"I have been seeking our enemy, Belisario Cardi, and—I have found him."
Oliveta cried out in fierce triumph: "God be praised! He lives; that is enough. I feared he had cheated us."
"Listen!" exclaimed Vittoria, in such a tone that the peasant girl started. "You don't understand."
"I understand nothing except that he lives. His blood shall wash our blood. That is what we swore, and I have never forgotten, even though you have. He shall go to meet his dead, and his soul shall be accursed." She spoke with the same hysterical ferocity as when she had cursed her father's murderer in the castello of Terranova.
"He calls himself Caesar Maruffi," Blake told her.
There was a pause, then she said, simply: "That is a lie."
"No, no! I saw him that night. I saw him again to-night."
"It cannot be."
"That is what I have said," concurred Vittoria, with strange eagerness.
"No, no—it would be too dreadful."
Mystified and offended, Blake defended his statement forcibly. "Believe it or not, as you please, it is true. That night in Sicily he came among the brigands who held me prisoner. They were talking excitedly. He cried, 'Silenzio!' in a voice I can never forget. To-night he was gambling, and he lost heavily. He was furious; his friends began to chatter, and he cried that word again! I would know it a thousand years hence. I saw it all in a flash. I saw other things I had failed to grasp—his size, his appearance. I tell you he is Belisario Cardi."