“I know nothing about that,” said the goatherd; “my palate is sufficient evidence for me. Look where they come and lay their fish upon my embers. The very savour of their cooking tells me I can taste again. It is Jesus, sure enough!”
THE BORGIA DEATH
“This is the house, father,” muttered the Benedictine.
His companion, like himself, wore the black habit of the Order, and his cowl so shrouded his face that little of that was visible but a short white beard fringing a mouth and jaw of singular grimness.
The two stood before the door of a common dwelling situated in a block of buildings near the Ponte Sisto, and almost under the shadow of the Castle of the Capoferri. It was a June evening of the year 1504, and already the seven hills of Rome were like seven burning kilns. The heat radiated from them, even at midnight, would have sufficed a reasonable land for its summer.
The door was opened to the low knock of the friar by a scared-looking young girl. She wore a simple dress of green frieze, the bodice of which, unlaced to the heat, had slipped about her shoulders. The light of the lamp she carried rounded upon her full lower lip, and gave a dusky mystery to her wide animal eyes. The older man, regarding the child a moment, raised his hand and fondled her chin and neck, deliberately, and like a privileged connoisseur.
“Balatrone’s daughter?” he asked.
The girl answered “Yes” with a motion of her lips. Taking him for the prior of some great community, she never even thought of resenting his caress.
“It may count to thy father for a score of indulgences,” said the monk. “We shall see. Now take us to him.”
She went before, and they followed her into a little stifling chamber looking on a small courtyard where a scrap of fountain tinkled. Tiny as its voice was, it conveyed a thought of refreshment to the sick man who lay on a couch against the wall beside.