"Silvestro," he called softly, without moving from his ambush or turning
his eyes from those he watched, "Silvestro, come here!"
The obedient stripling came eagerly, and knelt as close to his master as
he dared--just so as to touch him.
"Eccomi, Pilade," says he.
"Get back over the brow as fast as you can," said his friend, "and hide
in the cave. Wait there till I come. Go now; do as I bid you."
Silvestro went at once.
Castracane squared his jaw and waited. Every now and then he muttered to
himself, with lazy lifted eyebrows. It was too much trouble to shrug.
"Poor little devil--it would be a shame! And I knocked him down for
nothing. And he loves me, per Bacco! Certainly, I have never been loved
before--by a man, I mean--except by my big old mother out yonder, and
she is a woman. She'll be sorry--she's old--eh, she's horribly old!
Accursed, most rotten ass, Andrea! The whole story out of him--and a lie
at that. Cospetto! I can't let the poor lad swing. And I did knock him
down--and he cried like a girl; but not because I grassed him. By my
soul, I'll do it--there, then!" Then he mortised his chin in his brown
hands and blinked while he waited.
He had not so very long; but you might have given him an hour, it would
have made no difference to Castracane then. The guard came reeking to
the brow of the hill; Andrea, haltered, was with them. Alessandro,
mopping his head and cursing the flies, came last.
"Look yonder, Marco," said one. The other said "Ha!" and pounced upon
his treasure. He had him by the ear and was pricking him with his sabre
in the fleshy parts.
"Easy, friend," said Castracane; "I'm not running away."
He went like a sheep to the Sub-Prefect. Andrea watched him twittering.
"What is your name, fellow?" said that heated officer.
Andrea's eyes yearned for his mate's. Castracane gave him a terrible
look.
"Silvestro is my name, Signore," says he; and Andrea knew his game.
"We have found our bird, I think," said Alessandro, turning to his men.
"Yes, Excellency, this is the lad we want. There was another of
them--Castracane they call him."
"Ah, yes. Where is Castracane, fellow?"
"He is over Venda. Gone to Noventa, to his mother," replied Castracane.
"Well, we don't want him so far as I know. Now, attend to me. You are
suspected of that business in the Via della Gatta."
Castracane shrugged. "Chi lo sa?" says he.
"We shall see about that. Meantime, what have you to urge?"
Castracane scratched his head. "What would you have me say, Messere? I
am a poor lad. You are many, and I am one."
Alessandro turned to his archers. "Bring him down to the hermitage," he
said. "I am going to eat something. Tie him up and wait for me there.
You can let the other go. This is the lad, fast enough. Avanti!"
So the shackles were taken off Andrea's raw wrists, and transferred to
Castracane's; the neck halter was shifted; Castracane was bond, Andrea
free. Then Messer Alessandro went down the hill to what supper the
hermit could afford.
In about half an hour Silvestro, who had been fidgeting in the cave,
came out, restless to have stayed so long beyond sight or hearing of his
Pilade. His reception by Andrea was shocking. The gaping boy sprang
forward with his arms out.
"Ha! Here is a terrible affair," he wailed.
"Our Castracane is taken, and for your fault; he will be hanged, and for
you! Make your supper of it, you Jew-jerker. What sacrifice, Dio mio!
There has been nothing like it, I suppose, since Giulio Cesare kissed
Brutus, or Judas Gesù Cristo. You kissed him this morning; you know you
did! You always do, you blush-faced sneak! And for that kiss he has
taken your sins upon him, and is to be hanged. Fie, Judas, fie! Oh,
Madonna Maria, the terrible affair!"
So ending as he began, he danced about the hill-top, wringing his hands.
But Silvestro, very pale, came quickly up, and laid hold of him.
"Tell me all, Andrea," says he; "for I know nothing except that I love
Castracane and will save him. Who has taken him?"
"It is a lord--the Sotto-Prefetto--the hook-nosed gentleman with thin
eyebrows; him they call Messer Alessandro. Castracane is tied like a
netted calf--his hands behind him, and them to his neck. What's the good
of his strength? He is as strong as the town bull; but if he writhes his
hands he strangles, and if he thrusts his neck he chokes. Ecco!"
Silvestro was staring down into the valley. "Where is Messer Alessandro,
Andrea? Tell me quickly, for I can save Castracane."
"He is eating with the hermit in the wood. But what can you do?"
"You stay here," said Silvestro with decision; "that's what you can do.
I'll go down."
The sound of breaking through undergrowth was followed by rapping at the
hermit's door.
"What do you want, boy?" said the pious man to the ragged figure in the
dark.
"Messer Alessandro, my reverend--Messer Alessandro at once."
"Are you come about the Jew? He will bear no more. He is eating. He
tells me he knows more about the Jew than he does about our holy
religion--which is a dangerous state of things, except that he is sick
to death of him."
"It is not about the Jew, father," said Silvestro, out of breath. "Tell
him it is about--Ippolita."
"Va bene," said the hermit. "Stay where you are."
Messer Alessandro dropped his tools with a clatter, wiped his mouth,
beat his breast, and began to walk up and down the cell.
"Send him in, hermit, send him in! Forty ducats if he has any news, ten
ducats in any case for bringing my thoughts from Jews on earth to
Ippolita in Paradise. Despatch, despatch, send me the goatherd."
The pale apparition of a fair-haired boy, timid in rags, cloaked in
rusty black, with bandaged legs, and his old felt hat crushed against
his breast, stood in the doorway.
"Oh, boy!" cried Alessandro, gesticulating with one hand, "may you be my
Hermes, my swiftfoot messenger. Tell me what you know of the divine
Ippolita."
"I know where she is, Signor Sotto-Prefetto," says Silvestro huskily.
"Tell me, by Venus and all her doves!"
For answer the blushing boy looked appealingly at Alessandro, with eyes
so deeply, limpidly, searchingly blue, with lips so tenderly parted,
with a smile fluttering so timidly, and limbs so drooping under their
disguise, yet so quickly transformed from frightened lad's to bashful
beauty's, that--
"Saints of the Heavenly Court--ah, God of Love!" cried Alessandro; and
the Sub-Prefect fell upon his knees before the goatherd.
Later you might have seen that same goatherd enthroned in the hermit's
armchair, his hands locked in his lap, his legs modestly disposed, his
head gracefully bowed, a blush on his burnt cheeks, his long lashes
casting a shade, his breath coming and going with a pretty haste--and
at his feet a splendid gentleman, booted and cuirassed, who poured out
voluble assurances of eternal respect, of love undying, of the sovranty
of Venus Urania, and the communion of beautiful minds.
"I will see you again; yes, I will certainly see you again, since you so
desire it," said Silvestro, after a good deal of this. "And I will give
you what you ask, if it is in my power. But you must trust me so far:
you must go away from here, and wait till I send word. I shall owe you
every gratitude, every reward I can give you. Now, however, you must let
me go; and I must take with me the goatherd, who is as innocent of the
Jew's death as I am."
"Ah, I will do all that you wish," sighed Alessandro. "Sacred lady, I
will do it. But surely you will have pity upon a humble slave who has
served you long and faithfully, and now is putting himself in peril for
your pleasure. Pay me my poor fee, lady. Enrich me boundlessly with what
costs you so little."