Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
I shammed sleep, and never moved; so presently he lay down by the side of me and himself slept. Meantime another, of the remaining two, had drawn Belviso and had gone towards his victim.
I knew no more until I found myself lying on my strand paillasse at the inn and saw Belviso, yet in his skirt and spangles, leaning over me with vinegar in a sponge. Refusing me leave to talk, he told me that he had done his best to pacify the dwarf, and hoped he had succeeded. The audience had been entirely misled.
At the moment I felt myself caught by the ankle and heard, "Francis, Francis, it is I." I pulled Belviso to his feet, cut the cord at the wrist and plunged forward into the black of the wood, running downhill, as near as I could judge, towards where I knew the brook was.
My feet were bound, as my hands already had been, and I was thrown thus helpless on my face on one side; the miserable Belviso, whose disguise and beauty made him appear what he had so unhappily pretended to be, had his hands tied behind him, but his ankles left free. Him they placed on the other side of the ruin at some distance from me.
Ah, what have we here? Nay, 'tis my certificate of communion. How, how? Have I lost it?" Grumbling and mumbling, grating his loose tooth, he was close upon me, his hand deep in his cloak. "Ha, ha!" he suddenly cried, "now I have it!" and whipped out his hand. Belviso shrieked my name aloud, "Francis, my lord and king!" and flung himself upon my breast.
We were pursued, but in a darkness so impenetrable the chances were in our favour, and we were never within a quarter-mile of being caught. We gained the river side. "Jump!" I cried, and dragged Belviso in after me. We could just bottom it.
Belviso, divining my insane purpose, caught me by the coat. "Stay, Don Francis let any one go but you." Seeing that I paused irresolute, he went on to urge me by all that I held dear to do nothing so foolish. "Do you suppose," he said, "that YOU will find her knowing nothing of Arezzo and she knowing all?
I told him of my concern for Virginia, of the deadly perils that beset her, and concluded by assuring him that the one service of any moment which he could do me was to devise me some means of communicating with Gioiachino, the vendor of cat's-meat in Lucca. Belviso had put his head between his knees, and so remained for some time after I had done speaking, in earnest meditation.
Then she lifted to me a stern pure face. "His deserts, my lord, say you? Come, kneel you by me, and see whether he have them or no." Some impulse, I know not what, made me obey. I kneeled down by Virginia. She opened reverently the clothing of Belviso, laid back the vest, laid back the cotton shirt. Wonder, terror, a flood of shame came scalding into my eyes.
I have won two friends already by the recital of my sorrows" here I placed a hand on Belviso's shoulder and gave the other to Il Nanno "let me hope that I can gain yet more by some exhibition of my talents." This was loudly applauded. "Stand up, Don Francis," said Belviso to me, "and spout us out whatever bombast you can remember."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking