'My lord, make that ass hold his tongue,' muttered the medium, making a scornful gesture.
'He is not such an ass after all, Don Pasqualino,' said Formosa, keeping down his excitement with difficulty.
'What do you mean, my lord?' asked Don Pasqualino sharply, getting up to go away; but Trifari, who had never left the medium's neighbourhood, put a hand on his shoulder without speaking, and obliged him to sit down again. The medium sank his head on his breast a minute to think it over, and gazed sideways at the door.
'Sit still, Don Pasqualino,' said Formosa slowly, 'we have a lot to talk about here.'
A slightly agonized expression went over the caller-up of spirits' face. Once more looking round the company, he only saw hard, anxious faces, determined on success. He understood now confusedly.
'Gaetano the glover is not an ass for saying you are making fools of us. What you have been doing for three years past looks like a trick. For three years, you see, you have gone on saying the most disjointed things with the excuse that the spirits said these things to you. For three years you have made us stake the very bones of our necks upon this nonsense of yours; every one of us has not only gained nothing, but thrown his whole means away, from following your rubbish, and we are full of woes, some of them incurable. What sort of a conscience have you? We are ruined!'
'Yes, we are ruined—ruined!' shouted a chorus of agonized voices.
The speaker with spirits had often heard these lamentations, especially lately; but faith had come again into the souls of his followers. Now, he understood they no longer believed in him. Still, hiding his fear, he tried to brazen it out.
'It is not my fault, it is your want of faith.'