So sweetly and so humbly he estimated his own insignificance. Could his foul slanderers have read his heart then, they had surely raved upon God, in their horror, to strike them, instant and for ever, from the rolls of self-conscious existence. Cicada listened to him, and gnawed his knotted knuckles in the gloom, and wondered when and how he should dare to curse him with the truth. He might at least have spared himself that agony. The truth, to one so true, could not long fail of revealing itself. And when it came, lo! he welcomed it, as always, for a friend. Small birds, small flowers, small wants perish of a little neglect. His sun, his sustenance, were scarce withheld a few hours from this sensitive plant before he began to droop. And ever, with the fading of his mortal tissues, the glow of the intelligence within seemed to grow brighter, until verily the veins upon his temples appeared to stand out, like mystic writing on a lighted porcelain lamp. So it happened that, as he and his companion were sitting apart on the filthy stones late on the noon of the second day of their imprisonment, he ended a long silence by creeping suddenly to the Fool’s knees, and, looking up into the Fool’s face in the dim twilight, appealed to its despair with a tremulous smile. ’Cicca,’ he whispered, ’my Cicca; wilt thou listen, and not be frightened?’ ’To what?’ muttered the other hoarsely. ’Hush, dear!’ said the boy, fondling him, and whimpering—not for himself. ’I have been warned—some one hath warned me—that it were well if we fed not our hearts with delusive hopes of release herefrom.’ ’Why not?’ said the Fool. ’It is the only food we are like to have.’ ’Ah!’ He clung suddenly to his friend in a convulsion of emotion. ’You have guessed? It is true. Capello. We might have known, being here; but—O Cicca! are you sorry? We have an angel with us—he spoke to me just now.’ ’Christ?’ ’Yes, Christ, dearest.’ The Fool, smitten to intolerable anguish, put him away, and, scrambling to his feet, went up and down, raving and sobbing:— ’The vengeance of God on this wicked race! May it fester in madness, living; and, dead, go down to torment so unspeakable, that——’ The boy, sprung erect, white and quivering, struck in:— ’Ah, no, no! Think who it is that hears thee!’ Cicada threw himself at his feet, pawing and lamenting:— ’Thou angel! O, woe is me! that ever I were born to see this thing!’ So they subsided in one grief, rocking and weeping together. ’O, sweet!’ gasped the boy—’that ever I were born to bring this thing on thee!’ Then, at that, the Fool wrapped him in his arms, adoring and fondling him, to a hurry of sighs and broken exclamations. ’On me!—Child, that I am thought worthy!—too great a joy—mightst have been alone—yet did I try to save thee—heaven’s mercy that, failing, I am involved!’ And so, easing himself for the first time, in an ecstasy of emotion he told all he knew about the fatal ring, and his efforts to recover it.