In his bewilderment Lucas had cherished a confused hope that in this square, where all his adventures of the previous day had started, he would find a solution, or at least the suggestion of an answer to the riddle of what had happened. But with a sudden feeling of profound disappointment, he walked crestfallen away. It then chanced to occur to him that some of his father’s friends were at work nearby on the Palace which the Papal Nuncio was having built for himself. Overcome by an overpowering longing for company, he hastened on in the hope of finding them.

Passing through the courtyard, he entered the new structure through a door made of rough boards, and immediately found himself surrounded by a din of hammering, blow after blow raining down on the stones, the shriek of saws, the screech of files, and the songs with which the workmen beguiled their labors. They were all Italians—sculptors, stonemasons, and iron-workers—they sang Italian songs, which Lucas had often enough heard his father sing. Amid the cheerful buzz of work, swelled and lightened by the singing which perforce banished superfluous care and unprofit­able thought, all Lucas’s fears and dark forebodings melted away.

He immediately felt at home in this environment. As a little boy, he had played by his father’s side in just such building-yards as this, mixing with the other men, all of whom knew him. Maestro Andrea Chini, who was working with his assistants, understood without being told that poverty alone was forcing young Lucas Grassi to descend to work that was beneath him, and he proceeded to find what light jobs he could for him. That day Lucas accepted the work eagerly, with none of the feelings of reluctance he had experienced before, and performed his duties cheerfully. As for all the hopes and longings he had so ardently cherished only the day before, he refused to give them another thought, and put them out of his mind as over-ambitious. After all the mysterious events that had occurred, he felt that he should do penance for his arrogant aspirations. By the time he had received friendly greetings from all and sundry, and had unwittingly taken his share in their conversation and even joined in snatches of their songs, he had ceased to brood over what had happened. He even began to doubt whether it were true. Tired out, but with his mind at rest, he returned home in the evening with the comforting feeling that he had escaped from some danger, or from the meshes of a strange delusion. He fell asleep immediately.

• • •

Suddenly he was awakened by a kick which seemed to go right through his body, and found himself lying on the ground. Above him was the broad red face of a fat footman in livery, who was on the point of kicking him again.

“Hullo, here’s Cambyses back again!” shouted the man. “Get up, you rascal. Where the devil have you been all day?”

Lucas sprang to his feet in horror. Yes, he was back in a stable again, the doors stood wide open, the morning light was pouring in, and the men were leading the fine white horses out one by one, already harnessed. As Lucas tried to escape another kick, the fat man caught hold of him by the scruff of the neck, just behind his ears.

“Hi, you lout!” he called out, “just hand me a bit of rope, so that I sha’n’t lose the brute again!”

The grooms and stable-boys all laughed.

“You don’t want a bit of rope, Master Pointner,” said one of them. “Cambyses won’t run away. If he had wanted to run away, he wouldn’t have come back at all.”

“Really!” retorted the fat man angrily. “And what about yesterday? Where was the rascal all day yesterday, I’d like to know?”

“With one of his sweethearts, I expect,” replied another of the grooms, and all the stable-hands roared with laughter. Meanwhile a young groom called Caspar had come up, a gentle, handsome boy with an amiable face.

“Please don’t be so hard on Cambyses, Master Pointner,” he begged, “or one of these fine days he’ll go off for good. I assure you, sir, it would be much better to stroke him and make a fuss of him. Believe me, I understand dogs, as you know. Just think how clever it was of him to find us. How he must have run to catch up with us, and how nicely he has taken to his proper place again. You may take my word for it, Master Pointner, that dog’s run the deuce of a long way just to get back to us. . . . Good old Cambyses, good dog! . . .