From the moment the Conclave was closed a silence of expectation and

anxiety fell upon all Rome. The daily life of the city was hushed. The

principal thoroughfares and fortresses were kept by strong detachments

of armed troops, and the approaches to the mysterious door were

jealously watched. Men spoke everywhere in whispers, and nothing but

vague rumours of the proceedings within were listened to in the places

of public resort, and in the coteries and gatherings of all ranks and

conditions of the people.

In the interior of the Conclave, for those who were confined within its

singular seclusion, the day passed with a wearisome monotony marked only

by intrigue not less wearisome. Early in the morning a tolled bell

called the whole of its inmates to mass in one of the small Chapels

darkened with stained glass, and lighted dimly by the tapers of the

altar, and by a few wax candles fixed in brass sockets suspended from

the roof. The Cardinals sat in stalls down either side of the Chapel,

and at the lower end was a bar, kept by the master of the ceremonies and

his assistants, behind which the attendants and servants were allowed to

stand. Mass being over, a table was placed in front of the altar, upon

which was a chalice and a silver bell. Upon six stools near the table

are seated two Cardinal-Bishops, two Cardinal-Priests, and two

Cardinal-Deacons. Every Cardinal in his turn, upon the ringing of the

bell, leaves his seat, and having knelt before the altar in silent

prayer for the guidance of heaven in his choice, goes round to the front

of the table and drops a paper, upon which he has written the name of a

Cardinal, into the chalice, and returns in silence to his stall.

A solemn and awful stillness pervades the scene, broken only by the

tinkling of the silver bell. The Cardinals, one by one, some of them

stalwart and haughty men with a firm step and imperious glance, others

old and decrepit, scarcely able to totter from their places to the

altar, or to rise from their knees without help, advance to their

mysterious choice. To the eye alone it was in truth a solemn and

impressive scene, and by a heart instructed by the sense of sight only,

the awful presence of God the Paraclete might, in accordance with the

popular belief, be felt to hover above the Sacred Host; but in the

entire assembly to whom alone the sight was given there was probably not

one single heart to which such an idea was present. The assembly was

divided into different parties, each day by day intriguing and

manoeuvring, by every art of policy and every inducement of worldly

interest, to add to the number of its adherents. "If perchance," says

one well qualified to speak, "there entered into this Conclave any old

Cardinal, worn by conflict with the Church's enemies 'in partibus

infidelium,' amid constant danger of prison or of death, or perchance

coming from amongst harmless peasants in country places, and by long

absence from the centre of the Church's polity, ignorant of the manner

in which her Princes trod the footsteps of the Apostles of old, and by

the memory of such conflict and of such innocence, and because of such

ignorance, was led to entertain dreams of Divine guidance, two or three

days' experience caused such an one to renounce all such delusion, and

to return to his distant battlefield, and so to see Rome no more."

When every Cardinal has deposited his paper, the Cardinal-Bishop takes

them out of the chalice one by one, and hands them to the

Cardinal-Deacon, who reads out the name of the elected, but not of the

Cardinal who had placed the paper in the chalice (which is written on

part of the paper so folded that even the reader does not see it); and

as he reads the name, every Cardinal makes a mark upon the scroll of

names he has before him. When all the names have been read, the

Cardinal-Priest, from a paper which he has prepared, reads the name of

him who has had the most voices and the number of the votes. If the

number be more than two-thirds of the whole, the Cardinal who has

received the votes is thereby elected Pope; but if not, the

Cardinal-Priest rings the silver bell once more, and at the signal the

master of the ceremonies, Monsignor Fabei, advances up the Chapel,

followed by a groom carrying a brazier of lighted coals, into which, in

the face of the whole assembly, the papers are dropped one by one till

all are consumed.

At the beginning of the Conclave the Cardinals were always divided into

two, if not more parties, of such relative strength as to make the

attainment of such a majority by either of them impossible for many

days. It was not until the persistent intrigues of a fortnight had

increased the majority of any one Cardinal so much as to give a

probability of his being ultimately elected, that the waverers of all

sides, not willing to be known as the opponents of a new Pope, recorded

their voices in his favour, and thus raised the majority to its

necessary proportion. For this very delicate matter occurred at this

period of the election, that, should the requisite majority of voices be

obtained, the master of the ceremonies and his brazier were no longer

called for, but the whole of the papers were opened to their full

extent, and the names of the voters given to the world, whereby, as one

conversant in these matters observes, "Many mysteries and infidelities

are brought to light." It is evident, therefore, that, as the majority

of any one Cardinal increased or showed signs of increasing, morning and

evening, as the suffrages were taken, the voting became a very exciting

and delicate matter. No one could be certain but that at the next

voting the majority from the cause mentioned would suddenly swell to the

necessary size, and every man's name be made clear and plain on whose

side he had been.

Upon entering the Conclave the friends of Cardinal Chigi adopted a quiet

policy, and waited for the progress of events to work for them. The

abuses of the late Pontificate, and the excitement and indignation of

popular opinion, had made it clear to all parties that it was necessary

to elect a Pope whose character and reputation would restore confidence.

In these respects no one seemed more qualified than Cardinal Chigi, who

was supposed to possess all the qualifications necessary to ensure the

Romans from the apprehension of a revival of the past disorders, and to

inspire the whole Christian world with the hopes of witnessing a worthy

successor of St. Peter displaying the Christian virtues from the Papal

Chair. The great reputation he had gained at Muenster, the determination

he was said to have manifested to reform all abuses, the authority and

influence he derived from his post of Secretary of State, his attractive

and gracious manner, the recommendation of the late Pope upon his

death-bed,--all tended to bring his name prominently forward. He was

supported by the Spanish Cardinals, chiefly on account of the enmity of

the French Court and of his professed opposition to Cardinal Mazarin.

