should
serve its one purpose. He was a shattered, bewildered, lonely old man;
yet he desired to live: _he_ waited for something of which he had no
distinct vision--something dim, formless--that startled him, and made
strong pulsations within him, like that unknown thing which we look for
when we start from sleep, though no voice or touch has waked us.
Baldassarre desired to live; and therefore he crept out in the grey
light, and seated himself in the long grass, and watched the waters that
had a faint promise in them.

Meanwhile the Compagnacci were busy at their work. The formidable bands
of armed men, left to do their will with very little interference from
an embarrassed if not conniving Signoria, had parted into two masses,
but both were soon making their way by different roads towards the Arno.
The smaller mass was making for the Ponte Rubaconte, the larger for the
Ponte Vecchio; but in both the same words had passed from mouth to mouth
as a signal, and almost every man of the multitude knew that he was
going to the Via de' Bardi to sack a house there. If he knew no other
reason, could he demand a better?

The armed Compagnacci knew something more, for a brief word of command
flies quickly, and the leaders of the two streams of rabble had a
perfect understanding that they would meet before a certain house a
little towards the eastern end of the Via de' Bardi, where the master
would probably be in bed, and be surprised in his morning sleep.

But the master of that house was neither sleeping nor in bed; he had not
been in bed that night. For Tito's anxiety to quit Florence had been
stimulated by the events of the previous day: investigations would
follow in which appeals might be made to him delaying his departure: and
in all delay he had an uneasy sense that there was danger. Falsehood
had prospered and waxed strong; but it had nourished the twin life,
Fear. He no longer wore his armour, he was no longer afraid of
Baldassarre; but from the corpse of that dead fear a spirit had risen--
the undying _habit_ of fear. He felt he should not be safe till he was
out of this fierce, turbid Florence; and now he was ready to go. Maso
was to deliver up his house to the new tenant; his horses and mules were
awaiting him in San Gallo; Tessa and the children had been lodged for
the night in the Borgo outside the gate, and would be dressed in
readiness to mount the mules and join him. He descended the stone steps
into t