wild tamarisks gently swayed their light foliage and the downy clusters
of their pink berries. Lower down amid the willows, where the water
formed a wider pool, herons stood motionless, while the smaller birds
sang sweetly in the branching myrtles. The scent of mint rose moist and
fragrant from the ground, and the grass was spangled with the flowers of
which our Lord said that "Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these." Fra Mino sat down on a mossy stone and praising God, Who
made the heavens and the dew, he fell to pondering the hidden mysteries
of Nature.

Now the remembrance of all he had seen in the Chapel of San Michele
never left his thoughts; so he sat meditating, his head between his
hands, wondering for the thousandth time what the dream might signify:
"For indeed," he said to himself, "such a vision must needs have a
meaning; it should even have several, which it behoves to discover,
whether by sudden illumination, or by dint of an exact applying of the
scholastic rules. And I deem that, in this especial case, the poets I
studied at Bologna, such as Horace the Satirist and Statius, should
likewise be of great help to me, seeing many verities are intermingled
with their fables."

After long pondering these thoughts within his breast, and others more
subtle still, he lifted his eyes and perceived he was not alone. Leaning
against the cavernous trunk of an ancient holm-oak, an old man stood
gazing at the sky through the leaves, and smiling to himself. Above his
hoary brow peeped out two shorty blunt horns. His nose was flat with
wide nostrils, and from his chin depended a white beard, through which
were visible the rugged muscles of the neck. A shaggy growth of hair
covered his breast, while from the thighs downwards his limbs showed a
thick fleece that trailed down to his cloven feet. He held to his lips a