All eyes were turned to the four men, each one lying heaped up on the ground, with the blood streaming from his wounds.
'They are dead!'
'Footpads!' said Ercole; 'they wanted to rob you, and did not know you were accompanied.'
'Footpads! Why should footpads rob me this night?' said Checco. 'I wish they were not dead.'
'Look, look!' said a bystander, 'there is one moving.'
The words were hardly out of the man's mouth before one of Ercole's soldiers snatched up his dagger and plunged it in the man's neck, shouting,—
'Bestia!'
A tremor went through the prostrate body, and then it was quite still.
'You fool!' said Matteo, angrily. 'Why did you do that?'