And with these enigmatic words, and a roguish wink and squeeze, he had hurried away again, following the impatient summons of Jacopo, who was beckoning him towards a flight of open stairs niched in the north curtain, up which the two had thereon gone, and so disappeared among the battlements.
Then had Bernardo turned, humour battling with reverence in his sensorium, and 'Cicca!' had exclaimed, with a little click of laughter.
The Fool's answer had been prompt and emphatic.
'Cracked!' he had snapped, like a dog at a fly.
'Who was he?'
'Nay, curtail not his short lease. He is yet, and, being, is the Fra Capello—may I die else.'
'Well, if he is, what is he?'
'Why, a short-of-breath monk; yet soon destined, if I read him aright, to be a breathless monk.'
'Nay, thou wilt only new-knot a riddle. I will follow and ask the Provost-Marshal, though I love him not.'
'Nor he thee, methinks. Hold back. The butcher looks askance at the pet lamb. Well, what wouldst thou? Of this same monkish rotundity, this hemisphere of fat, this moon-paunch, this great blob of star-jelly, this planet-counterfeiting frog, this astronomic globe stuffed out with pasties and ortolans? Well, 'tis Fra Capello, I tell thee, an astrologer, a diviner by the stars—do I not aver it, though I have never set eyes on the man before?'