Don Silverio sprang to his feet.
"Adone! Have you taken Adone Alba?"
"The ringleader! By Bacchus! Yes," cried the brigadier, with a laugh.
"He will get thirty years at the galleys. Your flock does you honour,
Reverendissimo!"
"Let me go to my flock," said Don Silverio; and some tone in his
voice, some gesture of his hand, had an authority in them which
compelled the carabineer to let him pass unopposed.
He went down the stone passage to the archway of the open door. A
soldier stood sentinel there. The street was crowded with armed men.
The air was full of clangour and clamour; above all rose the shrill
screams of the women.
"No one passes," said the sentinel, and he levelled the mouth of his
musket at Don Silverio's breast.
"I pass," said the priest, and with his bare hand he grasped the
barrel of the musket and forced it upward.
"I rule here, in the name of God," he said in a voice which rolled
down the street with majestic melody, dominating the screams, the
oaths, the hell of evil sound; and he went down the steps of his
house, and no man dared lay a hand on him.
He could hear the trampling of horses and the jingling of spears and
scabbards; some lancers who had beaten the moors that night were
coming up the street. Half a company of soldiers of the line,
escorted by carabineers, came in from the country, climbing the steep
street, driving before them a rabble of young men, disarmed, wounded,
lame, with their hands tied behind them, the remnant of those who had
met at the tomb of Asdrubal in the night just passed. They had been
surprised, seized, surrounded by a wall of steel; some had answered
to their leader's call and had defended themselves, but these had
been few; most of them had thrown down their weapons and begged for
mercy when the cold steel of the soldiers was at their throats. Adone
had fought as though the shade of Asdrubal had passed into him; but
his friends had failed him; his enemies had outnumbered him a score
to one; he had been overpowered, disarmed, bound, dragged through his
native heather backward and upward to Ruscino, reaching the shadow of
the walls as the sun rose.
The child lay dead by the stagnant pond, and the men she had led to
their death lay choked with the weeds and the slime; but of that he
knew naught.
All he knew was that his cause was lost, his life forfeit, his last
hope dead.
Only by his stature and his bearing could he be recognised. His
features were black from powder and gore; his right arm hung broken
by a shot; his clothing had been torn off him to his waist; he was
lame; but he alone still bore himself erect as he came on up the
village street. The others were huddled together in a fainting,
tottering, crazed mob; all were sick and swooning from the long
march, beaten when they paused by the buckles of belts and the flat
of sabres.
Don Silverio saw that sight in front of his church, in the white,
clear light of early morning, and on the air there was a sickly
stench of sweat, of powder, of wounds, of dust.
He went straight to the side of Adone.
"My son, my son! I will come with you. They cannot refuse me that."
But the soul of Adone was as a pit in which a thousand devils strove
for mastery. There was no light in it, no conscience, no gratitude,
no remorse.
"Judas!" he cried aloud; and there was foam on his lips and there was
red blood in his eyes. "Judas! You betrayed us!"
Then, as a young bull lowers his horns, he bent his head and bit
through and through to the bone the wrist of the soldier who held
him; in terror and pain the man shrieked and let go his hold; Adone's
arms remained bound behind him, but his limbs, though they dripped
blood, were free.
He fronted the church, and that breach in the blocks of the Etruscan
wall through which Nerina had taken her path to the river a few hours
before. He knew every inch of the descent. Hundreds of times in his
boyhood had he run along the ruined wall and leaped in sport over the
huge stones, to spring with joyous shouts into the river below.
As the soldier with a scream of agony let go his hold, he broke away
like a young lion released from the den. Before they could seize him
he had sprung over the wall, and was tearing down the slope; the
linesmen, rushing in swift pursuit behind him, stumbled, rolled down
the slippery grass, fell over the blocks of granite. He, sure of
foot, knowing the way from childhood, ran down the hill safely,
though blood poured from his wounds and blinded his sight, and a
sickness like the swooning of death dulled his brain. Beyond him and
below him was the river. He dashed into it like a hunted beast
swimming to sanctuary; he ran along in it, with its brightness and
coolness rippling against his parched throat. He stooped and kissed
it for the last time.
"Take me! -- save me! -- comrade, brother, friend!" he cried aloud to
it with his last breath of life; and he plunged where it was deepest.
Then the sky grew dark, and only the sound of the water was heard in
his ears. By the bridge its depth was great, and the current was
strong under the shade of the ruined keep. It swept his body onward
to the sea.