He checked himself, and whimpered and sprang back. On the instant the storm which he had dreaded while provoking was burst upon him. Credulous and irrational like all tyrants, Galeazzo never thought to analyse interests and motives in any indictment whose pretext was devotion to himself and his safety. Wrapped in eternal unbelief in all men, no man was so easily arrested as he by the first hint of a plausible rogue professing to serve him, or so quick, being inoculated, to develop the very confluent scab of suspicion. It were well only for Autolycus to make the most of his fees during his little spell of favour, and to disappear on the earliest threat of himself falling victim to the disease he had promoted. Now, for this dumb-struck quartette of knaves and butchers, was enacted one of those little _danses-diaboliques_ in which this fearful man was wont to vent his periodic frenzies. He shrieked and leapt and foamed, racing and twisting to and fro within the narrow confines of the dungeon. Ravings and blasphemies tore and sputtered from his lips; mad destruction issued at his hands. He spurned whatever blocked his path, things living or inanimate; nor seemed to feel or recognise how he bruised himself, but stumbled over, and snatched at, and hurled aside, all that crossed the red vision of his rage. Struggling for coherence, he could force his imprecations but by fits and snatches to rise articulate:— ’Subtle!—I’ll be subtler—devil unmasked—no Future?—a specious dog—hell gapes in front—master of my own—to vindicate the monk?—treason against his lord—ha, ha! Jacopo! good servant! good refuter of a sacrilegious hound!’ Then all at once, quite suddenly as it had risen, the tempest passed. Slack, dribbling, hoarse, unashamed, he stopped beside his death-white informer and pawed and mouthed upon him:— ’Why, Tassino! Why—my little honest carver o’ joints! Thou mean’st me well, I do believe.’ ’O my lord!’ cried the trembling rogue, ’if you would but trust me!’ ’Why, so I do, Tassino,’ urged the Duke, nervously handling and stroking the young man’s arm. ’So I do, little pretty varlet. I believe thy story—fie! an impious tale. Deserv’st well of me for that boldness—good courage—the truth needs it. Wilt serve me yet?’ ’My lord, to the death.’ ’Fie, fie! Not so far, I hope. Yet, listen; ’twere meet this viper were not let to crawl himself within our laurels, and crown our triumph with a poisonous bite. Hey?’ ’I understand your Grace.’ ’A hint’s enough, then. ’Tis no great matter; but these worms will sting.’ ’I’ll jog Jacopo.’ ’You will? He’s true to me?’ ’O yes!’ ’No convert to the other?’ ’He hates him well.’ ’Does he? A viper has no friends but his kind. This one—hark! a word in your ear. He ’d loose Capello, who damned me, and was damned? Were it not right then the false prophet should take the false prophet’s place?’ ’Most right.’ ’The word’s with thee, little chuck. How about the Fool?’