“Chi e’ la?” hailed the sentry, as if some presentiment had increased his caution.
“Amico!” responded the person approaching; “why do you hail? I am Tommaso.”
“Ah! Signor Tommaso! I had forgotten that you were out. I thought you had gone in along with the others.”
“What others?” inquired Tommaso, with interest he endeavoured to conceal under a pretence of ill-humour.
“What others?” echoed the unreflecting sentinel; “why, Corvino himself, to be sure, and the party of pastores that went abroad with him. You were at the rendezvous when they left?”
“Ah, true,” carelessly remarked Tommaso. “But I thought they had got back before night. How long since they passed up?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Well, have they made anything by their sheep-driving?”
“A lamb. A young ewe, I take it, from what I could see of her wool. Dio Santo! there must have been sharp horns in the flock from which they have separated her. Our capo has had a thrust from some old ram. I could see blood upon his shirt.”
“Wounded, you think. Where?”