“The gentleman was more troubled by this prediction than he liked to admit. I need not say that the next day he did not go near the Arno, though it was as dry as a bone; nay, he kept out of a bath, and was almost afraid to wash his face.
“At last he got the fancy that some enemies or villains would burst into his lonely house, bind him hand and foot carry him far away, and drown him in some lonely stream, or
perhaps in the sea. He remembered just such a case. We all remember just such cases when we don’t want to. That was it, decidedly.
“Then he had a happy thought. There was a little hiding-chamber, centuries old, in the palazzo, known only to himself, with a concealed door. He would go and hide there. He shouted for joy, and when he entered the room, he leaped with a great bound from the threshold of the door, down and over three or four steps, into the middle of the little room.
“Now he did not know that in the cantina or cellar below this hiding-place there was an immense tino, or vat, containing hundreds of barrels of wine, such as are used to hold the rough wine ere it is drawn off and ‘made;’ nor that the floor was extremely decayed, so that when he came down on it with a bounce, it gave way, and he found himself in the cellar over head and ears in wine.
“And, truly, for a minute he deemed that he was drowning in earnest. And the sides of the vat were so high that he could not climb out. But while swimming and struggling for life, he caught between his thumb and finger at a nail in the side, and to this he held, crying as loud as he could shout for aid. But no one came, and he was just beginning to despair, when he thought of the horn!
“It still hung from his neck, and pouring out the wine, he blew on it, and there came forth such a tremendous, appalling, and unearthly blast as he of himself could never have blown. It rang far and wide all over Florence, it was heard beyond Fiesole, it wakened the dead in old Etrurian graves, for an instant, to think they had been called by Tinia to meet the eleven gods; it caused all the folletti, fate, diavoli, strege, and maliardi to stop for an instant their deviltries or delights. For it was the Great Blast of the Horn of the Fairies, which only plays second fiddle to the last trump. [24]
“And at that sound all Florence came running to see what was the matter. The Grand Duke and his household came; the Council of the Eight burst their bonds, and left the Palazzo Vecchio; everybody came, and they fished out the Signore, and listened with awe to his tale. The priests said that the goblin was San Zenobio, the more liberal swore it was Crescenzio, the people held to plain San Antonino. The Signore became a great man.
“‘My son,’ said the goblin to him in confidence the following evening, ‘as they sat over their wine,’ (here I follow the text of Maddalena), ‘this is our last night together. Thou art saved, and I have fulfilled my duty to thee. Once I, too, was a man like thee, and in that life thou didst save mine by rescuing me from assassins. And I swore to watch over thee in every peril, and bring thee to a happy end.’
“‘Il momenta e arrivato;
Addio, Via del Corno!
Addio, palazzo, addio!
Addio, padrone, nel altro mondo!’“‘The final hour has come for me;
Street of the Horn, farewell to thee!
Farewell, O palace, farewell, O street!
My lord, in another world we’ll meet.’