peace on earth, you hold me for a fool. You think my words wander all
ways, like the steps of a drunken man. And it is very true I walk your
fields like those harpers who on the eve of battles, come to play before
the tents. And the soldiers say, as they listen: ''Tis some poor
simpletons come playing the tunes we heard long ago in our mountains.' I
am this harper that roams between the hosts in battle array of hostile
armies. When I think whither human wisdom leads, I am glad to be a
madman and a simpleton; and I thank God that He has given me the harp to
handle and not the sword."


XIII

THE TRUTH

The holy man Giovanni was very straitly confined in gaol, where he was
fastened by chains to rings built into the wall. But his soul was
unfettered, and no tortures had been able to shake his firmness. He
promised himself he would never betray the faith that was in him, and
was ready to be witness and martyr of the Truth, to the end he might die
in God. And he said to himself, "Truth shall go along with me to the
scaffold. She shall look at me and weep and say, 'My tears flow, seeing
it is for my sake this man is going to his death.'"

And as the holy man was thus holding colloquy of his own thoughts in the
solitude of his dungeon, a knight entered into the prison, without ever
the doors having been opened. He was clad in a red mantle, and carried
in his hand a lighted lantern.

Fra Giovanni accosted him and said: