It was at this point that the guard had come, and called Costantino away, and the latter, who had passed a sleepless night, had opened his drowsy eyes, turned pale, and leaped to his feet. "Who wants me?" he had asked, and then he had followed the guard.
He was taken to a dingy room, filled with shelves of dusty papers. The dirty windows were closed; beyond them, through a red grating, could be seen the sky—dull and grey, as though it too were dirty. A man was seated writing, at a tall, dusty desk, piled so high with papers that between the papers and the dust the man himself could hardly be seen. As the prisoner entered he raised a flushed face, the small chin completely hidden by a heavy, blond moustache. He fixed a pair of big, round, dull-blue eyes upon Costantino, but apparently without seeing him, for he dropped them again immediately, and went on writing.
Costantino, who had seen this man before, stood waiting, his heart thumping in his breast. Mechanically his thoughts dwelt upon the description of the water-phantoms he had just been listening to, and the voice saying: "calf"; he wondered vaguely if one would be justified in feeling angry at that. Not a sound broke the stillness of the room, except the scratch, scratch, of the pen, as it travelled over the coarse paper. Again the pale blue eyes were fixed upon the prisoner, and again lowered to the sheet. Costantino, trembling and unnerved, gazed desperately around the room. Still the man wrote on. The prisoner could feel his heart beating furiously; a thousand dark fancies, hideous, terrifying, rushed through his brain, like clouds driven before an angry tempest. And still the man wrote on, and on. Suddenly, without warning, all the dark fancies vanished,—dispersed and swallowed up, as it were, in a single glorious flood of light. A thought, so dazzling and beautiful as almost to be painful, shot into his mind. "They have discovered that I am innocent!"
The idea did not remain for long, but it left behind it a vague, tremulous light.
The man was still writing, and did not stop as he presently said in a loud, hard voice: "You are named——?"
"Costantino Ledda."
"Where from?"
"Orlei, in Sardinia, Province of Sassari."
"Very good."
Silence. The man wrote a little while longer; then suddenly he dug his pen into the paper, raised his red face, and fastened his round, expressionless eyes upon the man standing before him. Costantino's own eyes dropped.