"Who is it that is missing?" Peppino had asked of Rinaldo as their boat
was finally coaxed round the corner of Via Santafede into the Ripetta,
shipping a good deal of muddy water in the process.
Rinaldo did not reply till this was bailed out; then, straightening
himself and resuming his rowing, he replied, "Old Bianchi. You know
him, boys, the archæologist. Those poor women think he is drowning
somewhere. It is only on their account that I care what becomes of him."
"Bianchi? Bianchi?" came the chorus of scorn from three cheerful youths
with a wholesome contempt for age and learning. "Ber Bacco!" "It
requires a face! To take us off real work to look for that old bat!"
"Know him, who doesn't? And who would so much as cross the street to
help him?"
Rinaldo waited till he could make himself heard, then he said laughing
at their protests, "You need not even do that. He is down there in
Palazzo Cestaldini, with the Cardinal. See, it is on this side and
quite near."
"Put about," came Peppino's sharp command, and Rinaldo was obliged to
obey with the rest, who were executing the manœuver with much alacrity.
"Now," Peppino continued, when they were once more heading down stream,
"we will go where we are wanted, to help the bakers save their bread
and the butchers their meat. Are we to let the city starve to-morrow,
because old 'Brontolone' is sitting in peace and comfort with the
Cardinal in the piano nobile of Palazza Cestaldini? What do those
females take us for? Pull for Piazza Navora."
"As you will, heartless one," Rinaldo replied, "only we were so near
that it would not have taken five minutes to assure ourselves that the
old brigand was still there, and I could have called up to the women
that he was safe."
"Of course he is safe," snorted Peppino. "The women must learn sense
and have patience. There is man's work to do now. Look out."
They were turning a corner again and bumped into a big boat full of
"guardie," the semi-military police who were responsible for the order
of the city. The leader hailed them joyfully and at once attached them
to his force for the rest of the day, a day of uncommonly hard work for
the easy-going young men.
A strange sight met their eyes when they reached Piazza Navona. In
spite of yesterday's warnings, flower sellers, fruit vendors, dealers
in secondhand wares of every kind had installed themselves at break of
day in their usual spots; and when, a few hours later, the sewers had
suddenly gushed with improvised torrents, the unwary market people had
lost their heads, and, unfortunately, a good deal of their property.
The pyramid of huge water-melons piled round the base of the central
obelisk now rose like a green island in a muddy sea. The two rococo
fountains, fed from far away in the country through uncontaminated
conduits, tossed their spray into the air and flung down sheets of
pure crystal to meet the turbid, evil-smelling contributions which had
submerged their basins; Bernini's grotesque Tritons grinned fixedly on
the ever increasing disaster below them; and the long florid porch of
the church of Sant' Agnese, raised on its marble steps above the danger
level, was covered from end to end with salvage over which the owners
were weeping and wringing their hands. One old crone stood leaning far
out, fishing valiantly with her umbrella for a basket of lace which
wobbled round just out of reach, its bundles of heavy, handmade edgings
unrolling on the wavelets, while a bit of priceless old Venetian--such
as collectors would love and the uninitiated regard as a rag--was
twisting itself round the loosening laths of a towel-horse which had
been its neighbor on the paving stones. Old books and engravings,
prints of saints in prayer and goddesses in flirtation, danced along
shoulder to shoulder with plucked chickens and bobbing lemons; some
urchins on the church steps were daring each other to wade after the
spoils of the frying stall, which still wafted entrancing odors of hot
oil to their discriminating little noses.
After the first stress had been relieved Peppino and his comrades,
known as they were for expert watermen, were told off to go through the
lowlying streets nearest the river, where the inhabitants, driven, some
hours earlier, from the ground floors to upper stories, might be in
need of supplies. Well loaded with provisions they set out, stopping
below the windows whence they were hailed, and sending up rations in
the baskets which came swinging down on strings, the coppers for the
food rattling inside them. Women called out, entreating the rescuers to
go and look for missing men of the family; but there was no delaying
for these appeals, and each and all received the truly Roman answer,
"He is safe, we have just seen him." That not one of the party knew
the name or face of the absent one made no difference at all. No loss
of life had been reported or was likely to be, so the statement as
to safety would probably be justified, while as to the other--well,
distressed females must be pacified, and a good common-sense lie was
the only practical means of doing that.
There were other calls, however, which were instantly responded to. In
one house there was sudden sickness; a terrified woman screamed to the
men, and Rinaldo caught the word "Miserere," the synonym for the fruit
season scourge which slays in twelve hours. With all their might they
pulled for the nearest apothecary, threatened him with instant death if
he did not find his remedies in the twinkling of an eye, and then laid
violent hands on him and bore him back to the stricken house, where
they left him, disregarding his crazed entreaties that they would wait
and take him home again.