But, in spite of these advantages, the enmity of the French Court, and

the opposition of the Barbarini family, the relations and supporters of

the late Pope, made it necessary for his friends to observe extreme

caution. The French Cardinals were ordered to vote for Sachetti, and

Cardinal Barbarini for the present supported him, also, with all his

party, chiefly because he had not yet made terms with the Spanish Court,

which opposed Sachetti; but also, as was supposed, because he himself

had aspirations towards the Papal Chair, should he find the electors

favourable to such a scheme.

Upon the entrance into the Conclave, therefore, Cardinal Sachetti

immediately obtained thirty-two or thirty-three votes. These were not

quite so many as the Barbarini expected, and indeed had a right to count

upon, after the professions which the Cardinals of the party had made.

This was owing to the defection of some members of what was called the

Flying Squadron, composed chiefly of young Cardinals, who were supposed

to be devoted to the Barbarini, but of whom several were secretly

favourable to Cardinal Chigi.

The Spanish faction, which was numerous enough to have secured the

election of any Cardinal had it been united, but the members of which

were agreed upon nothing but their determined opposition to Sachetti,

contented itself with voting negatively at every scrutiny, making use of

the form "accedo nemini." This course was pursued for two entire

months, during which time the scrutinies were taken regularly morning

and evening, always with a slightly varying but indecisive result.

It would be difficult to realize the wearisomeness which reigned in the

Conclave during so protracted a period. The crowding together of so

large a number of persons in a few apartments, the closeness of the air,

and the unbroken monotony of the hours that passed so slowly, made the

confinement almost intolerable. One Cardinal was taken ill, and was

obliged to be removed. The great gallery was generally used by the

Cardinals themselves, for exercise and conversation, while their

attendants were compelled to content themselves with their masters'

apartments, or the corridors and passages. Those which opened on the

interior courts, and thereby afforded some fresh air, were especially

resorted to. Communication from without, though in theory absolutely

prevented, was really frequent, all the chief among the Cardinals

receiving advices from foreign Courts, and conveying intelligence

thither themselves.

At intervals the whole of the inmates were assembled to listen to Father

Quaechi, preacher to the Conclave, a Jesuit, and secretly in favour of

Cardinal Chigi, as was the Society in general. The sermon was so

contrived as to influence its hearers considerably by its evident

application to the manners and conduct of the Cardinal.

The famous De Retz, then an exile from France and a supporter of Chigi,

by whom he always sat in the Chapel, was the principal intriguer in his

favour. He was in communication with the nominal supporters of

Barbarini, who sent him intelligence by Monsignor Fabei when to vote for

Sachetti, on occasions when it would be of no real service to him, and

when to refrain. On one of these latter occasions Fabei entrusted his

message to Inglesant, with whom he was intimate, and it afterwards

appeared that Sachetti, on that scrutiny, wanted but very few votes to

have secured his election. This circumstance made a deep impression on

De Retz, and he never recognized Inglesant afterwards without alluding

to it.

The day after this scrutiny Cardinal Barbarini appears to have thought

that the time was come for his friends to make a demonstration in his

behalf, and to the astonishment of the Conclave thirty-one votes

appeared in his favour in the next scrutiny. This caused the friends of

Cardinal Chigi to pay more attention to his conduct, and to the

discourses of his Conclavists and other partizans, who neglected no

opportunity of exalting his good qualities.

The exhaustion of the Conclave became extreme. Cardinal Caraffa, who,

next to Sachetti and Chigi, stood the greatest chance of election,

became ill and died. Twelve other Cardinals were balloted for, one

after another, without result. Cardinal San Clemente was then brought

forward, and, but for the hostility of the Jesuits, might have been

elected; but the Spanish Cardinals who supported him did not dare openly

to offend the Society, and the election failed.

The Barbarini began to despair of electing their candidate, and having

received favourable advices from the Court of Spain, were willing,

either with or without the concurrence of their leader, to negotiate

with the friends of Cardinal Chigi. Sachetti, finding his own chances

hopeless, was not averse to be treated with. There remained only the

Court of France.

* * * * *

The MSS. are here defective.

Be this as it may, Cardinal Sachetti's letter had the desired effect

upon Mazarin, who immediately sent the necessary letters to the French

Cardinals, withdrawing the veto upon Chigi. Nothing remained now but to

gain the concurrence of Cardinal Barbarini. For a long time he refused

to accede, but, the members of his party who had from the first secretly

supported Chigi having now openly declared in his favour, Barbarini at

last consented to hold a conference. It took place immediately after

the morning scrutiny, and lasted but a short time. But it sat long

enough to arrange that the next morning Cardinal Chigi should be elected

Pope.

This determination was so suddenly arrived at, and was concealed so

carefully, that nothing certainly was known during the rest of the day,

outside the number of those who had taken part in the conference. There

were vague rumours, and many discontents, but the time was so short that

many who would have declared in favour of Sachetti, had longer time been

given them, were not able to recover from their surprise.

Inglesant was of course informed by Cardinal Chigi of what had occurred

immediately after the conference, and about mid-day he received a

message from De Retz warning him to be upon his guard. During the

afternoon, however, some further intelligence of the feeling within the

Conclave came to the knowledge of that astute intriguer, and he sent

Monsignor Fabei to Inglesant about five o'clock.

This man was a favourable specimen of the Italian servant of an

Ecclesiastical Court. Belonging to a family which had been trained for

generations in the service of the Curia, he was a man to whom the

difficulties which perplexed others, and the anomalies which appeared to

some men to exist between Christian polity as it might be conceived to

be and Christian polity as it was practised in Rome, did not exist;--a

man to whom the Divine, so far as it was manifested to him at all, took

the form, without doubt or scruple, of that gorgeous though unwieldy,

and, as it seemed to some, slightly questionable, economy of which he

was the faithful servant. He was honest, yet he appeared--such was the

peculiarity of his training and circumstances--to have solved the, on

good authority, insoluble problem of serving two masters at the same

time; for two opposing Cardinals, or two factions of Cardinals, alike

commanded his reverence and service at the same moment. Much of this

service was no doubt unthinking and unconscious, else the memoirs of

such a man, composed by himself without reserve, would be perhaps as

interesting a book as could be written.

