er bosom
friend, had no troubles. She was half undressed, but she too slipped a
shawl over her head and went peering into the alley. There she met
Ippolita, and joined hands. Flaring torches, a swarm of eager black
heads, whispers, grunting, the archers' plumed helmets--"Madonna! What's
all this?" cried the two girls together in a stew of curiosity. A dead
Jew? A murdered Jew? O Gesu! They borrowed a quattrino apiece from a
neighbour and were richly rewarded. Ah, the blood, the staring, his grey
old fingers! There was a something, if you like, to talk about at the
house door; and a something to dream of, per Bacco! I believe the Jew
engulfed all her annoyances of the past and all her fret over the
immediate future.

When they had done with him, came the question of his interment. It was
the small hours, very near the time to relieve guard. The Jew's hosts
found themselves out by the Porta Santa Croce--an empty quarter of the
town, abounding in gardens.

"Over the wall with him," said the Corporal; "we'll plant him here." It
was done. The Jew, who, by the look of him, had earned more money an
hour after death than in all the years of his life, was put a foot and a
half underground among the pumpkins in a garden of the Via di Vanzo.
Padua went to sleep.

IV

IPPOLITA LIFTS UP HER EYES TO THE HILLS

Waking from a late troubled sleep, Ippolita found her little room
possessed by three noble ladies--Emilia Malaspina, Euforbia di
Ponterotto, and Domenica di Campodarsego--dressed all in saffron and
white (her sacred colours, they told her), who announced themselves,
with much kneeling and folding of arms over breasts, as her handmaids.
"Sagro cuor di Gesu!" thought poor Ippolita, "what a way to undo me!"
But aloud she only murmured, "Tante grazie, gentildonne," and got out of
bed.

They had prepared for her a scented bath, into which, in her dazed
condition, she entered without overmuch persuasion. True, she thought to
find her death in so much water, and crossed herself vehemently when
first it touched her back; but there might be worse deaths (she
supposed) than drowning for a poor girl bought and sold, and not so very
long ago a Jew had been baptized in Santa Giustina in water up to his
neck. Nothing, however, would induce her to sit down. They dressed her
then in silk, tied and garlanded her hair, put a gold chain round her
neck, silken shoes on her feet--talking in quick whispers to each other
all the time