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years. The people of the quarter would help recapture any fugitive."
    Evening shadows were falling, and I distributed lamps and oil.
    "Let us endeavour to keep up our spirits," added the Tuscan chirurgeon, looking meaningfully at my master. "We must give the impression that all goes perfectly with us. If nothing changes, I shall not examine you—not unless you so request. Should there be other cases of ill health, I shall have to do so for the sake of us all. Warn me if ever you feel unwell, even if it seems to be a mere trifle. For the time being, however, it will do no good to worry, for this man," said he, pointing at the inert body of Signor di Mourai, "did not die of the plague."
    "What, then, did he die of?" asked Abbot Melani.
    "Not of plague, I repeat."
    'And how do you know, Doctor?" responded the abbot, distrustfully.
    "We are still in summer and it is quite hot. If this were plague, it would be of the summer variety, which is caused by the corruption of natural heat and provokes fevers and headaches. In such cases, the cadavers at once become black and hot, and present tokens that are also black and putrescent. But this man has not the shadow of a token, or an abscess, a botch, a swelling or whatever you might wish to call it; neither under the armpits, nor behind the ears, nor in the groin. There was no rise in temperature, nor burning. And, from what his companions have told me, he seemed quite well until within hours of his death. That, as far as I am concerned, is sufficient to rule out contagion with the plague."
    "Then it is another illness," replied Melani.
    "I repeat: in order to understand that, it would be necessary to have recourse to anatomy: to open up the body and examine it from the inside; in other words, as the chirurgeons do in Holland. On the face of it, I could diagnose an acute attack of putrid fevers, which shows no signs until it is too late for any remedy. Yet I can find no sign of putrefaction on the body or bad odours other than those of death or old age. I might perhaps suppose it to be the malady of mazzuco, or modoro, as the Spaniards call it: that causes an aposteme, which is to say, an abscess within the brain, and is thus invisible. And once that is present, death must ensue. If, on the other hand, the illness is at the stage of its initial symptoms, it can be easily remedied. Had I been informed of it even a few days ago, I might perhaps have been able to save him. It would have sufficed to bleed one of the two veins under the tongue, to administer in his beverage an infinitesimal quantity of oil of vitriol, and to anoint stomach and head with holy oil. But, as far as we can see, old Mourai showed no signs of being unwell. Be­sides..."
    "Besides?" urged Melani.
    "Mazzuco certainly does not cause a swelling of the tongue," con­cluded the chirurgeon with a telling grimace. Perhaps it is... some­thing very like poison."
    Poison. While the physician returned to his chamber, each of us contemplated the corpse in silence. For the first time, the Jesuit made the sign of the cross. Master Pellegrino renewed his imprecations, cursing the misfortune of having a dead man in his hostelry and, what is more, one who had perhaps been poisoned. And who would have the courage to hear what his wife would have to say, on her return?
    Talk then spread among the guests about the most notorious cases of poisoning, real or presumed: prominent among these were sovereigns of former times: Charles the Bald, for example, or Lothar, the King of the Franks and his son Louis; or, approaching modern times, th e acqua tofana laced with arsenic, or the Spanish fly, both em­ployed by the Borgias for their abominable crimes, as well as by the Valois and the Guises in their conspiracies. A shameful trembling ran through the group, for poison and fear are born of the same parents. Someone recalled how Henry of Navarre, before he became King Henry IV of France, was wont himself to go down to the banks of the Seine