“What are they coming for, sir, to the river?” said the young man as he uncovered his head on the threshold of the chamber.  Don Silverio hesitated to reply; in the moonlight his features looked like a mask of a dead man, it was so white and its lines so deep.

“Why do they come to the river, these strangers?” repeated Adone.  “They would not say.  They were on my land.  I threatened to drive my cattle over them.  Then they went.  But can you guess, sir, why they come?”

Don Silverio still hesitated.  Adone repeated his question with more insistence; he came up to the table and leaned his hands upon it, and looked down on the face of his friend.

“Why do they come?” he repeated a fourth time.  “They must have some reason.  Surely you know?”

“Listen, Adone, and control yourself,” said Don Silverio.  “I saw something in a journal a few days ago which made me go to San Beda.  But there they knew nothing at all of what the newspaper had stated.  What I said startled and alarmed them.  I begged the Prior to acquaint me if he heard of any scheme affecting us.  To-day, only, he has sent a young monk over with a letter to me, for it was only yesterday that he heard that there is a project in Rome to turn the river out of its course, and use it for hydraulic power; to what purpose he does not know.  The townsfolk of San Beda are in entire sympathy with this district and against the scheme, which will only benefit a foreign syndicate.  That is all I know, for it is all he knows; he took his information direct from the syndic, Count Corradini.  My boy, my dear boy, control yourself!”

Adone had dropped down on a chair, and leaning his elbow on the table hid his face upon his hands.  A tremor shook his frame from head to foot.

“I knew it was some deviltry,” he muttered.  “Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! would that I had made the oxen trample them into thousand pieces!  They ought never to have left my field alive!”

“Hush, hush!” said the priest sternly.  “I cannot have such language in my house.  Compose yourself.”

Adone raised his head; his eyes were alight as with fire; his face was darkly red.

“What, sir!  You tell me the river is to be taken away from us, and you ask me to be calm!  It is not in human nature to bear such a wrong in peace.  Take away the Edera!  Take away the water!  They had better cut our throats.  What! a poor wretch who steals a few grapes off a vine, a few eggs from a hen roost, is called a thief and hounded to the galleys, and such robbery as this is to be borne in silence because the thieves wear broadcloth!  It cannot be.  It cannot be; I swear it shall never be whilst I have life.  The river is mine.  We reigned here three hundred years and more; you have told me so.  It is written on the parchments.  I will hold my own.”

Don Silverio was silent; he was silent from remorse.  He had told Adone what, without him, Adone would have lived and died never knowing or dreaming.  He had thought only to stimulate the youth to gentle conduct, honourable pride, perhaps to some higher use of his abilities:  no more than this.