Tommaso and Ferralti, who were nearest, paused instinctively.  It was now impossible for them to prevent the tragedy about to be enacted.  The Duke, spurred on by fear, was yet twenty paces in their rear, and in a moment he also stopped, clasping his hands in a gesture of vain entreaty.

“Listen, Lugui!” his mother called to him, in a dear, high voice.  “This is the child that has come between us and turned you from a man into a coward.  Here alone is the cause of our troubles.  Behold!  I will remove it forever from our path.”

With the words she lifted Tato high above her head and turned toward the pit—­that terrible cleft in the rocks which was believed to have no bottom.

At her first movement Tommaso had raised his gun, and the Duke, perceiving this, called to him in an agonized voice to fire.  But either the brigand wavered between his loyalty to the Duke or the Duchessa, or he feared to injure Tato, for he hesitated to obey and the moments were precious.

The child’s fate hung in the balance when Ferralti snatched the weapon from the brigand’s hands and fired it so hastily that he scarcely seemed to take aim.

A wild cry echoed the shot.  The woman collapsed and fell, dropping Tato at her feet, where they both tottered at the edge of the pit.  The child, however, clung desperately to the outer edge of the flat stone, while the Duchessa’s inert form seemed to hesitate for an instant and then disappeared from view.

Tommaso ran forward and caught up the child, returning slowly along the path to place it in the father’s arms.  Ferralti was looking vaguely from the weapon he held to the pit, and then back again, as if not fully understanding what he had done.

“Thank you, signore,” said the Duke, brokenly, “for saving my precious child.”

“But I have slain your mother!” cried the young man, horrified.

“The obligation is even,” replied the duke.  “She was also your grandmother.”

Ferralti stood motionless, his face working convulsively, his tongue refusing to utter a sound.

“But he did not shoot my grandmother at all,” said Tato, who was sobbing against her father’s breast; “for I heard the bullet strike the rock beside us.  My grandmother’s strength gave way, and she fainted.  It was that that saved me, padre mia.”

CHAPTER XXII

NEWS AT LAST

Kenneth Forbes had always been an unusual boy.  He had grown up in an unfriendly atmosphere, unloved and uncared for, and resented this neglect with all the force of his impetuous nature.  He had hated Aunt Jane, and regarded her as cruel and selfish—­a fair estimate of her character—­until Aunt Jane’s nieces taught him to be more considerate and forgiving.  Patricia, especially, had exercised a gentler influence upon the arbitrary youth, and as a consequence they had become staunch friends.