"'Yes, I feel about well.'
"'In a day or two they will torture you again and continue doing so each week until you confess, express repentance and do what they ask. This I advise you to do, else in the end they will torture you to death, or leave you forgotten to die in your dungeon.'
"'I at least have this to be thankful for that you are not unkind.'
"'If it were suspected that I treated you other than a caged beast your jailer would be changed and severely punished.'
"'Discovery is impossible, since you only talk with me at night.'
"'I am not so sure; there are always spies in our brotherhood and all, from the scullion to the prelate, are under surveillance.'
"'I am sorry to learn that, as I hoped to prevail upon you to deliver a message to my wife, telling her where I am confined.'
"'Were I caught in the effort, I should be tortured to death, or confined indefinitely in a dungeon. Should your friends attempt your rescue or ask your release you would be murdered and dropped into come deep secret pit to destroy all evidence, when all would deny that you had been held a prisoner.'
"'My wife will give you a hundred florins if you will but give her a note telling my place of confinement. I have been but a few months married; she loves me dearly and is no doubt crazed by my disappearance.'
"'I wear this cowl and robe and beg as a mendicant on the street yet have always wished to be a soldier fighting to free Tuscany from tyranny; the tyranny not only of the oppressing noble families, chief of whom at this time are the Albizzi, but of the church with whom they are allied. I have suffered too much in mind from disappointment to care for the physical discomforts of others; and had you not been a soldier of renown, fighting against those influences which I condemn, I would have looked upon your imprisonment as incidental and your suffering without sympathy. I know how little I can do and that little at great personal risk, which, if discovered, will be not only your death warrant but my own. I will not carry a written message to your wife, but will stand near your home, pretending to solicit alms, and if she should pass, will tell her your message, but not disclose your place of imprisonment. She will know you are alive and have a friend who at rare intervals will give her news of you and bring back messages from her which you must give me to destroy. That is all that can be done. As my reward, you shall teach me to use the sword so when the opportunity is presented I may do my part as a patriot to rid Tuscany of her oppressors.'