’So he called himself, or was called, pretending to trace his descent from Mutius Scævola the Roman. Flattery, you see, will make a braying ass of honesty. He was Giacommuzzo—just that; one of a family of fighting yeomen. But he had points. Hast been told how he began?’ ’No.’ ’Why, he was digging turnips by the evening star in his father’s farm at Cotignola, when the sound of pipes and drums disturbed him. ’Twas some band of Boldrino of Panicale come to recruit from the fields; and they halted by the big man. "Be a soldier of fortune like us," says they; and he tossed his dusty hair from his eyes, and saw the glint of gold in baldricks. He looked at the evening star, and ’twas pale beside. Borrowers glean the real heaven of credit in this topsy-turvy world. Look at any pool of water: what a glittering prospectus it makes of the moon! Muzzo flung his spade into an oak hard by, leaving the decision to Circumstance. If it fell, he would resume it; if it stayed, a soldier he would be. It stuck in the branches.’ ’Cicca!’ ’Peace! I will tell thee. He fought up and down, but never back to Cotignola. He put his ploughing shoulder to his work, and dug a furrow to fame. Popes and kings engaged for and against this Condottieri. He took them all to market like his beans. He knew the values of fear and money and discipline—bought over honour; wrenched treason by the joints; flogged slackness for a rusty hinge in its armour; made warriors of his rabble. Sought letters, too, to spur them on by legend.’ ’All this is nothing.’ ’He went to Mass every day——’ ’Alas!’ ’Cast his true plain wife, and took to bed the widow of Naples——’ ’Alas! Alas!’ ’And lost his life at Pescara, trying to save another.’ ’Ah! How was that?’ ’He had crossed the river on a blown tide, when he saw his page a-drowning in the stream. "Poor lad," quoth he, "will none help thee?" And he dashed back, was overwhelmed himself, and sank. They saw his mailed hands twice rise and clutch the air. A’ was never seen again. The waters were his tomb.’ Bernardo was silent. ’Was not that a creditable deed?’ quoth the Fool. The boy, pressing the tangled hair from his eyes, feverishly seized his comrade’s hands in his own. ’God forgive me!’ he cried; ’am I one to judge him, who have let my father’s friend go under, and never reached a hand?’ The Fool looked frankly amazed. ’Montano,’ cried Bembo, ’whom, in my pride of place, I have forgotten! I will go down among the people where he lies, and seek to heal his wounds, and sing Christ’s parables to simple hearts. Love lies not in palaces. I will seek Montano.’ ’Come, then,’ said Cicada. ’Nay, in a little,’ said the boy. ’Let the kind night find us first. I will flaunt my creed no longer in the sun.’