you?'
replied Ciappelletto. 'My kind mother, who bore me nine months in her
body, day and night, and carried me on her neck an hundred times and
more, I did passing ill to curse her and it was an exceeding great
sin; and except you pray God for me, it will not be forgiven me.'

The friar, then, seeing that Master Ciappelletto had no more to say,
gave him absolution and bestowed on him his benison, holding him a
very holy man and devoutly believing all that he had told him to be
true. And who would not have believed it, hearing a man at the point
of death speak thus? Then, after all this, he said to him, 'Master
Ciappelletto, with God's help you will speedily be whole; but, should
it come to pass that God call your blessed and well-disposed soul to
Himself, would it please you that your body be buried in our convent?'
'Ay, would it, sir,' replied Master Ciappelletto. 'Nay, I would fain
no be buried otherwhere, since you have promised to pray God for me;
more by token that I have ever had a special regard for your order.
Wherefore I pray you that whenas you return to your lodging, you must
cause bring me that most veritable body of Christ, which you
consecrate a-mornings upon the altar, for that, with your leave, I
purpose (all unworthy as I am) to take it and after, holy and extreme
unction, to the intent that, if I have lived as a sinner, I may at the
least die like a Christian.' The good friar replied that it pleased
him much and that he said well and promised to see it presently
brought him; and so was it done.

Meanwhile, the two brothers, misdoubting them sore lest Master
Ciappelletto should play them false, had posted themselves behind a
wainscot, that divided the chamber where he lay from another, and
listening, easily heard and apprehended that which he said to the
friar and had whiles so great a mind to laugh, hearing the things
which he confessed to having done, that they were like to burst and
said, one to other, 'What manner of man is this, whom neither old age
nor sickness nor fear of death, whereunto he seeth himself near, nor
yet of God, before whose judgment-seat he looketh to be ere long, have
availed to turn from his wickedness nor hinder him from choosing to
die as he hath lived?' However, seeing that he had so spoken that he
should be admitted to burial in a church, they recked nought of the
rest.

Master Ciappelletto presently took the sacrament and, growing rapidly
worse, received extreme unctio