“It is you!” she cried. “It is you! It is your voice, it is your hand, it is your iniquity!”
He was confounded by her vehemence.
“Who brought him here?” he stammered. “Am I to find one of that accursed brood forever in my way? I take him to witness that for your sake———”
A formidable roar, “Throw us down the Inglez!” filled the patio. They were gaining assurance down there; and the ferocious clamouring of the mob outside came faintly upon our ears.
O’Brien barred the way. Don Balthasar leaned on his daughter’s arm—she very straight, with tears still on her face and indignation in her eye, he bowed, and with his immovable fine features set in the calmness of age. Behind that group there were two priests, one with a scared, white face, another, black-browed, with an exalted and fanatical aspect. The light of the candles from the improvised altar fell on the bishop’s small, bald head, emerging with a patient droop from the wide spread of his cope, as though he had been inclosed in a portable gold shrine. He was ready to go.
Don Balthasar, who seemed to have heard nothing, as if suddenly waking up to his duty, left his daughter, and muttering to O’Brien, “Let me precede the bishop,” came out, bare-headed, into the gallery. Father Antonio had turned away, and his heavy hand fell on O’Brien’s shoulder.
“Have you no heart, no reverence, no decency?” he said. “In the name of everything you respect, I call upon you to stop this sacrilegious outbreak.”
O’Brien shook off the priestly hand, and fixed his eyes upon Seraphina. I happened to be looking at his face; he seemed to be ready to go out of his mind. His jealousy, the awful torment of soul and body, made him motionless and speechless.
Seeing Don Balthasar appear by the balustrade, the ruffians below had become silent for a while. His aged, mechanical voice was heard asking distinctly:
“What do these people want?”