"
"With us?" said the lawyer, who had not bargained when he left his
home, for any such expedition. "Well, I don't mind helping you,
Signor Marchese, in your search," he added, after a moment's
consideration; "but I am not going to walk to the Pineta this
afternoon; and I should think you must have had enough of it for to-
day. But I will tell you what I can do. We will send one of these
fellows to my house to order my servant to come here with my
calessino as quick as he can; and if these men are the people we
want--What are they doing? They are carrying something! Why surely--
Signor Marchese!" said the old lawyer, looking into his companion's
face, while a strange expression of understanding, mixed with a
blank look of dismay and alarm, stole over his own features.
"What is it?--What have they got?--Why, heavens and earth! it is--
Signor Fortini, is it not a dead body they are carrying? My God!"
The young man griped his companion's arm hard, as he spoke, and the
action enabled the lawyer to remark that he was shaking all over.
In another minute the men whom they had seen coming along the road
were close to the gate. They were six in number; and they were
bearing--somewhat, between them. They advanced beneath the covered
gateway, and there, as it is necessary to do in the case of
everything brought into the town, they set their burthen down on the
flag-stones, at the feet of the officers of the gate, and of the
Marchese and the lawyer.
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