The monk looked at me attentively as we walked on together.
"You are not residing in Naples?" he asked.
I gave him my name, which he knew by repute, and described the position of my villa.
"Up on that height we enjoy perfect health," I added. "I cannot understand the panic that prevails in the city. The plague is fostered by such cowardice."
"Of course!" he answered, calmly. "But what will you? The people here love pleasure. Their hearts are set solely on this life. When death, common to all, enters their midst, they are like babes scared by a dark shadow. Religion itself"--here he sighed deeply--"has no hold upon them."
"But you, my father," I began, and stopped abruptly, conscious of a sharp throbbing pain in my temples.
"I," he answered, gravely, "am the servant of Christ. As such, the plague has no terrors for me. Unworthy as I am, for my Master's sake I am ready--nay, willing--to face all deaths."
He spoke firmly, yet without arrogance. I looked at him in a certain admiration, and was about to speak, when a curious dizziness overcame me, and I caught at his arm to save myself from falling. The street rocked like a ship at sea, and the skies whirled round me in circles of blue fire. The feeling slowly passed, and I heard the monk's voice, as though it were a long way off, asking me anxiously what was the matter. I forced a smile.
"It is the heat, I think," I said, in feeble tones like those of a very aged man. "I am faint--giddy. You had best leave me here--see to the boy. Oh, my God!"
This last exclamation was wrung out of me by sheer anguish. My limbs refused to support me, and a pang, cold and bitter as though naked steel had been thrust through my body, caused me to sink down upon the pavement in a kind of convulsion. The tall and sinewy monk, without a moment's hesitation, dragged me up and half carried, half led me into a kind of auberge, or restaurant for the poorer classes. Here he placed me in a recumbent position on one of the wooden benches, and called up the proprietor of the place, a man to whom he seemed to be well known. Though suffering acutely I was conscious, and could hear and see everything that passed.
"Attend to him well, Pietro--it is the rich Count Fabio Romani. Thou wilt not lose by thy pains. I will return within an hour."