All at once I was startled in my fitful, half-mechanical playing by a piercing scream; this was almost immediately followed by a confused noise of sobs and cries, and a running of people to and fro, which seemed, however, to be approaching nearer. I was just going to hurry to the spot whence the noise proceeded, when some dozen of girls came rushing towards me. But before I had time to inquire into the cause of their excitement, or to observe them more closely, a gray-haired woman, with a pale, terror-stricken face, seized hold of my hand, crying: "The Madonna be praised, he has a violin! Hasten, hasten! Follow us or she will die!" And then the girls, beckoning and gesticulating, laid hold of my arm, my coat, my hand, some pulling, some pushing me along, all jabbering and crying together, and repeating more and more urgently the only words that I could make out--"Musica! Musica!" But while I stared at them in blank amazement, thinking they must all have lost their wits together, I was unconsciously being dragged and pulled along till we came to a kind of ruined marble staircase, down which they hurried me into something still resembling a spacious chamber; for though the wild fig-tree and cactus pushed their fantastic branches through gaps in the walls, these stood partly upright as yet, discovering in places the dull red glow of weather-stained wall-paintings. The floor, too, was better preserved than any I had seen; though cracked and in part overrun by ivy, it showed portions of the original white and black tessellated work. On this floor, with her head pillowed on a shattered capital, lay a prostrate figure without life or motion, and with limbs rigidly extended as in death. The old woman, throwing herself on her knees before this lifeless figure, loosened the handkerchief round her neck, and then, as though to feel whether life yet lingered, she put her hand on the heart of the unconscious girl, when, suddenly jumping up again, she ran to me, panting:-- "O sir, good sir, play, play for the love of the Madonna!" And the others all echoed as with one voice, "Musica! Musica!" "Is this a time to make music?" cried I, in angry bewilderment. "The girl seems dying or dead. Run quick for a doctor--or stay, if you will tell me where he lives I will go myself and bring him hither with all speed." For all answer the gray-haired woman, who was evidently the girl's mother, fell at my feet, and clasping my knees, cried in a voice broken by sobs, "O good sir, kind sir, my girl has been bitten by the tarantula! Nothing in the world can save her but you, if with your playing you can make her rise up and dance!" Then darting back once more to the girl, who lay as motionless as before, she screamed in shrill despair, "She's getting as cold as ice; the death-damps will be on her if you will not play for my darling."