With haste and excitement, each supplementing the other, they laid their anxieties before the priest; he listened gravely, attentively.
"It is," said he then, "as my dear penitent has said. Krates, the master, set free the parents and the child: before me, in this Basilica."
"Oh, then we are safe from that base man!" rejoiced Fulvius.
"So long as I live: but I am an old man; this night the Lord may call me. Haste is necessary against this profligate. Yon knew Galla, the child of Gaudentius, who lives near to the tax-office. She was eighteen years old. It was only a few days ago. The villain saw her at mid-day:--before night she had disappeared:--next morning she lay shattered at the foot of the rock of the Capitol;--it was said she had met with an accident while gathering berries--but a fisherman, who was drawing his nets at daybreak, confided to me that he saw her throw herself from the tower-window."
"The Tribune lives there!" cried Crispus.
Fulvius, speechless, grasped at the hammer in his tunic.
"Come! The Judge, the Curies will not take any declaration so late. They are feasting and carousing. We will seek out the elders of the congregation: I will swear before them my knowledge of the emancipation. And I will to-night consider with thee if we cannot protect thy wife's innocence, and also thyself and thy inheritance, brave stone-mason, against this usurer. Follow me."
They hastened all three into the street. It was still tolerably light; the twilight of the long Jane evening only very gradually deepened. As they reached the house of the Judge, the outer door opened: the master came out escorting the money-dealer.
"I will," said he, "send there early to-morrow. Thy right is undoubted; and as the flight of the debtor is probable, I will issue the warrant--but there he stands before us."
Zeno turned towards the street and saw the three men approaching; it displeased him to see his victim in company with the priest, whom the burghers loved, whom he feared and hated. He greeted him coldly; there were other people in the street, it would have injured himself to refuse one so honoured a greeting, but he wished to pass by him quickly.