Page:Vorse--The ninth man.djvu/37



ND I will wager that in all its life San Moglio had never seen gathered in the palace of the Podestà such a company; for there faction met faction as friends; old hate smiled at old hate; sworn enemies met for the first time without the drawing of swords.

Nor could Mazzaleone's, own eyes distinguish where a feud lay; one would have supposed that each felt a dear joy in thus seeing close at hand his own enemy. I saw Beatrice degli Oddi talking with her brothers, though all San Moglio knew that they had sworn to tear her in pieces when that happy hour came that they might lay their hands upon her. And she talked with them as though they had never been parted; as though they had not sworn her death so bitterly that she had not left the palace of Ugo da Sala since he took her there from her father's house, Da Sala's men killing her kinsman as he lifted her over the threshold.

I stood near Count Bartolommeo, and heard him say to my lady, "There is the making of a rare fight below," for in the