."

"One moment, if you please. Almonte called him Brigliadoro because he
had a golden bridle; but when Orlando took him he called him Vegliantino
because he was so wide-awake--only slept with one eye at a time--always
kept the other open. You have good horses also in England. I read in
the _Giornale di Sicilia_ that your King Edward has a good horse who won
the great race this year, but I do not remember his name. It was not a
reasonable name."

"The name was Minoru. Do you think that a bad name for a good horse?"

"I think Vegliantino is better."

"Perhaps it is. Let us return to Malagigi. Are you not going to tell me
why he is no longer giving the Christians the benefit of his services as
magician?"

So he told me about Malagigi, who, it seems, had a quarrel with Carlo
Magno, in the course of which Malagigi boasted:

"You are the Emperor of the World, but I am the Emperor of the Inferno."

Carlo Magno did not quite like this and responded by cursing Malagigi,
saying that he would not go to heaven when he died. One would think that
Malagigi must have had the substance of this remark addressed to him
before by persons who had not troubled to wrap it up in the imperial
language employed by Carlo Magno. If so, it had never made any
impression on him, but now he began to think there might be something in
it. He had been a good man on the whole and a Christian, nevertheless,
as a sorcerer he had no doubt diabolised a little too freely. To be on
the safe side, he determined to repent and, as these things do not get
over the footlights unless they are done in the grand manner, he began by
burning his magical books, all except one, and they were the books of
Merlin, whose disciple he had been. He next dropped his name of
Malagigi, because it had been given him by the devils in council, and
called himself Onofrio. He still kept on terms with his confidential
private devil, Nacalone, whom he now summoned and to whom he spoke these
words:

"Convey me to some peaceful shore where I may repent of my sins and die
of grief in a grotto."

When we came to this--I could not help it, I was full of small complaints
that morning--I exclaimed:

"But, my dear Buffo, this makes consecutive fifths with his cousin
Bradamante dying of grief in the grotto at Trapani."

He admitted that it would have been better if one of them had had the
originality to die in bed as a Christian or an ordinary man does, or to
be killed