Don Silverio raised him and dragged him into the shade of a bay-tree and dashed water on him from the river. In a few minutes he was roused and again conscious, but on his features there was a dazed, stunned look.
"You cannot save us?" he repeated.
"Neither you nor I have millions," said Don Silverio with bitterness. "It is with no other weapon that men can fight successfully now."
Adone had risen to his feet; he was pale as a corpse, only the blood was set in his forehead.
"Is it true, then?" he muttered. "Do they mean to come here?"
"Yes."
"Who are they? Jews?"
"Jews and Gentiles. There is no difference between those races now; they have a common Credo — greed; they adore one Jehovah — gold. My boy, I am very tired, and you are ill. Let us get home as quickly as we can."
"I am not ill. It was nothing. It is passed. Tell me the worst."
"The worst, in a work, is that a foreign company, already established for several years in this country, has obtained a faculty to turn this water out if its course and use it as the motive power of an electric railway and of an acetylene manufactory, and of other enterprises."