There was something so significant in his tone that the broken man he addressed started, as if a hand had been laid on his eyes.
'For what? Who is he?' he muttered.
'I will tell you anon,' answered Montano. 'No prelector but hath his favourite pupils. He, alumnus, is in this case threefold—three dear homeless scholars of mine, Lupo, needing a rallying-place in which to meet and mature some long-discussed theory of social cure. I have heard from them since—since my illness. They chafe to resume their studies and their mentor—honest, good fellows, confessing, perhaps, to a heresy or so.'
'Master,' muttered the armourer, 'you will do no harm to be explicit.'
'Shall I not? Well, if you will, and by grace of an example, such a heresy, say, as that, when the devil rules by divine right, the God who nominated him is best deposed.'
'Yes, yes, to be sure. That is blasphemy as well as heresy. But I think of Messer Bembo, who is still His minister, and I believe your pupils go too far.'
'Why, what hath this minister done for you?'
'Very much, in intention.'
'Well, I thought that was said to pave the other place; but, in truth, the issues of all things are confounded, since we have an angel for the Lord's minister and a devil for His vicegerent.'
'Pity of God! are they not? And ye would resolve them by deposing the Christ—by knocking out the very keystone of hope?'