He listened from time to time, but he heard no noise at the side of the house where he was. His accomplices did not arrive, and, in a sort of impatient terror, the attendant upon an evil conscience, he flung open the door of his cell, and groped his way through the passage which he knew led to the public shop. He longed to hear some noise, and to mix with the living. The Jew, when Piedro entered the shop, was bargaining with a poor, thin-looking man about some gunpowder.
“I don’t deny that it has been wet,” said the man, “but since it was in the bucket of water, it has been carefully dried. I tell you the simple truth, that so soon after the grand eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the people of Naples will not relish fireworks. My poor little rockets, and even my Catherine-wheels, will have no effect. I am glad to part with all I have in this line of business. A few days ago I had fine things in readiness for the Countess de Flora’s birthday, which was to have been celebrated at the count’s villa.”
“Why do you fix your eyes on me, friend? What is your discourse to me?” said Piedro, who imagined that the man fixed his eyes upon him as he mentioned the name of the count’s villa.
“I did not know that I fixed my eyes upon you; I was thinking of my fireworks,” said the poor man, simply. “But now that I do look at you and hear your voice, I recollect having had the pleasure of seeing you before.”
“When? where?” said Piedro.
“A great while ago; no wonder you have forgotten me,” said the man; “but I can recall the night to your recollection. You were in the street with me the night I let off that unlucky rocket, which frightened the horses, and was the cause of overturning a lady’s coach. Don’t you remember the circumstance?”
“I have a confused recollection of some such thing,” said Piedro, in great embarrassment; and he looked suspiciously at this man, in doubt whether he was cunning, and wanted to sound him, or whether he was so simple as he appeared.
“You did not, perhaps, hear, then,” continued the man, “that there was a great search made, after the overturn, for a fine diamond cross, belonging to the lady in the carriage? That lady, though I did not know it till lately, was the Countess de Flora.”
“I know nothing of the matter,” interrupted Piedro, in great agitation. His confusion was so marked, that the firework-maker could not avoid taking notice of it; and a silence of some moments ensued. The Jew, more practised in dissimulation than Piedro, endeavoured to turn the man’s attention back to his rockets and his gunpowder—agreed to take the gunpowder—paid for it in haste, and was, though apparently unconcerned, eager to get rid of him. But this was not so easily done. The man’s curiosity was excited, and his suspicions of Piedro were increased every moment by all the dark changes of his countenance. Piedro, overpowered with the sense of guilt, surprised at the unexpected mention of the diamond cross, and of the Count de Flora’s villa, stood like one convicted, and seemed fixed to the spot, without power of motion.
“I want to look at the old cambric that you said you had—that would do for making—that you could let me have cheap for artificial flowers,” said the firework-maker to the Jew; and as he spoke, his eye from time to time looked towards Piedro.