There was another outcry from his companions, and at that moment they were all hailed by a passing boat, full of their friends of the River Society. "Come on, boys," they called, "we are all dismissed for the night. We are going to supper in Piazza Colonna—you follow us."
"In a moment," Rinaldo answered, "we have one little thing to do first."
"Nonsense!" protested the others. But Rinaldo was firm this time and the malcontents, calling the other boat alongside, clambered into it and shoved away. Peppino had remained with his friend.
"You could not get this clumsy thing along by yourself, you pig-headed brigand," he growled. "My poor outraged inside is crying for food, but I will come with you. Pull now—mind that pillar. Here we are, but the portone is closed, and God knows how we are going to get in. Good heavens, what is that?" The current, carrying them swiftly along, had flung the boat-side against the protruding grating of a window just above its tide, and at the same instant a dripping object, apparently a corpse in spectacles, rose behind the bars, a clawlike hand caught at the gunwale, and a yell of entreaty assailed the rowers' ears.
"For the love of God, take me out! Take me out! I perish, I die! Madonna mia Santissima! Take me out!"
"Stop dragging at the boat," cried Peppino when he had recovered his breath. "Who are you? How did you get shut up here?"
"Go to the devil," retorted the shuddering apparition. "Is this a moment for questions? I have been in this sepulcher since the morning. Get me out, I say."
"Santo Dio," gasped Rinaldo, turning nearly as pale as the distracted suppliant, "you—you are Professor Bianchi. Oh, assassin that I am! Yes, I will get you out, instantly. Let go, let go, I can't pull you through the grating."
They had to tear his fingers off the gunwale, for the man was half delirious in his terror of being abandoned. Then with two or three strokes they reached the closed front door and pounded on it, shouting for the porter. Their cries attracted heads to the first-floor windows; Domenico, with the chaplain looking over his shoulder, leaned far out and asked what this scandalous uproar meant. Did they know where they were, these audacious ones? This was the Palazza Cestaldini, and the Eminenza was within. If they did not depart at once, the police should be summoned.
Rinaldo shouted down Domenico's reproofs, explaining with extraordinary fluency of invective that some dog, fathered by brigands and mothered by wolves, and doomed with twenty generations of picked ancestors, to eternal fires had kept Professor Bianchi imprisoned, in peril of death, in a flooded crypt, since the morning. Let some Christian, if there was one in that many times cursed household, open the portone and let him come to their victim's rescue.