shoe in two with his hands, and break a five franc piece with his thumbs
and forefingers as another man breaks a biscuit.

As Ruggiero came out of the tunnel and reached the platform of rock from
which the last part of the descent goes down to the sea in the open air,
he stood still a moment and expressed his determination in a low tone.
There was no one near to hear him.

"Whatever she asks," he said. "Truly it is of great importance what
becomes of me! If it is a little thing it costs nothing. If it is a
great thing--well, I will do it if I can. Then I will say,
'Excellency'--no--'Signorina, here it is done. And I beg to kiss your
Excellency's hand, because I am going to the galleys and you will not
see me any more.' And then they will put me in, and it will be finished,
and I shall always have the satisfaction."

Ruggiero produced a fragment of a cigar from his cap and a match from
the same safe place and began to smoke, looking at the sea. People not
used to the peculiarities of southern thought would perhaps have been
surprised at the desperate simplicity of Ruggiero's statement to
himself. But those who have been long familiar with men of his country
and class must all have heard exactly such words uttered more than once
in their experience, and will remember that in some cases at least they
were not empty threats, which were afterwards very exactly and
conscientiously fulfilled by him who uttered them, and who now either
wears a green cap at Ponza or Ischia, or is making a fortune in South
America, having had the luck to escape as a stowaway on a foreign
vessel.

Nor did it strike Ruggiero as at all improbable that Beatrice might some
day wish to be rid of the Conte di San Miniato, and might express such a
wish, ever so vaguely, within Ruggiero's hearing. He had the bad taste
to judge her by himself, and of course if she really hated her betrothed
she would wish him to die. It was a sin, doubtless, to wish anybody
dead, and it was a greater sin to put out one's hands and kill the
person in question. But it was human nature, according to Ruggiero's
simple view, and of course Beatrice felt like other human beings in
this matter and all the principal affairs of life. He had made up his
mind, and he never repeated the words he had spoken to himself. He was a
simple man, and he puffed at his stump of a black cigar and strolled
down to the boat to find out whether the Cripple and the Son of the Fool
had spliced tha