The little monster could not believe it. This instant fall from the heights! He was flaccid with terror as he fell screeching on his knees.
'Mercy, good stranger! Mercy, dear lord saint! The terror! the torture! I could not suffer them and live. O, let me live, I pray thee!—anywhere, anyhow, and I will do all; make whatever restitution you impose.'
As he prayed and wept and grovelled, the Saint looked down with icy pity on his abasement.
'Restitution, Tassino!' he cried, 'for that murthered vision, for that ruined virtue? Wouldst thou even in thine impiousness arrogate to thyself such divine prerogatives? Yet, in respect of that reason with which true justice doth hedge her reprisals, the Duke's mercy shall still allot thee an alternative. Sith thou canst not restore his honour or his eyes to poor Lupo, thou shalt take his shame to wife, and in her seek to renew that image of God which thou hast defaced. Do this, and only doing it, know thyself spared.'
A silence of stupefaction fell upon the court. What would Bona say to this arbitrary disposal of her pet, made husband to a common gipsy he had debauched? True, the sentence, by virtue of its ethical completeness, seemed an inspiration. But it was a disappointment too. None doubted but that the popinjay would subscribe to the present letter in order to evade the practice of it by and by. Already the paltry soul of the creature was struggling from its submersion, gasping, and blinking wickedly to see how it could retort upon its judge and deliverer. It had been better to have trodden it under for once and for good—better for the moral of the lesson, as for all who foresaw some hope for themselves in the crushing of an insufferable petty tyranny. Galeazzo himself frowned and bit his nails. He would have lusted to see heaven pluck off this vulgar burr for him. Only his brother, sleek and smiling, applauded the verdict. He had a far-seeing vision, had Ludovico, and perhaps already it was alotting a more telling rôle to the little aristocrat of San Zeno than had ever been played by the cockney parvenu down in the arena.
Suddenly the Duke was on his feet, fierce and glaring.
'Answer, dog!' he roared; 'acceptest thou the condition?'
Tassino started and sobbed.
'Yes, yes. I accept. I will marry her.'
The Duke took a costly chain from his own neck, and hung it about the shoulders of the Parablist.