They frighten me.

Mother of Heaven, what a night of horror it has been! Oh, that I had taken your advice, Messer Boccacloro!" she exclaimed in a passion of self-reproach.
I laughed, seeking to soften her distress.
"To me it seems, that whether you would or not, you have been compelled to take it, after all.

Those fellows lie there harmless enough, and I am still--as I urged that I should be--your only escort." "A nobler protector never woman had," she assured me, and I felt a hot pearl of moisture fail upon my brow.
"You were wise, at least, to journey with a Fool," I answered her.

"For fools are proverbially lucky folk, and to-night has proven me of all fools the luckiest.

But, Madonna," I suggested, in a different tone, "should we not be better advised to attempt to resume, this interesting journey of ours?
We do not seem to lack horses ?" A couple of nags were standing by the road-side, together with our mules, and I was afterwards to learn that she, herself, it was had tethered them.
"It must be yet some three leagues to Pesaro," I added, "and if we journey slowly, as I fear me that we must, we should arrive there soon after daybreak." "Do you think that you can stand ?" she asked, a hopeful ring in her voice.
"I might essay it," answered I, and I would have done so, there and then, but that she detained me.
"First let me see to this hurt in your head," said she.