’Help his prophecy, ye vermin, when he’s ears to hear; and tell him I wait to carve them from his head.’ He bore Bembo with him from the hall, as he might carry a moth fluttering on his sleeve. Murmurs rose in his wake, seething and furious; but he heeded them not. In a deserted court beyond, he shook the pretty spoil from his arm, not roughly but with an air of madness, and stood breathing like a driven ox. ’What now?’ he groaned at last—’what now?’ Then all in a moment the boy was sobbing before him. ’O Carlo! dear Carlo! I would the Duke were returned!’ His grief and helplessness moved the other to a frenzy. His chest heaved, he caught at his throat, struggling vainly for utterance of the fears which had of late been tormenting him without definite reason. Seeing his state, Bernardo sought to propitiate it with a smile that trembled out of tears. ’Nay, mind me not—a child to cry at a shadow.’ Lanti choked, and found voice at length. ’The Duke? Monstrous! Call’st thou for him? Forget’st Capello? Art changed indeed.’ ’Alas!’ cried the boy, ’no change in me. I think only of a more ruling tyranny than mine. Pitiless himself, he made pity sweet in others. I’ve converted ’em from deeds to words, that’s all.’ ’The Duke!’ ’I begin to see. Thou warned’st me, I remember. The fashion of me passes, like thy shoe’s long beaks. Yesterday they were a span; to-day they’re shrunk by half; to-morrow, mayhap, ye’ll trim them from your feet and run on goat’s hooves.’ ’Thou ravest. ’Tis for thee, being Duke-deputy, to trim _us_.’ ’Into what? Cherubs or satyrs? Be quick, lest the fashion change while you talk.’ ’Go to! Thou art the Duke, I say.’ ’Well, a fine puppet, and great at righting wrongs. There’s Lucia to witness.’ ’She’s provided for.’ ’With bread. O, I am a very Mahomet. If I but nod my head, the city shall crack and crumble to it.’ ’God! What ails thee, boy?’ ’Something mortal, I think. A breath withered me just now!’ ’A breath? Whose breath?’ ’Whose? O Carlo, forgive me! What have I said or done? Look, I’m myself again. It just fell like a frost in June, killing my young olives. I had so hung upon it, too—its help and promise. The harvest seemed so certain.’ ’Ah! She’s thrown you over?’ ’Dreams, dreams!’ sighed poor little Nathan; ’to live on dreams—a deaf man’s voices, a blind man’s vision. I have seen such things, built such kingdoms out of dreams. Carlo! what have I done?’ Lanti ground his teeth. ’Done? Proved woman’s constancy a dream—that’s all.’ He clapped his chest, and looked earnestly at Bembo, and cried in a broken voice:— ’Boy—before God—tell me—thou hast not learned to desire her?’ The child looked up at him, with a pitiful mouth. ’Ah! I know not what you mean; unless it be that pain with which I see her melt from out my dream when most possessing it.’ ’Most? She? She to possess thy dream, thy purpose?’ cried Lanti, and drew back in great emotion.