"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the sacred song
If I live, I will kill thee,
If I die, I forgive thee!
You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live—because you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the last—is it not so!"
He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the suppression of Filippi Alieni!"
"I demand—" "I demand—" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!" And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo in testa in our name!"
"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too greedy.—Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless! Admit! Admit!"
"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's.
It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi Alieni, you must now be put to sleep."
Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife. He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs. A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, prone upon his back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope.
"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?"