On her knees beside the bed, Maria Selva was wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

There was no one else in the cave.

Near the luminous entrance the great cross, carved unevenly on the wall of yellowish stone, was repeating at that moment a dark and solemn word.
"Hope in God!" Benedetto answered the old woman gently.

He went to the bed, bent over the sick man and felt his pulse.

The old woman stopped crying, the sufferer stopped cursing and groaning.