The Storm by Max Brand--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [BRAND, MAX]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 31 of 76 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2018-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII.

TIZZO PAYS A VISIT.

ON THE PAINTED walls of two sides of the room were magnificent murals. Th other two walls of the room were so broken by doors and windows that no large frescoes could be painted on them, but still they glowed with the color of smaller compositions. The bed, built up like a separate house, was curtained with green tapestry that showed a hawking scene, the hunt flowing through the midst of the beautiful Umbrian hills.

Tizzo, looking over this luxury of beauty with the eye of a connoisseur, made a few paces back and forth through the room. The dimness of the night lamp concealed half the splendor of the colors and made them thin as a reflection in wavering water. However, for a moment he took breath after the climb he had just made. And the scenes of the della Penna house grew distant and unimportant.

At last he stepped to the bed and drew the curtain.

Antonio Bardi slept there in the midst of a troubled dream, one clenched hand thrown above his head. He had changed since the night when he joined the traitors at the Great Betrayal which had slain so many of the Baglioni. He looked older. His face was thin and even in sleep expressed a settled unhappiness.

“Antonio!” murmured Tizzo.

Young Bardi was wakened suddenly even by that quiet voice. He sat up with a start, snatching a dagger from under the sheet.

“Wait for me, comrades—” he called out.

Then, recovering from his dream, he stared at Tizzo. The dagger dropped from his grip — slowly he stretched out both his hands.

“Tizzo, it has been my prayer that you would come to me, ever since the news came that you, madman that you are, had entered the city.”

He rose, flinging a thin robe about him, thrusting his feet into slippers. Joy made him young again, as he saw his friend. He ran to the doors of the room and bolted them.

“How is it with you, brother?” he asked Tizzo, but then he answered his own question, saying: “But I see that you are well and I know that you are happy. You are in the enemy’s country. Every breath you take is drawn in danger. Every minute may be your last. And therefore you are happier than kings.”

“And you, Antonio?” asked Tizzo.

Bardi sighed. “Do you remember how you found me in this house not so many weeks ago?” he asked. “Do you remember that I was dying of the plague, Tizzo, and that a casket of the family jewels had been spilled out half on the table and half on the floor? Wealth would not help me, then, because famine and the plague were eating me like two wolves. And then you came to save me — you, a stranger, when no man of my own blood dared to enter the house on account of the poison in the air. Well, Tizzo, there is a poison in the air now. It kills me as surely as the plague.

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