Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/137



," he called softly, without moving from his ambush or turning his eyes from those he watched, "Silvestro, come here!"

The obedient stripling came eagerly, and knelt as close to his master as he dared—just so as to touch him.

"Eccomi, Pilade," says he.

"Get back over the brow as fast as you can," said his friend, "and hide in the cave. Wait there till I come. Go now; do as I bid you."

Silvestro went at once.

Castracane squared his jaw and waited. Every now and then he muttered to himself, with lazy lifted eyebrows. It was too much trouble to shrug. "Poor little devil—it would be a shame! And I knocked him down for nothing. And he loves me, per Bacco! Certainly, I have never been loved before—by a man, I mean—except by my big old mother out yonder, and she is a woman. She'll be sorry—she's old—eh, she's horribly old! Accursed, most rotten ass, Andrea! The whole story out of him—and a lie at that. Cospetto! I can't let the poor lad swing. And I did knock him down—and he cried like a girl; but not because I grassed him. By my soul, I'll do it—there, then!" Then he mortised his chin in his brown hands and blinked while he waited. 125