'Only one. We suppose that it must have been the famous Moscio.'
'The Moscio?'
'We suppose so. Whoever it was, he has lost no time in telling what has happened, and your share in the business. You are not safe even in the town of Randazzo, unless you will consent to go about between a couple of carabineers like a prisoner. I am sorry to say that you had better go at once. The population is roused against you. You know what they are.'
'Yes. I know.' Tebaldo leaned against the table.
'I can protect you with soldiers,' continued the officer, his own voice weak from loss of blood. 'But your position will be a very unpleasant one. I have sent for a carriage for you and will give you a strong escort, but for your own safety, as well as for the quiet of the country, I must beg you to start as soon as you can dress and get your things together. To-day you may get away quietly. To-morrow your appearance might cause something like a riot.'
'I knew how it would end,' said Tebaldo, faintly. 'Very well. I will get ready.'
The lieutenant was in reality exaggerating the danger of the man's position, though quite unintentionally. He would certainly not have been safe in such a place as Santa Vittoria, but it was extremely unlikely that he should be attacked in Randazzo, though he might very probably have been insulted in the streets.
The Moscio had in reality seen but one man with whom he had spoken before dawn, but he was the woodcutter who had chiefly supplied the outlaws with provisions during their stay in the forest of Maniace, and he had come up as usual to know if they wanted anything on that day, being as yet ignorant of the fight at Camaldoli. But as he came down, the man had met an acquaintance and had repeated the story without telling how he had learned it. Before noon the facts were known far and wide from Santa Vittoria to Randazzo, substantially as the Moscio knew that they had happened.
The feeling against Tebaldo was at once infinitely stronger than that against the carabineers and soldiers. To a certain extent the brigands always terrorised the country, and many of the better sort of people were heartily glad to know that the band of Mauro had been finally destroyed, though they did not say so, lest some survivor should wreak vengeance on them. But there was no difference of opinion in regard to Tebaldo. It was not exactly treachery to carry people off by force and extort a ransom from them, as the outlaws did. But to lead men who trusted him into a trap prepared for them by the troops was a betrayal which no Sicilian could forgive Tebaldo, even though it might have had some good results, and the name of Judas, which the Moscio had spoken alone in the solitude, was on every tongue.
It is of no use to waste words in trying to explain this feeling, which most people will understand. The fact was that the whole population shared it, as Tebaldo knew that they must, since the story had become known. He recognised at once that he ought to accept the officer's advice and get away as soon as he could. He would write to Aliandra from Messina, but he was sure that she must despise him now, like everyone else. To all intents and purposes he was a fugitive, as he drove out of the town, half an hour later, in a closed carriage with the ragged shades drawn down. Possibly he remembered, as he shivered in his corner beside the carabineer, how the light had fallen on Ippolito Saracinesca's face in the street of Santa Vittoria scarcely ten days earlier, how the people had cursed the innocent man, and had thrown things at him, trying to bruise him from a distance.