"Something is going on within the Conclave, Cavaliere," he said, "of

which I am not entirely cognizant. Of course I am aware of the

communications which have been made from outside during this most

protracted Conclave. The Princes of the Church must have every

opportunity given them of arriving at a just conclusion in this most

important matter, and I have never been backward in affording every

assistance to their Eminences; but what we have to deal with to-night is

of a very different kind. You have nothing to dread from the chiefs of

the opposite party; they have accepted the situation, and will loyally

carry out their engagements. But they have altered their policy without

consulting or remembering their supporters, and among these, especially

the inferior ones outside the Conclave, the disappointment is severe.

They have not time, nor are they in a position to make terms with the

successful party, and their expectations of advancement are annihilated.

They are, many of them, absolutely unscrupulous, and would hazard

everything to gain time. They have some means of communication between

the outside world of Rome and their partizans within the Conclave, which

they have not used till now, and with which, therefore, I am

unacquainted. They are employing it now. What the exact effort will be

I do not know, but should your Padrone, Cardinal Chigi, fall ill before

to-morrow's scrutiny, it would delay his election, and delay is all they

want. There are sufficient malcontents to prevent his election if they

had only time; two or three days would give them all they want. I

should advise you not to sleep to-night, but to watch with a wakefulness

which starts at every sound."

The apartment assigned to Cardinal Chigi was subdivided into three

smaller ones, the largest of which was appropriated to the bedchamber of

the Cardinal, the two others to his attendants. These apartments

communicated with each other, and only one opened upon the centre

corridor running down the Hall. The Cardinal retired early to his own

chamber, and most of the other Cardinals did the same. A profound

silence reigned in the Conclave; if any of the attendants still stirred

they were velvet-shod, and the floors and walls, lined with velvet,

prevented the least sound from being heard.

Inglesant remained alone in the outermost of the three apartments, and

determined to keep his faculties on the alert. For some reason,

however, either the fatigue of the long confinement, or the deathlike

stillness of the night, a profound drowsiness overpowered him, and he

continually sank into a doze. He tried to read, but the page floated

before his eyes, and it was only by continually rising and pacing the

small chamber that he kept himself from sinking into a deep sleep.

A profound peace and repose seemed to reign in a place where so many

scheming and excited brains, versed in every art of policy, were really

at work.

Inglesant had sat down again, and had fallen once more into a slight

doze, when suddenly, from no apparent cause, his drowsiness left him,

and he became intensely and almost painfully awake. The silence around

him was the same as before, but a violent agitation and excitement

disturbed his mind, and an overpowering apprehension of some approaching

existence, inimical to himself, aroused his faculties to an acute

perception, and braced his nerves to a supreme effort. In another

moment, this apprehension, at first merely mental, became perceptible to

the sense, and he could hear a sound. It was, as it were, the echo of a

low faint creeping movement, the very ghost of a sound. Whence it came

Inglesant could not determine, but it was from without the apartment in

which he sat. No longer able to remain passive, he rose, drew back the

velvet curtain that screened the entrance from the corridor, opened the

door silently, and went out.

The corridor was lighted here and there along its great length by oil

lamps suspended before every third door of the Cardinals' rooms; but the

dark and massive hangings, the loftiness of the hall overhead, and the

dimness of the lamps themselves, caused the light to be misty and

uncertain, as in a confused and troubled dream. One of these lamps was

suspended immediately above the door at which Inglesant had appeared,

and he stood in its full light, being himself much more distinctly seen

than he was himself able to see anything. He was richly dressed in dark

velvet, after the French fashion, and in the uncertain light his

resemblance to his murdered brother was, in this dress, very great. He

held a slight and jewelled dagger in his hand.

As he paused under the suspended lamp the sound he had before heard

developed itself into low stealthy footsteps approaching down the

corridor, apparently on the opposite side, and the next moment a figure,

more like a phantom thrown on the opposite wall than a substantial

being, glided into sight. It was shrouded in dark and flowing drapery,

and kept so close to the heavy hangings that it seemed almost the waving

of their folds stirred by some unknown breeze. Though it passed down the

opposite side, it kept its attention turned in Inglesant's direction,

and almost at the same moment at which he appeared through the opening

door it saw him and instantly stopped. It lost its stealthy motion and

assumed an attitude of intense and speechless terror, such as Inglesant

had never seen depicted in a human being, and by this attitude revealed

itself more completely to his gaze. The hood which shaded its face fell

partly back, and displayed features pale as death, and lustrous eyes

dilated with horror, and Inglesant could see that it held some nameless

weapon in its hand. As it stood, arrested in its purpose, breathless

and uncertain, it seemed to Inglesant a phantom murderer, or rather the

phantom of murder itself, as though nothing short of the murderous

principle sufficed any longer to dog his steps.

This strange figure confronted Inglesant for some seconds, during which

neither stirred, each with his eyes riveted upon the other, each with

his weapon in his hand. Then the phantom murmured in an articulate and

broken voice, that faltered upon the air as though tremulous with

horror, "It is himself! He has taken the dagger from his bleeding

wound."

Then, as it had come, it glided backwards along the heavy drapery,

becoming more and more lost in its folds, till, at first apparently but

the shadow of a shade, it faded more and more into the hanging darkness,

and vanished out of sight.

The next morning, at the scrutiny after early mass, Fabitis Chigi,

Cardinal and Secretary of State, was, by more than two-thirds of the

whole Conclave, elected Pope.

