Fabrizio ran to the carriage. “Have you a looking-glass?” he cried to Marietta. Marietta, very pale, was staring at him, and did not answer. The old woman, with the greatest coolness, opened a green workbag and handed Fabrizio a small mirror about the size of a man’s hand, with a handle to it. Fabrizio felt his face all over as he peered into the glass. “My eyes are all right,” said he. “That’s a great thing.” Then he looked at his teeth; they were not broken. “Then why does it hurt me so?” he murmured.
The old woman replied: “Because the top of your cheek has been crushed between Giletti’s sword and the bone we all have there. It’s all blue and horribly swelled. Put on leeches at once, and it will be nothing at all.”
“Ah, leeches at once,” said Fabrizio, laughing, and he recovered all his self-possession. He saw the workmen gathering round Giletti, looking at him without daring to touch him.
“Why don’t you help the man?” he shouted. “Take his coat off him!” He would have proceeded, but raising his eyes he saw, some three hundred paces off, five or six men advancing along the high-road, with slow and measured step, toward the spot on which he stood.
“Those are gendarmes,” thought he to himself, “and as there’s a man dead they will arrest me, and I shall have the pleasure of making my solemn entry into the city of Parma with them! What a nice story for the courtiers who are the Raversi’s friends and hate my aunt!” Instantly, and as quick as lightning, he threw all the money he had in his pockets to the astonished workmen, and jumped into the carriage.
“Prevent those gendarmes from following me,” he shouted to the men, “and I will make your fortunes. Tell them I am innocent, that the man attacked me and would have killed me. And you,” he added to the vetturino, “make your horses gallop! You shall have four gold napoleons if you get across the Po before those fellows can reach me.”
“All right,” said the vetturino; “don’t be in a fright! Those men yonder are on foot, and if my little horses only trot they will be left far behind.” As he spoke he shook them up into a gallop.
Our hero was much offended by the coachman’s use of the word fright. He really had been in a horrible fright after receiving the blow from the sword pommel in his face.
“We may meet people on horseback coming this way,” said the vetturino, thinking of his four napoleons, “and the men who are following us may shout to them to stop us.” This meant “Reload your weapons.”
“Ah, how brave you are, my little abbé!” cried Marietta, and she kissed Fabrizio. The old woman had thrust her head out of the window; presently she drew it in again.