THE NINTH MAN
taken from my lady and myself our apprehension and left us with peace, so it seemed now that peace streamed from him in a great flood.
Then said Ludovico de Casamatto: "Here, brother, take mine, then, and I will go with you. Who follows me?" And many there were who joined him, and a hush fell upon all. Agnello stood awhile and embraced them in the silence of his regard, and then he walked out in silence from among them into the waiting crowd of poor people and of halt and lame who had heard of the beneficent design of Messer Gubbio and had come to learn their fate. When Brother Agnello appeared, and after him the little company of nobles, there arose a cry from all the stricken of San Moglio, and there were there the sons of women stricken with palsy and the children of blind fathers, and there were there the children of the poor, and they took Agnello up in their arms and bore him along.
And the noise of their shouts was the first glad thing we had heard since the fear of death had been over us.
