: NINTH MAN 
 
 MARY H EATON : VORSE
 

 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 By Mary Heaton Vorse 
 
 . OF
 
 "ONE-NINTH OF YOU ARE TO DIE!" WAS ECHOED TO us LIKE A 
 
 TOLLING BELL
 
 THE 
 NINTH MAN 
 
 A Story 
 
 By 
 MARY HEATON VORSE 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 FRANK CRAIG 
 
 Publishers 
 HARPER & BROTHERS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 MCMXX
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Published July. 1920
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "ONE-NINTH OF You ABE TO DIE!" WAS 
 
 ECHOED TO Us LIKE A TOLLING BELL Frontispiece 
 
 IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION THAT CAME 
 
 BEFORE OUR EYES Facing p. 10 
 
 OUR BEAUTIFUL AND ARROGANT LADY SAT 
 
 BROODING " 28 
 
 "THERE WAS A GIRL HERE ONCE SOME 
 POOR RELATION OF COUNT BARTOLOM- 
 MEO'S" . . ..." 32 
 
 2133685
 
 THE NINTH MAN
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IT might have been said of us that our 
 city was the iron pot, we in it the broth, 
 and the edict of Egidio Mazzaleone the 
 stick with which to stir the broth. It was 
 a fine, big stick with a point at the end of 
 it, as we found out, though at first sight it 
 had a harmless look beside the naked sword 
 which was what we had expected. As the 
 stick stirred and the broth boiled and 
 bubbled over the blue fire of his insolence, 
 many a strange thing was cast to the top 
 things good and things bad that none 
 had guessed were simmering and cooking 
 at the bottom of the broth, flavoring the 
 whole of it. 
 
 I shall go on to tell you of the wry faces 
 that the town of San Moglio made as it 
 cooked slowly over the insolence of Egidio 
 Mazzaleone. I have found out that it is 
 always so in this world. You may call 
 any handful, if you will, a city, for among 
 them you will have in little the picture of 
 i
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 the state: they love and die, bear children, 
 buy and sell, and strive for power, and the 
 days will go by one like the other and you 
 may think that you know each of your 
 fellows as a book; then singe them with the 
 fire of a great event and, behold, your town 
 will turn on you an unaccustomed and 
 terrifying face. 
 
 Myself, I cannot even now distinguish 
 the events as they came, they happened 
 so quickly, one on top of the other, like 
 a dog tumbling down-stairs. Whether it 
 was his head or his tail that went first you 
 would be at a loss to tell. We were in sore 
 straits in the city, I know that. There was 
 wildcat fighting; there was a surrender 
 to a greater might of mind and body than 
 we could show this I know, too. Then 
 there was peace; we wondered that we 
 were not burned and pillaged like the cities 
 that had fallen before us. Before he en- 
 tered the gate we had made a shrewd fight 
 of it; but he had more of everything than 
 we any outsider would have foretold the 
 end. He had more men; and though it 
 may not be becoming of a soldier to say 
 it, a clerk like myself may perhaps be per-
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 mitted to tell the truth: he had the greater 
 genius for fighting not more bravery, mind 
 you, but as much; I grant you that. And, 
 more, he had a brain in that misshapen 
 head of his. 
 
 After our defeat came the edict. What 
 it meant I did not know, except that it was 
 respite from death; and I had not drawn 
 long breaths enough that I myself was 
 safe, as well as the persons of those I loved, 
 when my young mistress came to me. 
 
 "They say that I and all of the house 
 are to appear in the public square and walk 
 in person past Egidio Mazzaleone." 
 
 She frowned at me as though I had done 
 this thing. 
 
 "Lady," I made haste to reply, "I know 
 not." 
 
 She pressed her lips together as if she 
 would have spoken angrily to me, but she 
 did not, and went to the window. 
 
 "See," she said, looking at the crowd in 
 the street that wandered aimlessly up and 
 down, on their faces the frozen look of 
 those who still stare death in the face. It 
 seemed to me that they had the desolation 
 of driven sheep who smell the slaughter-
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 pen and know the meaning of the smoking, 
 sick, red smell of it. 
 
 Among them all there were those who 
 walked insolently as though to dare Death, 
 but there were none who remained uncon- 
 scious of his shadow. As my lady bade 
 me look, I saw one who walked outside 
 the circle of this walking fear like a 
 happy child in a field of lilies. This young 
 man belonged, it seemed by his habit, to 
 some religious order. To us, at the window 
 above this restless moving people, driven 
 hither and thither in their cold suspense, 
 he seemed like a dweller from some other 
 world who walked outside the circle of our 
 concern. He had a rough-hewn and clown- 
 ish face, and his eyes had the gentle and 
 brutish gaze of the lads who tend goats on 
 the mountain, but the high serenity that 
 had made him solitary in a crowd shone 
 from them. 
 
 "Bring him to me," said my lady, "for 
 I will learn the truth from him." 
 
 I gained him with difficulty through the 
 shifting throngs, and without surprise he 
 followed me so unquestioningly that I 
 thought him little better than a poor witless
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 fellow, until I saw him greet my lady, and 
 the look he poured on her was as kind as 
 water on a parched flower. 
 
 "What is the news?" my lady asked. 
 "Are we to walk before Mazzaleone like 
 sheep? Is it true?" 
 
 "So it is commanded by Mazzaleone," 
 said he, and his voice sounded like a deep 
 bell. And I saw that this thing of so great 
 importance to us, and so great a hurt to 
 our pride, was less than nothing to this 
 strange man. 
 
 "Who are you?" my lady asked him. 
 
 "The least of all things: the youngest of 
 the Brothers Minor," he answered. 
 
 We had heard of these lay preachers from 
 Assisi, for their fame had spread greatly in 
 those days. 
 
 "Do you preach in San Moglio?" 
 
 "I am not worthy. I cannot speak. 
 But as I go to and fro I talk to children 
 about my Master," said he, humbly. "I 
 wait with hope and dread when my hour 
 to speak shall come and the coal of speech 
 shall be laid on my lips." 
 
 My lady considered his words and asked 
 him questions concerning Brother Francis, 
 2 5
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 and as he answered her we were so delivered 
 from our shame and apprehension that it 
 was only as he went away that my lady 
 asked again, "When shall this conquered 
 and unhappy town walk past its conqueror?" 
 
 "In three days," he answered. And as 
 he went, my lord Count Bartolommeo 
 Conti came clanking in, and the Brother 
 Minor greeted him as he had my lady, to 
 which my lord made no answer at all. And 
 when the Brother Minor was gone: 
 
 "What did here this lout?" asks he. 
 
 "That is Brother Agnello he was here 
 at my request," my lady made answer in her 
 softest tone of most level insolence, and she 
 turned and watched the Brother Minor as 
 he wandered aimless and unafraid through 
 the shifting panic.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FOR three days he let us stew; under 
 the mask of clemency, and of giving 
 us time to learn the edict for which dis- 
 obedience was the pain of death, Maz- 
 zaleone let suspense have its way with us. 
 His heralds cried the edict out through the 
 town; through each little street went the 
 command that on the third day, that being 
 a Friday, all of us, noble and simple, men 
 and women, young and old, should walk 
 before the loggia. And for this no explana- 
 tion was given ; the bare command stripped 
 down to its bone, and nothing more, was the 
 edict of Egidio Mazzaleone and it seemed 
 to us that it was as menacing and as lean 
 as himself. Behind it we felt that terror 
 was lurking. Some said he would butcher 
 us one by one; others said that our leaders 
 and great men only would be slaughtered 
 before our eyes ; and again there were those 
 with higher imaginations who hinted at 
 torture and burnings. That it meant no 
 good to us none of us doubted. 
 
 Meantime not a house was thrown down 
 nor occupied by the soldiers of Mazzaleone;
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 all was left as it was found. The men-at- 
 arms were as stern and yet as even as Maz- 
 zaleone himself. But there they were, the 
 iron witnesses of our defeat, we who three 
 times had been taken and three times had 
 shaken off the yoke of Pisa free men and 
 had more than once entered, victorious, 
 through the gates of other cities, not count- 
 ing the fortresses, the castelli, and in- 
 trenched strongholds fiefs of the empire 
 that we had made our own, one after an- 
 other, forcing their nobles to become citizens 
 of our own commune. 
 
 Now, while Mazzaleone's men patrolled 
 us, we went about our business. The pot- 
 houses were overrun and there was much 
 quiet talking among the nobles. And, al- 
 though we came and went unmolested, the 
 people were not allowed to congregate in 
 the streets or the piazza. He kept moving 
 those who would stop to prattle, did Egidio 
 Mazzaleone; and while we moved about 
 we pondered upon the meaning of his edict 
 until the hide of each one of us felt an un- 
 comfortable itching, as though it already 
 felt the prick of the sharpened sword. 
 
 The third day we had ceased to prattle
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 so much; each man stayed more at home. 
 The women wept and the men sat with their 
 heads in their hands. A cold sort of fear 
 plucked at the entrails of us, for it is one 
 thing to go to your death smoking hot, your 
 sword in your hand, and by chance have 
 another man's sword thrust into you before 
 you can at him, and another to march forth 
 in the cold morning to have your throat slit. 
 
 In the morning of The Day we started 
 forth early. I and a few of the other young 
 scribes of the city had been sent for by 
 Mazzaleone, and stood in the loggia to 
 count the townsmen and tell their names 
 for what purpose I did not then know. It 
 was a strange procession that came before 
 our eyes as odd a procession as ever any 
 town witnessed, for there were our chief 
 men and our nobles with their heads up; 
 there were their ladies, and there were the 
 poor of the town. Here a man who had 
 missed a right hand for theft, and there an 
 old woman hobbling on crutches, and 
 children were there. 
 
 As I looked I saw that, spread like a 
 mourning veil over the crowd, were those 
 dressed in black, and I saw that it was our
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 nobles who had been moved to do this. 
 Mazzaleone sat in the loggia, his captains 
 about him, and he saw it and smiled. 
 
 "This spectacle," I heard him say, "is 
 more diverting and instructive than I 
 thought." 
 
 And the captain behind him, to whom he 
 spoke, answered: 
 
 "Small honor it seems to have taken such 
 a town." 
 
 Indeed, as one looked down upon it it 
 seemed that there were more old hags and 
 women and children and pottering old men 
 than aught else. Very different, indeed, 
 from the time when all such were within- 
 doors and our burghers and stout men-at- 
 arms were out with their clanking swords by 
 their sides. 
 
