TWO nights after this Pietro Vanucci and Andrea sat waiting supper for
Gerard.
The former grew peevish. It was past nine o'clock. At last he sent
Andrea to Gerard's room on the desperate chance of his having come in
unobserved. Andrea shrugged his shoulders and went.
He returned without Gerard, but with a slip of paper. Andrea could not
read, as scholars in his day and charity boys in ours understand the
art; but he had a quick eye, and had learned how the words Pietro
Vanucci looked on paper.
"That is for you, I trow," said he, proud of his intelligence.
Pietro snatched it, and read it to Andrea, with his satirical comments.
"'Dear Pietro, dear Andrea, life is too great a burden.'
"_So 'tis, my lad; but that is no reason for being abroad at
supper-time. Supper is not a burden._
"'Wear my habits!'
"_Said the poplar to the juniper bush._
"'And thou, Andrea, mine amethyst ring; and me in both your hearts, a
month or two.'
"_Why, Andrea?_
"'For my body, ere this ye read, it will lie in Tiber. Trouble not to
look for it. 'Tis not worth the pains. Oh unhappy day that it was born;
oh happy night that rids me of it.
"'Adieu! adieu!
"'The broken-hearted Gerard.'
"Here is a sorry jest of the peevish rogue," said Pietro. But his pale
cheek and chattering teeth belied his words. Andrea filled the house
with his cries.
"Oh, miserable day! O, calamity of calamities! Gerard, my friend, my
sweet patron! Help! help! He is killing himself! Oh, good people, help
me save him!" And after alarming all the house he ran into the street,
bareheaded, imploring all good Christians to help him save his friend.
A number of persons soon collected.
But poor Andrea could not animate their sluggishness. Go down to the
river? No. It was not their business. What part of the river? It was a
wild goose chase.
It was not lucky to go down to the river after sunset. Too many ghosts
walked those banks all night.
A lacquey, however, who had been standing some time opposite the house,
said he would go with Andrea; and this turned three or four of the
younger ones.
The little band took the way to the river.
The lacquey questioned Andrea.
Andrea, sobbing, told him about the letter, and Gerard's moody ways of
late.
That lacquey was a spy of the Princess Clælia.
Their Italian tongues went fast till they neared the Tiber.
But the moment they felt the air from the river, and the smell of the
stream in the calm spring night, they were dead silent.
The moon shone calm and clear in a cloudless sky. Their feet sounded
loud and ominous. Their tongues were hushed.
Presently hurrying round a corner they met a man. He stopped irresolute
at sight of them.
The man was bareheaded, and his dripping hair glistened in the
moonlight: and at the next step they saw his clothes were drenched with
water.
"Here he is," cried one of the young men, unacquainted with Gerard's
face and figure.
The stranger turned instantly and fled.
They ran after him might and main, Andrea leading, and the princess's
lacquey next.
Andrea gained on him: but in a moment he twisted up a narrow alley.
Andrea shot by, unable to check himself; and the pursuers soon found
themselves in a labyrinth in which it was vain to pursue a quick-footed
fugitive who knew every inch of it, and could now only be followed by
the ear.
They returned to their companions, and found them standing on the spot
where the man had stood, and utterly confounded. For Pietro had assured
them that the fugitive had neither the features nor the stature of
Gerard.
"Are ye verily sure?" said they. "He had been in the river. Why, in the
saints' names, fled he at our approach?"
Then said Vanucci, "Friends, methinks this has nought to do with him we
seek. What shall we do, Andrea?"
Here the lacquey put in his word. "Let us track him to the water's side,
to make sure. See, he hath come dripping all the way."
This advice was approved, and with very little difficulty they tracked
the man's course.
But soon they encountered a new enigma.
They had gone scarcely fifty yards ere the drops turned away from the
river, and took them to the gate of a large gloomy building. It was a
monastery.
They stood irresolute before it, and gazed at the dark pile. It seemed
to them to hide some horrible mystery.
But presently Andrea gave a shout. "Here be the drops again," cried he.
"And this road leadeth to the river."
They resumed the chase; and soon it became clear the drops were now
leading them home. The track became wetter and wetter, and took them to
the Tiber's edge. And there on the bank a bucketful appeared to have
been discharged from the stream.
At first they shouted, and thought they had made a discovery; but
reflection showed them it amounted to nothing. Certainly a man had been
in the water, and had got out of it in safety: but that man was not
Gerard. One said he knew a fisherman hard by that had nets and drags.
They found the fisher and paid him liberally to sink nets in the river
below the place, and to drag it above and below; and promised him gold
should he find the body. Then they ran vainly up and down the river,
which flowed so calm and voiceless, holding this and a thousand more
strange secrets. Suddenly Andrea, with a cry of hope, ran back to the
house.
He returned in less than half an hour.
"No," he groaned, and wrung his hands.
"What is the hour?" asked the lacquey.
"Four hours past midnight."
"My pretty lad," said the lacquey, solemnly, "say a mass for thy
friend's soul: for he is not among living men."
The morning broke. Worn out with fatigue, Andrea and Pietro went home,
heart sick.
The days rolled on, mute as the Tiber as to Gerard's fate.