Trump Card Appears

  255         CHAPTER VII   The Professor Plays His Trump Card   274         CHAPTER VIII   Hours of Bitterness   286         CHAPTER IX   [Pg xiii]
[Pg xiv] For Bread, for Italy, for God   339         CHAPTER X   Signora Luisa, Come Home!   363         CHAPTER XI   Shadows and Dawn   393         CHAPTER XII   Phantoms   418         CHAPTER XIII   Flight   434               PART THIRD           CHAPTER I   The Sage Speaks   465         CHAPTER II   The Summons to Arms   489

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Part First

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CHAPTER I
RISOTTO AND TRUFFLES

On the lake a cold breva [A] was blowing, striving to drive away the grey clouds which clung heavily about the dark mountain-tops. Indeed, when the Pasottis reached Casarico on their way down from Albogasio Superiore, it had not yet begun to rain. The waves beat and thundered on the shore, jostling the boats at their moorings, while flashing tongues of white foam showed, here and there, as far as the frowning banks of the Doi over yonder. But down in the west, at the end of the lake, a line of light could be seen, a sign of approaching calm, of the diminishing breva, and behind the gloomy Caprino hill appeared the first misty rain. Pasotti, in his full dress black overcoat, a tall hat on his head, his hand grasping a thick bamboo walking-stick, was pacing nervously along the shore, peering now in this direction, now in that, or stopping to beat his stick upon the ground, and to shout for that ass of a boatman, who had not yet appeared.

The little black boat, with its red cushions, its red and white awning, its movable seat, used only on special occasions, fixed crosswise in its place, the oars lying ready amidship, was struggling, buffeted by the waves, between two coal barges, which hardly moved.

"Pin!" shouted Pasotti, growing more and more angry. "Pin!"

The only answer was the regular, constant thundering of the waves on the shore, and the bumping of one boat against another. At that moment one would have said there was not so much as a live dog in the whole of Casarico. Only a plaintive, old voice, like the husky falsetto of a ventriloquist, groaned from beneath the portico—

"Hadn't we better walk?"

At last Pin appeared in the direction of San Mamette.

"Hurry up, there!" shrieked Pasotti, raising his arms. The man began to run.

"Beast!" Pasotti roared. "It was with good reason they gave you the name of a dog!"

"Hadn't we better walk, Pasotti?" groaned the plaintive voice. "Let us walk!"

Pasotti continued to abuse the boatman, who was hastily unfastening the chain of his boat from a ring, fixed in the bank. Presently he turned towards the portico, with an authoritative air, and jerking his chin, motioned to some one to come forward.

"Let us walk, Pasotti!" the voice groaned once more.

He shrugged his shoulders, made a rough gesture of command with his hand, and started down towards the boat.

Then an old lady appeared under one of the arches of the portico, her lean person enveloped in an Indian shawl, below which a black silk skirt showed. Her head was surmounted by a fashionable bonnet, spindling, and lofty, trimmed with tiny yellow roses, and black lace. Two black curls framed the wrinkled face; the eyes were large and gentle, and the wide mouth was shaded by a faint moustache.

"Oh Pin!" she exclaimed, clasping her canary-coloured gloves, and pausing on the bank to gaze helplessly at the boatman. "Can we really venture out with the lake in this state?"

Her husband made a still more imperious gesture, and his face