 So San Moglio walked along three abreast 
 through a solid line of Mazzaleone's men. 
 In the beginning, as they came close, I was 
 told to count upon the ninth, and as the 
 ninth came, small black ballots were given 
 them, which they were told to keep. All 
 came docilely. Pride made them come so 
 in the case of our black-robed nobles; cold 
 
 fear, some of our burghers. 
 10
 
 IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION THAT CAME BEFORE OUR EYES
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 Only old Count Gervaise Deverti came 
 protesting. It was he whom it had taken 
 the commune three years to smoke out of his 
 perch in Santa Croce, and during that time 
 he sold his right in his castello for four thou- 
 sand florins and later signed papers which 
 were in my master's possession and which I 
 saw with my own eyes, promising that he 
 would not in any wise help his faithful vas- 
 sals who fought for him three long years 
 while he had sold and resold them. When 
 no sign was left of Santa Croce, and his vas- 
 sals came to live in the commonwealth, 
 always he gave himself great airs at the 
 resistance which he, solitary, had made 
 against the town. With the bombast of his 
 race he refused to go forth in the morning, 
 whereupon the men of his own household 
 trussed him up like an old turkey and 
 brought him up squealing and gobbling. 
 
 He and a young Count Guido Mazzafini 
 were all that made a disturbance that day. 
 And for Guido it was a greater tragedy. 
 He was a boy of sixteen, and his two broth- 
 ers and his father had been killed in the 
 fray, and when they led him forth he made 
 
 resistance and blubbered with rage, and 
 11
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 fought with the guards that held him. At 
 the noise of him, Mazzaleone lifted his hand 
 and said in his low voice that had the sound 
 of a flicker of flame in it always : 
 
 "Stop the noise for me." 
 
 So they cut his throat, and the blood 
 spouted up like that of a stuck pig. And 
 they threw his body aside in the gutter. 
 At that, though the house of Mazzafini was 
 not beloved in the city, a murmur went 
 through the crowd, the growl of a checked 
 tiger, and at the same moment the short 
 swords of Mazzaleone's men leaped forth 
 from the scabbards and I could see them 
 shining like the white hills above San Moglio 
 when the sunlight strikes them. 
 
 At the glancing forth of the light of steel 
 the murmur of our people died like distant 
 thunder. All was tranquil again and the 
 march went on as before, three by three, and 
 each ninth man got his sinister ballot of 
 black ebony. Then the heralds in the 
 loggia gave tongue: 
 
 "Thus saith the most clement of con- 
 querors, Mazzaleone! 'San Moglio shall 
 go free for thirty days' time while he takes 
 his much-needed rest among those who $p
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 warmly received him. Thirty days passed, 
 he will depart and take no other toll of blood 
 than this: Each ninth man shall designate 
 secretly whom he wishes put to death in the 
 public place. Thus shall San Moglio judge 
 San Moglio.' " 
 
 There was silence. The simple and noble 
 of the town stood as though death had 
 struck them all. The heralds cried again 
 and again cried into the silence of our 
 amazement. Then again, and still we moved 
 not, we spoke not, but a sigh swept us like 
 wind in the olives. And there was no sound 
 but the heralds accompanied by men-at- 
 arms making their way out to the four 
 quarters of San Moglio. 
 
 Then suddenly a gray -haired hag, who to 
 see better had climbed the wrought-iron 
 fountain near the loggia, raised her lean 
 arms above her head and laughed and 
 laughed and still laughed. Revenge was in 
 her laugh, and relief, and she waved her 
 clenched fists in air and laughed her hideous 
 relief and her hideous revenge, and then a 
 very pandemonium of joy broke from that 
 silent crowd. 
 
 Strangers nrabjiaced. The spell of fear
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 was broken, so they shouted and howled to- 
 gether, except certain of our greatest, who 
 slunk away ashamed, while in their hearts 
 they echoed the words I heard Mazzaleone 
 speak gently to one of his captains : 
 
 "The love of life, Hugolino, is a foul 
 thing."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AS I would have gone, my duties being 
 ^TlLover and my lists given to the captain, 
 I heard the voice of Mazzaleone as though 
 he spoke low in my ear, yet he was many 
 paces behind me, say, "Stay, boy," and I 
 wheeled as though the voice of him had been 
 a power that turned me on my heels; and 
 I hope I looked at him squarely enough 
 while he told me I was to go forth into the 
 city and bring him back news of what I saw. 
 
 "Be eyes for me," said he. 
 
 He sighed deeply, as though a great weak- 
 ness were upon him, and I with a fear in my 
 heart turned and left him, to do as he bade 
 me fear, because I now saw the game of 
 cat-and-mouse which he was playing with 
 us. I had heard of other conquerors pos- 
 sessing a town; but he possessed us, it 
 seemed to me, as no conqueror had possessed 
 any. Though I had but a shadow of the 
 subtlety of his imagination, I hated him 
 that he should sit there and watch us 
 through the narrow, bright slits of his eyes, 
 and rest his long, tired length with the 
 spectacle of us. 
 
 15
 
 < THE NINTH MAN 
 
 Yet as I went from him, love struggled 
 with hate in my heart, and both of them 
 were subject to admiration. And when 
 later his page boy, Carlo, killed himself be- 
 cause of more than a passing displeasure of 
 Mazzaleone, I did not wonder, for the least 
 sight of him stirred thus powerfully the 
 hearts of those who came near him in one 
 way or another, as he had stirred the town of 
 San Moglio. Even as he possessed the 
 town so he possessed me. I became a part 
 of him his eyes. That is why certain 
 scenes are burned into me as by fire. 
 
 There are times yet when I see in my 
 sleep the narrow uphill streets of San Mo- 
 glio, red and black with the flames and smoke 
 of torches, the town rushing through, a hun- 
 gry flood in pursuit of hot and smoking life 
 after its cold fear of death. I was young. 
 I thought of and had loved San Moglio as I 
 might love a fair and warlike and austere 
 woman, and I had found that the soul of 
 Sam Moglio was like the lean hag who lusted 
 for life and for revenge even from the 
 grave. 
 
 Bands of men and boys and women, 
 ,ltoo went through the streets, terrible and 
 
 16
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 revolting in their rejoicings. The business 
 of living and dying and of buying and selling 
 for a moment sank to unimportance. 
 
 "We are to live," San Moglio shouted, 
 "therefore, let us live." And they lived at 
 their hardest. The savage rejoicing of the 
 piazza would not spend itself, and finally it 
 was the sight of three fat women teetering 
 and shrieking, crying and dancing, as 
 though they were girls, around a May-pole, 
 that sickened me. I went out up to the 
 little piazza of Ogni Santi, and there sat by- 
 the fountain a man whose head was bowed 
 on his hands, and as I came nearer I saw 
 that it was the Brother Minor, Agnello, and 
 I saw that he wept. And as he wept he 
 cried aloud, "The Lord take from me this 
 cup." 
 
 Two loutish boys were throwing mud at 
 him, but he heeded them not; and they, 
 still tormenting him, cried, "Why do you 
 
 *i 99 
 
 weepr 
 
 Said he, his hands in his eyes, "Because I 
 have but thirty days to live innocent, and 
 then, by taking an innocent life I give my 
 innocence." And he wept again, and the 
 boys laughed together, and one cried: 
 
 17
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "Kill yourself, then!" Then they ran 
 off after their sheep, crying, "Kill yourself!" 
 
 At this he dropped his hands from his 
 eyes, and, kneeling upright, he raised his 
 face up to heaven and gave thanks to God 
 that from the mouths of children he had 
 been taught how to avoid the sin of taking 
 the life of another. 
 
 So I stayed there for a time and went 
 back into the town as though refreshed with 
 water. Though he had not seen me nor 
 spoken to me, I was glad to have come near 
 him in his simplicity, for San Moglio was 
 keeping step to some mighty and inaudible 
 music, as a city will when it becomes a mob. 
 The very children ceased their play and 
 ran through its streets, small shrieking 
 furies, more terrible than the wantoning 
 girls, their grace and their youth, and that 
 they knew not why they ran, marking the 
 depth of us. 
 
 It seemed to me that in all this great 
 city, but for my lady, I saw not one familiar 
 face. Can the whole heart and soul of a 
 town be like a changeling, or had San Mo- 
 lio worn a mask? I wondered. Or under 
 the torture of Mazzaleone's suspense had 
 
 18
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 the town gone mad? Everywhere I saw 
 change, even as great as in my cousin 
 Gemma, a meek and pious girl. A long- 
 eyed girl she was, downcast, too timid to 
 look at one straight, given to shy, sidelong 
 glances, a slim, honey-colored girl. I liked 
 to tease her, to see the soft pink mount in 
 her bashful cheeks. Now as I passed by 
 her house I saw her at the window, herself, 
 but changed soft yet, like a hazy sky in 
 summer, but beckoning, inviting, and glan- 
 cing now at Guido and now at young Leon- 
 cavello, playing them more skilfully with 
 her white and desirable innocence than any 
 courtezan, while my aunt watched the game. 
 
 As I told these things to Mazzaleone I 
 felt as ashamed as one who sees his mother 
 indecorous in some public place. "Give 
 them life," said he; "they snap at it and 
 gulp it down like a hungry dog; and since 
 they wish amusement they shall have what 
 they wish. Everything they wish they shall 
 have I could envy them their gusto," he 
 added. 
 
 And so he set about giving a festa of 
 great magnificence, and asked all the nobles 
 within the town of San Moglio; and he 
 
 19
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 judged them rightly, for even the nobles, in 
 their zest for life, had no mind to show spite 
 to Mazzaleone. 
 
 For the common people there was dancing 
 in the street, and wine and music for all 
 who wished. And so it was that the whole 
 town fell to its great, lustful rejoicing, that 
 they were to live.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AND I will wager that in all its life San 
 .lA^Moglio had never seen gathered in the 
 palace of the Podesta such a company; for 
 there faction met faction as friends; old 
 hate smiled at old hate; sworn enemies met 
 for the first time without the drawing of 
 swords. 
 
