"Those barricades will not allow them to enter, even if our friend does not persuade them to disperse."
"I have heard there is sometimes shooting." Vittoria shuddered. "It is terrible for men to become brutes."
"The time is growing late," Oliveta quavered.
There was another period of silence while they strained their ears for the faintest sound, but the fresh breeze wafted nothing to them. On a neighboring gallery two housewives were gossiping; a child was playing on the walk beneath, and his piping laughter sounded strangely incongruous. From across the way rose that desultory pounding as spikes were driven home and beams were nailed in place. Through a grated aperture in the prison wall an armed man peered down the street.
"Caesar is cunning," Oliveta broke out. "He is not one to be easily caught. He is brave, too. Ah, God! how I loved him and how I have hated him!" Ever since Maruffi's capture she had remained in a frame of mind scarcely rational, fluctuating between a silent, sullen mood of revenge and a sense of horror at her betrayal of the man who had once possessed her whole heart.
"It can't be that you still care for him?"
"No, I loathe him, and if he escapes he would surely kill me. Yet sometimes I wish it." She began mumbling to herself. "Look!" she cried, suddenly. "What is this?"
A public hack came swinging into view, its horses at a gallop. It drew up before the main gate of the prison, a man leaped forth and began pounding for admittance. Some one spoke to him through a grating.
"What does he say?" queried the peasant girl.
"I cannot hear. Perhaps he comes to say there is no—Mother of God!
Listen!"