"Traditore! Vigliacco d'un prete!"
Then a stone struck him, and, with a hoarse roar like that of an angry beast, the crowd surged into the court-yard.
XXXII
The stone hurled at Don Agostino had fortunately only hit him on the body, for, owing to the violence with which it had been thrown, it certainly would have stunned him had it struck him on the head. As it was, however, the folds of his soutane somewhat broke the force of the blow. Don Agostino was scarcely conscious that he had been struck, so great was his amazement at the savage reception he had met with at the hands of his parishioners. Looking round on the angry faces and threatening gestures of the mob of peasants in front of him, Don Agostino speedily realized that neither Sor Stefano nor any of the more prominent supporters of the peasantry were among those who had forced their way into the court-yard. A feeling of anger and indignation took possession of him as he noted the fact. It was the usual thing, he thought bitterly—the invariable system of the incitement of the poor and the ignorant to do the dirty work by those who would instantly desert them in the hour of danger.
Disgust at what he believed to be treachery on the part of those who had been mainly instrumental in instigating the peasants to their present action quickly took the place of the surprise and indignation that Don Agostino had felt at the way in which the people had suddenly turned against him.
Without hesitation, and with a demeanor as calm and composed as though he were mounting the steps of his pulpit, he ascended the double stone staircase leading from the court-yard to the doors from which he had issued only a minute or two previously. The doors were shut and bolted now. The servants had fled precipitately at the sight of the entrance-gates giving way before the assault of the mob, and Don Agostino found himself alone with an angry and menacing crowd confronting him, and behind him the great Renaissance palace of Cardinal Acorari, with its portal barred, and the wooden shutters outside the windows on the piano nobile already closed by its inmates. He stopped at the top of the first flight of steps; and, advancing to the stone balustrade, looked down on the peasants below him.
They were still crowded together round the entrance-gates, and seemed as though uncertain what their next move should be. Possibly, too, they were taken aback at finding themselves within a deserted court-yard, with closed windows all round them, and nothing but the solitary black figure of Don Agostino standing in front of the entrance to that portion of the castle inhabited by the princess and Bianca Acorari.
Drawing himself up to his full height, Don Agostino made a gesture as though to wave back a group of peasants who, detaching themselves from the rest, were approaching the flight of steps on which he stood—a gesture that was almost imperious.
"You have broken your word to me," he cried; "you, and those who have sent you here and are afraid to come themselves! You promised that you would make no move until I returned from the castle—" Shouts of "Abbasso il pretaccio! Liar—traitor!" interrupted and drowned his words.
Don Agostino's eyes flashed with anger.