He was in a hurry to be off. Indeed, his position among them was not very safe. All owed him money. If they had been bold enough to carry out one imprisonment, they might well carry out another more useful and profitable. Don Gennaro, indeed, took the command by his coolness and strength, but were not these men desperate? Yet they were feeling that break-up of moral and bodily strength, that weakness, that comes to the most finished scoundrels when they have carried out some wicked deed, having put all their real and fictitious strength into the enterprise and obtained no result. At any rate, it was better to go out.
'Gentlemen, I wish you good-morning,' he said, taking his hat and cane, seeing the medium was scratching at his coat with skinny hands to clean it.
'I would like to say a word to each of these gentlemen,' the medium requested.
There was a whispering. All crowded round him who spoke with the spirits, while Parascandolo was already in the lobby and held the door open as a precaution.
'One at a time,' said the medium. 'It is a kind of will I am making. I want to leave a remembrance to every one.'
He took them aside one by one in the window recess. He looked them in the face and touched their hands with his feeble, cold fingers. The first was Ninetto Costa.
'Look here, Ninetto: don't give up hope; remember, there is always a revolver for a finish up.'
'That is true,' he said, trying to find a number in the words.
The second was Colaneri, the ex-priest.