“We are not your servants,” said the gentleman with impatience.  “Do not attempt any brawling I advise you; it will tell against you and cannot serve you in any way.”

“The soil and the water are mine, and you meddle with them,” said Adone.  “If you were honest men you would not be ashamed of what you do, and would declare your errand.  Brawling is not in my habit; but I will drive my oxen over you.  The land and the waters are mine.”

The chief of the group gave a disdainful, incredulous gesture, but the others pulled him by the sleeve and argued with him in low tones and a strange tongue, which Adone thought was German.  The leader of the group was a small man with a keen and mobile face and piercing eyes; he did not yield easily to the persuasions of his companions; he was disposed to be combative; he was offended by what seemed to him the insults of a mere peasant.

Adone went back to his oxen, standing dozing with drooped heads; he gathered up the reins of rope and mounted the waggon, raising the heads of the sleepy beasts.  He held his goad in his hand; the golden gorze was piled behind him; he was in full sunlight, his hair was lifted by the breeze from his forehead; his face was flushed and set and stern.  They saw that he would keep his word and drive down on to them, and make his oxen knock them down and the wheels grind their bodies into pulp.  They had no arms of any kind, they felt they had no choice but to submit:  and did so, with sore reluctance.

“He looks like a young god,” said one of them with an angry laugh.  “Mortals cannot fight against the gods.”

With discomfiture they retreated before him and went along the grassy path northward, as Nerina had seen them do on the day of their first arrival.

So far Adone had conquered.

But no joy or pride of a victor was with him.  He stood and watched them pass away with a heavy sense of impending ill upon him; the river was flowing joyously, unconscious of its doom, but on him, though he knew nothing, and conceived nothing, of the form which the approaching evil would take, a great weight of anxiety descended.

He got down from the waggon when he had seen them disappear, and continued his uninterrupted work amongst the furze; and he remained on the same spot long after the waggon was filled, lest in his absence the intruders should return.  Only when the sun set did he turn the heads of the oxen homeward.

He said nothing to the women, but when he had stalled and fed his cattle he changed his leathern breeches and put a clean shirt on his back, and went down the twilit fields and across the water to Ruscino; he told his mother that he would sup with Don Silverio.

When Adone entered the book-room his friend was seated at a deal table laden with volumes and manuscripts, but he was neither writing nor reading, nor had he lighted his lamp.  The moonlight shone through the vine climbing up and covering the narrow window.  He looked up and saw by Adone’s countenance that something was wrong.