"Besides, the thirty thousand lire!"' said Calabressa, eagerly. "Do you know what that is? Ah, you English have always too much money!"
"No doubt," said Edwards, with a smile. "We are all up to the neck in gold."
"Thirty thousand lire a year, and the favor of the Vatican; what fools Granaglia and I were to laugh! But perhaps we will find that the Council were wiser."
They had now got out to Posilipo, and the stormy sunset had waned, leaving the sky overclouded and dusk. Calabressa, having first looked up and down the road, stopped by the side of a high wall, over which projected a number of the broken, gray-green, spiny leaves of the cactus—a hedge at the foot of the terrace above.
"Peste!" said he. "How the devil is one to find it out in the dark?"
"Find what out?"
"My good friend," said he, in a whisper, "you are not able by chance to see a bit of thread—a bit of red thread—tied round one of those big leaves?"
Edwards glanced up.
"Not I."