'My feet are weary for the turning. Pray ye, kind mother, that this
road end soon.'
'What! shall I hurry mine own damnation?' gurgled the other (his tongue
by then was clacking in his mouth). 'Trippingly, I warrant, shall ye
take that path, unheeding of the poor wretch that lags a million miles
behind lashed by a storm of scorpions.'
'Marry, sweet,' whispered the boy, smiling; 'I'll wait thee, never fear,
when once I see my way. How could I forego such witness as thou to my
brave intentions? We'll jog the road together, while I shield thy back.'
'Well, let be,' said Cicca. 'Better they stung that, than my heart
through thine arm'--whereat Bernardo nipped him feebly in an ecstasy of
tears.
In the first hours of their fearful doom he was more full of wonder than
alarm--astounded, in the swooning sense. He had not come yet to realise
the mortal nature of their punishment. How should he, innocent of harm?
Attributing, as he did, this sudden blow to Bona, he marvelled only how
so kind a mother could chastise so sharply for a little offence--or
none. Indeed he was conscious of none; though conscious enough,
latterly, poor child, of an atmosphere of grievance. Well, the
provocation had been his, no doubt--somehow. He had learned enough of
woman in these months to know that the measure of her resentment was not
always the measure of the fault--how she would sometimes stab deeper for
a disappointment than for a wrong. He had disappointed her in some way.
No doubt, his favour being so high, he had presumed upon it. A useful
rebuke, then. He would bear his imposition manly; but he hoped, he did
hope, that not too much of it would be held to have purged his
misconduct. The Duke was returning shortly. Perhaps he would plead for
him.
So sweetly and so humbly he estimated his own insignificance. Could his
foul slanderers have read his heart then, they had surely raved upon
God, in their horror, to strike them, instant and for ever, from the
rolls of self-conscious existence.
Cicada listened to him, and gnawed his knotted knuckles in the gloom,
and wondered when and how he should dare to curse him with the truth.
He might at least have spared himself that agony. The truth, to one so
true, could not long fail of revealing itself. And when it came, lo! he
welcomed it, as always, for a friend.
Small birds, small flowers, small wants perish of a little neglect. His
sun, his sustenance, were scarce withheld a few hours from this
sensitive plant before he began to droop. And ever, with the fading of
his mortal tissues, the glow of the intelligence within seemed to grow
brighter, until verily the veins upon his temples appeared to stand out,
like mystic writing on a lighted porcelain lamp.
So it happened that, as he and his companion were sitting apart on the
filthy stones late on the noon of the second day of their imprisonment,
he ended a long silence by creeping suddenly to the Fool's knees, and,
looking up into the Fool's face in the dim twilight, appealed to its
despair with a tremulous smile.
'Cicca,' he whispered, 'my Cicca; wilt thou listen, and not be
frightened?'
'To what?' muttered the other hoarsely.
'Hush, dear!' said the boy, fondling him, and whimpering--not for
himself. 'I have been warned--some one hath warned me--that it were
well if we fed not our hearts with delusive hopes of release herefrom.'
'Why not?' said the Fool. 'It is the only food we are like to have.'
'Ah!'
He clung suddenly to his friend in a convulsion of emotion.
'You have guessed? It is true. Capello. We might have known, being
here; but--O Cicca! are you sorry? We have an angel with us--he spoke to
me just now.'
'Christ?'
'Yes, Christ, dearest.'
The Fool, smitten to intolerable anguish, put him away, and, scrambling
to his feet, went up and down, raving and sobbing:--
'The vengeance of God on this wicked race! May it fester in madness,
living; and, dead, go down to torment so unspeakable, that----'