"If not, let one of you go for a sledge hammer.
Try it with the butts of your halberds against the lock, one, two, three
and all at once."
"Oh, break down the door!" cried Pasquale derisively. "It is of oak and
iron, and it cost good money, and you shall pay for it, you lubberly
ours."
But the men pounded away with a good will.
"Open the door!" cried Giovanni from the opposite window, at the top of
his lungs.
The sight of the destruction of property for which he might have to
account to his father was very painful to him. But he could not make
himself heard in the terrific din, or else Pasquale suspected the truth
and pretended that he could not hear. The porter had seen Marietta a
moment in the gloom, and he knew that she had gone back to warn Zorzi.
He hoped to give them both time to hide themselves, and he now retired
from the grating and began to strengthen the door, first by putting two
more heavy oak bars in their places across it near the top and bottom,
and further by bringing the scanty furniture from his lodge and piling
it up against the panels.
Meanwhile the pounding continued at a great rate, and Giovanni thought
it better to go down and interfere in person, since he could not make
himself heard. The servants were all roused by this time, and many heads
were looking out of upper windows, not only from Beroviero's house, but
from the houses higher up, beyond the wooden bridge.
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