Then came a still more urgent call; a woman was dying and wanted the
priest. Noting the street and number they promised the scared relatives
to bring one. Pausing for a moment they consulted as to the position
of the nearest. Peppino remembered his topography while the others were
still looking round them, and issued his orders. Some ten minutes later
the crew pulled up before the front steps of San Severino, and agile
Peppino bounded up them, three at a time, to summon the sacristan.
Rinaldo was tired of sitting on the narrow thwart, and he too sprang
out and stood on the steps, holding the boat with the boathook. All was
so changed by the strange aspect of the flood that he at first failed
to recognize the spot. His acquaintance with his parish church had been
chiefly carried on through the back entrance, but as he stood looking
up at the sky, which was clearing now, with sulky shafts from the low
sun tearing red rifts in the inky clouds, a sense of familiarity came
over him. Baring his heated brow he looked up, down, around. Why, of
course, it was Giannella's church, and Giannella herself was only a few
hundred yards away, waiting, with that adorable anxiety for him still
in her eyes; weeping, perhaps, in her fear lest harm had come to him.
He must get to her somehow, and tell her that he had not forgotten her
for a moment (a brazen untruth, but how could any woman understand
that even the most faithful masculine heart has no room for sentiment
in the midst of action?), but that every oar and every pair of hands
had been urgently needed throughout that long trying day. How glad she
would be to see him. Though of course she would pretend to be still
concerned about that animal, Bianchi, of whose society the Cardinal
must be horribly tired by this time if he had not managed to ship him
home already. There had not been a moment in which to attend to him,
but Rinaldo felt that he could not go back to Giannella without having
called at Palazzo Cestaldini at least: well, the day was drawing in,
the boys were all tired and hungry; they must quit work soon. After
this expedition with the priest, he himself would be free to go and
execute the belated commission.
Ah, here he came, the good Father, reverently carrying the veiled
chalice, accompanied by a frightened acolyte with a lighted taper, and
Fra Tommaso, looking very serious and having much ado to hold up the
umbrella canopy and not slip on the wet steps. As they approached,
Rinaldo knelt with bared head; then he was on his feet, helping the
priest to bestow himself and his precious burden safely. The sacristan
knelt in the boat behind him, still sheltering him with the canopy, and
the boy climbed in, grinning and delighted now with the novelty of the
situation.
It made an impressive picture as the young men, bare-headed and silent,
rowed fast down the yellow waterway, where the wavelets were crested
with bronze gold in the low rays of the sunset. The priest, looking
neither to right nor left, was praying in whispers, Fra Tommaso's deep
tones striking in with Amens and responses; the lurid sunbeams glowed
on his tonsured head, on the gold fringes of the canopy, on the young
men's faces stilled to worship by the careful honor of their mission.
It was not far to the house of death, a mean, discolored building in
a narrow alley, where pale watchers looking out from the doorway told
them they were still wanted, still in time.
The neighbors gathered at their windows, sympathetic and curious.
Two or three women lighted candles and held them out in honor of the
Santissimo. Then the rowers waited in silence for some twenty minutes,
after which the padre reappeared, wrapped and prayerful as before, and
he and his attendants were conveyed home.
"Now for supper," exclaimed Peppino. "I die of hunger."
"One moment," said Rinaldo. "We are close to Palazzo Cestaldini, I
would just like to make an inquiry there."
There was another outcry from his companions, and at that moment they
were all hailed by a passing boat, full of their friends of the River
Society. "Come on, boys," they called, "we are all dismissed for the
night. We are going to supper in Piazza Colonna--you follow us."
"In a moment," Rinaldo answered, "we have one little thing to do first."
"Nonsense!" protested the others. But Rinaldo was firm this time and
the malcontents, calling the other boat alongside, clambered into it
and shoved away. Peppino had remained with his friend.
"You could not get this clumsy thing along by yourself, you pig-headed
brigand," he growled. "My poor outraged inside is crying for food, but
I will come with you. Pull now--mind that pillar. Here we are, but
the portone is closed, and God knows how we are going to get in. Good
heavens, what is that?" The current, carrying them swiftly along, had
flung the boat-side against the protruding grating of a window just
above its tide, and at the same instant a dripping object, apparently a
corpse in spectacles, rose behind the bars, a clawlike hand caught at
the gunwale, and a yell of entreaty assailed the rowers' ears.
"For the love of God, take me out! Take me out! I perish, I die!
Madonna mia Santissima! Take me out!"
"Stop dragging at the boat," cried Peppino when he had recovered his
breath. "Who are you? How did you get shut up here?"
