‘He has not been cruel or angry with you, poor girl?’ asked the boy; ‘tell me this.’
‘No, Gerald,’ said she, in a low and broken voice; ‘but there is danger over you—ay, and near too, if you can’t escape it. He sent me last night over to St. Stephano, twelve weary miles across the mountain, after nightfall, to fetch the Gobbino——’
‘The Gobbino—who is he?’
‘The hunch-back, that was at the galleys in Messina,’ said the girl, trembling all over; and then went on, ‘and to tell him to come over to the Tana, for he wanted him.’
‘Well, and then——’
‘And then,’ muttered the girl, ‘and then,’ and she made a pantomimic gesture of drawing a knife suddenly across the throat. ‘It is so with him, they say; he ‘d think no more of it than do I of killing a hen!’
‘No, no, Tina,’ said the boy, smiling at her fears. ‘You wrong old Pippo and the Gobbo too. Take my word for it, there is something else he wants him for; besides, why should he dislike me? What have I done to provoke such a vengeance?’
‘Haven’t you threatened him?’ said the girl eagerly. ‘Have you not said that when Signor Gabriel comes back you will tell him something Pippo said of him?’ Is that not enough? Is the Signor Gabriel one who ever forgives an injury?’
‘I ‘ll not believe, I can’t believe it,’ said Gerald musingly.
‘But I tell you it is true; I tell you I know it,’ cried the girl passionately.