*CHAPTER XI.*

There is, perhaps, no comparison so apposite, though it be a homely one,

to the condition of affairs in Italy at this time--upon the election of

a new Pope--as that of a change of trumps at a game of cards. All

persons and matters remain the same as they were before, yet their

values and relationships are all changed; the aspect of the entire scene

is altered; those who before were in little esteem are exalted, and

those who were in great power and estimation are abased. All the persons

with whom Inglesant had been connected were more or less affected by it,

except Cardinal Rinuccini, to whom it made little difference. To the

Cavaliere and to Malvolti it was ruin. The former was so deeply

involved in debt, in private feuds, and entanglements with the

authorities, his character was so utterly lost with all parties, and his

means of usefulness to any so small, that it is probable that even the

elevation to power of the Barbarini faction would not have been of much

use to him. But, whatever might have been his prospects had the

election resulted otherwise, his only chance now of safety from prison

and even death was in Inglesant's connection with his sister, and in the

protection he might hope to experience upon that account; his only hope

depended upon the force of Inglesant's affection. The fear of private

assassination kept him almost confined to his chamber. Malvolti's

circumstances were still more hopeless; notorious for every species of

vice and crime, and hateful even to the very bravoes and dregs of the

Italian populace, he had now lost all hope of alliance or even

assistance from his friend the Cavaliere, who discarded him the moment

that he was of no further use. Maddened by this treatment and by

despair, no way seemed open to him except that of desperate revenge.

Towards Inglesant his hatred was peculiarly intense, being mixed with a

certain kind of superstitious dread. He regarded him almost as the

shade of his murdered brother, returned from the grave to dog his steps.

It was his presence which had thwarted his last desperate attempt within

the Conclave, his last hope of earning protection and rewards. He

expected nothing but punishment and severe retribution at Inglesant's

hands. Surrounded as he was by perils and enemies on every side, this

peril and this dreaded enemy stood most prominently in his path; a blow

struck here would be not only a measure of self-defence, but a sweet

gratification of revenge, and a relief from an appalling supernatural

terror. This terrible semblance of his murdered victim once out of his

path, he might hope that the vision of a bloody hearthstone in England

might not be so constantly before his eyes.

To Inglesant himself the bright prospects which seemed opening before

him gave little satisfaction. He was exhausted in body by his long

detention within the Conclave, and the tone of his spirit was impaired

by the intrigue and hypocrisy of which he had been a witness and a

partaker. It is impossible to kneel morning after morning before the

Sacrament, in a spirit of worldliness and chicane, without being soiled

and polluted in the secret places of the soul. The circumstances of his

visit to Umbria and to Florence, howbeit in both he had been preserved

almost by a miracle from actual sin, had left an evil mark upon his

conscience. He felt little of the sweet calm and peace he had enjoyed

for a season in the company of Molinos, during his first visit to Rome.

Something of his old misery returned upon him, and he felt himself again

the sport of the fiend, who was working out his destruction by some

terrible crime, of which he was the agent, and the Italian murderer the

cause.

"This man is at large in Rome," said Don Agostino to him one day; "I

should advise you to have him assassinated. It is time the earth was

rid of such a villain, and the Roman law is useless in such a case. All

protection is withdrawn from him, and every man, high and low, within

the city will rejoice at his death."

Inglesant shook his head.

"I do not value my life, God knows, at a straw's worth," he said.

"Because he murdered my brother, foully and treacherously, he and I

shall too surely meet some day; but the time is not yet come. Surely if

the devil can afford to wait, much more can I."

He spoke more to himself than to the other, and there is reason to

suppose that Don Agostino made arrangements to have Malvolti

assassinated on his own responsibility; but the Italian avoided his

bravoes for a time.

Some short time after the Pope's election, in the height of the

Carnival,[#] a masked ball was given in the Palace Doria, at which Don

Agostino had arranged a set composed entirely of his own friends. It

was composed in imitation of the old comedies of the Atellanas, upon

which the Punchinello and Harlequinade of all nations has been formed,

and which, being domestic dramas performed in masques by the Roman youth

with an old-fashioned elegance and simplicity, were peculiarly fitted

for performance at a modern masquerade. A primitive and rude form of

pantomime, founded on caricature and burlesque, with a few characters

boldly drawn, has none of the charm of the later comedy, which is a

picture of real life with its variety of character and incident, and

possesses that excellent art of showing men as they are, while

representing them as they seem to be. But, though it fell short of this

higher perfection, the broad farce and few characters of the older form

of comedy are not wanting in much lively and yet serious painting of

human life, which is all the more serious and pathetic from its broad

and unconscious farce. The jester, the knave, the old man, the girl,

the lover,--these types that are eternal and yet never old,--with the

endless complication in which, both on the stage and real life, they are

perpetually involved, are susceptible of infinite application and

interest to the imagination. As the rehearsal progressed Inglesant was

struck and interested with these ideas, and as the night came on there

seemed to him to be in the world nothing but play within play, scene

within scene. Between the most incidental acts of an excited and

boisterous crowd and the most solemn realities of life and death it

seemed to him impossible to distinguish otherwise than in degree; all

appeared part of that strange interlude which, between the Dramas of

Eternity, is performed continually upon the stage of life.

[#] It is generally stated by historians that the election of Cardinal

Chigi took place on April 7th, 1655, and as Easter that year fell on

April 15th, there appears some discrepancy in this part of the

narrative. The reader must decide between these contending authorities.

The set was a large one, consisting of the ordinary pantomime types,

supplemented by duplicates, peasants, priests, sbirri (always a

favourite subject of satire and practical jokes), country girls, and

others. Don Agostino, whose wit was ready and brilliant, took the part

of clown or jester, and Inglesant that of the stage lover, a _role_

requiring no great effort to sustain. The part of Columbine was

sustained by a young girl, a mistress of Don Agostino, of considerable

beauty and wit, and as yet unspoiled by the wicked life of Rome. She

was dressed as a Contadina, or peasant girl, in holiday costume.

