“Where is Tommaso?” shouted a score of voices.
“I am here!” responded the brigand who bore that name.
“Answer us then. Did you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Furnish the writing materials to our prisoner?”
“No,” firmly replied Tommaso.
“You need not waste your time questioning him,” interposed a voice, recognised as that of Popetta. “It was I who furnished them.”
“Yes,” said the rival brigandess, speaking aside to several members of the band, “not only found them, but carried them to the cell herself.”
“Tutti!” cried the chief, in a voice of thunder, that stilled the murmurs produced by this communication. “For what purpose did you supply them, Cara Popetta?”
“For the common good,” replied the woman, seemingly with the intent to give justification for what she had done.