Page:Vorse--The ninth man.djvu/79



HEY bore him along triumphant on their shoulders, sealing the steep streets of San Moglio, and behind him hobbled the maimed and the very poor, and the very old, and the mothers of feeble children, and all those innocents upon whom great fear had been cast by the wise plan of Gubbio di Grollo. And there came not a few of the nobles and the first men of San Moglio, some sick with the thought of killing, and others drawn by curiosity.

They bore him up to the little Piazza Ogni Santi, and he went out on a balcony above a doorway, and all of the misery of San Moglio was packed into this piazza, and the nobles were jostled among them, and far down the streets came others, until every street that led away was packed with the people of San Moglio,

They cried out to him: "Are we saved? Tell us, Agnello, are we saved?"

He waited until it was quiet through all the place, and then said he: "And who could harm you? For upon me be your blood; for it was for this that I was born."