From his lofty outlook in the iron cage, dizzily suspended between earth and heaven, our adventurer obtained a new and wider view. The palace and its life dwindled to a speck. Far away to the north he could discern the white summits of the mountains that cradle the blue lake of Garda, while at his feet the Mincio flowed peacefully toward the Adriatic, where a good ship (on which, but for his folly in pausing at Mantua, he might on the morrow be voyaging homeward) was impatiently tugging at her moorings. Fool that he was, he had made his bed and must lie on it. It was a very uncomfortable bed at the present moment, for he could neither stretch himself at full length nor stand erect, but sat with his hands clasping his knees and his head bowed upon them. How long must he retain this cramped position? Malespini's words came to him with sinister emphasis. Would he be left here until starvation released him from agony and his bones bleached in the sun? The Angelus chimed from the belfries, the only structures which reached his plane, and gave him a sense of human companionship, but the tones of the bells sounded thin in the empty air, and his loneliness increased with their cessation. The sun climbed the heavens and beat unmercifully upon his unprotected head, but just as his thirst became intolerable and he groaned in agony, a low, chuckling laugh replied from a window in the tower near his cage, and turning his head he saw the malicious face of the dwarf Leonora Dosi. Repugnant as she was to him he greeted her appearance now, for it flashed through his mind that she might have brought him some message from Marie de' Medici.
"It is good of you, Signorina," he said, "to think of me in my trouble; or is it perchance your mistress who has sent you?"
He could not have asked a question which would have angered her more. "My mistress may not have clean forgotten her singing-bird," she replied, "but she has forgotten to order that his cage should be supplied with water and seed cups, and I cajoled Radicofani till he let me supply this neglect."
As she spoke she held aloft a flask of water whose crystal clearness seemed to Brandilancia's blood-shot eyes the most desirable thing in all the world.
"Ah! Signorina how can I ever thank you? and how can you get it to me?"
"Oh! I have thought of that. See I have brought a pole long enough to reach your cage, and the bottle is so slender that it will pass between the bars."
She attached the flask to one end of the pole with tantalising deliberation, pausing after it was fastened to pour and drink a glass of the water with expressive gusto. The gurgle of the liquid was more than the tortured man could bear. "Dear Signorina for the love of Heaven be quick. I die of thirst."
"Oh! no, Signor, one does not die so soon, or with so little suffering. Men in your predicament have been known to live three days before they went mad, and four more before they died."
"You hell cat!" he cried, "have you come to gloat over and increase my agony?"
"That is not a pretty name," she said slowly, "I like better the 'dear Signorina' with which you honoured me just now. You are too hasty, Signor Brandilancia, too hasty in your conclusions, and in speaking them forth. It might strike a wiser man in your situation that it would be worth while not to antagonise a friend who has come to serve you. In proof that you have misunderstood my motives I now pass you the water. It was good? You would like more? Presently. It is not well to drink too much when one is as thirsty as you are, besides I want to talk with you. Do you realise that you are in a very serious position?"