stoup of the best wine, and came out with it. She went straight up to the carabiniers, and said to them:
'Yon man did me a good turn once. Will you let me give him this to wet his lips? A good man he is not; but he was good once.'
The guards hesitated. They were not churlish; they had a lingering sympathy themselves for their prisoner, who had been taken in a snare at the last, after having been the hero of all Maremma twenty-five years and more, since he had been a mere lad when he had first captured a great English milord, and had let him go with only the loss of one ear cut off, in consideration of a ransom of thirty thousand scudi.
Saturnino, sitting with his head erect, and his great black eyes blazing in a scorn he strove to assume, that he might hide the bitter shame at his heart, heard the voice of the woman, and glanced at her.
The carabinier on his right side, relenting, held the wine towards his mouth. The brigand's hands were tied behind his back, or he would have dashed the pewter cup down. As it was, he would not drink; but his sombre eyes dwelt on the woman.