Harlequin was played by a young Count, a boy of weak intellect, involved

in every species of dissipation, and consigned to ruin by designing

foes, of whom some were of his own family.

As the ball progressed the party attracted great notice by the clever

interludes and acts they performed between the dances. In these the

usual tricks and practical jokes were introduced sparingly, relieved by

a higher style of wit, and by allusions to the topics of the day and to

the foibles of the society of Rome. The parts were all well sustained,

and Don Agostino exerted himself successfully to give brilliancy and

life to the whole party. The young Harlequin-Count, who had at first

seemed only to excel in lofty capers and somersaults, was the first who

showed tokens of fatigue. He became gradually listless and careless, so

that he changed his part, and became the butt of the rest, instead of

their tormentor.

A dance in sets had just begun, and Inglesant could not help being

struck with his disconsolate manner, which showed itself plainly, even

through his masque and disguise. It seemed that others noticed it as

well, for as Inglesant met the Contadina in one of the combinations of

the figure, she said in the pause of the dance,--

"Do you see the Count, Cavaliere? He is on the brink of ruin, body and

soul. His cousin, and one or two more who are in the set, are engaged

with him in some desperate complication, and are working upon his feeble

mind and his terror. Cannot you help him at all?"

When the dance ceased Inglesant went over to the Count, intending to

speak to him, but his cousin and others of the set were talking

earnestly to him, and Inglesant stepped back. He saw that the longer his

treacherous friends spoke to him the more broken down and crushed in

spirit did the poor Harlequin-Count become; and it was evident to

Inglesant that here a play was being enacted within the play, and that,

as often is the case, one of the deep tragedies of life was appearing in

the fantastic dress of farce. As he stood dreamily watching what

occurred, Don Agostino called him off to commence another comic act, and

when at the first pause he turned to look for the Count, he could no

longer see him. His cousin and the others were present, however, and

soon after the set was again formed for another dance.

The stifling air of the crowded rooms, and the fatigue of the part he

had to perform, wrought upon Inglesant's brain; the confused figures of

the dance dazzled his sight, and the music sounded strange and

grotesque. As the partners crossed each other, and he came again to the

Contadina in his turn, she grasped his hand in hers, and said,

hurriedly,--

"Do you see who is standing in the Count's place?"

Inglesant looked, and certainly, in the place of the dance which should

have been occupied by the Count, was a tall figure in the dress of a

white friar, over which was carelessly thrown a black domino, which

allowed the dark fiery eyes of the wearer to be seen.

"The Count has gone," whispered the girl, trembling all over as she

spoke, "no one knows whither; no one knows who this man is who has come

in his place. He is gone to drown himself in the river; this is the

devil who supports his part."

In spite of the girl's visible agitation and his own excitement,

Inglesant laughed, and, taking her words as a jest, turned again to look

at the strange masque, intending to make some ludicrous comment to

reassure his friend. To his astonishment the words died upon his lips,

and an icy chill seemed to strike through his blood and cause his heart

to beat violently. A sensation of dread overpowered him, the dance-music

sounded wild and despairing in his ears, and the ever-varying throng of

figures, waving with a thousand colours, swam before his eyes. In the

appearance of the stranger, which was simply that of a tall man, there

was nothing to account for this; and except that he kept his piercing

eyes steadily fixed upon Inglesant, there was nothing in his manner to

attract attention. Inglesant went through the rest of the dance

mechanically, and suddenly, as it seemed to him, the music stopped.

The dance being over, most of Don Agostino's party, tired with their

exertions, withdrew to the buffet of an adjoining apartment for

refreshment. Inglesant had taken off his masque, and standing by the

buffet, a little apart from the rest, was fanning himself with it, and

cooling his parched throat with iced wine, when he was aware that the

strange figure had followed him. It was standing before him with a

glass in its hand, which it seemed to fill from a bottle of peculiar

shape, which Inglesant recognized as one only used to contain a rare

Italian wine.

"Cavaliere," the strange masque said in a soft and polite voice, "this

wine will do you more good than that which you are drinking; it cools

and rests the brain. Will you drink with me?"

As he spoke he offered Inglesant the glass he held, and filled another,

and at the same instant, the Contadina came up to Inglesant and hung

upon his arm.

Inglesant, who was unmasked, stood with the glass in his hand, waiting

for the other to remove his domino before he bowed and drank; but the

stranger did not do so.

After a moment's pause, amid the breathless silence of the whole group,

who were looking on, the stranger said, speaking with a courteous speech

and gesture, which if acted were perfectly well assumed,--

"Pardon me that I do not remove my masque; it is my misfortune that I am

not able to do so."

Impressed by the other's manner, it struck Inglesant in a moment that

this must be some great noble, perhaps a Prince of the Church, for whom

it would be injudicious to appear unmasked, and bowing courteously, he

raised the glass to his lips.

As he did so the black eyes of the disguised friar were fixed steadily

upon him, and the Contadina said in his ear, in an eager, frightened

whisper,--

"Do not drink."

The tremor of her voice, and of her figure on his arm, brought back in a

moment the terror and distrust which the bearing and manner of the other

had dispelled, and raising the cup, he let his lip rest for a moment in

the liquor, but did not drink. Then replacing the glass upon the

buffet, he said coolly,--

"It is a good wine, but my English habit has spoiled my taste. I do not

like the Italian Volcanic wines."

"I regret it," said the other, turning away; "they are a quietus for the

fever of life."

The party breathed more freely as he left the room, and the Contadina,

taking the glass which Inglesant had put down, emptied its contents upon

the floor.

