Here he stripped off his garments and plunged headlong in, to emerge again, some moments later, refreshed and reinvigorated in body and in soul.
As Fanfulla awoke he beheld an apparition coming towards him, a figure lithe and stalwart as a sylvian god, the water shining on the ivory whiteness of his skin and glistening in his sable hair as the sunlight caught it.
"Tell me now, Fanfulla, lives there a man of so depraved a mind that he would prefer a ducal crown to this ?" And the courtier, seeing Francesco's radiant mien, understood perhaps, at last, how sordid was the ambition that could lure a man from such a god-like freedom, and from the holy all-consuming joys it brought him.
His thoughts being started upon that course, it was of this they talked what time the Count resumed his garments--his hose of red, his knee-high boots of untanned leather, and his quilted brigandine of plain brown cloth, reputed dagger-proof.

He rose at last to buckle on his belt of hammered steel, from which there hung, behind his loins, a stout, lengthy dagger, the only weapon that he carried.
At his command the horses were saddled and the sumpters laden once more.
Lanciotto held his stirrup, and Zaccaria did like service for Fanfulla, and presently they were cantering out of that fragrant grove on to the elastic sward of broad, green pasture-lands.

They crossed the stream at a spot where the widened sheet of water scarce went higher than their horses' hocks; then veering to the east they rode away from the hills for a half-league or so until they gained a road.

Here they turned northward again, and pushed on towards Cagli.
As the bells were ringing the Ave Maria the cavalcade drew up before the Palazzo Valdicampo, where two nights ago Gian Maria had been entertained.

Its gates were now as readily thrown wide to welcome the illustrious and glorious Count of Aquila, who was esteemed by Messer Valdicampo no less than his more puissant cousin.