"
"My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
"Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?" he asked me
sharply. "Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oath that
you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich and had
vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away to realms of
bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said."
Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the door to
do the office of a stool.
"But he gave alms!" I cried, my senses all bewildered.
"Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image--" his scorn
became tremendous--"is an impious fraud, Agostino."
Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any man be
so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as that without
fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
"Your notions of God are heathen notions," he said more quietly. "You
confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use His
lightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet--reflect! Consider the
manner in which that brigand met his death."
"But...but..." I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short, and
listened.
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