The foremost of them, who was a sullen-looking, aged man, advanced from the rest a little, and approached her.
'It is you who live below there?' he cried roughly.
She was mute.
The old man was the steward of that absent Neapolitan prince who owned the house at Santa Tarsilla which had been occupied by Joconda for so many years; the steward who at her sudden death had made pretence of a year's rent being due, and under that pretext sold her chattels.
To him there had gone a man of San Lionardo, leading with him his little son, and the two together had told him how on those moors which had been for a thousand years a portion of the fief of the Altamonte princes there had been found buche delle fate by a girl, who had stolen the treasure possibly, and made of the tombs her home. The little boy, who was no other than Zefferino, deposed gravely to having seen mountains of gold and jewels under the earth. In this country vengeance may doze and wait, but does not die.
The imagination and avarice of the steward were inflamed to fever heat.
