Brother Sebastiano and his fellows held up their hands in dismay. Passion was rioting without, but on their side of the convent walls they knew a sense of security, as if the turmoil of the world, which had turned humanity back to the instincts of the jungle, was far away. They shuddered at the thought that violent hands might be laid on the Cardinal. Heaven would not permit it, but suppose—suppose his Eminence should receive a black eye!
“Travelling to-day within the city walls or without,” Brother Sebastiano ventured to admonish him, “is a most perilous undertaking.”
“Difficult we have found it,” the Cardinal owned, “but hardly perilous.”
There was a low murmur of respectful dissent from the monks. “Perilous, too, for the body, we can assure your Eminence. Ah, what if harm should befall you!”
“Allay your fear, my dear brothers,” the other said, lightly, with an assuring smile. “Suppose they do take my carriage? I can call a cab. Failing there I can walk. The problem, you see, is exceedingly simple. As to harm corporeal—come, now, why should the people harm me? To my knowledge I have not harmed them.”
“True, true,” Brother Sebastiano hastened to assent. “And yet, if your Eminence will pardon, there is our Brother Ignazio. He, too, did them no harm; but look at his eye!”
Brother Ignazio had just entered the room, carrying a vessel of water. One of his eyelids and the flesh above and below were of deep violet shading down to sickly yellow.
“Alas, your Eminence,” he sighed, “those whom we would serve raised their hand against me. It happened this morning in the Corso at our gate, after the service of tierce. As I turned the corner they fell upon me. They pulled my hair, my ears and—my nose. But, with no bitterness in my soul, I passed on. Then, without warning, as I was about to enter here, one of them ran up and gave me—this.” He pointed to his discoloured eye.
The Cardinal admitted that the evidence was conclusive. In his offering of consolation to Brother Ignazio he told him that the spirit abroad to-day was no respecter of persons.
“Nevertheless,” he added, “I shall go to Como if I can get a train. Addio, Honourable,” he said, going up to the cot, where the brothers were busy with their patient. “If the railway is impossible I will return. In any event, my friend, I will send the carriage to take you to Via Senato.”