When I was reduced to a mere chrysalis, having cords wound all over my
body which glued my arms to my flanks, I was lifted like a bundle and
lowered by a rope through the window to the ground. The descent--for I
spun round and round with horrible velocity--made me extremely giddy;
probably I lost my senses for a time. My next discovery was of being
carried swiftly over the ground by one who ran rather than walked; of my
captor mounting what I supposed to be the city wall, with me on his
back, dropping lightly on the other side and running again, on and on.
The river was crossed, for I heard the pounding and splashing, the bank
was mounted; I was now crossing furrowed ground, Heaven knew whither! I
was a long time; the thief climbed a hill; I heard him labouring his
breath, and felt the heat come up from his body like the sun in the dog-
days from a paved courtyard. I was too uncomfortable, too perturbed, too
much enraged over the fact to spend much thought on what the fact might
mean. Was I taken for a soldier? Then why such a mystery about it? I had
seen men crimped in the open piazza, out of wine-shops, from the steps
of churches. What then was my fate? I was soon to learn.

After what I think to have been an hour and a half's journey, my captor,
puffing for breath, stopped and put me down on grass.

"Porca Madonna!" cried a strident voice, "I'm not so young as I was, or
you have grown fat in Pistoja. The fatter the better for me."

Then I knew that I had been kidnapped by Fra Palamone.




CHAPTER XV