And he counted out the little paper notes on the table, giving two to Salvatore and two to Gaspare, and putting one under a candlestick.
"I'll keep the score," he added, pulling out a pencil and a sheet of paper. "No play higher than fifty, with a lira when one of you makes 'sette e mezzo' with under four cards."
"Per Dio!" cried Gaspare, flushed with excitement. "Avanti, Salvatore!"
"Avanti, Avanti!" cried Salvatore, in answer, pulling his chair close up to the table, and leaning forward, looking like a handsome bird of prey in the faint candlelight.
They cut for deal and began to play, while Maddalena and Maurice watched.
When Sicilians gamble they forget everything but the game and the money which it brings to them or takes from them. Salvatore and Gaspare were at once passionately intent on their cards, and as the night drew on and fortune favored first one and then the other, they lost all thought of everything except the twenty-five lire which were at stake. When Maddalena slipped away into the darkness they did not notice her departure, and when Maurice laid down the paper on which he had tried to keep the score, and followed her, they were indifferent. They needed no score-keeper, for they had Sicilian memories for money matters. Over the table they leaned, the two candles, now burning low, illuminating their intense faces, their violent eyes, their brown hands that dealt and gathered up the cards, and held them warily, alert for the cheating that in Sicily, when possible, is ever part of the game.
"Carta da cinquanta!"
They had forgotten Maurice's limit for the stakes.
"Carta da cento!"
Their voices died away from Maurice's ears as he stole through the darkness seeking Maddalena.