"Let me think," said Antonio; and, after meditating for a moment, he added, "there are ways of destroying him without raising your hand against him: there is the cord. Listen to my resolution, Mardocchi, and you know I will keep it: if you will promise me not to take his life in any way--for I know you right well--I will help you, for old companionship, to escape, and to join a noble lord in the Romagna; but, if you do not promise, I will make sure of you by other means. I have but to speak a word, and you are on the branch of the mulberry-tree again--" "Stop, stop!" said Mardocchi; "do not threaten me. I am weak--sick--hardly yet alive, but I do not like threats. The crushed adder bites. Let me think: I hate him," he continued, slowly, recovering gradually from the excitement under which he had first spoken. "I shall always hate him, but that is no reason I should kill him. I have never promised to kill him--never even threatened to kill him. If I had, I would do it or die; but I do not like death. I have tasted it, and no man likes to eat of that dish twice. It is very bitter; and I promise you in your own words, Antonio. But you likewise must remember your promise to me." "Did you ever know me fail?" said the other. "The first thing is to get you well, the next to shave off that long beard and those wild locks, and then, with a friar's gown and the cord of St. Francis, I will warrant I get you in the train of one of these French lords. Can you enact a friar, think you, Mardocchi?" "Oh, yes," said Mardocchi, with a bitter grin, "I can drink and carouse all night, tell a coarse tale with a twinkling eye, laugh loud at a small jest, and do foul services for a small reward, if it be to save my life; but then I cannot speak these people's language, Antonio." "All the better--all the better," answered Antonio; "many of them know a little Italian, and hard questions put in a foreign tongue, are easily parried. It would be a good thing for one half of the world if it did not understand what the other half said." "But who is this good lord to whom you are going to send me?" asked the man. "Is he a courtier or a soldier." "A little of both," answered Antonio, "but more a man of counsel than either. His name is Ramiro d'Orco." "Ah! I have heard of him," said Mardocchi. "He puzzles the people about the court. All men think that at heart he has vast ambition, and yet none can tell you why he thinks so. All agree in that, though some think he is a philosopher, some a simpleton."