"But where can I go? what can I do?" asked the unhappy man. "I have lost my only friend and patron. I am known all through this part of the country. I almost wish the women had let me alone."
"It might have been better," said Antonio in a meditative tone. "'Once for all' is a good proverb, Mardocchi. However, I think I could help you if I liked; I think I could get you out of Lombardy, and into the Romagna, and find you a good master, who wants just such a fellow as yourself."
"Then do it! do it!" cried Mardocchi, eagerly; "do it for old companionship; do it, because, for that old companionship, I have forgiven more to you than I ever forgave to any other man. Why should you not do it?"
"There is but one reason," answered Antonio, gravely, "and that lies in your own words. When you spoke of Lorenzo Visconti just now, you called down curses upon him. Now he is my lord and my friend. I was placed near him by Lorenzo the Magnificent, and promised I would always help and protect him. Do you think I should be doing either if I aided to save a man who would murder him the first opportunity? I always keep my word, Mardocchi."
"And so do I," answered Mardocchi, gloomily. "Sacchi and the rest told all they knew to the Frenchman, out of fear for their pitiful lives, and they saved themselves. I refused to tell anything, because I had promised not, and they strung me up to the branch of a tree. But I will promise you, Antonio, I will never raise my hand against the young man. I shall hate him ever, but--"
"Let me think," said Antonio; and, after meditating for a moment, he added, "there are ways of destroying him without raising your hand against him: there is the cord. Listen to my resolution, Mardocchi, and you know I will keep it: if you will promise me not to take his life in any way--for I know you right well--I will help you, for old companionship, to escape, and to join a noble lord in the Romagna; but, if you do not promise, I will make sure of you by other means. I have but to speak a word, and you are on the branch of the mulberry-tree again--"
"Stop, stop!" said Mardocchi; "do not threaten me. I am weak--sick--hardly yet alive, but I do not like threats. The crushed adder bites. Let me think: I hate him," he continued, slowly, recovering gradually from the excitement under which he had first spoken. "I shall always hate him, but that is no reason I should kill him. I have never promised to kill him--never even threatened to kill him. If I had, I would do it or die; but I do not like death. I have tasted it, and no man likes to eat of that dish twice. It is very bitter; and I promise you in your own words, Antonio. But you likewise must remember your promise to me."
"Did you ever know me fail?" said the other. "The first thing is to get you well, the next to shave off that long beard and those wild locks, and then, with a friar's gown and the cord of St. Francis, I will warrant I get you in the train of one of these French lords. Can you enact a friar, think you, Mardocchi?"
"Oh, yes," said Mardocchi, with a bitter grin, "I can drink and carouse all night, tell a coarse tale with a twinkling eye, laugh loud at a small jest, and do foul services for a small reward, if it be to save my life; but then I cannot speak these people's language, Antonio."
"All the better--all the better," answered Antonio; "many of them know a little Italian, and hard questions put in a foreign tongue, are easily parried. It would be a good thing for one half of the world if it did not understand what the other half said."