A brass lamp swung from the ceiling, and shone freely through that smoke, as shines the moon through an evening mist.

So foully stank the place that at first Gonzaga was moved to get him thence.

Only the reflection that nowhere in Urbino was he as likely as here to find the thing he sought, impelled him to stifle his natural squeamishness and remain.

He slipped upon some grease, and barely saved himself from measuring his length upon that filthy floor, a matter which provoked a malicious guffaw from a tattered giant who watched with interest his mincing advent.
Perspiring, and with nerves unstrung, the courtier picked his way to a table by the wall, and seated himself upon the coarse deal bench before it, praying that he might be left its sole occupant.
On the opposite wall hung a blackened crucifix and a small holy-water stoup that had been dry for a generation, and was now a receptacle for dust and a withered sprig of rosemary.

Immediately beneath this--in the company of a couple of tatterdemalions worthy of him--sat the giant who had mocked his escape from falling, and as Gonzaga took his seat he heard the fellow's voice, guttural, bottle-thickened and contentious.
"And this wine, Luciano?
Sangue della Madonna! Will you bring it before dropping dead, pig ?" Gonzaga shuddered and would have crossed himself again for protection against what seemed a very devil incarnate, but that the ruffian's blood-shot eye was set upon him in a stony stare.
"I come, cavaliere, I come," cried the timid host, leaping to his feet, and leaving the goat to burn while he ministered to the giant's unquenchable thirst.
The title caused Gonzaga to start, and he bent his eyes again on the man's face.