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Then each emerged with a start from that delicious spell, to remember the staring servants. They said good-night. Madonna Gemma ascended to her chamber. It was the horse-boy Foresto who, with a curious solicitude and satisfaction, lighted Raffaele Muti up to bed. But old Baldo, strolling thoughtfully in the courtyard, caught a young cricket chirping in the grass between two paving-stones.
Perhaps, too, I have seen a face peeping out of the woods, about the time that Foresto goes down to pick berries." "You chatter like an old woman at a fountain," said Lapo, still caressing his vest with his palms. "I shall be quite happy soon yes, even before the Lombard league takes the field."
Cercamorte discovered them thus, struggling fiercely in silence. "Stand aside," he said to her, and, when he had struck Foresto down, "Thank you for that, Madonna. With such spirit to help me, I might have had worthy sons. Well, here they come, and this door is a flimsy thing. Get yourself into the casement niche, away from the swing of my blade."
Lapo, weeping aloud from remorse, patted Baldo's shoulder and kissed his withered cheek. Lamplight flooded the staircase; it was Foresto softly descending. The rays illuminated Madonna Gemma, who all the while had been standing close beside them. "Lady," said Baldo, feebly, "can you spare me a bit of your veil?
Then she saw, below her on the hillside, also watching him, the horse-boy, Foresto, his graceful figure hinting at an origin superior to his station, his dark, peaked face seeming to mask some avid and sinister dream. Was she wrong in suspecting that Foresto hated Lapo Cercamorte? Might he not become an ally against her husband?
"Whoever that zany is, he shall not dance at our funeral. Just one more shot, my Lapo. You shall see that I still have it in me." Cercamorte could not deny him this last whim. He found and strung a bow, and chose a Ghibelline war-arrow. Behind them, young Foresto drew in his breath with a hiss, laid his hand on his dagger, and turned the colour of clay.
No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal, perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?" While speaking these words, Foresto flashed one look, mournful and eloquent, at Madonna Gemma, then softly withdrew from the hall. She sat motionless, wave after wave of cold flowing in through her limbs to her heart.
In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the new garment obsequiously. He murmured: "And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as this one.
Before the door falls I must climb these steps, and that would be easier if I could first bind in my entrails." They led him upstairs, Lapo on one side, Madonna Gemma on the other, and Foresto lighting the way. They came to the topmost chamber in the high tower the last room of all.
Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like. Before grasping his sword, he bent to rub his palms on the grit of the pavement. While he was stooping, young Foresto unsheathed his dagger, made a catlike step, and stabbed at his master's neck. But quicker than Foresto was Madonna Gemma, who, with a deer's leap, imprisoned his arms from behind.
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