close by the theatre,
where he smoked cigarettes and appeared to read the newspapers. Then he
wandered away to the spot appointed for him to meet a particular
gondola, and arrived there half an hour too soon. But the gondola was
there also. He jumped in and was carried away through the silence of the
night.

When he arrived at the door, which was opened to him by Calabressa, he
contrived to throw off, by a strong effort of will, any appearance of
anxiety. He entered and sat down, saying only,

"Well!--what news?"

Calabressa laughed slightly; and went to a cupboard, and brought forth a
bottle and two small glasses.

"If you were Zaccatelli," he said, "I would say to you, 'My Lord,' or
'Your Excellency,' or whatever they call those flamingoes with the
bullet heads, 'I would advise you to take a little drop of this very
excellent cognac, for you are about to hear something, and you will need
steady nerves.' Meanwhile, Brother Lind, it is not forbidden to you and
me to have a glass. The Council provide excellent liquor."

"Thank you, I have no need of it," said Lind, coldly. "What do you mean
about Zaccatelli?"

"This," said the other, filling himself out a glass of the brandy, and
then proceeding to prepare a cigarette. "If the moral scene of the
country, too long outraged, should determine to punish the Starving
Cardinal, I believe he will get a good year's notice to prepare for his
doom. You perceive? What harm does sudden death to a man? It is nothing.
A moment of pain; and you have all the happiness of sleep, indifference,
forgetfulness. That is no punishment at all: do you perceive?"

Calabressa continued, airily--

"People are proud when they say they do not fear death. The fools! What
has any one to fear in death? To the poor it means no more hunger, no
more imprisonment, no more cold and sickness, no more watching of your
children when they are suffering and you cannot help; to the rich it
means no more triumph of rivals, and envy, and jealousy; no more
sleepless nights and ennui of days; no more gout, and gravel, and the
despair of growing old. Death! It is the great emancipation. And people
talk of the punishment of death!"

He gave a long whistle of contempt.

"But," said he, with a smile, "it is a little bit different if you have
to look forward to your death on a certain fixed day. Then you begin to
overvalue things--a single hour of life becomes something."

He added, in a tone of affected cond