anything. It is all for himself, the Signora's millions, the boy's
millions, everything. When I look at his face, a chill seizes me, and I
tremble as when I have the fever. You never had the malaria fever,
Nino. Dogs don't have it, do they?"

At the question Nino turned his monstrous head to one side and looked
along his muzzle at his master. If he had possessed a tail he would have
wagged it, or thumped the hard ground with it a few times; but he had
none. He had probably lost it in some wild battle of his stormy youth,
fought almost to death against the huge Campagna sheep-dogs; or perhaps
a wolf had got it, or perhaps he had never had a tail at all. Ercole had
probably forgotten, and it did not really matter much.

"Corbario is an assassin," he said. "Remember that, Nino. As for his
poor lady, she is a little lacking, or she would never have married him.
But she is a saint, and what do saints want with cleverness? They go to
paradise. Does that need much sense? We should all go if we could. Why
do you cock your head on one side and look at me like a Christian? Are
you trying to make me think you have a soul? You are made of nothing but
corn meal and water, and a little wool, poor beast! But you have more
sense than the Signora, and you are not an assassin, like her husband."

At this, Nino threw himself upon his back with his four legs in the air
and squirmed with sheer delight, showing his jagged teeth and the roof
of a very terrible mouth, and emitting a series of wolfish snorts; after
which he suddenly rolled over upon his feet again, shook himself till
his shaggy coat bristled all over his body, walked sedately to the open
door of the hut, and sat down to look at the weather.

"He is almost a Christian," Ercole remarked under his breath, as if he