"But the music!" cried one of the cripples raucously. "I hear the blessed
music!"
I halted, and the crowd fell very still to listen. We all heard it pealing
softly, soothingly, as from the womb of the mountain, and a great cry went
up once more from that vast assembly, a hopeful cry that where one miracle
was happening another must happen, that where the angelic choirs were
singing all must be well.
And then with a thunder of hooves and clank of metal the troop that I had
seen came over the pasture-lands, heading straight for my hermitage, having
turned aside from the road. At the foot of the hillock upon which my hut
was perched they halted at a word from their leader.
I stood at gaze, and most of the people too craned their necks to see what
unusual pilgrim was this who came to the shrine of St. Sebastian
The leader swung himself unaided from the saddle, full-armed as he was;
then going to a litter in the rear, he assisted a woman to alight from it.
All this I watched, and I observed too that the device upon the bannerols
was the head of a white horse. By that device I knew them. They were of
the house of Cavalcanti--a house that had, as I had heard, been in alliance
and great friendship with my father. But that their coming hither should
have anything to do with me or with that friendship I was assured was
impossible.
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