I think it
could never have shone upon a more handsome or a more wicked
man. He lay there in his splendid dress and dark beauty,
Endymion-like, beneath the moon. The King's ward turned her
eyes upon him, kept them there a moment, then glanced away, and
looked at him no more.
"There's a parlous lump upon his forehead where it struck the
thwart," said the minister, "but the life's yet in him. He'll shame
honest men for many a day to come. Your Platonists, who from a
goodly outside argue as fair a soul, could never have been
acquainted with this gentleman."
The subject of his discourse moaned and stirred. The minister
raised one of the hanging hands and felt for the pulse. "Faint
enough," he went on. "A little more and the King might have
waited for his minion forever and a day. It would have been the
better for us, who have now, indeed, a strange fish upon our hands,
but I am glad I killed him not."
I tossed him a flask. "It's good aqua vit‘, and the flask is honest.
Give him to drink of it."
He forced the liquor between my lord's teeth, then dashed water in
his face. Another minute and the King's favorite sat up and looked
around him. Dazed as yet, he stared, with no comprehension in his
eyes, at the clouds, the sail, the rushing water, the dark figures
about him. "Nicolo!" he cried sharply.
"He's not here, my lord," I said.
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