Don Francesco alone, the smiling terrestrial beast, the lover of wine and women, held aloof from the entertainment, alleging a gastric indisposition and doctor’s orders.  He did not see eye to eye with Torquemada on matters such as these.  Don Francesco disliked all measures of violence, Camorra or freemasonry, Vatican or Quirinal—­disliked them so much that he would have hated them had he been built, like the parroco, on hating lines.  He was too unwieldy, too fond of life, too indulgent towards himself and others to experience at mention of Don Giustino’s name anything but a certain feeling of discomfort—­a feeling which his acute intelligence, embedded under those rolls of fat, enabled him to formulate with warmth and precision.

“I know quite well,” he said to Torquemada, “that he calls himself a good son of the Church.  So much the worse for the Church.  I understand he is a prominent member of the Government.  So much the worse for the Government.  And I realize that, but for his intervention, this harmless individual might spend the remainder of his life in prison.  So much the worse for all of us, who derive justice from so tainted a source.  As to dining at the same table with him—­no.  Does not the whole world know his history?  The animal!  He would make me vomit.  And you will believe me when I say, my dear parroco, that I do not look my best on such occasions.”

Torquemada shook his head, mournfully.  It was by no means the first time that he had suspected his popular colleague of being a lukewarm Christian.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The market-place was filled to over-brimming.  Everybody discussed the near events in the Court of Justice.  It promised to be a bad day for Signor Malipizzo.  And yet people could not help admitting how clever he had been to lock up those Russians.  It was the best thing he could have done under the circumstances.  It proved his freedom from anti-Catholic prejudices.  It made him look icily objective.

Torquemada, on hearing that the prisoner’s gold coin corresponded with those others which had been in the possession of the murdered man, thought it deplorable.  Here was plain evidence of his cousin’s guilt!  Most deplorable.  Still, the victim being not only a foreigner but a Protestant was a considerable mitigation of the offence from the moral and religious point of view, and possibly from the legal one as well.  Anyhow, what did legal aspects matter?  Had he not engaged Don Giustino?  Innocent or guilty, the prisoner would be released.  And, on second thoughts, he discovered him to be worthy of the great man’s golden eloquence.  He was not altogether a fool.  There was a touch of manliness about him; he was decidedly a brighter lad than he looked.  He deserved to be released.

Ten o’clock sounded.

The Court had never been so crowded.  There was barely standing room.  Sunlight poured in through the windows which had not been cleaned for many long months; the atmosphere was already rather oppressive.  It was a stuffy place at all times, reeking of old tobacco smoke and humanity.