The long hot summer succeeded, with water-lilies, white and gold, on all the pools. In these woods there is something of a tropical heat; their deep shade does not bring coolness, for it excludes air; it is delightful to the eyes, but to the lungs humid and oppressive. Oftentimes for weeks not a breath stirs the pendant foliage; when there is fever and ague on the plains around Rome, there is danger here in the forest in the sultry nights and on the stagnant waters. In the higher woods there is less danger, but down in the marshes where the mosquitoes hum in vast clouds, and the swamps dry up and crack, and the horse-flies swarm in myriads, and the toads and the frogs die of drought, it were as much as life were worth to sleep there through a summer night. There was much sickness this year amongst the woodlanders, and Cyrille supplied as far as he could the place of medical aid. The remedies for such fevers were simple; and the greatest obstacle he encountered was in the bodily filth of the people and their fear of fresh air. They, who in health worked all day long in the air in all weathers, falling sick huddled together in a foul corner, and shut their wooden windows close. But though he saved their lives, they hated him all the more. The report spread amongst them that he had poisoned the watersprings because he wanted the woods clear of the squatters; and this preposterous tale found willing and credulous believers. “Truly,” he thought bitterly, “I had better let them drop like murrained sheep. For what crime does one pay half as dear as for the madness of trying to serve one’s fellow-men?” But he continued to do what he could, by day and by night, in despite of their evil glances and their muttered curses, and of the fingers thrust out at him in exorcism. Thus in the long course of breathless weeks the summer drew to an end, and every day the thirsty glades looked for rain, and the parched pools and dried-up waterways hungered for the first storm in vain. It was towards the close of a hot day in September. The air was heavy and the sky dull. He had been out all day on his usual rounds, and came in as the sun set to his evening meal. He was thirsty and tired; he had eaten nothing all day. The colourless leaden heat made him think of summer on his native plains, and even the distant horizons were veiled by the gray malarious vapours rising from the soil. The courtyard seemed to him unusually still as he passed through it. There was no one about, not even a stable-lad. Only a man on a mule, with a horn slung at his shoulder, and some sacks on his saddle, was riding out of one of the gates he entered. He saw it was a letter-carrier from Ronciglione.