Jacopo had taken refuge with the Master, his pale pretty face quite impassive, his eyes, sinister in their brilliance, turned to Leonardo with mute supplication.
Leonardo would have appeased the tumult, but on his face sat a strange air of perplexity and weakness, not lost upon the contemptuous Cesare.
Presently the noise subsided of itself; and then Leonardo, with his customary calm, called Giovanni and invited him to an inspection of the Cenacolo, the Last Supper; his greatest work. Giovanni flushed with pleasure, and they went together.
V
However they paused by the courtyard fountain that Leonardo, after his sleepless night, might refresh himself by bathing his face. The day was cloudy, but windless, and over all things streamed an argent light which seemed to come from under water; days like these pleased the artist best for painting. They were still at the well when the boy Jacopo crept up, bearing in his hands a little case made of bark.
'Messer Leonardo,' he murmured, 'I have brought it—for you,' and cautiously raising the lid he showed a huge imprisoned spider. 'I have watched it this three days,' he said enthusiastically; ''tis poisonous! And 'tis a terror to see how he devoureth flies!'
His face was radiant now, and catching a fly he gave it to the captive. The spider seized the victim with its hairy legs, and there was a fight and great buzzing.
'He sucks it! He sucks it!' cried the child in an ecstasy; and Leonardo bent over the struggling creatures to watch.
It seemed to Giovanni that on the two so different faces was the same expression: a hideous pleasure in the horrible.