 Nor could Mazzaleone's own eyes dis- 
 tinguish where a feud lay; one would have 
 supposed that each felt a dear joy in thus 
 seeing close at hand his own enemy. I saw 
 Beatrice degli Oddi talking with her broth- 
 ers, though all San Moglio knew that they 
 had sworn to tear her in pieces when that 
 happy hour came that they might lay their 
 hands upon her. And she talked with them 
 as though they had never been parted; as 
 though they had not sworn her death so 
 bitterly that she had not left the palace of 
 Ugo da Sala since he took her there from her 
 father's house, Da Sala's men killing her 
 kinsman as he lifted her over the threshold. 
 
 I stood near Count Bartolommeo, and 
 heard him say to my lady, "There is the 
 making of a rare fight below," for in the 
 3 21
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 courtyard, where the vassals of the rival 
 houses met face to face, there was no smooth 
 talking, and a menacing growl arose from it 
 through the corridors and up the hallways. 
 I had seen the retainers of Malatesta da 
 Mogliano glommering at those of Casa- 
 matto, and the men of Cola degli Oddi itch 
 for the throats of those of Da Sala. The 
 halberdiers of Mazzaleone formed an iron 
 bar, behind which the men could only show 
 their teeth at one another. As my lord 
 spoke his dearest enemy, Carlo Graziani 
 passed, and he and my lord saluted each 
 other, Graziani with the gravity of his dis- 
 gruntlement. In times of peace a month 
 was barren when there were no broken skulls 
 given and taken between our house and that 
 of Graziani, nor had these men met in many 
 years, save when the common cause of San 
 Moglio called them together. I could see a 
 flame of interest in my lord's face, for it 
 seemed to pique his bold humor. 
 
 Then all at once his face darkened, and 
 my gaze followed his and fell on my lady 
 talking with Mazzaleone. They conversed 
 together as old friends. At this sight the 
 heads of the company bent toward them like
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 grain in the wind, for my lady was not of 
 San Moglio. A peace offering of Barga to 
 us, the living symbol of Barga 's good faith, 
 she had come here a young bride, a lovely 
 white thing, silent and proud, and as Count 
 Bartolommeo had warmed her in the fire of 
 his love she had warmed toward San Moglio. 
 
 None of our household knew what had 
 changed her from fire to ice toward him. 
 But changed she was, and the city knew it; 
 and since then it seemed that her heart was 
 ever tugging and straining up toward the 
 Bargese heights. And who knew what her 
 friendship with Mazzaleone might portend 
 for San Moglio? 
 
 She walked slowly around the assembly, 
 flashing her laughter here and there, at her 
 ease with Mazzaleone. Before Count Bar- 
 tolommeo she paused, and I of many heard 
 her say: 
 
 "I knew him when I was but a little 
 maid ... in my father's house he was there 
 with a broken wrist. I called him * the lean 
 man Egidio,' and knew no other name." 
 And Bartolommeo joined them in their 
 walk, he also at his ease and smiling. 
 
 And then there happened a strange thing.
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 It was as if this sight had been some unseen 
 torch and had set to flaming the smoldei ing 
 hates and feuds, the smothered hatreds of 
 years; and now, without a word being 
 spoken, without the outward suavity of the 
 scene being changed, this fire crackled round 
 through the assembly as fire might catch a 
 light festooning of drapery. With hatred 
 came revenge. The thought of the black 
 ballot and its use stalked exultant through 
 us. Enforced peace was upon us, and with 
 enforced peace a handy, silent weapon had 
 Mazzaleone given to San Moglio. 
 
 Down in the courtyard the men of San 
 Moglio became more restless, and the men 
 of Mazzaleone more alert, and as I went 
 through to bid our torch-bearers be ready, 
 I saw one of the men of Casamatto fling 
 forth his arm, and in his hand was a black 
 ballot. 
 
 "This," cried he, "for Count Malatesta 
 and his house!"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 S he spoke there came up from the town 
 . the roar of a brawling mob. Some 
 were killed that night. . . . All night the 
 sound came to me. The men of Mazza- 
 leone herded home the fighting factions as 
 day broke. By the next day the fire of 
 revenge I had seen start in a ballroom had 
 spread itself through the smallest quarters 
 of the town. Each man saw how he might 
 be revenged upon his enemy. There were 
 few in Moglio who might not profit by the 
 death of some one. 
 
 Changed was the temper of the town. 
 They had been wallowing in life. Now from 
 one day to another they were wallowing in 
 the thought of death. Eye met eye ques- 
 tioningly, for each man hugged to his bosom 
 the thought of old scores long due. In this 
 temper they continued their rejoicing, and 
 that pallid specter, assassination, rejoiced 
 with them; and with assassination and re- 
 venge smirked along the love of gain, asking: 
 
 "If you must kill your man, why not kill 
 him whose death will be most to your 
 advantage?" 
 
 25
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 And in this day and the days which fol- 
 lowed I had heard enough of such rumors to 
 sicken me, until revenge for injuries to wipe 
 off old hate seemed to me a clean passion. 
 Then whisperings in corners began, while 
 the braggadocio fellows openly showed their 
 black ballots and talked of what they would 
 do with them. 
 
 The people became quiet, but there was a 
 tenseness to the whole town, like the draw- 
 ing of a bow across strings taut to the break- 
 ing-point. As the fury of a crowd is worse 
 than the fury of one man, so much more was 
 San Moglio terrible, the whole of it aquiver 
 with its desirous revenge, men and women 
 locking within themselves some secret hate, 
 until the sum of their hates made a whole so 
 dark and sinister that it seemed to me my 
 fair city had become a hell, and I cried out 
 to Mazzaleone: 
 
 "What have you done to us?" 
 
 "I only set the men's feet keeping step to 
 the time of Death," said he; "the tramping 
 of many feet to one rhythm, or the beating 
 of many hearts to one love or one hate, is 
 more terrible or more beautiful than any 
 other thing, Matteo."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 T)ONDERING upon the changed face of 
 1 the town and upon its altered and so 
 sinister temper, I walked slowly through the 
 great hall. What I saw there was nothing, 
 and yet it struck a chill as of death through 
 me. 
 
 My lady sat by the window with the sun 
 shining square upon her loveliness and upon 
 the gold of her hair; but she was sunk in so 
 deep thought that she was unconscious of 
 all around, as unconscious as one who 
 sleeps. As though she knew not what she 
 did, she played with a black ebony ballot 
 as though it had been a jewel. Her eyes did 
 not leave it, but watched it, as it passed 
 from one hand to the other, as it fell from 
 her hand to the palm outstretched to re- 
 ceive it. 
 
 Across the room sat my master, Count 
 Bartolommeo Conti, and fastened upon her 
 a look of inconceivable malignity. He also 
 watched the ballot, and he knew and I knew 
 that my lady was not conscious of him nor 
 of me nor of space, nor of aught in all the 
 world but that she held death in her hand,
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 and she was well pleased that she held death 
 in her hand. 
 
 I had come into the hall with sedate and 
 slow step, thinking to find no one there. 
 And slowly I traversed its long length, but 
 while I was in that room scarcely did my 
 breath come to me. 
 
 It seemed to me that in crossing that 
 silent room I lived more than the span of 
 years that I had reached, and I pushed 
 through the heavy door; and although I 
 walked so slowly, as though absorbed in my 
 own thoughts, panic was at my heels. I 
 wanted to run from this sight: my master 
 standing there in the insolent pride of his 
 strength, watching my lady, who played so 
 lovingly with the thought of death that she 
 forgot life. As I got through the door it was 
 as though I ran into the arms of my own 
 chattering fright. In the corridor without 
 was Father Giorgio. 
 
 "Have you seen, Matteo? Have you 
 seen?" he cried at me. His fat cheeks were 
 limp and gray, and it was the first time I 
 had seen he was old. 
 
 "Oh, my poor Bartolommeo !" he cried. 
 "My poor lady! Have you suffered as
 
 OUR BEAUTIFUL AND ARROGANT LADY SAT BROODING
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 much as that? But this can't be! This 
 can't be!" and he shoved out his two fat 
 hands in front of him as if shoving some- 
 thing away from him, and then, half talking 
 to himself and half to me: "Was it not 
 enough that I should see the soul of her 
 frozen in a night, and see the softness of her 
 wither? And I must, too, see this? My 
 poor Bartolommeo ! A hard man he is and 
 a strong man, but before God I swear he is 
 not bad. It was to him only as if he had 
 killed a whining dog. The black night's 
 work it was. The black night's sowing! 
 But not this harvest! You see, Matteo, 
 she must not do this!" 
 
 In the hardness of my youth there was 
 that in his complete discomposure that 
 disgusted me. I plucked him by the sleeve 
 and said to him in a tone of authority un- 
 becoming in me to use to a priest of God: 
 "Come, Father, who can tell who listens 
 here?" 
 
 I led him down the long, deep flights of 
 stairs and along the corridors to his own 
 room, wondering into what hell I had now 
 stepped, and frightened that life in my own 
 house, where I served those whom I loved.
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 should turn so ghastly a face upon me. I 
 had often talked in the garden with Simon- 
 etta, my lady's tiring-girl, concerning my 
 lord and my lady. We knew that my lady 
 gave to my lord a cold, unvarying, grave 
 courtesy. We called her among ourselves 
 the most arrogant lady in the land, for we 
 had both seen that she had the highest of 
 arrogance, that which gives to all and asks 
 from none. Pity she gave, and love and 
 tenderness and kindness, to all who needed 
 it. She asked nothing in return, and held 
 herself as one who needs nothing; yet we, 
 who lived so close to her, suspected her of a 
 soft, tender heart, needing all those things 
 and receiving none of them. We remem- 
 bered, too, a time when she gave more to my 
 lord than courtesy, and when he gave less 
 than the jealous love which he now gave 
 her, for he could not let her be, coming near 
 her as though to bruise himself against her 
 calm, as though he would hold her soul as 
 close in his hand as he did her body, and 
 with a fury that this forever escaped him. 
 We knew that her gaiety dropped like a 
 flag of mourning when he came near her; 
 and it was this flame of life that burned so
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 headily within her that made her beloved 
 by all, this and her joy in play, for she 
 played as eagerly as children play, some- 
 times witli a child's serious eyes and some- 
 times with a child's laughter. 
 
 When her gaiety was at its height she 
 seemed like some wild thing, and those who 
 beheld it must needs run after it. It was 
 like a flashing and scarlet thing. None of 
 this, nor tenderness, was for my lord. 
 This change, so Simonetta said, had come 
 from one day to another. 
 
