Part 29 (1/2)

”Am I? It did not strike me that I was incoherent. Probably one half of me was asleep while the other was talking.” He laughed drily, and drank again. ”No,” he said thoughtfully, as he set down his gla.s.s. ”I feel nothing unusual in my head. It would be odd if I did, considering that we have only just begun.”

”So I thought,” answered Dalrymple.

He ordered more wine and relapsed into silence. Neither spoke again for a long time.

”There goes another bottle,” said Dalrymple, at last, as he drained the last drops from the flagon measure. ”Drink a little faster. This is slow work. We know the old road well enough.”

”You are not inclined to give up the attempt, are you?” inquired Griggs, whose still face showed no change. ”Is it fair to eat? I am hungry.”

”Certainly. Eat as much as you like.”

Griggs ordered something, which was brought after considerable delay, and he began to eat.

”We are not loquacious over our cups,” remarked Dalrymple. ”Should you mind telling me why you are anxious to get drunk to-night for the first time in your life?”

”I might ask you the same question,” answered Griggs, cautiously.

”Merely because you proposed it. It struck me as a perfectly new idea. I have not much to amuse me, you know, and I shall have less when my daughter leaves me. It would be an amus.e.m.e.nt to lose one's head in some way.”

”In such a way as to be able to get it back, you mean. I was walking this evening after the party, and I came to the Piazza Montanara. There is a big flagstone there on which people used to leave their heads for good.”

”Yes. I have seen it. You cannot tell me much about Rome which I do not know.”

”There were a lot of carriers drinking close by. It was rather grim, I thought. An old fellow there had a spite against somebody. You know how they talk. 'They may cut off my head there on the paving-stone,' the man said. 'If I find him, I kill him. An evil death on him and all his house!' You have heard that sort of thing. But the fellow seemed to be very much in earnest.”

”He will probably kill his man,” said Dalrymple.

Suddenly his big, loose shoulders shook a little, and he s.h.i.+vered. He glanced towards the window, suspecting that it might be open.

”Are you cold?” asked Griggs, carelessly.

”Cold? No. Some one was walking over my grave, as they say. If we varied the entertainment with something stronger, we should get on faster, though.”

”No,” said Griggs. ”I refuse to mix things. This may be the longer way, but it is the safer.”

And he drank again.

”He was a man from Tivoli, or Subiaco,” he remarked presently. ”He spoke with that accent.”

”I daresay,” answered Dalrymple, who looked down into his gla.s.s at that moment, so that his face was in shadow.

Just then four men who had occupied a table near the door rose and went out. It was late, even for a night in Carnival.

”I hope they are not going to leave us all to ourselves,” said Dalrymple. ”The place will be shut up, and we need at least two hours more.”

”At least,” a.s.sented Paul Griggs. ”But they expect to be open all night.

I think there is time.”

The men at the other tables showed no signs of moving. They sat quietly in their places, drinking steadily, by sips. Some of them were eating roasted chestnuts, and all were talking more or less in low tones.