se; and as our three friends
drew nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel,
both kissing the beads and crucifix that hung from the monk's girdle.
Possibly he had died in the odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death
and his brown frock and cowl made a sacred image of this reverend
father.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DEAD CAPUCHIN

The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the brown woollen frock of
the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the
features and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung
at his side; his hands were folded over his breast; his feet (he was of
a barefooted order in his lifetime, and continued so in death) protruded
from beneath his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than
even his face. They were tied together at the ankles with a black
ribbon.

The countenance, as we have already said, was fully displayed. It had a
purplish hue upon it, unlike the paleness of an ordinary corpse, but
as little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were
but partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the
deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch
whether they were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies.
The shaggy eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between
two of the lighted candles, and stood close beside the bier.

"My God!" murmured she. "What is this?"

She grasped Donatello's hand, and, at the same instant, felt him give a
convulsive shudder, which she knew to have been caused by a sudden
and terrible throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous change,
became like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy that their
insensible fingers might have rattled, one against the other. No wonder
that their blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and paused!
The dead face of the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed
eyelids, was the same visage that had glared upon their naked souls, the
past midnight, as Donatello flung him over the precipice.

The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and had not yet seen
the monk's features.

"Those naked feet!" said he. "I know not why, but they affect me
strangely. They have walked to and fro over the hard pavements of Rome,
and through a hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went
begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters and dreary corridors
of his convent