But There He Was, True
To His Word, With Such Disciplined Fidelity As That Of The Roman
Sentinels Who Used To Die At Their Posts; And We Mounted To Ours With
The Muted Prayer That We, At Least, Might Reach Home Alive.
This did not
seem probable when the driver whipped up his horse.
It appeared to have
aged and sickened while we were in the church, though we had thought it
looked as bad as could be before, and it lurched alarmingly from side to
side, recovering itself with a plunge of its heavy head away from the
side in which its body was sinking. The driver swayed on his box, having
fallen equally decrepit in spite of the restoratives he seemed to have
applied for his years and infirmities. His clothes had put on some such
effect of extreme decay as those of Rip Van Winkle in the third act;
there was danger that he would fall on top of his falling horse, and
that their raiment would mingle in one scandalous ruin. Via Sistina had
never been so full of people before; never before had it been so long to
that point where we were to turn out of it into the friendly obscurity
of the little cross street which would bring us to our hotel. We could
not consent to arrive in that form; we made the driver stop, and we got
out and began overpaying him to release us. But the more generously we
overpaid him the more nobly he insisted upon serving us to our door.
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