Instantly I sat up, conscious of my circumstance and surroundings, and at my movement this visitor spoke.
“You sleep very soundly for a man in your case.” said he, and the voice was that of my Lord Gambara, its tone quite coldly critical.
He set down the lanthorn on a stool, whence it shed a wheel of yellow light intersected with black beams. His cloak fell apart, and I saw that he was dressed for riding, very plainly, in sombre garments, and that he was armed.
He stood slightly to one side that the light might fall upon my face, leaving his own in shadow; thus he considered me for some moments in silence. At last, very slowly, very bitterly, shaking his head as he spoke.
“You fool, you clumsy fool!” he said.
Having drawn, as you have seen, my own conclusions from the attitude of the mob, I was in little doubt as to the precise bearing of his words.
I answered him sincerely. “If folly were all my guilt,” said I, “it would be well.”
He sniffed impatiently. “Still sanctimonious!” he sneered. “Tcha! Up now, and play the man, at least. You have shed your robe of sanctity, Messer Agostino; have done with pretence!”
“I do not pretend,” I answered him. “And as for playing the man, I shall accept what punishment the law may have for me with fortitude at least. If I can but expiate...”
“Expiate a fig!” he snapped, interrupting me. “Why do you suppose that I am here?”