“I am his wife,” she answered, and the black looks faded from some of the faces. They knew her by her works among the poor of the Porta Ticinese quarter. One woman who had benefited by her charities began to acclaim her praise.
“Donna Hera of the Barbiondi!” she cried. “Evviva! She is a friend of the people!”
“Viva Donna Hera!” chimed in others who had tasted of her bounty.
Red Errico commanded silence. “Where is your husband, signora?” he asked, his suspicion unallayed; but before she could tell them again that she did not know the answer came from the woman who, above all others in that angry horde, wanted to find the master of the palace.
“Here he is!” she exclaimed, her voice weakened with shouting all day, and cracking now in the frenzy of her triumph. “Here he is.”
She had grabbed the nearest torch and was holding it above the face of Tarsis. Every eye turned to the window where she stood, the curtain jerked back, disclosing the man for whose blood she was mad cowering in the embrasure.
“Murderer!” she shrieked at him, shaking a fist in his face. “You killed my child!”
He was like a figure of stone, save for his eyes, which contracted and expanded as fast as he gasped for breath. One of his hands gripped a paper knife that he had caught up when the door began to yield. It was in the hot blood of them to fall upon him then and there, and so it would have been but for Red Errico. He sprang forward and, with one hand pushing back La Ferita, the other upraised, he commanded them to wait.
“Not yet!” he called out. “You forget! We must give the robber a trial. They do as much for us when we take rather than starve. A trial, do you understand? There are some questions we want to ask him, neh, comrades?”
At first he was answered with howls of dissatisfaction, but with them were mingled cries of approval; and presently, the idea of the leader’s joke sinking into their wits and gaining general favour, there were many demands, amid mocking laughter, for a trial.