"I laid in wait for you,
it is true, noble sir," he said in his thin, dreamy voice, "but it was
for your good. I would give you warning, sir."
He stood with his mean figure bent cringingly forward, and with
his hat in his hand. "A warning, sir," he went ramblingly on.
"Maybe a certain one has made me his enemy. Maybe I cut myself
loose from his service. Maybe I would do him an ill turn. I can tell
you a secret, sir." He lowered his voice and looked around, as if in
fear of eavesdroppers.
"In your ear, sir," he said.
I recoiled. "Stand back," I cried, "or you will cull no more simples
this side of hell!"
"Hell! " he answered. "There's no such place. I will not tell my
secret aloud."
"Nicolo the Italian! Nicolo the Poisoner! Nicolo the Black Death! I
am coming for the soul you sold me. There is a hell!"
The thundering voice came from underneath our feet. With a
sound that was not a groan and not a screech, the Italian reeled
back against the heated iron of the brazier. Starting from that fiery
contact with an unearthly shriek, he threw up his arms and dashed
away into the darkness. The sound of his madly hurrying footsteps
came back to us until the guest house had swallowed him and his
guilty terrors.
"Can the preacher play the devil too?" I asked, as Sparrow came up
to us from the other side of the fire.
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