ngs, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A black
villain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time when
the end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the money
that he had extorted by his simonies."

"My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?

"Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?" he asked
me sharply. "Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath
that you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and
had vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away to
realms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said."

Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door
to do the office of a stool.

"But he gave alms!" I cried, my senses all bewildered.

"Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image--" his scorn
became tremendous--"is an impious fraud, Agostino."

Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man
be so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that
without fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?

I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.

"Your notions of God are heathen notions," he said more quietly.
"You confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His
lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet--reflect! Consider the
manner in which that brigand met his death."

"But... but..." I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short,
and listened. "Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?"

"Hear it? Hear what?"

"The music--the angelic melodies! And you can say that this place is
a foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud! And you a priest!
Listen! It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief."

He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.

"Angelic melodies!" he echoed with gentlest scorn. "By what snares does
the Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose!
That, boy--that is no more than the dripping of water into little wells
of different depths, producing different notes. It is in there, in some
cave in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth."

I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that my
senses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion. "The proof of that?
The proof!" I cried.

"The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or while
the ri