THE NINTH MAN
Then says Brother Agnello in his deep voice like a sweet bell, "In the name of Christ, my Master—Messer Gubbio."
"What do you wish?" says the Podestà.
"The gift of five minutes," says he, and smiles upon us.
Some there were who cried, "Cast him forth!"
And others, "Let him speak."
Old Ludovico Casamatto cried out in his hot, angry voice, "Let him speak, say I, for he asks in the name of Christ, and I have heard enough talk in the name of the devil these days past!"
He stood before them, his hand on the shoulder of the little maid, as though he were bathed in a pool of light, as though love itself shone from his eyes.
"O men of San Moglio," he cried out, "I am sent here that I, who am one already dead, may take away from you your fear. Cast upon me the bond of death, for who are you that you shall judge in this town what ninth are worthy to live and which must die? For who may judge such things but God?"
As the first day I had met him he had
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