'My feet are weary for the turning. Pray ye, kind mother, that this road end soon.'
'What! shall I hurry mine own damnation?' gurgled the other (his tongue by then was clacking in his mouth). 'Trippingly, I warrant, shall ye take that path, unheeding of the poor wretch that lags a million miles behind lashed by a storm of scorpions.'
'Marry, sweet,' whispered the boy, smiling; 'I'll wait thee, never fear, when once I see my way. How could I forego such witness as thou to my brave intentions? We'll jog the road together, while I shield thy back.'
'Well, let be,' said Cicca. 'Better they stung that, than my heart through thine arm'—whereat Bernardo nipped him feebly in an ecstasy of tears.
In the first hours of their fearful doom he was more full of wonder than alarm—astounded, in the swooning sense. He had not come yet to realise the mortal nature of their punishment. How should he, innocent of harm? Attributing, as he did, this sudden blow to Bona, he marvelled only how so kind a mother could chastise so sharply for a little offence—or none. Indeed he was conscious of none; though conscious enough, latterly, poor child, of an atmosphere of grievance. Well, the provocation had been his, no doubt—somehow. He had learned enough of woman in these months to know that the measure of her resentment was not always the measure of the fault—how she would sometimes stab deeper for a disappointment than for a wrong. He had disappointed her in some way. No doubt, his favour being so high, he had presumed upon it. A useful rebuke, then. He would bear his imposition manly; but he hoped, he did hope, that not too much of it would be held to have purged his misconduct. The Duke was returning shortly. Perhaps he would plead for him.
So sweetly and so humbly he estimated his own insignificance. Could his foul slanderers have read his heart then, they had surely raved upon God, in their horror, to strike them, instant and for ever, from the rolls of self-conscious existence.
Cicada listened to him, and gnawed his knotted knuckles in the gloom, and wondered when and how he should dare to curse him with the truth. He might at least have spared himself that agony. The truth, to one so true, could not long fail of revealing itself. And when it came, lo! he welcomed it, as always, for a friend.
Small birds, small flowers, small wants perish of a little neglect. His sun, his sustenance, were scarce withheld a few hours from this sensitive plant before he began to droop. And ever, with the fading of his mortal tissues, the glow of the intelligence within seemed to grow brighter, until verily the veins upon his temples appeared to stand out, like mystic writing on a lighted porcelain lamp.
So it happened that, as he and his companion were sitting apart on the filthy stones late on the noon of the second day of their imprisonment, he ended a long silence by creeping suddenly to the Fool's knees, and, looking up into the Fool's face in the dim twilight, appealed to its despair with a tremulous smile.
'Cicca,' he whispered, 'my Cicca; wilt thou listen, and not be frightened?'