and might be found tranquilly at work in the fields of the Terra Vergine.  But his fears were great.  Unless more soldiery were patrolling the district in all directions it was little likely, he thought, that these men would conduct themselves thus in Ruscino; he had no doubt that it was a concerted movement, directed by the Prefect, and the General commanding the garrisons of the province, and intended to net in one haul the malcontents of the Valdedera.

From his study there was no view upon the street; he could hear the wailing of women and screaming of children from the now closed houses:  that was all.

“What is it your men do to my people?” he said sternly.

The brigadier did not reply; he went on throwing papers into a trunk.

“Where is your warrant for this search?  We are not in a state of siege?” asked Don Silverio.

The man, with a significant gesture, drew his sabre up half way out of its sheath; then let it fall again with a clash.  He vouchsafed no other answer.

Some women’s faces pressed in at the grating of the window which looked on the little garden, scared, blanched, horrified, the white head, and sunburnt features of Gianna foremost.

“Reverendissimo!” they screamed as with one voice.  “They are bringing the lads in from the moors.”

And Gianna shrieked, “Adone!  They have got Adone!”

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