“Well, then, if you obtain the reprieve?”
“The middle window at the Café Rospoli will be hung with white damask, bearing a red cross.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then all three windows will have yellow draperies.”
“And then?”
“And then, my good fellow, use your daggers in any way you please, and I further promise you to be there as a spectator of your prowess.”
“We understand each other perfectly, then. Adieu, your excellency; depend upon me as firmly as I do upon you.”
Saying these words, the Transteverin disappeared down the staircase, while his companion, muffling his features more closely than before in the folds of his mantle, passed almost close to Franz, and descended to the arena by an outward flight of steps. The next minute Franz heard himself called by Albert, who made the lofty building reecho with the sound of his friend’s name. Franz, however, did not obey the summons till he had satisfied himself that the two men whose conversation he had overheard were at a sufficient distance to prevent his encountering them in his descent. In ten minutes after the strangers had departed, Franz was on the road to the Piazza di Spagna, listening with studied indifference to the learned dissertation delivered by Albert, after the manner of Pliny and Calpurnius, touching the iron-pointed nets used to prevent the ferocious beasts from springing on the spectators.
Franz let him proceed without interruption, and, in fact, did not hear what was said; he longed to be alone, and free to ponder over all that had occurred. One of the two men, whose mysterious meeting in the Colosseum he had so unintentionally witnessed, was an entire stranger to