I said, “I have told you on what terms I will take my liberty.  I will die here as I am sooner than make bargains with you.”

“I am an old man,” he replied, “a-weary of my labours.  I will not wrangle—­I abhor disputations.  I am able to offer you, Don Francis, a service which is perfect freedom.  Will you take it or leave it?” I was silent, and I believe the old villain went to sleep, as certainly I did.  Youth will have its rest, whether there be gall in the mouth or a teat.

When I awoke it was broad day.  The sun was up and deepening the pale tints of the sky; a bird in the oak-tree overhead was singing his orison, and Fra Palamone cooking a pork chop upon a little fire of twigs.  Never did I see such delicate art put into such a piece of work; he had not boasted when he said that he was a cook.  Not only did he cook it to the exquisite point of perfection, but he ate it, bone and all—­ combining the zest of a cannibal with the epicure’s finer relish—­and poured near a litre of wine down his tunnel of a throat, before he deigned to regard whether I lived or was dead.  His next act was to recite the rosary aloud, on his knees, with intense fervour; and his next—­after three prostrations in honour of the Trinity—­to untie the cord about his middle and add a knot or two to the multitude already there.  With this formidable scourge circling about in his hand, he came to where I lay helpless.

“Ser Francesco,” he said, showing his long tooth and purring his words like a cat, “I find that bonds, imprisonment and hunger have not quickened your resolution.  I admire you for it, but meantime I suffer the rage of the devil.  I must assuage my pains at all costs, and regret that my balm must be your bane.  But since you elect to be a prisoner it seems reasonable that you should taste prison discipline—­and I, O Heaven! inflict it.”  I marked his infernal purpose in his eyes—­no need that he should bare his iron arm!—­and determined to endure, even unto death, sooner than give way to him.  He came towards me, his arm bare to the shoulder; I clenched my teeth, shut my eyes and waited, not for long.  The cords writhed about me like snakes of fire, biting so deeply that my very heart seemed torn and raw.  The blood surged into my head, beat at my ears and nose, and (as it seemed) gushed out in a flood, drowning me in wet heat.  So, presently, I lost my senses, neither knew nor felt any more.  “Blessed art thou, Death!  Aurelia hath surely sent thee!” were my last thoughts as I swooned.  Waking once more, I was alone, lying bound on the edge of a little oak wood.  Before me were brown fields and stretches of flickering heat, and far below, in the valley, I could see Pistoja, pale red and white in the full sun.  It was near noon; the sun was directly overhead in a cloudless sky, and his rays burned me up.  My head throbbed desperately, my body felt one free wound; I was sick with hunger, clogged with drouth.  I made sure that I had been