trewed fresh herbs on her
pavement, she wondered:

"Does he know the truth?"

Their glances met; he seemed to send her a veiled look of
comprehension and promise. But whenever he appeared the crone was
there.

One morning however, Foresto had time to whisper:

"The Arabian."

What did that mean? Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched
hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and
Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some
revenge? Thereafter she often watched the renegade's window, from
which, no matter how late the hour, shone a glimmering of lamplight.
Was he busy at his magic? Could those spells be enlisted on her side?

Then, under an ashen sky of autumn, as night was creeping in, she
saw the Arabian ascending the hill to the castle. His tall figure,
as fleshless as a mummy's, was swathed in a white robe like a
winding sheet; his beaked face and hollow eye-sockets were like a
vision of Death. Without taking her eyes from him, Madonna Gemma
crossed herself.

Baldo came to the gate. The ghostly Arabian uttered:

"Peace be with you. I have here, under my robe, a packet for your
master."

"Good! Pass it over to me, unless it will turn my nose into a carrot,
or add a tail to my spine."

The foreigner, shaking his skull-like head, responded:

"I must give this packet into no hands but his."

So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those
two talked together in private.

* * * * *

Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short,
sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its
edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this
festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant
was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye,
he assumed an elaborate carelessness, like that of a boy who had
been up to some deviltry. Madonna Gemma soon found herself
connecting this change in him with the fancy white-leather vest.

In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the
new garment obsequiously. He murmured:

"And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so
lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer
than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as
this one. No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal,
perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?"

While speaki