Casa of the Seven Dead Men the six are sitting, and the fiery seventh at
the table-foot, in the boy's place--until the Day comes that is
Doomsday, which is the last day of all.




CHAPTER IV

THE SINFUL VILLAGE OF SPELLINO


This was the story we told, and there was not a face among the audience
that did not blanch, and in that village there were undoubtedly some who
that night did not sleep.

Now, the success of the story of the Seven Dead Men was great,
surprising, embarrassing. For as soon as we ceased the children ran off
to their homes to bring their mothers, who also had to hear. So we had
to tell as before, without the alteration of a word.

Then home from the meadow pastures where they had been mowing, past the
ripening grain, the fathers came, ill-pleased to find the dinner still
not ready. Then these in their turn had to be fetched, and the story
told from the beginning. Yea, and did we vary so much as the droop of a
hair on the wet beard of the drowned man as he tumbled in the swirl of
the lagoon where the Brenta meets the tide, a dozen voices corrected us,
and we were warned to be careful. A reputation so sudden and tremendous
is, at its beginning, somewhat brittle.