carried you like a bale for three leagues in the middle of the night.
And you ask me why? I can only say that I have a liking for you. You are
spirited, pious, ingenuous, and well-read. As a man of many trades and
accomplishments, I shall find you useful in a hundred ways. You will
understand that before we have been in Prato half an hour. Honestly, my
friend, I have twice tried to serve you in difficulties, and each time
you have obstinately refused to acknowledge it. Now, for a third time, I
am going to oblige you. Consider whether I am altogether undeserving;
consider it when I am gone for your Virginia."

I had nothing else half so interesting to do. I pondered his acts
towards me over and over again, but could not for the life of me fit
them into any reasonable relation to himself. That he meant to make
profit out of me was certain; he lived for profit. But how? By selling
me into slavery? Had his explanations to the Customs-house men at the
frontier been pure falsehood? I knew that the Grand Duke Cosimo was
surrounded by miserable young men of all colours, tongues and sizes,
gathered from every quarter of the globe. That was a humour of his which
all his toadies and sycophants tried to indulge. Probably his collection
lacked an Englishman--but even as I hotly determined that it should for
ever lack one sooner than possess me, I remembered that this mad prince
lay dying. Palamone must needs know that; and then, what sort of a price
did he hope for from a man with the death-rattle rising in his throat?
Did the heir-apparent, the Grand Prince Gastone, intend to maintain the
collection? It was possible. Of some monstrous villainy of the sort I
vehemently suspected Fra Palamone, and am the more glad, therefore, to
record that in this particular case I did him a wrong. He came back in
good time with Virginia, who, her eyes alight, sprang towards me and
snatched at my hands. I let her kiss them, and was sincerely glad to see
my friend again. We devoured each other with questions. Had she been in