His majesty strolled through the most pestilential streets with as much unconcern as though he wore taking his pleasure in a garden of roses; he stepped quietly into the dirtiest hovels where lay both dead and dying; he spoke words of kindly encouragement to the grief-stricken and terrified mourners, who stared through their tears at the monarch with astonishment and gratitude; silver and gold were gently dropped into the hands of the suffering poor, and the very pressing cases received the royal benefactor's personal attention and immediate relief. Mothers with infants in their arms knelt to implore the king's blessing--which to pacify them he gave with a modest hesitation, as though he thought himself unworthy, and yet with a parental tenderness that was infinitely touching. One wild-eyed, black-haired girl flung herself down on the ground right in the king's path; she kissed his feet, and then sprung erect with a gesture of triumph.
"I am saved!" she cried; "the plague cannot walk in the same road with the king!"
Humbert smiled, and regarded her somewhat as an indulgent father might regard a spoiled daughter; but he said nothing, and passed on. A cluster of men and women standing at the open door of one of the poorest-looking houses in the street next attracted the monarch's attention. There was some noisy argument going on; two or three beccamorti were loudly discussing together and swearing profusely--some women were crying bitterly, and in the center of the excited group a coffin stood on end as though waiting for an occupant. One of the gentlemen in attendance on the king preceded him and announced his approach, whereupon the loud clamor of tongues ceased, the men bared their heads, and the women checked their sobs.
"What is wrong here, my friends?" the monarch asked with exceeding gentleness.
There was silence for a moment; the beccamorti looked sullen and ashamed. Then one of the women, with a fat good-natured face and eyes rimmed redly round with weeping, elbowed her way through the little throng to the front and spoke.
"May the Holy Virgin and saints bless your majesty!" she cried, in shrill accents. "And as for what is wrong, it would soon be right if those shameless pigs," pointing to the beccamorti, "would let us alone. They would kill a man rather than wait an hour--one little hour! The girl is dead, your majesty--and Giovanni, poor lad! will not leave her; he has his two arms round her tight--Holy Virgin!--think of it! and she a cholera corpse--and do what we can, he will not be parted from her, and they seek her body for the burial. And if we force him away, poverino, he will lose his head for certain. One little hour, your majesty, just one, and the reverend father will come and persuade Giovanni better than we can."