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As he gazed at Valeria's sunken visage, as he listened to her faint voice, Fabio himself approved of her plan: venerable Father Lorenzo might be able to give her useful advice, disperse her doubts.... Under the protection of four escorts, Valeria set out for the monastery, but Fabio remained at home; and while awaiting the return of his wife, he roamed about the garden, trying to understand what had happened to her, and feeling the unremitting terror and wrath and pain of indefinite suspicions.... More than once he entered the pavilion; but Muzio had not returned, and the Malay stared at Fabio like a statue, with an obsequious inclination of his head, and a far-away grin at least, so it seemed to Fabio a far-away grin on his bronze countenance.
Among the number of all these precious things there was one rich pearl necklace which Muzio had received from the Shah of Persia for a certain great and mysterious service; he asked Valeria's permission to place this necklace on her neck with his own hand; it seemed to her heavy, and as though endowed with a strange sort of warmth ... it fairly adhered to the skin.
Fabio grasped him by the arm. "And why art thou playing that melody again? Hast thou had another dream?" Muzio glanced at Fabio with the same surprise as before, and made no answer. "Come, answer me!" "The moon is steel, like a circular shield.... The river gleams like a snake.... The friend is awake, the enemy sleeps The hawk seizes the chicken in his claws.... Help!"
"Did the Malay tell thee that?" inquired Fabio. "In what manner? For he is dumb." "Here, signor, is a paper on which he wrote all this in our language, very correctly." "And Muzio is ill, sayest thou?" "Yes, very ill, and he cannot be seen." "Has not a physician been sent for?" "No; the Malay would not allow it." "And was it the Malay who wrote this for thee?" "Yes, it was he."
All that foreign, strange, new element which Muzio had brought with him from those distant lands and which, apparently, had entered into his very flesh and blood, -all those magical processes, songs, strange beverages, that dumb Malay, even the spicy odour which emanated from Muzio's garments, from his hair, his breath, all this inspired in Fabio a feeling akin to distrust, nay, even to timidity.
In November and December, Muzio Sceaola and Floridante were revived; on January 12, Handel produced a new opera, Ottone, with a new singer, Francesca Cuzzoni, who eclipsed all the other women singers completely, until after some years she herself was driven into eclipse by her historic rival Faustina Bordoni.
In the centre of the room, on a Persian rug, with a brocade cushion under his head, covered with a wide scarlet shawl with black figures, lay Muzio, with all his limbs stiffly extended. His face, yellow as wax, with closed eyes and lids which had become blue, was turned toward the ceiling, and no breath was to be detected: he seemed to be dead.
She said nothing to Muzio, but drew away her hand, and when he was gone she stared at the door through which he had made his exit. She recalled how, in former years also, she had been afraid of him ... and now she was perplexed. Muzio went off to his pavilion; the husband and wife withdrew to their bed-chamber.
Fabio sat down by the bed, took Valeria's hand, and after a brief pause, he asked her, "What was that remarkable dream which had frightened her during the past night? And had it been in the nature of that dream which Muzio had related?" Valeria blushed and said hastily "Oh, no! no! I saw ... some sort of a monster, which tried to rend me." "A monster? In the form of a man?" inquired Fabio.
And why did that Malay, when serving at table, gaze upon him, Fabio, with such disagreeable intentness? Really, one might suppose that he understood Italian. Muzio had said concerning him, that that Malay, in paying the penalty with his tongue, had made a great sacrifice, and in compensation now possessed great power. What power? And how could he have acquired it at the cost of his tongue?
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