dis- gust me, were to decide the course of my life, five years thence! They were five lean years for condottieri, those following that affair. All Italy seemed to have beaten swords into—well, into ink-stands and poison-bottles; and had it not been that many free bands, being commanded by foreigners, went to try their fortune in other and more fortunate coun- tries, I know not what might have become of us. Of the great companies there re- mained but mine own and that of Matteo Scarlatti; and I have since learned that he was as hard-pressed as I, when of a sudden the war-famine was relieved. He was sent for into Rometia, where the duke had busi- F, k. BUCKLEY ness toward; and I was summoned by the Sienese, for the reduction of this same town I had taken for the Mantuans; Savello, of the sidewise-moving merchants, the shifty- eyed council, and the hat-handed populace; of the ducat-stuffed hose, and of the starved fortifications. I do now forget what trader’s agreement with Siena these folk had broken since the wane of Mantuan power over the city. It was, belike, that, having promised the Sienese their commerce if these would work against the Mantuans in the markets —merchants fight together, it seems, by the giving or withholding of bits of paper—the Savellans, freed, had found they could trade to more advantage with other than their deliverers. And so, as I have seen happen time and time again, the paper war was to be decided by one of steel; the Sienese calling us in, not to cut their ducats out of the Savellans’ gizzards; nay, nay; to establish the integrity of treaties; and the Savellans arming their walls, not to guard their ill-gotten gains, but to defend their liberty of choice, and to vin- dicate the sacred freedom of commerce. How I laughed at their manifestos! Aye, aye; for I had thought much since Stella had forsaken me; and my soul had hard- ened; so that, meseemed, it was no longer in the power of the stupidities, hypocrisies, and the sins of humanity to make me weep or rage. It was my conceit (on my way north to both tears and fury, alack!) that, since I was ’ware of the world; since I ex- pected naught but to be miscomprehended, lied to and betrayed, and was ready to lie and betray like my fellows, laughter would be my portion henceforth. Well. =. Since that campaign which had been my first, the Sienese were subject to the control of Venice in all such matters as the making of war or treaties; therefore why this meet- ing to barter for my services was holden in the palace of a Venetian, one Ricardo Sal- viati. He was a noble, a great merchant to boot, and a man of consideration in the government—though what was his office in the Republic, I can not at this distance re- call. ’Twas he, I perceived on entering the audience room, that was to decide the mat- ter at issue. For one thing, he sat at the center of the long table facing me, with the Sienese delegates to right and left of him; ' for another thing, his chair was higher than theirs; and thirdly, his hook nose, his fierce MICLOOOKS (©