"Damned Arabian!" growled Lapo, brandishing his fist. He sat down
beside the gate-tower, and rested his chin on his hands.
"How cold it is," he thought, "how lonely and dismal! Warfare is
what I need. Dear Lord, let me soon be killing men briskly, and
warming myself in the burning streets of Ferrara. That is what I was
begotten for. I have been lost in a maze."
Dawn approached, and Lapo was still dozing beside the gate-tower.
With the first hint of light the sentinel challenged; voices
answered outside the gate. It was old Grangioia and his sons,
calling up that they had come to visit their daughter.
"Well arrived," Lapo grunted, his brain and body sluggish from the
chill. He ordered the gate swung open.
Too late, as they rode into the courtyard, he saw that there were
nearly a score of them, all with their helmets on. Then in the fog
he heard a noise like an avalanche of ice--the clatter of countless
steel-clad men scrambling up the hillside.
While running along the wall, Lapo Cercamorte noted that the
horsemen were hanging back, content to hold the gate till reinforced.
On each side of the courtyard his soldiers were tumbling out of
their barracks and fleeing toward the keep, that inner stronghold
which was now their only haven.
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