Don Agostino had just breathed a sigh of relief at the effects of his appeal, when a band of some fifty or sixty men, accompanied by as many women and children, rushed into the piazza out of the steep road leading up to the castle from the town.
"The troops!" they shouted. "The troops! They are entering the town now. In a few minutes they will be here!"
A howl of rage answered them from the mob of peasants behind and around Don Agostino.
"Traditore—traditore! porco d'un prete! It was for this you were waiting—deceiving us with your lies till you knew the soldiers would be here! Ah, vigliacco!"
A rush was made at him by those nearest, and Don Agostino had just time to defend himself from a blow dealt with the handle of a broken spade, the end of which was still covered by the rusty iron ferrule. His suspicions were verified now. The Abbé Roux had lied to him, and when Don Agostino had seen him glancing every now and again at his watch, he had been calculating how many minutes might elapse before the appearance of the troops he had caused to be summoned. It had been the knowledge that these troops were in the vicinity that had doubtless given the abbé courage to refuse to listen to any representations, even from Monsieur d'Antin, as to the advisability of treating with the peasants.
It had been the suspicion—nay, almost the certainty, that the Abbé Roux was lying, and that troops had already been requisitioned, which had made Don Agostino determined if possible to persuade the peasants to leave the court-yard of the castle. If the troops should arrive when the mob was within the walls, the peasants would be caught, as it were, in a trap, and any additional act of violence on their part, or error of judgment on the part of the officers of the pubblica sicurezza, who, in accordance with the law, would have to accompany the officer commanding and call upon him to order the soldiers to charge or fire on the crowd, might lead to appalling results.
It had been of the safety of his people that Don Agostino had been thinking, far more than of his own safety, and even now, with the angry mob shouting execrations and threats upon him for his treachery, he reproached himself bitterly for having played into the Abbé Roux's hands, by delaying his exit from the castle until the peasants had already commenced their assault.
He had little time to think of this now, however. It was in vain that he attempted for a moment to make his voice heard above the din. The mob was too angry now, too certain that it had been deceived, to listen to him a second time, and Don Agostino knew it.
He turned and faced the crowd in silence, and the thought of the irony of his situation brought a fleeting smile to his lips. How could the peasants know that he sympathized with them—that it was not he who had deceived them, but that he himself had been deceived?
"Morte—morte al pretaccio! Morte all 'assassino!"