Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
So I stood by him and held my peace until the muster-roll of our fellowship was completed, and it seemed good to Maleotti that the signal should be given for our departure upon our business.
While they were clapping their hands and laughing, a cunning, sharp-faced fellow named Maleotti, that was one of Bardi's men, came close to his master, and spoke to him in none so low a whisper that I could not hear his words. "Consider, signor," he said; "this were a mad wager to accept, for the State cannot spare you, and who can say how scraps of bone may fall?
He asked Maleotti, as I understand, if he were very sure of what he said and of what he saw, and when Maleotti persisted in his statement, Messer Simone fell for a while into a musing mood that was no stupor of intoxication. Once or twice he made as if to speak to his fellow, and then paused to think again, and it was not until after some minutes that he finally decided upon his course of action.
So Maleotti must needs dismount and look to his girths and gear, to see what ailed his steed, while we rode merrily forward, eager to join hands with those that we knew were awaiting us behind the mask of yonder clump of trees. What was it to us if Maleotti could not handle an unmanageable horse?
Maleotti swore that he seemed all of a sudden to stiffen where he stood, even as a man in a catalepsy might do, and that he stood so rigid and tense for the space, as it seemed to Maleotti, of several minutes, though why he stood so or what the cause of his immobility this Maleotti could in nowise conjecture.
All we knew, all we cared to know, in our then mood, was that we had come to the point where it was ordained that we were to meet and join forces with Messer Griffo of the Dragon-flag. This was what was to have happened at this point; this is what caused Messer Maleotti to have so much show of trouble with his steed.
The whisper Messer Simone passed unheeded, the shriek roused him. He turned in his seat with an oath, and, gripping Maleotti by the shoulder, peered ferociously into his face.
In an amazingly short space of time we were all a-horseback, and riding quietly through the night on the road toward Arezzo, with Messer Maleotti, on a high-mettled mount, shepherding us as we rode, as if we were so many simple sheep and he our pastor.
Messer Maleotti, doing as he was told and rejoicing in the thought that he was making mischief, came into the feasting-hall where Messer Folco sat apart with certain old friends and kinsfolk of his, sober gentlefolk of age and repute, that made merry in their grave way and laughed cheerfully over the jests of yesteryear, and one of them was Master Tommaso Severo, that was Madonna Beatrice's physician.
For Maleotti was among the hearers when Dante, yielding to Messer Guide's insistence, consented to read the verses of the unknown poet, and his quick eyes had been as keen as Messer Guido's to understand the meaning of Dante's change of voice and color when Madonna Beatrice came into the room.
Word Of The Day