'Love! Let pass!' he shrieked: 'Fiends are ye all, with whom to breathe is poison!' and he broke by them, and went flying and crying up into the daylight. He ran, without pause, by the walls, down the notched stairway, across the ward, and came with flaming colour into the buttery.
'Give me wine and bread!' he screamed of the steward there; and the man, in a flurry of wonder, obeyed him. Then away he raced again, his hands full, and never stopped until the sentry, a new one, at the tower door barred his progress. The way was private, quoth the man. He could let none past but by order.
'Of whom?' panted Bembo.
'Why, the Provost-Marshal.'
Then the boy tried wheedling.
'Dear soldier: thou art well cared for. There is one within perishes for a little bread.'
But the man was adamant.
'Where, then, is the Provost-Marshal?' cried the other in desperation.
Within or without—the sentry professed not to know. In any case, it was death to him to leave his post.
Bernardo put down his load on the battlements, and, turning, fled away again.