 All these things came tumbling through 
 my mind as I traversed the corridors with 
 Father Giorgio, he shaking as with the ague. 
 As he got in his room he turned to me and 
 said: "She has drunken too deeply of the 
 loathing horror of life. This loathing has 
 shaped her into a frightful, tortured thing, 
 and there is no forgetting for her. I know 
 the very night when the flesh of her became 
 so degraded in her sight that she would 
 have rejoiced in a purifying fire that merci- 
 fully could have burned it from her. But 
 he did what he did in anger." 
 
 He stopped, and then as though he must 
 tell, to relieve his mind of some intolerable 
 
 31
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 burden, said, "There was a girl here once 
 some poor and distant relation of Count 
 Bartolommeo's. You knew her." 
 
 I nodded. She had been a soft thing 
 too soft for my taste with brown eyes like 
 a dog's. And one day she went away and 
 came back no more, and there had been 
 some gossip, and that was all. 
 
 "Some months after the girl had gone I 
 sat one night in my room," said he, "and 
 with me Bartolommeo. I heard a whim- 
 pering as of a scared animal, and the 
 curtain was held aside, and there stood 
 my lady, and she pushed the girl in 
 ahead of her; the girl was huddled under 
 a cloak. 
 
 "'And what do you here?' he cried. 
 'What do you want?' 
 
 "'You, my lord,' said my lady, looking 
 at him straight. And the girl bowed her 
 head. 
 
 "The black fury of the Contis, which kills 
 what comes in their way, came over him. 
 
 "I told you to begone,* said he, 'and to 
 trouble me no more. Have you come whim- 
 pering back to show your shame?' 
 
 '"Your shame and hers, my lord,' said
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 my lady. 'Where will you have her hide 
 her shame?' 
 
 "'Where it will trouble her no more/ 
 cried my lord through his blackness, and he 
 pointed to that doorway." 
 
 I looked where Father Giorgio pointed, 
 and shivered, for our town is built on a hill, 
 scrambling to its summit no one knows how. 
 A mountain stream cleaves the town in two, 
 cold as ice in midsummer. The garden of 
 the Contis sits with its feet in the water, 
 while that door leads to a narrow corridor 
 and the corridor to a bridge, and thence is a 
 narrow stretch to the town. Far below the 
 bridge runs the silent stream, and many 
 have gone through that door who have 
 never returned. 
 
 "You come to me for counsel,' he cried, 
 'and to know where to hide your shame. 
 Now hide it deep and hide it fast,' and he 
 spoke in a tone that no man can resist. He 
 opened the door and bowed low. 
 
 "My lady stepped up to him, and, 'My 
 lord,' she cried, 'my lord!' He swept her 
 away as though she were paper. 
 
 '"Pass, Madonna,' said he. 
 
 "And the girl with the cloak around her 
 
 33
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 bigness passed out before him and stood at 
 the door, shivering. Then he said: 
 
 " * There are less pleasant ways of dying. 
 Pass!' 
 
 "She went out into the darkness, whis- 
 pering, and he mocked her as she went, and 
 whimpered after her and closed the door. 
 And my lady said : 
 
 "'You have rendered a great service, in 
 that you have made my greatest grief my 
 greatest joy, my lord.' 
 
 '"And what is this joy? 5 he asked. 
 
 "' That I had no son, my lord. In times 
 of darkness I can remember that and my 
 heart can become glad that I am childless.' 
 
 "'You are young,' said he, 'and I am 
 still your loving husband. The hour is very 
 late. Let me conduct you to your room.' 
 So he went with her." 
 
 Then Father Giorgio dropped into a chair 
 and covered his face with his hands. 
 
 "I loved him," he said. "I raised him 
 from a little boy and she has made my 
 heart to break with pity and she has 
 death in her hands."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 I FELT that I must leave the house. It 
 was noon. San Moglio sat at meat, but 
 I had stomach for neither meat nor drink 
 this day. I walked up the hill and sought 
 solitude in a little-frequented place hardly 
 larger than a handkerchief at San Moglio's 
 summit. In the shadow of a church portico 
 sat Brother Agnello, and he threw crumbs 
 to the birds. My heart was gladdened that 
 there were those who could feed birds in the 
 sunshine. I sat myself beside him, and a 
 little blond child came up and leaned herself 
 against his knees and reached up shyly for 
 a bit of bread. And some other children 
 joined us, some shyly, some boldly. When 
 all the bread was gone but the last bit, 
 the boldest two quarreled for it, and one 
 snatched it, at which the other wept and 
 said: 
 
 "I shall tell my big brother what you 
 have done to me and he will kill you with his 
 black ballot." 
 
 "Ah, but my father," said the other, "will 
 kill him first, for he, too, has a black 
 ballot." 
 
 35
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "Nannetta has one also," piped one of the 
 little children. 
 
 "And who will Nannetta kill?" 
 
 And here, walking with importance, came 
 another child and three smaller children 
 following her at a distance, and those about 
 the knees of Brother Agnello called out, 
 "And who will you kill, Nannetta?" 
 
 Then she says, with the manners of an 
 heiress: "That is not yet decided. My 
 aunts and mother talk about it all the long 
 day, as do my father and his brothers, 
 and no two of them agree." Her pockets 
 were full of sweet cakes, and these she 
 distributed. 
 
 But a big, quiet boy, who had borne him- 
 self like a man among his inferiors, spoke up 
 and said, "Nannetta gives herself airs; but 
 there are other children who have the bal- 
 lot." And he pressed his lips together as 
 one who would say no more. 
 
 "He himself has it," cried a child, and he 
 pointed a chubby finger at his brother. 
 Julio himself has it. I saw him, as he 
 thought I slept, bring it from between his 
 mattresses and look at it." At this they 
 crowded about Julio.
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "And what will you do with it, Julio? 
 And what doth thy father say?" 
 
 "Hist!" said he. "My father does not 
 know, nor my mother. I shall kill my mas- 
 ter with it, and then I shall be free. More- 
 over, those children who now use their 
 ballots as their fathers and mothers say 
 are fools, for they must undoubtedly 
 some day work and be bound over as ap- 
 prentices, and they had better kill their 
 masters." 
 
 There being no more bread, and the noon 
 hour being past, the children ran away, all 
 but the little blond girl, who had remained 
 pressed close to Brother Agnello's side. 
 And now when they were all gone she lifted 
 the skirt of her pinafore and groped in her 
 pocket, bringing from it a ballot which she 
 mutely showed to him; and he, feeling in 
 his scrip brought out its fellow, and the 
 two smiled at each other like children who 
 compare their marbles. 
 
 "No one knows," she whispered. 
 
 "She lives with her grandmother," Broth- 
 er Agnello then said to me, "and the old 
 dame is deaf and blind and the little maid 
 too shy to talk to any." 
 
 4 37
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "And what shall you do with yours?" he 
 asked her, gently. 
 
 She shook her head. "I know not. And 
 you with yours?" she made bold to answer. 
 
 "With mine I shall kill myself," said he, 
 in his simple way, "so no blood shall be 
 upon my head." 
 
 "Then I, too. Then I, too!" she said, 
 clapping her hands. "I, too, will kill my- 
 self like you, Agnello!" 
 
 At this he was troubled. Then he said: 
 "Why, no! I am as one already dead, so 
 do you cast your ballot for me, and you shall 
 live and not one more be killed besides. So 
 you shall be innocent." 
 
 With that a light as from heaven streamed 
 over his face, and the little maid clapped 
 her hands, crying: 
 
 "That I will do! That I will do!" and glad 
 enough that she need not kill herself. But 
 he did not hear her. And I went away, 
 leaving him as one who listens to the voice 
 of God's angels speaking.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FOR a time it seemed as though the lust 
 for revenge held sway in San Moglio. 
 None thought of aught but killing, from our 
 beautiful and arrogant lady, who sat brood- 
 ing while she held death in her hand, to the 
 very children who prattled in the street con- 
 cerning whom they would kill. 
 
 Then came the thought of being killed. 
 It came silently, like a frost in early sum- 
 mer. Death was still the thought of San 
 Moglio, but each man now feared his own. 
 The red desire of killing and of revenge 
 turned pale, and by each man's hearthstone 
 sat a cold little shadow of fear. I thanked 
 God I had made no man my enemy. There 
 were those who had tried to leave the city, 
 but had been turned back with stern menace 
 by Mazzaleone's men, and we knew that 
 those who were caught in attempted flight 
 would be incontinently killed. The fear 
 that sat with us gave bravery to some timid 
 ones, and these the men caught, and such 
 pieces of their bodies as were left when the 
 soldiers were through with them were 
 burned in the public place. 
 
 39
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 Under the stress of fear many an odd 
 marriage took place. It was said that to 
 save her father's life young Concetta da 
 Moreale was married to Bernabo de Monte- 
 marte instead of to Donati, her betrothed, 
 and that the Donati had sworn vengeance 
 on Bernabo, who laughed and said he had 
 not long to live, anyway, and he and his 
 would take life for life. 
 
 Many an old debt was paid. Enemies of 
 long standing embraced and swore friend- 
 ship, each fearing the other, since no one 
 knew in whose hands death lurked. Simon, 
 the old usurer who lived next me, and had 
 a face like a scholar and talons like a hawk, 
 received threatening letters every day, de- 
 manding of him that he should remit this 
 and that debt; and his wife, almost as great 
 a miser as himself, would come daily to my 
 mother and weep, telling how that as yet 
 he had not remitted one stiver. 
 
 I had heard that my cousin Gemma was 
 seen of an evening coming out from the 
 back gate of the Mancinis* garden; and 
 stung with shame for all knew young Man- 
 cini, his beauty and his profligacy I waited 
 for her homecoming, and says I: 
 
 40
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "What now, cousin?" 
 
 And she looks up at me with a wan smile. 
 "Dying, I please myself, cousin." 
 
 '"Dying'?" says I, gaping at her. 
 
 "Aye," says she, "for my two gallants 
 love me so well that each would kill me for 
 the other's spite, and now they have so 
 much for which to kill me, and I have had 
 my heart's desire." 
 
 So whether in my mother's house or the 
 palace of the Conti, Death brooded. But 
 his darkness was blackest at the palace. 
 Mazzaleone's long shadow was ever at our 
 door and the whole town gaped at the trio of 
 them my lady, rosy as with love, between 
 Mazzaleone, lean and pale as a drawn sword, 
 and Count Bartolommeo, red and powerful 
 in his lusty joy of life. The town talked 
 openly that my lady would kill Bartolom- 
 meo and that then Mazzaleone would find a 
 bride, but none doubted that Bartolom- 
 meo's heavy fist would fall first. So the 
 shadow of death distorted the faces of all 
 dear to me. 
 
