“There!” said Adrian, flinging the wretches a few pieces of gold—­“there! and if you would do me a kinder service, leave me, at least while living; or I may save you that trouble.”  And he turned from the room.

The Becchino who had been spokesman followed him.  “You are generous, Signor, stay; you will want fresher food than these filthy fragments.  I will supply thee of the best, while—­while thou wantest it.  And hark,—­whom wishest thou that I should seek?”

This question arrested Adrian’s departure.  He detailed the name, and all the particulars he could suggest of Irene; and, with sickened heart, described the hair, features, and stature of that lovely and hallowed image, which might furnish a theme to the poet, and now gave a clue to the gravedigger.

The unhallowed apparition shook his head when Adrian had concluded.  “Full five hundred such descriptions did I hear in the first days of the Plague, when there were still such things as mistress and lover; but it is a dainty catalogue, Signor, and it will be a pride to the poor Becchino to discover or even to bury so many charms!  I will do my best; meanwhile, I can recommend you, if in a hurry, to make the best use of your time, to many a pretty face and comely shape—­”

“Out, fiend!” muttered Adrian:  “fool to waste time with such as thou!”

The laugh of the gravedigger followed his steps.

All that day did Adrian wander through the city, but search and question were alike unavailing; all whom he encountered and interrogated seemed to regard him as a madman, and these were indeed of no kind likely to advance his object.  Wild troops of disordered, drunken revellers, processions of monks, or here and there, scattered individuals gliding rapidly along, and shunning all approach or speech, made the only haunters of the dismal streets, till the sun sunk, lurid and yellow, behind the hills, and Darkness closed around the noiseless pathway of the Pestilence.

Chapter 6.III.  The Flowers Amidst the Tombs.

Adrian found that the Becchino had taken care that famine should not forestall the plague; the banquet of the dead was removed, and fresh viands and wines of all kinds,—­for there was plenty then in Florence!—­spread the table.  He partook of the refreshment, though but sparingly, and shrinking from repose in beds beneath whose gorgeous hangings Death had been so lately busy, carefully closed door and window, wrapped himself in his mantle, and found his resting-place on the cushions of the chamber in which he had supped.  Fatigue cast him into an unquiet slumber, from which he was suddenly awakened by the roll of a cart below, and the jingle of bells.  He listened, as the cart proceeded slowly from door to door, and at length its sound died away in the distance.—­He slept no more that night!

The sun had not long risen ere he renewed his labours; and it was yet early when, just as he passed a church, two ladies richly dressed came from the porch, and seemed through their vizards to regard the young Cavalier with earnest attention.  The gaze arrested him also, when one of the ladies said, “Fair sir, you are overbold:  you wear no mask; neither do you smell to flowers.”