"A FIGURE FROM A WORLD GONE BY"
The Count was left to himself in the bare, untidy-looking parlor, and
for a minute or two he was content to sit quite still and recover
himself after the unaccustomed exertion of speech. He needed all his
strength for what lay before him, but, by degrees, his restlessness
grew. He rose from his chair and paced up and down in increasing
excitement--his misgivings were growing fainter--he worked himself up
into the firm belief that the day for which he had waited so long was at
hand.
"They dare not deny me!" he cried, lifting his hands high above his head
until they almost touched the smoke-begrimed ceiling; "it is my due, my
just reward!"
He was so absorbed that he did not hear the noises outside--the
shuffling of feet, and, after a while, a brief suppressed tittering.
Signor Bartlezzi, who had entered the room quietly, had to speak twice
before he was conscious of his presence.
"They are in the room behind, Signor Count, and I have informed them of
your presence," he announced.
The Count drew himself up, and stopped suddenly short in his restless
walk.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Lead the way! I follow."
Together they passed into the narrow passage, and the Professor threw
open the door of another room. The Count entered.
The Professor had done what he could in the short time at his disposal.
Pens and ink had been placed upon the deal table, and the chairs had
been ranged along it instead of around the fire. The tobacco jar and
pipes were there, however, and some suspicious-looking jugs; and the
hasty current of fresh air, caused by the withdrawal of a sheet of brown
paper from the upper window frame, was altogether powerless to cope with
the close beer-house smell which hung about the place.
The company consisted of four men. The chair at the head of the table
had been left vacant for the Professor. On the right sat Andrew
Martello, an anglicized Italian, and a vendor of ice cream; on the left
was Pietro Muratti, the proprietor of an itinerant musical instrument.
These were the only two, besides the Professor, who had any pretense to
Italian blood. The other two were a French barber and a Jew pawnbroker.
The light was purposely dim, and the Count's eyes were bad. Besides, his
long confinement, and the great though suppressed excitement under which
he was laboring, had to a certain extent confused his judgment. He saw a
mean room, and four men only, when he had dreamed of a chamber in some
great house and an important assemblage; but, disappointing though this
was, it did not seem fatal to his hopes. Let but these four men be
faithful to their oaths, and he, who had served their cause so well,
could demand as a right the boon he craved. He strove earnestly to read
their faces, but the light was bad and his eyes were dim. He must wait.
Their voices would show him what manner of men they were. After all, why
should he doubt for a moment? Men who had remained faithful to a dying
and deserted cause, must needs be men of strength and honorable men. The
very fewness of their numbers proved it, else why should they too not
have fallen away. He would banish all doubt. He would speak when his
time came with all confidence.
The Professor introduced him with all solemnity, casting an appealing
glance at each in turn, as though begging them to accept this matter
seriously. There was just a slender thread of hope still, and he did not
intend to abandon it.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have the honor to present to you the Count
Leonardo di Marioni, a martyr, as you all know, to our cause. Count
Marioni was, only last week, released from an imprisonment which has
lasted for five-and-twenty years."
They all looked at him curiously--a little compassionately, but none of
them were quite sure how to acknowledge the salutation. The Jew alone
stood up and made a shuffling little bow; the others remained silent
except the little French barber, who murmured something about pleasure
and acquaintance, which the Professor promptly frowned down. The Count,
who had remained standing, advanced to the bottom of the table, and,
laying his trembling hands upon it, spoke:
"Gentlemen and Brothers of the Order of the White Hyacinth," he said
solemnly, "I am glad to meet you."
The Frenchman and the Italian Muratti exchanged expressive winks. The
vendor of ice cream growled across the table for the bird's-eye, and
commenced leisurely filling his pipe, while the Jew ventured upon a
feeble "hear, hear."
"My name is doubtless known to you," the Count continued, "and the story
of my life, which, I am proud to remember, is closely interwoven with
the history of your Order. Your faces, alas! are strange to me. My old
comrades, whom, I had hoped to meet, and whose sympathy I had counted
on, are no more. I feel somewhat as though I had stepped out of the
shadows of a bygone life, and everything is a little strange to me. I
have grown unaccustomed even to speech itself. You must pardon me if I
do not make myself understood with ease. The past seems very, very far
away."
