“It did not bleed,” he cut in, “because you are not a knave. That is the only reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue. He was no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holy things, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black villain who is dead—dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when the end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money that he had extorted by his simonies.”
“My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
“Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?” he asked me sharply. “Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath that you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and had vanished in the night—carried off by the Devil, or borne away to realms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said.”
Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door to do the office of a stool.
“But he gave alms!” I cried, my senses all bewildered.
“Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image—” his scorn became tremendous—“is an impious fraud, Agostino.”
Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man be so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that without fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
“Your notions of God are heathen notions,” he said more quietly. “You confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet—reflect! Consider the manner in which that brigand met his death.”
“But... but...” I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short, and listened. “Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?”