"You are the very one to ponder over the most convenient mode of exit into the beyond," sneered the Lord of Gravina.
"What have we here?" rasped Bembo. "Who dares to speak of death in this assembly?"
"Nay, we would rather postpone the option till it finds us face to face with that villainous concoction you served us, to make us forget your more villainous poetry," shouted Oliverotto, hobbling across the hall and slapping the poet on the back. "I knew not that Roman soil produced so vile vintage!"
"'Twas Lacrymae Christi," remonstrated Bembo. "Would you have Ambrosia with every epigram on your vileness?"
"Nay, it was Satan's own brew," shrieked the baron, his voice strident as that of a cat, which has swallowed a fish bone.
And Oliverotto clinked his goblet and cast amorous glances right and left out of small watery eyes.
Bembo regarded him contemptuously.
"By the Cross! You are touched up and painted like a wench! Everything about you is false, even to your wit! Beware, fair Roxané,—he is ogling you as a bullfrog does the stars!"
At this stage an intermezzo interrupted the light, bantering tone of conversation. A curtain in the background parted. A bevy of black haired girls entered the hall, dressed in airy gowns, which revealed every line, every motion of their bodies. They encircled the guests in a mad whirl, inclining themselves first to one, then to the other. They were led by one, garbed as Diana, with the crescent moon upon her forehead, her black hair streaming about the whiteness of her statuesque body like dark sea-waves caressing marble cliffs. Taking advantage of this stage of the entertainment Benilo crossed the vast hall unnoticed and sat apart from the revellers in gloomy silence, listening with ill-concealed annoyance to the shouts of laughter and the clatter of irritating tongues. The characteristic wantonness of his features had at this moment given place to a look of weariness and suffering, a seemingly unaccustomed expression; it was a look of longing, the craving of a passion unsatisfied, a hope beyond his hope. Many envied him for his fame and profligacy, others read in his face the stamp of sullen cruelty, which vented itself wherever resistance seemed useless; but there was none to sound his present mood.
Benilo had not been at his chosen spot very long, when some one touched him on the shoulder. Looking up, he found himself face to face with an individual, wrapt in a long mantle, the colour of which was a curious mixture of purple and brown. His face was shaded by a conical hat, a quaint combination of Byzantine helmet and Norse head-gear, being provided with a straight, sloping brim, which made it impossible to scrutinize his features. This personage was Hezilo, a wandering minstrel seemingly hailing from nowhere. At least no one had penetrated the mystery which enshrouded him.