ake him to Sor Marzio's house and get the best doctor."

"There is not even a drop of holy water in the basins," moaned Maria
Luisa.

"He will go to Heaven without holy water," sobbed Lucia. "Oh, how good
he was--"

Gianbattista kneeled down in his turn and tried to find the pulse in the
poor limp wrist. Then he listened for the heart. He fancied he could
hear a faint flutter in the breast. He looked up and a little colour
came to his pale face.

"I think he is alive," he said to the two women, and then bent down
again and listened. "Yes," he continued joyfully. "The heart beats.
Gently--help me to carry him to the sacristy; get his hat one of you.
So--carefully--do not twist that arm. I think I see colour in his
cheeks--"

With four other men Gianbattista raised the body and bore it carefully
to the sacristy. The cab was already at the door, and in a few minutes
poor Don Paolo was placed in it. The hood was raised, and Maria Luisa
got in and sat supporting the drooping head upon her broad bosom. Lucia
took the little seat in front, and Gianbattista mounted to the box,
after directing the four men to follow in a second cab as fast as they
could, to help to carry the priest upstairs. He sent another in search
of a surgeon.

"Do not tell Sor Marzio--do not go to the workshop," he said in a last
injunction. He knew that Marzio would be of no use in such an emergency,
and he hoped that Don Paolo might be pronounced out of danger before the
chiseller knew anything of the accident.

In half an hour the injured man was lying in Gianbattista's bed. It was
now evident that he was alive, for he breathed heavily and regularly.
But the half-closed eyes had no intelligence in them, and the slight
flush in the hollow cheeks was not natural to see. The twisted arm still
stuck out of the bed-coverings in a painfully distorted attitude. The
two women and Gianbattista stood by the bedside in silence, waiting for
the arrival of the surgeon.

He came at last, a quiet-looking man of middle age, with grizzled hair
and a face deeply pitted with the smallpox. He seemed to know what he
was about, for he asked for a detailed account of the accident from
Gianbattista while he examined the patient. The young man, who was
beginning to feel the effects of the fall, now that the first excitement
had subsided, sat down while he told the story. The surgeon urged the
two women to leave the room.

"The left arm is dislocated at the shoulder,