gh his mind--the long
years he had worn it, the far-off sunny balcony at Naples looking
towards the blue waters, where he had leaned against his mother's knee;
but it made no moment of hesitation: all piety now was transmuted into a
just revenge. He bit and tore till the doubles of parchment were laid
open, and then--it was a sight that made him pant--there _was_ an
amulet. It was very small, but it was as blue as those far-off waters;
it was an engraved sapphire, which must be worth some gold ducats.
Baldassarre no sooner saw those possible ducats than he saw some of them
exchanged for a poniard. He did not want to use the poniard yet, but he
longed to possess it. If he could grasp its handle and try its edge,
that blank in his mind--that past which fell away continually--would not
make him feel so cruelly helpless: the sharp steel that despised talents
and eluded strength would be at his side, as the unfailing friend of
feeble justice. There was a sparkling triumph under Baldassarre's black
eyebrows as he replaced the little sapphire inside the bits of parchment
and wound the string tightly round them.

It was nearly dusk now, and he rose to walk back towards Florence. With
his _danari_ to buy him some bread, he felt rich: he could lie out in
the open air, as he found plenty more doing in all corners of Florence.
And in the next few days he had sold his sapphire, had added to his
clothing, had bought a bright dagger, and had still a pair of gold
florins left. But he meant to hoard that treasure carefully: his
lodging was an outhouse with a heap of straw in it, in a thinly
inhabited part of Oltrarno, and he thought of looking about for work as
a porter.

He had bought his dagger at Bratti's. Paying his meditated visit there
one evening at dusk, he had found that singular rag-merchant just
returned from one of his rounds, emptying out his basketful of broken
glass and old iron amongst his handsome show of miscellaneous
second-hand goods. As Baldassarre entered the shop, and looked towards
the smart pieces of apparel, the musical instruments, and weapons, which
were displayed in the broadest light of the window, his eye at once
singled out a dagger hanging up high against a red scarf. By buying the
dagger he could not only satisfy a strong desire, he could open his
original errand in a more indirect manner than by speaking of the onyx
ring. In the course of bargaining for the weapon, he let drop, with
cautio