this state of grace, is it well pleasing to you that your body be buried in
our convent?" "Yea, verily, master friar," replied Ser Ciappelletto; "there
would I be, and nowhere else, since you have promised to pray God for me;
besides which I have ever had a special devotion to your order. Wherefore I
pray you, that, on your return to your convent, you cause to be sent me that
very Body of Christ, which you consecrate in the morning on the altar;
because (unworthy though I be) I purpose with your leave to take it, and
afterwards the holy and extreme unction, that, though I have lived as a
sinner, I may die at any rate as a Christian." The holy man said that he was
greatly delighted, that it was well said of Ser Ciappelletto, and that he
would cause the Host to be forthwith brought to him; and so it was.

The two brothers, who much misdoubted Ser Ciappelletto's power to deceive
the friar, had taken their stand on the other side of a wooden partition
which divided the room in which Ser Ciappelletto lay from another, and
hearkening there they readily heard and understood what Ser Ciappelletto
said to the friar; and at times could scarce refrain their laughter as they
followed his confession; and now and again they said one to another:--"What
manner of man is this, whom neither age nor sickness, nor fear of death, on
the threshold of which he now stands, nor yet of God, before whose
judgment-seat he must soon appear, has been able to turn from his wicked
ways, that he die not even as he has lived?" But seeing that his confession
had secured the interment of his body in church, they troubled themselves no
further. Ser Ciappelletto soon afterwards communicated, and growing
immensely worse, received the extreme unction, and died shortly after
vespers on the same day on which he had made his good confession. So the two
brothers, having from his own moneys provided the wherewith to procure him
honourable sepulture, and sent word to the friars to come at even to observe
the usual vigil, and in the morning to fetch the corpse, set all things in
order accordingly. The holy friar who had confessed him, hearing that he was