had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong,
and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer
sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were
saying to himself, "Tito will find me. He had but to carry our gems to
Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me
out?" If that were certain, could he--Tito--see the price of the gems
lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned
by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his
sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been
taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion
galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable
bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.

He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when
definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he
contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The
death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings
freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola's brother, Dino, and
obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.

"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay
awake, I saw my father's room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_
where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him
move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my
father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the
streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you
stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had
the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds
followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you
came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage;