She saw that one of the
men was carrying what seemed to be the body of a man. She instinctively
crossed herself, as they ran on towards the end of the canal, and when
she could see them no longer in the shadow, she drew back into the room,
momentarily forgetting Giovanni, and already running over in her head
the wonderful conversation she was going to have with her mistress as
soon as the young girl came back to her room.
Pasquale, meanwhile, withdrew his feet from the old leathern slippers he
wore, and noiselessly stole down the corridor and along the garden path,
to find out what Giovanni was doing. When he came to the laboratory, he
saw that the window was now shut, as well as the door, and that Giovanni
had set the lamp on the floor behind the further end of the annealing
oven. Its bright light shot upwards to the dark ceiling, leaving the
front of the laboratory almost in the dark. Pasquale listened and he
heard the sharp tapping of a hammer on stone. He understood at once that
Giovanni had shut himself in to search for something, and would
therefore be busy some time.
Without noise he crossed the garden to the entrance of the main furnace
room and went into the passage.
"Come out quickly!" he whispered, as his seaman's eyes made out
Marietta's figure in a gloom that would have been total darkness to a
landsman; and he took hold of the girl's arm to lead her away.
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