Wilkins was afraid.
There was nothing for it but to get out. Useless to try to go on
sitting in the fly repeating San Salvatore. Every time they said it,
and their voices each time were fainter, Beppo and the other man merely
echoed it in a series of loud shouts. If only they had learned Italian
when they were little. If only they could have said, "We wish to be
driven to the door." But they did not even know what door was in
Italian. Such ignorance was not only contemptible, it was, they now
saw, definitely dangerous. Useless, however, to lament it now.
Useless to put off whatever it was that was going to happen to them by
trying to go on sitting in the fly. They therefore got out.
The two men opened their umbrellas for them and handed them to
them. From this they received a faint encouragement, because they
could not believe that if these men were wicked they would pause to
open umbrellas. The man with the lantern then made signs to them to
follow him, talking loud and quickly, and Beppo, they noticed, remained
behind. Ought they to pay him? Not, they thought, if they were going
to be robbed and perhaps murdered. Surely on such an occasion one did
not pay. Besides, he had not after all brought them to San Salvatore.
Where they had got to was evidently somewhere else.
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