“My dear fellow,” said Albert, turning to Franz, “here is an admirable adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and double-barrelled guns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him⁠—we bring him back to Rome, and present him to his holiness the Pope, who asks how he can repay so great a service; then we merely ask for a carriage and a pair of horses, and we see the Carnival in the carriage, and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the Capitol, and proclaim us, like Curtius and Horatius Cocles, the preservers of their country.”

Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, Signor Pastrini’s face assumed an expression impossible to describe.

“And pray,” asked Franz, “where are these pistols, blunderbusses, and other deadly weapons with which you intend filling the carriage?”

“Not out of my armory, for at Terracina I was plundered even of my hunting-knife. And you?”

“I shared the same fate at Aquapendente.”