 On my dear lady's it cast a softness and 
 joy more terrible than aught else. She 
 grew young in the presence of Mazzaleone, 
 
 41
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 and when she sat alone she seemed as one 
 who hugs a sweet secret. 
 
 It was in that day that I shook with an 
 ague of disgust for life, and I wished aloud in 
 my ignorance that death would menace me 
 as well; and then, as if in answer to my 
 wish, there came to me in my room Simon- 
 etta, my little friend, of whom I had less 
 thought of sweethearting than had she been 
 my sister. She had been crying, but now 
 her eyes were clear. 
 
 As I looked at her she cried: "Oh, Mat- 
 teo, I have had to come to you. Before you 
 die, I want to tell you that I love you. I 
 have always loved you, Matteo." 
 
 Had not dismay given me thought, I 
 could have seen how vain were my boasts of 
 a love of death. When ever did a young 
 and lovely sweetheart come less desired to 
 any man? I had not sense enough left to 
 play the gallant. 
 
 "Death?" I cried. "And why death, 
 Simonetta?" 
 
 "Oh!" she answered, wringing her hands, 
 "it is the shoemaker's lame son, Oreste. 
 He hates you, Matteo!" 
 
 A weight was lifted from me. I hardly 
 
 42
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 knew the lad. Well I remembered him 
 sitting all day before the cobbler's door, and 
 sometimes dragging his legs painfully be- 
 hind him, like a lame dog. So why should 
 he hate me? So I fell to comforting Simon- 
 etta, and found the comforting of her sweet. 
 But the thought of the shoemaker's son 
 stayed with me and tormented me in my 
 sleep, and in the early morning I made my 
 way to the shop, and he sat in his little 
 chair, grinning horribly. 
 
 He said: "Ha! you have come. They 
 brought thee word, Matteo. Now it is my 
 turn to love life, for it is better to have 
 crooked legs and live ones than straight legs 
 and dead ones. Be proud of your straight 
 legs while you may, Matteo." And he 
 spoke to me with such spite and such venom 
 that it distorted the face of him. 
 
 "And what have I done to thee, Oreste?" 
 I cried. 
 
 "When I was little and would have 
 played with you, you ran away. And what 
 have you done to me?" says he. "Morning 
 and night you have passed me by, a living 
 reminder of what I was and what you were. 
 Morning and night you have made my lot
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 bitterer to me, for all the things that I had 
 not you had. But now I shall soon have 
 that which you have not. Morning and 
 night, when you were wont to pass by here, 
 there will be a happy and rejoiceful time for 
 me instead of one of shame and envy." 
 
 So astounded was I, I had no word for 
 him, for I had never thought of him. I re- 
 membered, indeed, that when I was a lad I 
 had plagued him, thoughtless, as had the 
 other lads. 
 
 "But I never hurt you, Oreste," I fal- 
 tered. And he mocked me. 
 
 "The serene lord has forgotten that he 
 took from me the only sweet thing I ever 
 had. When we were lads, Matteo, I had a 
 little sweetheart. When the others ran 
 away and would not play with me, she sat 
 with me. When they mocked me, she com- 
 forted me. Then you came one day and 
 taught her to play with you, and to laugh 
 at me like the others. Since that day I 
 have known the worth of pity and have 
 taken none of it." 
 
 Thus he drowned me with the pent-up 
 venom of years. And I had gone to him as- 
 sured that morning, and having found that 
 
 44
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 I had a sweetheart instead of a friend in 
 Simonetta, and feeling no little pride in my- 
 self, therefore, I now slunk away, having 
 received a death-sentence from a mad and 
 relentless judge. 
 
 I went to my own home, and I had 
 hardly got within the doors when Simon the 
 usurer's wife came crying and shrieking to 
 us. My mother and I ran with her, not 
 making head nor tail of her lamentations. 
 She kept repeating over and over, "He was 
 so afraid of death he has killed himself!" 
 We thought her gone daft, until in the court- 
 yard gate we came upon Simon himself, 
 swinging where he had hanged himself. 
 And he swung to and fro gently in the 
 morning breeze, a wagging pendulum of 
 fear. 
 
 I was now no more a young philosopher 
 with the keen eyes of Mazzaleone. No 
 longer did I move upon the outside, marvel- 
 ing over the turpitude of men. Now I 
 knew why Gemma had sought her secret and 
 shameful love, and why my lady sat with 
 her black ballot in her hand, and why Simon 
 the usurer had killed himself, for there were 
 times when panic was in my breast and I 
 
 45
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 felt I had best stick my own knife in my 
 breast and not wait for who knows what 
 death at the hands of Mazzaleone. I knew 
 why men and women sat silent and brood- 
 ing, for I sat that way also. I pondered 
 this and that means that I might find of 
 ridding myself of the cobbler's son. So I, 
 together with the rest of San Moglio, 
 brooded with fear in the thoughts of death 
 and thoughts of murder. And the cob- 
 bler's son read my thoughts, for he stayed 
 well withindoors and grinned at me as I 
 passed. 
 
 For comfort I sought Brother Agnello, 
 and found him preaching to some gaping 
 women at a street corner, telling them that 
 through the mouths of children it had been 
 revealed to him that it was God's will that 
 he should take the blood of San Moglio on 
 him, but his words were to me like the bab- 
 bling of a madman, for I sat now in the 
 dolorous heart of San Moglio and I knew 
 that its heart was full of hate. The sight 
 of him became bitter to me, and it seemed to 
 me I encountered him always when I went 
 abroad, and the blond child with him. Now 
 the children tormented him, now men 
 
 40
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 stopped and listened to him for a moment 
 and passed on, laughing. A few old v/omen 
 listened to him, but for the most part he 
 waited unnoticed up and down the streets 
 or was mocked as a fool. 
 
 My lady saw him from her window, thus 
 talking at a street corner. 
 
 "What does the Brother Minor, Mat- 
 teo?" says she. 
 
 For some time past she had been light of 
 heart; almost had she the gay innocence of 
 a child. It seemed that the aching wound 
 of her spirit had found some ease. 
 
 "He preaches," I made reply, "that all in 
 San Moglio shall cease from hating and 
 killing and shall love one another." I spoke 
 bitterly. "He begs them to place their bal- 
 lots of death upon him, as he is already as 
 one dead, and he has for disciple this blond 
 child with him." 
 
 At this she sighs. " Poor, gentle brother !" 
 says she. " Poor gentle flicker of mercy and 
 pity!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ATOW together with many others I turned 
 1\ myself to the church, to try there to 
 find some comfort; and on the next Sunday 
 I and all our household were at mass, and in 
 his insolence Count Bartolommeo had asked 
 Mazzaleone to attend with us, for, like a 
 man who cannot leave a wound alone, but 
 must for ever be picking at it, he seemed to 
 find a perverse pleasure in throwing my lady 
 and our town's conqueror together and 
 watching the joy she had with him. Shy 
 she was with Mazzaleone, and sweetly bold 
 also, as though she had gone back to the 
 days of her little childhood when she had 
 played with the lean man, Egidio. 
 
 Small comfort was mass to me this day, 
 and small comfort the preaching afterwards 
 for there was in it the fear of hell as though 
 it were not already burned into the heart of 
 each one of us ! 
 
 "One-ninth of you are to die!' 9 was echoed 
 to us like a tolling bell; more sure than the 
 pestilence, more sure than war. One-ninth 
 of this wicked city was to die, was the com- 
 fort that the priest gave us. It was as 
 
 48
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 though death brooded in a dark cloud over 
 that still and frightened congregation. We 
 were to die, and some of us knew at whose 
 hands, and some did not, and few there were 
 who did not fear the stab in the dark. 
 
 In that cathedral we all drank deep of 
 the black draught of terror, and the fear in 
 one man's eyes found a mirror in the fear in 
 every other man's, until I believe that as we 
 went out into the sunlight many and many 
 a one was not far from the fear that killed 
 Simon, that intolerable fear of death which 
 prefers death to the fear of death. I know 
 that I should have liked to run from the 
 accursed place, for so was the cathedral to 
 me; and the preaching brother, instead of 
 being a priest of God, seemed to be a priest 
 of Terror itself. 
 
 As we walked out in the sunlight we saw 
 coming across the piazza a strange proces- 
 sion. At the head was Brother Agnello and 
 the little maid who now no longer quitted 
 him. There was a witless girl following 
 him, with her baby in her arms; and there, 
 strangely enough, was Tommaso, an ar- 
 morer, a man of some substance and ac- 
 credited of hard, good sense; and behind
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 him a tall, gangling youth of good family, 
 but much shunned by his mates as a sense- 
 less sort of dreamer, one Ercole de Fabriano. 
 And this assembly was completed by a little 
 hobbling company of age and misery. Thus 
 they faltered across the piazza, a thin, 
 wavering band of pity. 
 
 My lady, whose gladness had suffered in 
 the cathedral, as must needs any one in that 
 terrible place of terror, said to Mazzaleone, 
 "This is the Brother Minor of whom I told 
 you, who wishes to take our sins upon 
 himself." 
 
 Mazzaleone beckoned to him, and his men 
 held back the crowd as Brother Agnello 
 approached. 
 
 "Tell the people what you wish," says 
 Mazzaleone to him in that gentle voice of 
 his that one hears from so far. 
 
 Then says Tommaso, with heat, "He sees 
 no sense in your useless slaughter, nor do I, 
 and takes that slaughter on himself; and I, 
 as a sensible man, am with him." 
 
 "And are you the only man of sense," 
 asked Mazzaleone, "in all San Moglio?" 
 And one would have sworn his voice was sad. 
 "Now speak," says he. Thus was the coal 
 
 60
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 of speech laid upon the lips of Brother 
 Agnello. 
 
 So there he faced that congregation who, 
 under the ban of death, streamed forth from 
 the cathedral and from hearing the word of 
 God preached to them. And they were held 
 back by Mazzaleone's men. 
 
 "Oh, my brothers!" cried he. "Oh, my 
 brothers, slay not one another, but cast your 
 ballots for me, unworthy, and deliver your- 
 selves from sin and the pain of death, for I 
 am as one dead." 
 
