"And what is to be done, Signore?" demanded the podesta, stopping short
in the street.
"We must do as well as we can, under the circumstances. My duty is to
look out for ze Ving-and-Ving, and yours to look out for the town.
Should the stranger actually enter the bay and bring his broadside to
bear on this steep hill, there is not a chamber window that will not
open on the muzzles of his guns. You will grant me permission to haul
into the inner harbor, where we shall be sheltered by the buildings from
his shot, and then perhaps it will be well enough to send my people into
the nearest battery. I look for bloodshed and confusion ere long."
All this was said with so much apparent sincerity that it added to the
podesta's mystification. Calling a neighbor to him, he sent the latter
up the hill with a message to Andrea Barrofaldi, and then he hurried
down toward the port, it being much easier for him, just at that moment,
to descend than to ascend. Raoul kept at his side, and together they
reached the water's edge.
The podesta was greatly addicted to giving utterance to any predominant
opinion of the moment, being one of those persons who _feel_ quite as
much as they _think_. On the present occasion he did not spare the
frigate, for, having caught at the bait that his companion had so
artfully thrown out to him, he was loud in the expression of his
distrust. All the signalling and showing of colors he now believed to be
a republican trick; and precisely in proportion as he became resentful
of the supposed fraud of the ship, was he disposed to confide blindly in
the honesty of the lugger.
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