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 taken. You remember how he saved my Carlino. Always I have hoped that with time and my prayers Saturnino would some day turn to an honest life.'

'Nay, mother,' said a Pistoiese, 'of a fox never can you make a house-dog. The pity is that such a man had not luck to the end to die of a shot or a sword-thrust out on his own hills.'

The people murmured assent; that would have been fitting enough certainly. But the galleys! For Saturnino to be chained and numbered, set to work with an axe or a spade in dockyard or on highway, cowed with the whip of the overseer, and pointed out like a wild beast to strangers, that seemed hard.

The thought of it made the blood curdle and grow cold in their veins with the fear of that law which could work this miracle.

'If one may not kill the man who covets our ganza, what use are powder and shot?' said the men of Grosseto.

Suddenly the old woman of the north put her hand into her pocket, drew out a piece of money, pushed her way to a wine-shop a few yards behind her, bought a