Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/353

Rh was before. I may have my own opinion, and may have proved it on various grounds. That again, I do not care to obtrude. I do not see that I can better the precedent set me by a very wise man and patriarch, King Solomon of Zion. Let the women judge each other. My judgment is that the innocent of these two shall hang the guilty."

The bystanders were silent, till one man shivered. The shiver swept lightly through the company like a wind in the reeds, and ran wider and wider till it stirred the farthest edge of the field. All eyes were upon the prisoners. Borso's blinked from below his shaggy brows, young Teofilo Calcagnini's were misty, Angioletto's hard and bright. Bellaroba had been motionless throughout, except when her lips moved to speak; she was motionless now. But Olimpia was panting. The unearthly quiet was only broken by that short sound for ten minutes.

"Bellaroba," then said the Duke, "what say you? You declare that you are innocent. Will you hang the guilty and go free?"

For the first time she looked up, but not at her judge. It was at Angioletto she looked, Angioletto at her.

"No, my lord, I cannot," said Bellaroba in the hush. The wind shivered the reeds again, then fainted down.

"Castaneve," said the dry voice, "what say you? You declare that you are innocent. Will you hang the guilty and go free?"

The drowning Olimpia threw up her hands to clutch at this plank in the sea-swirl. Free! O God! The word turned her.