I had scarcely
finished numbering them when Marc'antonio came down the track, this
time haling a recalcitrant she-goat by a halter.
He tethered the goat and instructed me how to milk her.
The next evening he brought, at my request, a saw. I had cleaned out
the sty thoroughly, and turned-to at once to enlarge the
window-openings to admit more light and air into the hut.
Still, as I worked, my spirits rose. Nat was bettering fast.
In a few more days, I promised myself, he would be out of danger.
To be sure he shook his head when I spoke of this hope, and in the
intervals of sleep--of sleep in which I rejoiced as the sweet
restorer--lay watching me, with a trouble in his eyes.
He no longer disobeyed my orders, but lay still and watched. My last
rag of shirt was gone now, torn up for bandages. Marc'antonio had
promised to bring fresh linen to-morrow. By night I slept with my
jacket about me. By day I worked naked to the waist, yet always with
a growing cheerfulness.
It was on the fourth afternoon, and while yet the sun stood a good
way above the pines, that the Princess Camilla deigned to revisit us.
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