“Ah, friend Turridu, you have really made up your mind to kill me?”
“Yes, I told you so; ever since I saw my old mother going out to feed the chickens, her face floats all the time before my eyes.”
“Then open your eyes wide,” Alfio called to him, “for I am going to square accounts with you.”
And as he stood on guard, crouching ever, so as to hold his left hand upon his wound which was aching, and with his elbow almost touching the ground, he suddenly caught up a handful of dust and threw it into his opponent’s eyes.
“Oh!” howled Turridu, “I am done for!”
He sought to save himself by making desperate leaps backward; but Alfio overtook him with another blow in the stomach and a third in the throat.
“And the third is for the honor of my house, that you made free with. Now, perhaps, your mother will forget to feed her chickens.”
Turridu stumbled about for a moment, here and there among the prickly pears, and then fell like a log. The blood gurgled in a crimson foam out of his throat, and he had no chance even to gasp out, “Oh, mother mine!”
THE SILVER CRUICIFIX
BY ANTONIO FOGAZZARO