 What he said more I could not hear, for a 
 murmur went through the company; then 
 they barked their laughter at him like 
 hungry wolves. 
 
 Mazzaleone raised his hand and the men 
 set down their pikes which had formed a 
 bar, and the congregation swarmed forth, 
 each man carrying with him his burden of 
 fear and hate, and the little company of 
 mercy was swallowed up. 
 
 Says Mazzaleone, "It is easy to lead a 
 company to victory with the voice alone, but 
 it is only with a sword one may stop the rout 
 of panic or an army when it loots a town." 
 
 51
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 4 S I have shown, each man within our 
 JL\ gates brooded on death; but there were 
 larger doings afoot than such small killings 
 as glut one man's hate or satisfy one man's 
 desire of profit. Higher hates than these 
 there were, and greater discomforts than an 
 older brother sitting in the place that a 
 younger coveted; greater riches to be 
 snatched than that of a relative too slow in 
 dying. 
 
 The Degli Oddi and the house of Da 
 Sala had long striven for power one with 
 another, and at varying times had split the 
 city in two, and the old rivalry had been 
 given an edge of hate through the marriage 
 of Beatrice degli Oddi to Ugo da Sala, and 
 now they carried on a novel warfare. The 
 rival houses dreamed wholesale assassina- 
 tion for their own ends. 
 
 There began through the town a buying 
 up of the black vote of death. This I knew 
 because the Conti supported the house of 
 Da Sala, and day by day they met to discuss 
 and to count their gains and whisper among 
 themselves of the activity of their enemy,
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 and though the vote was to be given se- 
 cretly, they devised means by which they 
 might keep an eye upon their own men 
 whom they had bought and mete out pun- 
 ishment to them later, or beforehand fill 
 them so full of the fear of some less easy 
 death that they might be sure of their 
 word. 
 
 Thus they trafficked for men's lives in 
 men's greed. And I, as scribe, kept the 
 lists. Much talk there was among them as 
 to what black hatred could have possessed 
 the soul of the cobbler's lame son, that his 
 ballot could not be bought from him, for 
 ever he made the same answer to Count 
 Bartolommeo's steward, when asked his 
 price: 
 
 "Sound legs," says he; "nothing less!" 
 and laughs at himself. 
 
 One day Ugo da Sala asks, "Are all ac- 
 counted for in your household?" 
 
 "All but the ballot of my lady," Count 
 Bartolommeo makes reply. 
 
 "Ah!" said Count Ugo da Sala, "I did not 
 know of hers. And her disposition of it?" 
 
 "I have my private use for it," replies my 
 lady, and her voice sounded light of heart. 
 
 5 53
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 And at this my hand tightened on the arms 
 of my chair. 
 
 Meantime the mind of our Podesta, Mes- 
 ser Gubbio di Grollo, had further imagin- 
 ings, and he called together a great conclave 
 of all the principal men and nobles, and in 
 this assembly sat also Mazzaleone and his 
 captains. He was a spare man, Messer 
 Gubbio, with the long face of a horse, and 
 wind, when he talked, as long as his face; 
 but for all that a just man and a man of 
 force. He made a long speech which went 
 to the effect that too long had fear and 
 hatred rioted among us. Since one-ninth 
 of the town were to die, we should turn this 
 fact to our advantage, as a wise man might 
 turn any event in life, however grievous. 
 
 "So," says he, "let us all sacrifice to the 
 common good our factional hates and our 
 personal revenge. As a vigorous tree ac- 
 quires vigor by pruning, let us prune the 
 town of San Moglio, and let us see that the 
 ninth that are to die shall be those who are 
 not beneficial to a strong state: the weak- 
 lings, the feeble-minded, the paupers, and 
 such few as are bitten with the madness of a 
 too overweening ambition." 
 
 54
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 As he spoke I saw that a great mirth had 
 been lighted in Mazzaleone, and that the so 
 reasonable speech of Messer Gubbio filled 
 him with silent laughter. Messer Gubbio 
 went on to counting out each contrada of 
 the city that lists might be made of those 
 who have the ballot, and how each great 
 house and each man of importance in each 
 contrada should possess himself of the 
 people's confidence. 
 
 "But," says some one, "what then of the 
 ballots of the poor and the maimed and the 
 unworthy and the weaklings themselves 
 whose pruning shall help our town? What 
 of their ballots? Shall weak kill weak?" 
 
 "Oh," says Messer Gubbio, "those will 
 be easily bought up for gain." And all in 
 the company nodded and bowed together 
 as gravely and discussed as gravely as the 
 Podesta himself. 
 
 Only Ludovico da Casamatto, a stern old 
 noble, sprang to his feet, and says he: 
 "Away with your slaughter of your towns- 
 men! My blood be on my own head!" 
 
 And young Juliano di Donati, a wild 
 youth, but one of great bravery and pride, 
 "And mine, as well!" 
 
 65
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "And mine!" cries another, a cadet of the 
 Moreale. 
 
 And Messer Gubbio: "Sirs! Sirs! Are 
 not your lives of more value than those of 
 a witless girl or a blind beggar? Consider." 
 
 Then cries out the angry old Lord Ludo- 
 vico, "I have considered for the hour past, 
 until the blood of innocents and the unfor- 
 tunates is swilling about my ankles." 
 
 Now a dispute arose high on this side and 
 that, many for the plan, and some against it. 
 As for Mazzaleone, he took his own terrible 
 and silent joy in the spectacle; as one who 
 bathes upon a hot day, so did he bathe in 
 the ebb and flow of the passions of men. 
 
 And in the midst of this dispute there 
 came the shrill noise of the singing of chil- 
 dren, and from the back of the hall came 
 down the Brother Minor, Agnello, and the 
 blond child beside him, and following his 
 band, to which had been added a woman or 
 two and some youths and maidens ; and the 
 wavering voices of the old men and the 
 shrill piping of the children cut through th^ 
 talk as a tiny ray of light the black darkness 
 of night. Silence followed in their wake, 
 and all stared at them in amazement. 
 
 56
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 Then says Brother Agnello in his deep 
 voice like a sweet bell, "In the name of 
 Christ, my Master Messer Gubbio." 
 
 "What do you wish?" says the Podesta. 
 
 "The gift of five minutes," says he, and 
 smiles upon us. 
 
 Some there were who cried, "Cast him 
 forth!" 
 
 And others, "Let him speak." 
 
 Old Ludovico Casamatto cried out in his 
 hot, angry voice, " Let him speak, say I, for 
 he asks in the name of Christ, and I have 
 heard enough talk in the name of the devil 
 these days past!" 
 
 He stood before them, his hand on the 
 shoulder of the little maid, as though he 
 were bathed in a pool of light, as though love 
 itself shone from his eyes. 
 
 "O men of San Moglio," he cried out, "I 
 am sent here that I, who am one already 
 dead, may take away from you your fear. 
 Cast upon me the bond of death, for who 
 are you that you shall judge in this town 
 what ninth are worthy to live and which 
 must die? For who may judge such things 
 but God?" 
 
 As the first day I had met him he had 
 
 57
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 taken from my lady and myself our appre- 
 hension and left us with peace, so it seemed 
 now that peace streamed from him in a great 
 flood. 
 
 Then said Ludovico de Casamatto: 
 "Here, brother, take mine, then, and I will 
 go with you. Who follows me?" And 
 many there were who joined him, and a hush 
 fell upon all. Agnello stood awhile and em- 
 braced them in the silence of his regard, and 
 then he walked out in silence from among 
 them into the waiting crowd of poor people 
 and of halt and lame who had heard of the 
 beneficent design of Messer Gubbio and had 
 come to learn their fate. When Brother 
 Agnello appeared, and after him the little 
 company of nobles, there arose a cry from 
 all the stricken of San Moglio, and there 
 were there the sons of women stricken with 
 palsy and the children of blind fathers, and 
 there were there the children of the poor, 
 and they took Agnello up in their arms and 
 bore him along. 
 
 And the noise of their shouts was the 
 first glad thing we had heard si ace the fear 
 of death had been over us.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THEY bore him along triumphant on 
 their shoulders, scaling the steep streets 
 of San Moglio, and behind him hobbled the 
 maimed and the very poor, and the very old, 
 and the mothers of feeble children, and all 
 those innocents upon whom great fear had 
 been cast by the wise plan of Gubbio di 
 Grollo. And there came not a few of the 
 nobles and the first men of San Moglio, 
 some sick with the thought of killing, and 
 others drawn by curiosity. 
 
 They bore him up to the little Piazza 
 Ogni Santi, and he went out on a balcony 
 above a doorway, and all of the misery of 
 San Moglio was packed into this piazza, 
 and the nobles were jostled among them, 
 and far down the streets came others, until 
 every street that led away was packed with 
 the people of San Moglio. 
 
 They cried out to him: "Are we saved? 
 Tell us, Agnello, are we saved?" 
 
 He waited until it was quiet through all 
 the place, and then said he: "And who 
 could harm you? For upon me be your 
 blood; for it was for this that I was born."
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 And the words that he spoke, that had 
 once seemed to me the ravings of a madman, 
 now seemed as though they were spoken by 
 the voice of God. I felt, when I heard him 
 speak, as if I had been dying of thirst and 
 he gave me to drink. I had forgotten what 
 hope was, and love, and, lo, here were both. 
 And thus he delivered me, as he did all 
 those wretched ones before him who had 
 had to suffer not only the pains of poverty 
 and of their feeble bodies, but also, under 
 the wise plan of Messer Gubbio, the fear of 
 death. 
 
 Brother Agnello called forth from all of us 
 those fair things, love and hope, and he 
 linked us together into a mighty army of 
 love, and not one of us who heard him could 
 have lifted his hand to kill his fellow-man. 
 Hate was gone from among us: the San 
 Moglio that I had seen turning to me the 
 face of one who lives in hell was now full of 
 the rejoicing of heaven, and we who heard 
 him speak believed that for this end was 
 Brother Agnello born. 
 
