me, first icy
cold then burning hot, as it went tearing its way through. For just a
second was I daunted, more at knowing myself touched than by the actual
pain. Then I flung my whole body forward to reach him at the close
quarters to which he had come, and I buried my dagger in his breast,
high up at the base of his dirty throat.
The force of the blow carried me forward, even as it bore him backward;
and so, with his sword-blade in my shoulder, and my dagger where I had
planted it, we hurtled over together and lay a second amidst what seemed
a forest of equine legs. Then something smote me across the head, and I
was knocked senseless.
Conceive me, if you can, a sorrier, or more useless thing. A senseless
Fool!
CHAPTER VI. FOOL'S LUCK
My return to consciousness seemed to afford me such sensations as a
diver may experience as he rises up and up through the depth of water
he has plumbed--or as a disembodied soul may know in its gentle ascent
towards Heaven. Indeed the latter parallel may be more apt. For through
the mist that suffused my senses there penetrated from overhead a voice
that seemed to invoke every saint in the calendar on the behalf of some
poor mortal. A very litany of intercession was it, not quite, it would
appear, devoid of self-seeking.
"Sainted Virgin, restore him! Good St. Paul, who wert done to death with
a sword, let him not perish, else am I lost indeed!" came the voice.
I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes, whereat the voice cried out
gladly that its intercessions had been heard, and I knew that it was on
my behalf that the saints of Heaven had been disturbed in their beatific
peace. My head was pillowed in a woman's lap, and it took me a moment or
two to realise that that lap was Madonna Paula's, as was hers the voice
that had reached my awakening senses, the voice that now welcomed me
back to life in terms that were very different from the last that I
could remember her having used towards me.
"Thank God, Messer Boccadoro!" she exclaimed, as she bent over me.
Her face was black with shadow, but in her voice I caught a hint of
tears, and I wondered whether they were shed on my behalf or on her own.
"I do!" I answered fervently. "Have you any notion of what hour it is?"
"None," she sighed. "You have been so long unconscious that I was losing
hope of ever hearing your voice again."
I became aware of a dull ache on the right side of my head. I put up my
hand, and
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