"It is the plan."
"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir—pardon!—you do not—in your greatness you do not—reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is."
His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence and admission reluctantly broke forth.
"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees—the policemen of the Americans! Ay di me—listen, my dears! Does not this cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little Nancia—Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW"
The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his close stare.
But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his betrothed—it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis in Brazil."
"I do not—pardon!—I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for us?"