"Scarcely," the overseer agreed.
"Have you seen anything?"
"Nothing."
"Where is Ippolito?"
Ricardo grunted. "Asleep in the stable. The imbecile is drunk."
To the American these Sicilian people looked very much alike. They were all a bit fantastic, and the scene reminded him of a fancy-dress ball where all the men represented brigands. Many of them were, or seemed to be, of truculent countenance; some wore piratical ear-rings, others had shawls wrapped about their heads as if for concealment. Any one of them might have been a brigand, for all he knew, and he saw how easy it would be for a handful of evil-intentioned persons to mingle unobserved with such a throng. Yet his better sense told him that he was silly to imagine such things. He had allowed old women's tales to upset his nerves.
A half-hour later, as he was watching the crowd from the loggiato, Margherita appeared, and he thought for a moment that she too might feel some vague foreboding, but her first words reassured him.
"My good friend, I missed you," she said, "but I had no chance of leaving until this moment." Coming close to him, she inquired: "Has something gone amiss? You have seemed sad all this evening. I do not know, but I fear your heart is—heavy."
He answered, unsteadily: "Perhaps it is. I—don't know."
"It is that certain woman."