By this time all the pipes were lit, and the mugs were filled. The smoke
hung round the little assembly in a faint cloud, and the atmosphere was
growing dense. The Count looked a little puzzled, but he only hesitated
for a moment. He remembered that he was in England, and the habits of
foreigners were not easy to grow accustomed to. It was a small matter,
although he wished that the odor of the tobacco had not been quite so
rank. When he resumed speaking, however, it was forgotten in a moment.
"I must ask you to bear with me in a certain confession which I am about
to make," he continued. "I am not here to-night to inquire or in any way
to concern myself in the political prospects of our Order. Alas! that
the time should come when I should find myself calmly acknowledging that
my country's sorrows were mine no longer. But, comrades, I must claim
from you your generous consideration. Five-and-twenty years is a long
time. I have lost my touch of history. My memory--I must confess it--my
memory itself is weak. I do not doubt that, small though your numbers
be, you are nobly carrying on the work in which I, too, once bore a
part. I do not doubt but that you are laboring still in the glorious
cause of liberty. But I am with you no longer; my work on earth for
others, such as it has been, is accomplished. I do not come to aid or to
join you. Alas! that I should say it, I, Leonardo di Marioni, whose life
was once so closely bound up with your prosperity as the breath of a man
is to his body. But it is so. I am stranded upon the wreck of my past,
and I can only call upon you with a far-distant voice for my own
salvation."
There was a distinct air of relief. The vendor of ice cream spat upon
the floor, and, in response to a frown from the Professor, at once
covered it with his foot. The Professor drew his hand thoughtfully down
his chin. They were approaching the _crux_ of the whole matter.
"We regret it deeply, Count," he said solemnly. "In that case the small
trifle of money which the London agents of your bank have placed to our
credit yearly on your behalf for the cause, and which has regularly been
used for the--er--necessary expenses--er----"
The Count stretched out his hand.
"It is nothing," he answered. "Why should you mention it? That and more,
too, the Order is welcome to. I doubt not that it has been well used."
"It has!" they cried, with one voice.
"A drop more beer, and a bottle of bran----"
The ice vendor never finished his sentence. A furious kick from the
Professor, under the table, reminded him that he was on dangerous
grounds, and he desisted, rubbing his leg and growling.
The Count scarcely heeded the interruption. His whole form was shaking
with eagerness; his bony, white hands were outstretched toward his four
listeners. For five-and-twenty years he had dreamed of this.
"No, my appearance once more before you, comrades, brothers, has no such
petty object!" he cried. "I am here to demand my rights as a member of
the Order of the White Hyacinth. I am here to remind you of our great
principle--vengeance upon traitors! I am here to remind you of your
unchanging oaths, and to claim your fulfillment of them, even as
Francesco Dellia pleaded, and not in vain, before the council at Rome
thirty years ago. We are a society of peace, save alone where traitors
are concerned. I point out to you a traitor, and I cry--punishment!"
The Professor knitted his brows, and his hopes suddenly fell. They all
exchanged glances.
"Old buffer's dotty," whispered the Jew to his neighbor, tapping his
head significantly.
The musical gentleman nodded.
"Let's hear what it's all about, anyhow," muttered the ice-cream vendor,
tapping the table.
There was silence at once. They all turned toward the Count, and waited.
He had not been disappointed in their silence. It seemed to him like the
prudent reserve of true conspirators. They wished to hear his case, and,
as yet, he had only reached the preamble. Good! they should hear it.
"You all know that I was arrested and thrown into prison because I broke
what they choose to call my parole--because, after the sentence of
banishment had been passed upon me, I returned to my native country, and
took part once more in the counsels of our Order. But you have yet to
learn this, comrades; you have yet to learn that I was betrayed, foully,
wilfully--betrayed into the clutches of the Italian police. Before my
very eyes papers of our society incriminating me were placed in the hand
of our enemy, Signor Villesco, by one who had sworn our oaths in the
first degree and worn our flower. At your hands I call for vengeance
upon my betrayers--vengeance upon Adrienne di Cartuccio, calling herself
Lady St. Maurice, vengeance upon her husband, her family, and all
belonging to her. It is the first decree of our Order, which all of you
have sworn to, and I stand within my rights. Answer, comrades of the
Order of the White Hyacinth! For your sake I have languished
five-and-twenty years in a Roman prison. With you it rests to sweeten my
death. By your oaths, I charge you, give me vengeance!"