"Go to the devil," retorted the shuddering apparition. "Is this a
moment for questions? I have been in this sepulcher since the morning.
Get me out, I say."
"Santo Dio," gasped Rinaldo, turning nearly as pale as the distracted
suppliant, "you--you are Professor Bianchi. Oh, assassin that I am!
Yes, I will get you out, instantly. Let go, let go, I can't pull you
through the grating."
They had to tear his fingers off the gunwale, for the man was half
delirious in his terror of being abandoned. Then with two or three
strokes they reached the closed front door and pounded on it, shouting
for the porter. Their cries attracted heads to the first-floor windows;
Domenico, with the chaplain looking over his shoulder, leaned far out
and asked what this scandalous uproar meant. Did they know where they
were, these audacious ones? This was the Palazza Cestaldini, and the
Eminenza was within. If they did not depart at once, the police should
be summoned.
Rinaldo shouted down Domenico's reproofs, explaining with extraordinary
fluency of invective that some dog, fathered by brigands and mothered
by wolves, and doomed with twenty generations of picked ancestors, to
eternal fires had kept Professor Bianchi imprisoned, in peril of death,
in a flooded crypt, since the morning. Let some Christian, if there was
one in that many times cursed household, open the portone and let him
come to their victim's rescue.
Then indeed the faces above turned pale with consternation. Domenico
vanished, and the chaplain, nearly falling out in his earnestness,
clasped his hands and implored the gentleman to be quiet, to moderate
the transports of his just indignation. The Eminenza was ill--to learn
of this accident suddenly might be fatal to him. But at this point
Rinaldo, still calling down the wrath of Heaven on all implicated in
the tragedy, heard the heavy bolts withdrawn, and, through the slowly
opening portal, saw men standing up to their knees in water and the
steep ascent to the courtyard crowded with terrified servants.
Leaving Peppino to take care of the boat, he sprang out and landed
among them like a firebrand. In five minutes he had picked out some
likely assistants and had them under orders, carrying ladders, ropes
and lanterns down the dark stairway which led from a corner of the
courtyard to the subterranean regions.
When they had followed him down to the last step above water in the
crypt Rinaldo raised his lantern high above his head and peered across
an inky sea to locate the Professor, but all he could make out was a
crumpled heap sunk together on the stone platform beneath a window;
and no glad cries came from it to answer his encouraging shouts. He
tried the depth of the water at his feet and found some seven or eight
feet of it; so there was only one thing to do: he coiled a rope round
his body, placed one end in the hand of a trembling domestic, with
frightful threats of what would overtake him should he let go, and
then swam across to the outer wall. There he ran lightly up the steps
and lifted the Professor, who had fallen on his face in collapse and
unconsciousness at last. The reaction of relief when he had caught at
the boat, the agony of disappointment on seeing himself, as his dazed
senses told him, again forsaken, had been too much after the horrible
experience of the day, and he lay in Rinaldo's arms an inert and heavy
mass which it would be by no means easy to carry back. It would be
better to have help, so Rinaldo shouted to the men on the steps to go
and fetch his friend--and to see that the boat was made fast. A few
minutes later Peppino's cheery call sounded up in the echoing darkness
of the vaults, and the splash of his stroke as he shot through the
water struck pleasantly on Rinaldo's ear.
Peppino turned white and shrank back when he touched Bianchi's
clay-cold hand, but Rinaldo assured him that the man had only
fainted--his heart was still beating. Between them they roped him to
themselves, slipped smoothly into the water, and swam in perfect unison
to the foot of the stairs. There Domenico and the chaplain fell on
their necks almost weeping in their thankfulness and their admiration
of what they called the young gentlemen's amazing courage. The boys
shook them off, laughing, for the little feat was ease and simplicity
itself; and then Rinaldo, picking up the still unconscious Professor,
imperiously demanded a warm bed for his patient. In an incredible
short time the poor chilled victim was rolled up in heated blankets,
surrounded by scalding bricks, and Rinaldo made him swallow a draught,
the hottest and fieriest that had ever passed his abstemious lips.
He was quite alive now, but a little light-headed. He shed copious
tears of relief and weakness while he clung to and kissed Rinaldo's
hand, called him Hermes, and vowed that if only he would grow a beard
nobody would ever notice the place where his head was joined to his
body.
Before all this was accomplished, the Cardinal's bell had been ringing
repeatedly, and at last the chaplain and Domenico, the latter quaking
with apprehension, presented themselves before him.
"What is this commotion that I have been hearing?" the prelate asked
quite sternly. "Twice and three times have I rung the bell and no one
has come. I had never imagined that such remissness was possible.
Explain."
