Captain Sandrino Monaldi came at once into my prison with about twenty
of the castellan’s servants. They found me on my knees; and I did not
turn at their approach, but went on paying my orisons before a God the
Father, surrounded with angels, and a Christ arising victorious from the
grave, which I had sketched upon the wall with a little piece of
charcoal I had found covered up with earth. This was after I had lain
four months upon my back in bed with my leg broken, and had so often
dreamed that angels came and ministered to me, that at the end of those
four months the limb became as sound as though it never had been
fractured. So then these fellows entered, all in armour, as fearful of
me as though I were a poison-breathing dragon. The captain spoke as
follows: “You must be aware that there are many of us here, and our
entrance has made a tumult in this place, yet you do not turn round.”
When I heard these words, I was well able to conceive what greater harm
might happen to me, but being used and hardened to misfortune, I said to
them: “Unto this God who supports me, to Him in heaven I have turned my
soul, my contemplation, and all my vital spirits; to you I have turned
precisely what belongs to you. What there is of good in me, you are not
worthy to behold, nor can you touch it. Do then to that which is under
your control all the evil you are able.” The captain, in some alarm, and
not knowing what I might be on the point of doing, said to four of his
tallest fellows: “Put all your arms aside.” When they had done so, he
added: “Now upon the instant leap on him, and secure him well. Do you
think he is the devil, that so many of us should be afraid of him? Hold
him tight now, that he may not escape you.” Seized by them with force
and roughly handled, and anticipating something far worse than what
afterwards happened, I lifted my eyes to Christ and said: “Oh, just God,
Thou paidest all our debts upon that high-raised cross of Thine;
wherefore then must my innocence be made to pay the debts of whom I do
not even know? Nevertheless, Thy will be done.” Meanwhile the men were
carrying me away with a great lighted torch; and I thought that they
were about to throw me down the oubliette of Sammabo. This was the name
given to a fearful place which had swallowed many men alive; for when
they are cast into it, the fall to the bottom of a deep pit in the
foundation of the castle. This did not, however, happen to me; wherefore
I thought that I had made a very good bargain when they placed me in
that hideous dungeon I have spoken of, where Fra Foiano died of hunger,
and left me there without doing me further injury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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