His eyes were flashing, and his features, for the first time, were
convulsed with anxiety. What meant this unsympathetic silence, this lack
of enthusiasm? He looked from one to another of their stolid, puzzled
faces. Where were the outstretched hands, the deep solemn oaths, the cry
for lots to be drawn, which he had confidently expected? Their silence
was driving him mad. Suddenly the ice-cream vendor spoke.
"What is it you want, gaffer?" he asked, without removing his pipe from
his mouth. "Cursed if I can see what you're driving at, or any of us,
for that matter."
"What is it I want?" he cried passionately. "The life of my betrayer, or
such a mark of my vengeance as will make her rue the day she sent one of
your Order to work out his life, a miserable captive, in a prison cell.
Is it not clear what I want? Speak, all of you! Do you grudge me this
thing? Do you hesitate?"
The vendor of ice cream constituted himself the spokesman of the little
party. He knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and leisurely refilled
it. The little old man at the bottom of the table was shaking with
anxiety. The thunderbolt quivered in the air.
"That's all bally rot, you know, guv'nor," he said calmly. "We ain't
murderers here! This White Hyacinth crew as you're a-talking of must a
been a blood-thirsty lot o' chaps. We ain't on that track. We meets here
just for a drop and a smoke, sociable like, with our friend the
Professor, and forms a sort of a club like among hourselves. You've come
to the wrong shop!"
The man's words, blunt and unfeeling, answered their purpose well. They
left no possibility of doubt or misunderstanding. The Count, after a
moment's wild stare around, tottered, and sank into a chair. All that
had seemed strange to him was suddenly clear. His head fell upon his
arms, and he crouched there motionless. The hopes of five-and-twenty
years were wrecked. The spark which had left him alive had died out! The
Order of the White Hyacinth was no more!
There was a distinct and terrible pathos in the scene. Even those rough,
coarse men, casting uneasy glances at that white, bowed head and
crouching figure at the head of the table, and listening to his low
moaning, were conscious of a vague pity. They thought of him as of some
wandering lunatic who had strayed in upon them; and, indeed, none of
them, except the Professor, doubted but that he was mad.
He looked up at last, and the ice-cream vendor, who was not a bad sort
at heart, poured out a mugful of the unwholesome-looking beer, and
pushed it across the table toward him.
"Here, guv'nor, drink this," he said gruffly; "it'll do you good. Cheer
up, old buck! I should. What's done can't be undone, and what's dead
can't be brought to life again. Make the best of it, I say. You've got
some of the ready left, I'll go bail, and you ain't too old to get a bit
out o' life yet--if yer make haste. And about that blood-thirsty talk of
yours, about vengeance and such like, you just take my tip and chuck it.
We think more of life here than they does in furrin parts, and hangin'
ain't a pleasant death. Take my tip, guv'nor, you chuck it!"
The Count pushed the mug away, and rose to his feet. He had not heard a
word. There was a terrible buzzing in his head and ears.
"I am a foolish old man, I fear," he said unsteadily. "I ought to have
considered. Five-and-twenty-years! Ah, yes, it is a long time ago.
Professor, will you send your servant for a carriage? I will go away."
He stood quite still, talking softly to himself, with the tips of his
fingers still resting lightly upon the table, and a far-away look in his
eyes. Signor Bartlezzi himself ran hatless to the nearest cabstand, and
in a few minutes the rattle of a vehicle was heard outside, and the
Professor returned breathless. The Count rose at once.
"I wish you good-night, gentlemen," he said mildly. "You have been very
patient with me. Five-and-twenty years! It is a long while--a long
while! Five-and-twenty years! Good-evening, gentlemen. Professor, I will
take your arm to the door. My sight is a--little dim. Thank you. How
dark it is. The Hotel Continental, if you please. Thank you, Professor."
And so he went away.