“Hold!” shouted he, in a voice of thunder. “Simpletons that you are, to care for the talk of a cur like this. Your own captive, too! Would you kill the goose that is to lay us golden eggs—a nest of them worth thirty thousand scudi? You’re mad, compagnos. Leave me to manage the matter. Let us first get the eggs, which, by the grace of God and the help of the Madonna, we shall yet extract from the parental bird, and then—”
“Yes, yes!” cried several, interrupting this figurative speech of their leader; “let’s get the eggs! Let’s make the old bird lay them! Our comrade Ricardo here says he’s rich as King Croesus.”
“That do I,” interposed Doggy Dick. “And I should know something about the eggs he’s got, since once on a time I was his gamekeeper.”
At this jeu d’esprit, which seemed rather dull to his Italian audience, though better understood by the captive, the renegade laughed immoderately.
“Enough,” cried Corvino; “we’re wasting our time, and perhaps,” he added, with a ferocious leer, “the patience of our friend the artist. Now, signore! we shall leave that handsome head unshorn of its auricular appendages. The little finger of your left hand is all we require at present. If it don’t prove strong enough to extract the eggs we’ve been speaking of, we shall try the whole hand. If that too fail, we must give up the idea of having an omelette.”
A yell of laughter hailed this sally.
“Then,” continued the jocular ruffian, “we shan’t have done with you. To prove to the grand Inglese, your father, that we are not spiteful, and how far we Italians can outdo him in generosity, we shall send him a calf’s head, with skin, ears, and everything attached to it.”
Boars of laughter succeeded this fearful speech, and the stilettos were returned to their respective sheaths.
“Now,” commanded the chief, once more calling the knife into requisition, “off with his finger. You needn’t go beyond the second joint. Cut off by the knuckle, which I’ve heard is in great request among his countrymen. Don’t spoil such a pretty hand. Leave him a stump to fill out the finger of his glove; when that is on, no one will be the wiser of what’s wanting. You see, signore,” concluded the wretch, in a taunting tone, “I don’t wish to damage your personal appearance any more than is absolutely necessary for our purpose. I know you are proud of it; and considering what has happened with Popetta, I should be sorry at any mutilation that might debar you from a like success with Lucetta.”
The last speech was delivered in a satanic whisper, again hissed into the ear of the captive. It elicited no reply; nor did the young Englishman make either remark, or resistance, when the cruel executioner caught hold of his hand, and severed from it the little finger by a clean cut of the knife-blade!