They followed the domino into the ball-room, where they saw him speaking

to the Count's cousin, and to two or three others of the group, who had

remained there or sought refreshment elsewhere.

As the last dance began, in the early daybreak which made the lamps burn

faintly, and cast a pale and melancholy light over the gay dresses and

the moving figures, over the gilding and marble, and the dim lovely

paintings on the walls, Inglesant was conscious of a strange and

death-like feeling that benumbed his frame. He was bitterly cold, and

his sight became dim and uncertain. The music seemed to grow wilder and

more fantastic, and the crowded dancers, grotesque and goblin-like to

any eyes, became unreal as a dream to his.

Suddenly, as before, the music ceased, and not knowing what he did,

Inglesant became separated from his friends, and was borne by the throng

to the doors and down the staircase into the courtyard and the street.

The Piazza and the Corso beyond were crowded with carriages, and with

servants carrying dim torches, and the morning air was rent with

confused noise.

Nearly unconscious, Inglesant allowed himself to be carried onward by

the crowd of persons leaving the palace on foot--a motley throng in

every variety of costume, and he was soon borne out of the square into

the Corso and down the street.

Suddenly he heard a voice behind, clear and distinct to his ears, at

least, amid the confused noise,--

"There he is--now strike!"

Turning round quickly, he saw the masque within two yards of him, with

something in the folds of his gown which shone in the light. In another

moment he would have been close to him, when they were swept apart by a

sudden movement of the crowd, and Don Agostino's carriage, surrounded by

servants, passed close by the spot to which Inglesant had drifted. He

was recognized, and Agostino welcomed him eagerly, saying,--

"I have been looking for you everywhere."

They proceeded along the Corso, Inglesant still like a man in a dream,

and turned down towards the bridge of St. Angelo. At the corner of a

street leading to the river, another pause occurred. The carriage of a

great French noble and Prince of the Church--which had followed the

Corso farther on--was passing when they turned into the street, and

according to the formal etiquette of the day, even at that hour and in

the crowded street, Don Agostino's coachman stopped his horses before

the carriage of his master's superior, and the servants opened the door

that one of the gentlemen at least might alight. At the same moment,

there seemed to be some confusion in the crowd at the top of the short

street leading to the river; and Inglesant, still hardly knowing what he

did, alighted, with the double purpose of seeing what was the matter,

and of saluting his patron. As he did so, one of the servants said to

him,--

"They are bringing up a dead body, sir."

It was true. A body had just been drawn out of the river, and, placed

on nets and benches of a boat, was being carried on the shoulders of

fishermen up the street. As it passed, Inglesant could see the face,

which hung drooping towards him over the edge of the nets. It was the

face of the Harlequin-Count.

It had scarcely passed, when Inglesant heard--as a man hears over and

over again repeated in a ghastly dream--the same voice that spoke

before, saying,--

"There he is again. If you let him get back to the coach you will lose

him. Go round by the horses' heads."

The restlessness of the impatient horses had made a little space clear

of the crowd, and the same had happened in front of the horses of the

Cardinal-Duke, so that the street between them was comparatively clear.

Strangely frightened and distressed, Inglesant struggled back to

Agostino's carriage, and had just reached the door when the masque,

passing round the horses' heads, sprang upon him, and struck a violent

blow with the glancing steel. The state of his victim's brain saved

him. The moment he reached the door he reeled against it, and the weapon

glanced off his person, the hilt striking him a violent blow on the

chest. He fell backwards into the coach, and Agostino caught a second

blow in his sleeve. The startled servants threw themselves upon the

murderer, but he slipped through their hands and escaped.

* * * * *

Two days after the ball, when the morning of Ash Wednesday broke with

the lovely Italian dawn, a strange and sudden transformation had passed

over Rome. Instead of a people wild with pleasure, laughing, screaming,

joking like children, feasting, dancing, running about, from mere

lightness of heart; in the place of fairs, theatres, and booths in the

open streets, instead of the public gardens and walks crowded with

parti-coloured masquers, full of sportive pranks, and decked out with

every vagary and grotesque freak of costume, you saw a city quiet and

silent as the grave, yet full of human forms; you heard nothing but the

tolling of bells and the faint echo of solemn chants. The houses and

churches were hung with black; the gay tapestries and silks, the

theatres, the play-actors, and the gay dresses, had all vanished, and in

their place the streets were full of cowled and silent penitents. They

walked with downcast and pallid faces; if you spoke to them they did not

answer, but gazed upon you with wondering eyes. Men and women alike wore

the black gown and hood of penance, and from the proudest noble to the

poorest peasant, thronged into the Churches and received alike the

emblem of their common fate--the ashes and dust from whence they came,

and to which they would return.

Before the masked ball, exhausted in health by the long confinement in

the Conclave, and tormented in mind by disappointed desire and by

accusing conscience, Inglesant had been sinking into almost as great

misery as that which he had endured before he came to Rome. The perils

and terror that had entered unbidden among the guests during that night

of revelry had worked a marvellous change upon him, and he awoke from a

species of trance, which had lasted two days, with his spirits cleared

and strengthened. He was, in fact, like a man whom a violent fever has

just left, languid in body, but with a mind at rest and in peace, with

the wild dreams and visions of delirium gone. The earth seems, at least

to him, calm and peaceful, full of voices of prayer and strains of

penitential song. He looks out upon life languidly, it is true, but

with a friendly, pleased countenance, as upon a well-known landscape

recalling happy days. So it was with Inglesant, that the wild riot of

the Carnival being over, the peace of Lent began within his soul. The

blow that had been struck at his life restored him to life, and took

away the superstitious dread that was gradually consuming his reason.

