The blade was straight and clean, and tolerably sharp.  Ercole looked at it critically, drew the edge over his coarse thumb-nail to find if there were any nick in the steel, and then scratched the same thumb-nail with it, as one erases ink with a knife, to see how sharp it was.  The point was like a needle, but he considered that the edge was dull, and he drew it up and down one of the brown barrels of his gun, as carefully as he would have sharpened a razor on a whetstone.  After that he stropped it on the tough leathern strap by which he slung the gun over his shoulder when he walked; when he was quite satisfied, he shut the knife again and put it back into his pocket, and fell to thinking once more.

Nino watched the whole operation with bloodshot eyes, his tongue hanging out and quivering rhythmically as he panted in the heat to cool himself.  When the knife disappeared, and the chance of a crust with it, the dog got up, deliberately turned his back to his master, and sat down again to look at the view.

“You see,” said Ercole to himself and Nino, “this is an affair which needs thought.  One must be just.  It is one thing to kill a person’s body, but it is quite another thing to kill a person’s soul.  That would be a great sin, and besides, it is not necessary.  Do I wish harm to any one?  No.  It is justice.  Perhaps I shall go to the galleys.  Well, I shall always have the satisfaction, and it will be greater if I can say that this person is in Paradise.  For I do not wish harm to any one.”

Having said this in a tone which Nino could hear, Ercole sat thinking for some time longer, and then he rose and slung his gun over his shoulder, and went out from under the trees into the glaring heat, as if he were going into the city.  But instead of turning to the left, up the hill, he went on by the broad road that follows the walls, till he came to the ancient church of Santa Croce.  He went up the low steps to the deep porch and on to the entrance at the left.  Nino followed him very quietly.

Ercole dipped his finger into the holy water and crossed himself, and then went up the nave, making as little noise as he could with his hob-nailed boots.  An old monk in white was kneeling at a broad praying-stool before an altar on the left.  Ercole stood still near him, waiting for him to rise, and slowly turning his soft hat in his hands, as if it were a rosary.  He kept his eyes on the monk’s face, studying the aged features.  Presently the old man had finished his prayer and got upon his feet slowly, and looked at Ercole and then at Nino.  Ercole moved forward a step, and stood still in an attitude of respect.

“What do you desire, my son?” asked the monk, very quietly.  “Do you wish to confess?”

“No, father, not to-day,” answered Ercole.  “I come to pray you to say three masses for the soul of a person who died suddenly.  I have also brought the money.  Only tell me how much it will be, and I will pay.”