 Mighty and terrible is the tramping of an 
 angry crowd, and red with lust a city drunk 
 with the love of life, and worse a city that
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 plays with the thought of death and re- 
 joices at revenge, and terrible a city whose 
 face is gray with fear. It seems as if no 
 force there be on earth great enough to over- 
 come such things; and, lo, the voice of one 
 man unfriended, unhelped, with no other 
 weapon but the love in his heart had been 
 stronger than all other things. I joined the 
 crowd that went rejoicing to their homes, 
 transformed from the children of fear and 
 hate to the children of love and pity. But 
 as I went past the cobbler's shop, the cob- 
 bler's lame son sat and grinned his hate at 
 me, and as I went into the great hall Mazza- 
 leone and my lady sat talking in low tones 
 by the window, and she turned away a 
 blushing cheek as though she were his sweet- 
 heart; and Bartolommeo in his lustful pride 
 stood apart and talked with other ladies, 
 yet his eyes rested for ever on the two by the 
 window.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AS I saw these sights I saw that we were 
 AJL still fast in the mire of hate, but I had 
 seen the hearts of a multitude beating in 
 tune to love; yes, I had seen hate turned 
 into love. Late that day Mazzaleone, as 
 was his custom, had me tell him the things 
 which I had seen in the city, and of what 
 had happened to Brother Agnello; and as I 
 told him my heart beat high, for it was as 
 though I had seen a miracle of God that day. 
 
 "And so you, Matteo," says he, smiling 
 his wry smile, "believe that this lay preacher 
 has been sent to take the sins of San Moglio 
 on him and to keep the people from glutting 
 their hates?" 
 
 "Sir," said I, "none could hear him with- 
 out that belief ." 
 
 He looked at me and there was a sort of 
 pity in his gaze. "Men," says he, "are 
 evil in their ways. Lustful and revengeful, 
 Matteo. And in this town there is many a 
 deep-rooted hate and many an old revenge 
 that has dragged out its long span of years. 
 In these days you and I, Matteo, have seen 
 liate blossom and flower, and in fair gardens
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 have we seen revenge put forth its dark ond 
 powerful roots. Can the few soft words of 
 a preaching boy uproot such revenge as you 
 and I have seen?" 
 
 "To God in His mercy all things are pos- 
 sible," I replied. 
 
 "Amen," he answers, "but where do you 
 look here for God? Has He busied Himself 
 in softening the heart of the Da Sala for the 
 Degli Oddi? There is no peace for that old 
 hate this side of death, and I know others 
 more relentless than this. I have put a sure 
 and sharp weapon in their hands and the 
 sight of it has made them all come yapping 
 for blood. What does he offer them, this 
 poor Brother Agnello poor Brother Lamb 
 that shall so slake their ancient thirst for 
 blood? Thirst for blood, Matteo, is sated 
 by one thing red blood sates it. Are Mes- 
 ser Gubbio di Grollo and his friends moved 
 with pity, think you, as they sit even now, 
 seeing what men they may summon to do 
 their merciful work; and what men had he 
 whose hearts chanted love and forgiveness?" 
 
 "They were the poor," said I, "and 
 women and some nobles, too," I added, 
 stoutly. 
 
 63
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 "How much pity would they have, do 
 you think, if they were offered riches, as 
 they may be, any one of them, by to-mor- 
 row? They are the weak and the poor who 
 form your Army of Pity a little band that 
 to-day sings hallelujah to God, and to- 
 morrow will sell his brother's life for less 
 than twenty pieces of copper. Where your 
 town breeds one Ludovico Casamatto it 
 spawns twenty of the breed of Sala. A 
 knowledge of the hearts of men has been my 
 business these many years." 
 
 "Hark," said I, for far off they were sing- 
 ing, and this time the piping children were 
 drowned by full-voiced singing of men as a 
 great procession moved along the street. 
 Joy and light walked with them. Gladly 
 would I have joined them. 
 
 "There are many who are not there," 
 said Mazzaleone in his low, flickering voice. 
 "I do not see the cobbler's lame son." 
 Then he says, after a pause, "And what 
 night shall my men slit his throat for you, 
 Matteo?" 
 
 I looked at him without answering. 
 
 "And did you think," says he, "that I 
 would let him wreak his spite upon my 
 
 64
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 friend? It would be a great pity to have so 
 merry a tongue silenced for the whim of a 
 spiteful cripple. I will send my men when 
 you wish this very night, perhaps. For 
 his malicious face does not please me as I 
 go to and fro. What say you, Matteo?" 
 
 "I say I cannot, my lord," I answered in 
 a low voice. It was as though some one 
 else spoke within me, for God knows life 
 would have been sweet to me without that 
 jeering face that had taught me to know the 
 black heart of San Moglio. 
 
 That evening, like a fool, I told Simon- 
 etta, and she wept in my arms, crying that 
 I did not love her. "I would kill him," 
 cried she; "I would stamp on him as I 
 would crush a spider," and there came back 
 to me Mazzaleone's words: 
 
 "And were you to find mercy in the hearts 
 of all men, Matteo, yet would you not have 
 softened the merciless hearts of loving 
 women." 
 
 I hungered for the peace and rest that 
 death of the cobbler's son would give me, 
 and, doing so, perceived that the whole city 
 of San Moglio was a battle-field as was my 
 own heart; that each soul which had the 
 
 65
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 power of life and death must fight thus 
 dolorously, even as I did. I felt my own 
 weakness, and the words that Mazzaleone 
 had spoken, without love and without hate, 
 from the depths of his knowledge of the 
 hearts of men, echoed themselves in me. 
 
 As he had said, he had set men's feet 
 keeping step to the tune of death, and 
 Brother Agnello had cried to us above this 
 march of death until all the heart of all San 
 Moglio was torn. It is a strange thing to 
 see a town having to fight life and death 
 within itself. The company of pity which 
 never wavered were happy, and those who 
 sought death always were happier in their 
 own way than those who wavered and 
 swayed, as must I. Many a man I saw, 
 and woman, who were athirst for blood as a 
 hungry man for meat at one moment, and 
 at the next moment put from them all 
 thought of revenge and all thought of death, 
 and then must go a-licking their chops again 
 at the sweet thought of death. 
 
 When such battles fight themselves out 
 in the silence of a man's soul it is bad 
 enough for him, but when he feels his fel- 
 lows fighting it, when the air is full of it and
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 the town heavy with it; when the sweet 
 faces of girls show its conflicts and the desire 
 to kill comes into the placid eyes of mothers 
 of children, then is one's own torment made 
 tenfold. 
 
 When Mazzaleone asked me, "And what 
 do you think of it, boy?" I replied to him in 
 my agony: 
 
 "I think, sir, that the taking of no city 
 could have caused you more pleasure." 
 
 "I have seen a gallant fight," says he, 
 "and a man lead a forlorn hope." 
 
 "Then let him win," I cried. 
 
 "Am I fate or God," said Mazzaleone, 
 "to meddle with this vast spectacle? You 
 do me too much credit. I am only one who 
 sits watching by the wayside without 
 meddling." 
 
 So the battle raged in me as it did through 
 the city streets and in the houses and 
 palaces, till the town was sick with its own 
 doubts. Even among the houses of Da 
 Sala and Degli Oddi had the voice of 
 Brother Agnello penetrated. 
 
 "I had thought that this hate was made 
 of harder stuff," said Mazzaleone to me. 
 "Love is a terrible force, Matteo; so strong 
 
 67
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 a solvent of the fierce and strong things of 
 life that we should all beware of it. Few 
 men have used it as a tool, for the reason 
 that love in its pureness is rarer than the 
 rarest jewels." 
 
 "But many have used hate," I told him, 
 "as you have done. And what of us whose 
 hearts must die on the battle-field of love 
 and hate?" 
 
 So for that whole week through the battle 
 raged in me as it did through the city. 
 Now I longed for the death of the cobbler's 
 son, and now the thought of having his 
 throat slit in the dark sickened me. When 
 I saw Brother Agnello my soul was bathed 
 in light, and when I went into the shadowed 
 house of the Conti it was as though the soul 
 of me was bathed in blood, for Andrea and 
 Malatesta, the Count's two brothers, were 
 often there, holding long conversations with 
 Bartolommeo about what none doubted, 
 for in the pot-house and in the courtyards 
 of the palaces, and in the palaces themselves, 
 there was talk enough. All knew that Maz- 
 zaleone was with us as if there was his ap- 
 pointed place, and so did our lady receive 
 him.
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 One day Simonetta heard Andrea say to 
 our count, "How now, brother; how long 
 shall this shame persist, and when shall I 
 rid you of it?" 
 
 "Wait," said my lord count; "there is 
 time enough, there is time enough." 
 
 "There's never time enough," said Mala- 
 testa, "for a woman to make a plaything of 
 the honor of our house." 
 
 "Who says that any has done this?" says 
 Count Bartolommeo. "Shall I be coward 
 enough to plunge all San Moglio in blood 
 because of tattling tongues?" 
 
 He stood there before them, black and 
 powerful, a man to love, Simonetta reported 
 him, for his sure courage and for his inso- 
 lence. Menace there might have been in 
 him, but no weakness ever. 
 
 Through this blackness my lady walked 
 as though she saw nothing and heard noth- 
 ing, until that I could have cried aloud to 
 her to beware of Bartolommeo and his black 
 brothers. Until each night as she went to 
 her bed I thought that I might never see her 
 again. I knew that Bartolommeo was fight- 
 ing the fight as to whether he should be 
 killed or kill. I knew that he was looking
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 around with that shrewd mind of his to see 
 what road there was to keep my lady and 
 his own life. The days dragged by slow as 
 the coming of death, yet they ran, and each 
 day Mazzaleone said to me, "The days 
 grow short; shall it be to-night?" 
 
 Each time I shook my head. So for a 
 week all San Moglio fought; now its men 
 and women drew themselves together in a 
 knot of venomous hate, and again, with 
 hearts calm and hate dead in them, listened 
 to Brother Agnello, and none might tell 
 who would gain the victory until but two 
 nights and one day were left us and Si- 
 monetta did not cease to cry. 
 
 "Let the others listen to Brother Agnello, 
 but be sure that the cobbler's son will not." 
 
 So at last, for I loved life, "He shall die," 
 I told her. 
 
 At that she kissed me and left me, and I 
 felt I had betrayed my Master and that the 
 triumph of love was far away; and I wept.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I HAD not much time for such womanish 
 moments. Soon Simonetta returned to 
 me, and there was fear in her face. 
 
 "It is Mazzaleone's bidding that you and 
 I shall come to the foot of the garden," 
 said she. 
 
