"How might that be?" said the young man.
"Are we done fighting? I wish to make a proposal to you."
The Filippeschi spokesman glanced at his fellows. "What say you?"
"Alfredo was my cousin," said a tall bravo in a rust-colored cape. "But I cannot avenge him alone."
"Alfredo was impetuous," said the young man. "He acted before I gave an order."
"You are no leader, Marco, if you will not undertake the vendetta for one of your men."
The vendetta. These Italians are like the desert tribesmen. Kill one of them, and you have his family to deal with.
"I will show you what kind of a leader I am if you speak that way to me again," said Marco.
"Enough, enough," said one of the other bravos, and the man in the rust-colored cape shrugged.
It was now almost daylight, and Daoud studied the face of the young man called Marco. He could not be more than seventeen, Daoud thought, looking at his smooth cheeks and downy black mustache.