"Bah! She is not here!"
"Not there! Nonsense!" cried her husband; and they all ran up and
peered into the little dark room.
But it was quite true, Mattina was not there.
They looked all round, but there was only the tumbled mattress on the
floor, a red cotton coverlet hanging on a nail in the wall over it,
a straw chair, a pitcher of water in a tin basin, and not a single
cupboard, nook, or corner in which anyone could hide.
"The girl must have crept down quietly while we were talking, and
run away to her uncle's," said the master.
"But the door was locked," objected his wife.
"Impossible."
"But it was, I tell you."
"You meant to lock it but you did not."
"I locked it and double locked it."
"You were in a passion at the moment, and you did not know what you
were doing."
"Since I tell you I turned the key twice with my hand," screamed his
wife, getting very red. "Do I eat straw? I locked it and I locked it
well. Do you not understand Greek? Shall I say it in Chinese?"
Her husband strode into the little room and, taking the lighted candle,
lifted it high above his head.
"You women have no logic! Look!" turning to the others, "can the girl
have climbed through the window?"
It was a tiny barred window over their heads, looking out upon a
courtyard far below.
They all laughed.
"No, certainly!"
"Well, then, she must have got through the door! Come downstairs
now, there is no use in staying up here. In the morning I will go to
her uncle's."
Then as they left the room he turned to his wife who was still
protesting violently that she had locked the door; she would lay her
head that she had.
"Now enough words, wife! Perhaps you think the girl passed through
the wall?"