He had met his brother's murderer, not alone in some solitary place and

picked time, planned before with diabolic purpose by the enemy of

mankind, but in a crowd, and as it seemed by chance. He had himself

been passive, and urged by no demoniac prompting to some terrible act of

vengeance; still more, his enemy had failed, miraculously, as it seemed

to him. Surely, then, his fears had been in vain; he was not delivered

over to Satan, nay, probably the Lord Himself still regarded him with

compassion, still watched over and defended his life. Some work was

doubtless reserved for him to do; for him, living always on the verge of

delirium, whom a little extra pressure upon the brain-nerve might at any

moment estrange altogether from reason, and deprive of intellect and of

intercourse with men. For such as he, nevertheless, under such

protection, what might not yet be possible? The dews of the Divine

Grace cool the fevered brain more surely than any cordial, and soften

and water the parched and thirsty heart. The pleasant Italian March day

was soft and balmy as the loveliest day of June in England. The scent

of jasmin and Daphne flowers filled the air; soft showers fell at

intervals over the garden slopes of that part of Rome; the breath of

Zephyr swept sweetness into the weary sense. Let him join the hooded

throng of penitents; let him, dust and ashes, snatched it may be "_e

flamma_" from the very flames, yet still by the grace of God in his

right mind, take his ashes with a grateful heart.

For the appearance, amid the chaos of his life, of a guiding Divine

Hand, delightful as it is to any man, must be unspeakably so to him who,

to the difficulties, sufficiently great, which ordinarily beset a man in

his path through life, adds this overwhelming one--the imminent chance

at any moment of losing consciousness altogether, with the power of

thought and choice of seeing objects rightly, and of self-control and

self-command. How eagerly one to whom life is complicated in such sort

as this must welcome a Divine guidance may easily be seen--one who

otherwise is wandering among a phantasmagoria of objects, among which he

must, so far as his wavering consciousness allows him, and for the

moment that consciousness may remain his own, shape his course so as to

avoid ruin.

In the fresh morning air, full of delicious warmth and sweetness, and

with this angelic messenger leading his soul, Inglesant went out. He

had no sufficient motive to take him to any particular Church; but

chance or some nobler power directed that he should turn his steps to

the right in passing into the Via di S. Giovanni, and following the

crowd of penitents, should arrive at the portico of the Church of the

Lateran.

The space in front of the magnificent facade was crowded with draped

forms, and the wail of the rare organ music reached the outer perfumed

air. The marble pavement of the interior, precious beyond calculation,

was thronged with the dark crowd, and the costly marble of the walls and

tombs was streaked and veiled by the wreaths of incense which lingered

in the building. The low chanting and the monotonous accompaniment of

the organs filled the Church, and high over the altar, brilliant with a

thousand lights, flashed the countless gems of the wonderful tabernacle,

and the Coena of plate of inestimable cost. On either side the gilded

brass of the four columns of the Emperor Titus, brought from Jerusalem

itself, reflected back the altar lights; and beset with precious stones

where the body of the Lord once had hung, was evident to all beholders

the very wood of the Holy Cross.

As Inglesant entered, the ashes had been sprinkled three times with holy

water, and the clouds of incense gradually rose over the kneeling crowd,

as the people began to receive the ashes upon their foreheads, thronging

up in silence and order. At the same time the choir began to sing the

Antiphons, accompanied by the heavenly music of the matchless organs,

and penetrating by their distinct articulation the remotest corners of

the Church.

"Immutemur habitu," they began, "let us change our garments; in ashes

and sackcloth let us fast and lament before the Lord. Because," and the

pealing anthem rose in ecstatic triumph to the emblazoned roof,

"plenteous in mercy to forgive our sins is this God of ours."

"Ah! yes," thought Inglesant, "let us change our garments; these dark

robes that seem ashes and sackcloth, may they not be the chosen garment

of the marriage supper of the King? Clothed and in one's right mind, by

the heavenly mercy we already walk the celestial pavement, and hear the

pealing anthems of the angelic choir."

"Emendemus in melius," the anthem went on, "let us amend for the better

in that in which we have ignorantly sinned--ne subito praeoccupati die

mortis, quaeramus spatium poenitentiae, et invenire non possimus."

The mighty voice, as of God Himself, seemed to single out and speak to

Inglesant alone, "Lest suddenly overtaken by the day of death." Ah! who

so well as he knew what that meant, who so lately as he had stood face

to face with the destroyer?

He covered his face with his hands.

As the chanting of the Antiphon continued; he reached the steps of the

high altar, and in his turn knelt to receive the ashes upon his brow.

In a pause of the anthem the chanting ceased, and the organs played a

slow movement in the interval. Nothing was heard but the monotonous

undertone of the priests.

As Inglesant knelt upon the marble an overpowering sense of helplessness

filled his soul, so worthless and fragile he seemed to himself before

the eternal existence, that the idea of punishment and penitence was

lost in the sense of utter nothingness.

"Ah! Lord God," he thought, "shattered in mind and brain I throw myself

on Thee; without Thee I am lost in the vortex of the Universe; my

intellect is lost except it steadies itself upon the idea of Thee.

Without Thee it has no existence. How canst Thou be angry with that

which is not?"

He bowed his head in utter prostration of spirit to receive the ashes.

"Memento, homo," the priest began--ah! surely it must be easy to

remember that, "quia pulvis es----"

Inglesant heard no more. A sudden thrill of earth, like the familiar

scent of flowers to a dying man, passed through him, and he lifted up

his eyes. Opposite to him across the corner of the altar steps knelt

Lauretta, her lustrous eyes full of tears fixed upon him with an

inexpressible tenderness and interest. His eyes met hers for an

instant, then he dropped his head again before the priest; but the

thought and presence of heaven was gone from him, and nothing but the

roses and loves of earth remained.

He rose from his knees. The throng of penitents surrounded him, and he

suffered himself to be swept onward, down the long nave, till he reached

the door through which the crowd was pouring out. There, however, he

stopped.

