how he had thrust evil in his path and laughed away the
good, and had led him on, and poisoned him, and would have brought him
to his death and damnation surely, but for one sinning devoted woman
that loved him; for he remembered everything then; and from very far
away, out of memories of his youth, there came a voice that had once
been gentle and kind, but that rang in his ears now, like the blast of
the trumpet of the last judgment.

"Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Far better, indeed, for it all came, when the immeasurable second's
length was past, and he was thrown down against the wall, and torn, and
shaken like a rat; it all came just as he had felt that it was coming,
and it lasted long, a long, long time, while he tried to howl, and the
blood only gurgled in his throat. And then, just as many strong hands
dragged away the thing of terror, and the light of a lantern and of a
lamp flashed in his eyes, he fell asleep in the wet grass.

For they had caught him fairly and brought him, down. Kalmon had
watched him long, and had told some of his suspicions to the Chief of
Police, and the latter, unknown to Kalmon, had caused him to be watched
from time to time. But he, who had been watched before and had once
already escaped for his life, had sometimes seen faces near him that he
did not trust, and when he had turned back from the station that
afternoon he had seen one of those faces; so he had driven away quickly
in a cab, by winding ways, so as not to be followed. Yet Kalmon and
Marcello, talking as they drove, grew more and more sure that he would
wish to see Settimia before he left Rome, the more certainly if he
believed himself pursued, as seemed likely from his changing his mind at
the station. So they had stopped their cab before they had reached their
destination, and had sent Ercole back to Trastevere with the key of the
garden gate, bidding him watch, as it was most probable that Corbario
would try to get out through the garden; and before long they had come
back to the door of the house that opened upon the street, and had let
themselves in quietly, just in time to hear the noise of the struggle as
the dog threw Corbario to the ground. For the other entrance to the
little vestibule opened upon the garden within, at the very spot where
Corbario alighte