"
"Ah!" Gemma exclaimed softly; and Martini
repeated in amazement: "The Cardinal?"
"Yes; he threw himself in front of the pistol--
confound him! I suppose Rivarez must have
been startled, for he dropped his pistol-hand and
put the other one up like this"--laying the back
of his left wrist across his eyes--"and of course
they all rushed on him."
"I can't make that out," said Michele. "It's
not like Rivarez to lose his head at a crisis."
"Probably he lowered his pistol for fear of killing
an unarmed man," Martini put in. Michele
shrugged his shoulders.
"Unarmed men shouldn't poke their noses into
the middle of a fight. War is war. If Rivarez
had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of letting
himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there'd
be one honest man the more and one priest the less."
He turned away, biting his moustache. His
anger was very near to breaking down in tears.
"Anyway," said Martini, "the thing's done,
and there's no use wasting time in discussing how
it happened.
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