 In our house that evening there was a 
 great company assembled, since those who 
 live under such a shadow as we do not love 
 solitude. When we gained the great hall 
 we stood aside while Mazzaleone was talking 
 to this one or that one. Then says he to 
 my lady: 
 
 "The night is warm. Shall we walk for a 
 while in the garden?" Together they walked 
 forth into the night. After a moment, as 
 we had been bidden, we followed them. 
 Our garden marches down, terrace by ter- 
 race, to the river. A narrow slit it is, and 
 full of solemn cypresses, and at this season 
 full of oleander bloom. It seemed to me as 
 I walked past their ghostly flowers that I 
 had never heard so much rustling among 
 the leaves; unrest was in the air, and fear. 
 I felt that there was some hidden menace 
 
 71
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 about, and Simonetta shivered and slid her 
 hand into mine. Then as we came to the 
 foot of the garden where the high wall keeps 
 out the river, I saw that the wall was alive 
 with Mazzaleone's men-at-arms, and that 
 behind each cypress stood one of the men of 
 the Conti. 
 
 For a moment my lady stood alone by 
 herself, while it seemed that the night 
 waited, panting; the moonlight fell upon 
 her and I marveled that any woman could 
 look as sweet as she, and so happy, when a 
 sea of blood was lapping at her very feet. 
 It seemed strange that anything with so in- 
 nocent a look could live at the core of so 
 much hate and so much conflicting desire. 
 
 So for a second it seemed that this night 
 stood quiet to watch her, as did the men 
 hiding in night's darkness. I knew that 
 Mazzaleone's men waited and that among 
 the cypress-trees waited the men of our 
 house, all with their eyes upon her. 
 
 Then from behind us came the whispering 
 sound of the soft drawing of swords, and I 
 heard the voice of Mazzaleone say: 
 
 "Quick, toward the wall!" and he stood 
 before her while Bartolommeo and Andrea 
 
 72
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 and Malatesta leaped toward her. There 
 was the sound of the men now unleashed, 
 then her dear voice from the midst of them : 
 
 "Wait, my lords. It seems that here 
 there is some mistake. And have you 
 thought, Egidio, that my lord Bartolommeo 
 has taught me to trust men so that I would 
 go with you? It is true," says she, "that I 
 have been nursing to myself the thought of 
 escape, and you yourself, Egidio, had given 
 me it. And I thought of that escape in my 
 own death, and for a while, as one dying may 
 wish to drink of a cool cup of water, I have 
 taken pleasure in the friend of my childhood. 
 For I loved your strength and I loved the 
 subtlety of your wit, and they were the 
 fairest things I had ever known. But in 
 these latter days I have seen for the first 
 time a strength that is beyond your strength 
 and a power that makes naught of your 
 subtlety. To this higher strength and 
 power have I given my life. And now I 
 say adieu to you, Egidio, and to you, 
 Bartolommeo, I say adieu." 
 
 So alone she walked up the terraces one 
 by one, and Mazzaleone's men vanished 
 from the wall, and under each cypress-tree 
 
 73
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 our men stood silent. Half-way up the gar- 
 den she turned to a little door which led 
 over the bridge, and by the door stood two 
 of those whom we afterward came to know 
 as the Poor Ladies of Santa Clara, and she 
 went with them. From the other side of 
 the bridge there came to us the singing of 
 Brother Agnello's company of mercy. 
 
 Thus Mazzaleone and Bartolommeo suf- 
 fered her to go. For they could have 
 stopped her no more than death, and they 
 could follow her as little as one may follow 
 the soul when it flies from the body. And 
 so they bowed their heads as before death.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 I COULD not sleep, and before day broke 
 I went forth into the silent streets and 
 mounted to the Piazza Ogni Santi as though 
 in search of Brother Agnello, for my soul 
 thirsted for the sight of him. Though it 
 was yet dark, I found him kneeling there, 
 and with him many of his company of 
 mercy, but he knelt apart as one praying by 
 himself, so I knelt there among the others. 
 And in the dawning light I saw that tears 
 streamed down his cheeks, and I wondered 
 if he, too, doubted. At sunrise he went into 
 the church of Ogni Santi and confessed his 
 sins and prepared as for death, and came 
 forth again, and again knelt. He walked as 
 though he saw no one. But now there was 
 a great peace upon his face, and thus all day 
 he remained. All day he knelt and he spoke 
 not one word nor moved, but knelt there si- 
 lently before God, and silence was upon the 
 piazza where he was. The crowd that came 
 and went unceasing moved as silently as 
 those who carry the dead. And the silence 
 of the piazza gained to the street, and from 
 the street to the houses and the palaces. 
 
 75
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 There was over San Moglio a hush as 
 though the town held its breath in silent 
 prayer. Yes, there was throughout that 
 city the silence of those who pray beside the 
 dead. In the palace of the Podesta sat 
 Mazzaleone, his head sunk in his hands, and 
 saw no one. 
 
 As noon struck, the silence of San Moglio 
 was broken by the clanking of Mazzaleone's 
 men as they went forth into the great piazza, 
 and there they built a scaffold for the mor- 
 row. The noise of their hammerings echoed 
 through the silent town through the hot 
 hours of the afternoon, but none stopped to 
 watch them, and few there were in the 
 piazza save those who came and went, 
 walking as on some urgent business. For 
 all knew that silent above the town in the 
 Piazza Ogni Santi Brother Agnello sat with 
 God. 
 
 The noise of the building of the scaffold 
 lasted through the day, and dusk came, and 
 yet went on the noise of building, until at 
 last it stood there complete, a monstrous 
 emblem of hate and the lust of revenge. 
 
 Brother Agnello sat with God above the 
 town, but as night came Hate came skulking 
 
 76
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 forth. As the city had been quiet through 
 the day, so it was restless through the night, 
 for the scaffold and the darkness between 
 them bred strange doubt in our hearts. 
 Dark groups of people moved restless 
 through the streets up to the Piazza, Ogni 
 Santi, and from there it seemed that they 
 were sucked down to the great piazza 
 against their will. Fear moved among them 
 in the darkness of the night and whispered 
 its warnings into their ears. 
 
 That quiet, restless ebb and flow of dark 
 forms through dark streets gripped at my 
 heart. I think it seemed to many, as it did 
 to me, that Brother Agnello fought alone 
 against the devils that had so long ruled our 
 hearts. As for me, I fought no more; I 
 strove no more. I was weary with the fight, 
 and with the other drifting shadows I 
 drifted to the Piazza Ogni Santi and back 
 again to the scaffold. And I cared nothing 
 if to-morrow meant life or death, so that it 
 brought peace. I surrendered my spirit to 
 the Brother Minor and found myself praying 
 as if to a saint, "Save us if you can." In 
 that night I ceased to be myself and became 
 a part of the sleepless suspense of that wak- 
 
 77
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 ing town which knew not if to-morrow 
 would see the scaffold an altar or streaming 
 with blood. In the darkest hours I came 
 on a lad I knew blubbering in a doorway. 
 And when I asked him, "Why do you cry?" 
 "I'm afraid of the devils," he whimpered. 
 "The devils run through the streets, Mat- 
 teo. The devils run and I fear them. Stay 
 with me, Matteo." Many there were who 
 said afterward that there were dark shapes 
 among us who were no men of San Moglio; 
 dark shapes herding us back for ever and for 
 ever to the scaffold in the piazza. As the 
 lad shook with fear I sat down beside him, 
 and as I comforted him a wan peace came 
 over me, and I sat there as San Moglio 
 whispered to itself unceasing while it waited 
 sleepless for dawn, as though all San Moglio 
 were but one person, waiting to know if its 
 soul were given to God or the devil. 
 
 The lad slept a little on my shoulder, 
 and as the first grayness of dawn came he 
 awoke, and we went together to the great 
 piazza, and there on the scaffold we saw 
 standing a dark figure. I knew that this 
 was Brother Agnello. The piazza was full 
 already of waiting people and of the restless 
 
 78
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 sound of their muttering. I heard those 
 who talked of devils and others who had 
 heard children singing. As light came I saw 
 that at the foot of the scaffold sat three of 
 the Poor Ladies, and one of them was my 
 own lady, and leaning against her was the 
 little blond child. Around about were 
 many of Brother Agnello's disciples and 
 many of the company of mercy; and some 
 were so weary that they slept. With the 
 growing light the crowd grew until the 
 piazza was filled with the people of San 
 Moglio. 
 
 The gray of sleeplessness and fear and 
 doubt was in their faces, and they all looked 
 up to Brother Agnello as though imploring 
 peace from him. Then the sun came and I 
 could see his face. He looked on us with his 
 gentle gaze and with such love as a mother 
 who comforts her sick child and soothes it 
 to rest. So he stood for a long while, and 
 though he spoke no word I have never heard 
 God's Word so truly preached. 
 
 Then beside me I heard a low sobbing, as 
 of a woman who mourns the death of a dear 
 son. The noise of her sobbing was a little 
 noise, but one that was born in the very 
 
 79
 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 heart of grief. I heard a man's voice say, 
 "Do not grieve, mother, since it was for this 
 that he was born." I turned and saw the 
 old woman who had first laughed her joy 
 and revenge, and comforting her was the 
 cobbler's lame son. 
 
 Many there were who wept, and this low 
 sound so filled our ears that when the trum- 
 pets blared forth and the heralds cried that 
 those with the ballots should form in line, 
 their noise came to me as afar off, as a sound 
 without meaning. As one in a dream I 
 made my way through the crowd and joined 
 the other scribes near Mazzaleone in the 
 loggia. 
 
 He sat among his captains, very grave and 
 weary, and I knew he, too, had kept San 
 Moglio's vigil. Not once did his eyes leave 
 the Brother Minor. He sat there as one 
 who does honor to a power mightier than 
 his own. 
 
 Now all was silent. No one moved, no 
 one spoke. And then the silence was rent 
 by the brazen voices of the trumpets and 
 by the heralds crying that the balloting 
 should begin. 
 
 At that moment, and before any could 
 

 
 THE NINTH MAN 
 
 cast a ballot, Brother Agnello took a short 
 sword from the soldier who stood beside him 
 on the scaffold, and cried out: 
 
 "O God! accept my life unworthy for 
 the lives of these!" 
 
 He drove the sword through his heart and 
 thus he died. Then from all that great 
 congregation of people went up a cry to 
 heaven, and all sank upon their knees, while 
 Mazzaleone arose and said to me: 
 
 "The ballots have been cast." 
 
 THE END
 
 I 
 
 A 000038069 1