Stefanone did not show the least surprise. He pressed down the burning tobacco with one horny finger, and carefully laid the last glowing bit of the burnt-out wooden match upon it.
"For this, we are people of the mountains," he answered slowly. "We can walk."
"Why do you wish to kill that signore?" inquired Griggs, calmly.
Stefanone looked up, and the pale lids of his keen eyes were contracted as he stared hard and long at the other's face.
"What are you saying?" he asked, with a short, harsh laugh. "What is passing through your head? What have I to do with the Englishman? Nothing. These are follies!"
And still he gazed keenly at Griggs, awaiting the latter's reply. Griggs answered him contemptuously in the dialect.
"You take me for a foreigner! You might know better."
"I do not know what you mean," answered Stefanone, doggedly. "It is Sunday. I am at leisure. I walk to take a little air. It is my affair. Besides, at this hour, who would follow a man to kill him? It is about to ring midday. There are a thousand people in the street. Those who kill wait at the corners of streets when it is night. You say that I take you for a foreigner. You have taken me for an assassin. At your pleasure. So much the worse for me. An assassin! Only this was wanting. It is better that I go back to Subiaco. At least they know me there. Here in Rome—not even dogs would stay here. Beautiful town! Where one is called assassin for breakfast, without counting one, nor two."
By this time Griggs was convinced that he was right. He knew the man well, and all his kind. The long speech of complaint, with its peculiar tone, half insolent, half of injured innocence, was to cover the fellow's embarrassment. Griggs answered him in his own strain.
"A man is not an assassin who kills his enemy for a good reason, Stefanone," he observed. "How do I know what he may have done to you?"