"Eminenza," Domenico wailed, "there has been trouble, just a little
trouble. Nothing serious. Let the Eminenza not be alarmed." This last
in compliance to the young priest's grip of his arm and a frowning
reminder that the Cardinal must not be agitated.
But Paolo Cestaldini was more than agitated, he was terribly incensed,
when the whole miserable story, wrapped in palliations and excuses, was
laid before him.
"What?" he cried, his usually gentle face lighted up with a flame of
anger, "you actually left that good and illustrious man to suffer, to
drown, to accuse you of his death before his Maker? You, Domenico, you
never took the trouble to assure yourself that he had left the vault.
It is only by Heaven's mercy and that brave young stranger's charity
that you are not a murderer to-day. Coward, pagan, without heart,
without conscience--how can I ever endure to have you near me again?"
"Eminenza, forgive him," the chaplain besought, "he could not know, he
did not reflect. He has served you faithfully for so many years."
"Let the Eminenza have pity upon me!" Domenico implored, falling on his
knees with uplifted hands. "I have sinned, yes--but indeed no reasoning
person could have figured to himself that the Signor Professore was
still there. The Signor De Sanctis, the two workmen, they went away in
the first moment of danger. Was he an infant that he could not follow
them? And why did they leave him? Could they not have dragged him with
them? Is he not old and thin? Eminenza mia buona, the fault is with
them, not with me."
The Cardinal still frowned on his contrite retainer, but he was too
just not to see that there was sense in his expostulations. He turned
to the chaplain who was standing silently by. "Caro mio," he said, "do
me the favor to return to our poor friend's bedside--he may require
something. I must say a word to Domenico here." When they were left
alone he addressed the major-domo: "You have been guilty of the gravest
neglect and disobedience, my poor Domenico, for I sent you downstairs
with express orders to ascertain whether the Professor was still below.
You gave one look from the upper step, you saw water, you returned,
very frightened, without having even asked the porter whether he had
seen him go out. I shall forgive you this time, and I must in justice
admit that you were not the only culprit. Certainly Signor De Sanctis
should have let someone know that the other gentleman had remained
behind. But I suppose that he was too alarmed and thought only of
himself. See, my son, what comes of selfishness! It is the ugliest of
all the sins, the one which Satan finds ready to his hand in every
human heart. It makes a man of education as stupid and cruel as the
beasts. Hell would be to let in a day but for selfishness."
"Yes, indeed, Eminenza," said Domenico quickly. He always knew that
he was forgiven when his master embarked on a sermon and that light
of charity and sorrow began to shine in his eyes. But the sermons
were apt to be long, and just now the old man knew that he might be
wanted elsewhere. The Cardinal's physician had been summoned to attend
the Professor, remedies would be ordered, a servant would have to be
dispatched somehow to the apothecary--and what with the flood and the
accident, the servants were like a pack of frightened children this
evening! Oh, a dozen matters were certainly requiring his attention at
the other end of the house; he was the central wheel of the big solemn
establishment, the channel for every order, the paymaster for every
bill--and so jealous of his proud cares that no other member of the
household was ever allowed to act on his own initiative for a moment.
Everything began and ended with Sor Domenico--so the beloved Eminenza
must be induced to dismiss him promptly, or a lot of stupid mistakes
would be made. With the deftness of long habits he seized the first
opportunity of taking up the parable against himself.
"Oh yes, Eminenza," he said very earnestly, "we are all--except your
illustrious self, of course--dreadful sinners in that way--egoists of
the most evil kind. The Eminenza will pray for me, and I will humbly
try to correct the fault in future. Meanwhile my heart is anxious
about the Signor Professore. The young gentleman who so nobly rescued
him may require my presence--"
"Go, go, my son," exclaimed the Cardinal, "let Signor Bianchi want
for nothing. It will be an eternal remorse to me that this terrible
accident should have happened in my house, and we cannot do enough
to repair our fault. Meanwhile please ask that young man to come to
me here that I may thank him for his most valuable help. God was
truly merciful to send him to us. I shall not know how to express my
gratitude."
Domenico departed, and in a few minutes the chaplain came to say that
Signor Goffi (he had ascertained his name) had asked permission to
withdraw at once, being very wet and not in a proper condition to
present himself before the Eminenza. If he might be allowed, he would
come and pay his respects to-morrow. And the doctor, who had now
arrived, entreated the Cardinal not to visit the Signor Professore this
evening. He must be kept very quiet, a sleeping draught, which should
have a most beneficent effect, had been administered, and the doctor
would remain through the night if necessary. He was confident that the
patient would be much better in the morning. Let the Eminenza lay all
anxiety aside and remember to take another dose of quinine himself at
nine o'clock, also the orange-flower water in order to sleep peacefully
after this deplorable shock to his nerves.