"And they in the carriage—?" he whispered.
A silence fell. The crowd shuffled away from him, and turned their faces to the city. Used to scenes of horror as they were, the cavalcade that had just passed them seemed, even to their half hearts, to have chilled the sunlight with its terror.
A young woman suddenly snatched her child up from the ground and strained it to her, in a passion of distress.
"Oh, Luigi, Luigi, my little child, it was his father and mother, his father and mother!"
She grasped the old man's arm. "Marked you how she looked at me?" she cried.
The peasant checked her outbreak, but looked down the road with gloomy eyes.
"They will never return from Brescia," he said; "they must be near seventy—old for such an end. However, hush thee, woman, 'tis no affair of ours!" Several anxious voices echoed him.
"Why should we care!" said one, "'tis a Visconti the less to crush us."
And Vittore saw the whole band turning off, pushing, driving, and urging their beasts along. He dragged at his still senseless companion in a sudden panic.
"Help me!" he said. "We would on; I dare not stay alone."