*CHAPTER XII.*

The old Duke of Umbria was dying. He lay clothed, as he had once said

to Inglesant, in the "Angelica Vestis," the sacred wafer in his mouth.

Below in the Palace Chapel, in the great Duomo, in Rome itself, masses

were being said day by day, and the ineffable Host raised to heaven, in

intercessory prayer for this man's soul. If any deserved an unruffled

passage over the dark river, he did. He had sought long and earnestly

to find a more excellent way, and had shrunk from no effort nor painful

mortification if he might at last walk in it when found. He had

resigned himself and all that he possessed in implicit obedience to the

doctrine and the See of Rome. He had crowned a blameless and beneficent

life by acts of unparalleled devotion and piety; nevertheless, an

unruffled passage he did not have. The future was dark and full of

dread, and he suffered all the terrors of the grave with a troubled

mind. Lying thus in dull misery of body, and in mental apprehension and

unrest, he bethought himself of Inglesant. Having surrendered himself,

soul and body, into the hands of those who stood about his bed, he knew

that it was useless to let his mind wander after any of those

unauthorized teachers from whom in past days he had sought instruction;

but in Inglesant he had, for the first time, met a man who, walking to

all appearance in the straitest paths of the Catholic Church, seemed to

possess a freedom of spirit greater than the Sectaries themselves could

boast. Even when suffering the rebukes of an accusing conscience, and

the bewilderment of a disordered brain, there was in Inglesant an

unfettered possession of the things of this life, and even of the life

to come, which had astonished the old man, who, unaccused by his own

conscience, was yet so confined and hampered in this world, and in such

continual dread of that other which was shortly to be revealed to him.

He expressed to his director a wish that Inglesant might be sent for.

It was impossible to deny him this request, even had it been thought

desirable. Inglesant was a trusted confidant of the dominant Society of

Rome, a favourite of the new Pope, and had, besides, been influential,

as was believed, in obtaining that crowning triumph--the cession of the

Duchy to the Papal See. A messenger was therefore despatched to Rome

requesting his immediate presence. The summons found him with Lauretta

and her father, engaged in preparations for his speedy marriage.

This connection was regarded with great favour by Don Agostino and most

of his friends; but was looked upon, as far as they condescended to

notice it at all, with suspicion by the heads of the Jesuit Society.

They were beginning to dread the influence of Molinos, and Inglesant had

already incurred some suspicion by his intimacy with the Spaniard. The

Pope was supposed to be not altogether opposed to the new doctrine, and

the Jesuits were unwilling to lose an obedient servant, who might be

useful to them. There was, however, no sufficient reason in this why he

should be forbidden to visit the old Duke, who was certainly dying, and

therefore beyond the reach of dangerous influence; and Inglesant,

remembering the interest he had felt in the Duke, and the favours which

he had lavished upon him, hastened to set out.

When he arrived in Umbria he found the Duke had rallied a little, and he

received him with the warmest expressions of delight. He was never

content save when he was in the room, and his very presence seemed to

restore strength and life to the exhausted old man. Those who watched

about his bed in the interests of Rome, if they had felt any

apprehensions of the result of Inglesant's visit, were speedily

reassured, for the Duke did not seem desirous of conversing upon

religious matters with him, and, indeed, rather avoided them. He seemed

to cling to Inglesant as to the only remaining link to that world which

he was so soon to leave, and to take a strange pleasure in furnishing

him with those appliances of earthly enjoyment which had until now long

ceased to be of interest to himself. Among other gifts he insisted on

his accepting a suit of superb armour which had been made expressly for

his idolized son. In this suit, in which he caused Inglesant to be

arrayed, he declared that he well represented the patron saint of his

nation, St. George of England, and pleased himself with the reflection

that the fief with which he had endowed Inglesant bore the name of the

same saint.

"You are il Cavaliere di San Georgio," he said to his favourite, as he

stood by his couch, sheathed in the superb but useless and fantastic

armour of the seventeenth century, with cuirass, greaves, and cuisses of

polished and jewelled metal, worn over the ordinary dress, and combined

with the lace and velvet which ornamented the whole. It is true that

the steel plates were covered with silver and gold chasing of arabesques

not of the most Christian type, and the perfect sword-blade was engraved

with hieroglyphics not of the most saintly kind; nevertheless Inglesant,

as he stood, did certainly resemble somewhat closely a splendid

renaissance St. George.

"You are il Cavaliere di San Georgio," said the Duke, "and you must wear

that armour when you go to meet your bride. I have arranged a train

worthy of so illustrious a bridegroom."

Inglesant's marriage had taken a great hold in the imagination of the

dying man, and his mind, to the surprise of those who had known him

longest, seemed to dwell entirely upon nuptials and festivals. The

strain and terror which his spirit had suffered for so long had probably

done their work, and, like as on a harpsichord with a snapped string,

the set purpose and composure was lost, and nothing but fragments of

fantasias could be played. That magic influence of the wonderful ducal

palace which Inglesant had been conscious of at his first visit, and of

which the Duke had seemed hitherto altogether regardless, at the last

moments of his life appeared to assert its power and force; and what to

others seemed mere dotage appeared to Inglesant like a wintry gleam of

mysterious light that might be the earnest of a happier time,--a return

from the dark regions of superstitious fear to the simple delights of

common human life. The sway of this strange house was as powerful over

Inglesant himself as it had been before; but he now stood upon higher

ground than he had done formerly. The events which had occurred in the

meantime had not been entirely without effect. His triumph over the

temptation of the flesh in the forest pavilion had secured to him a

higher place in the spiritual walk, and the escape from the assassin's

dagger had sobered his spirit and indescribably touched his heart. The

"Kings' Courts," of which this house was but a type,--the Italian world

in which he had lived so long,--had, therefore, now less power than ever

to crush Inglesant's religious instinct; but it gave it a certain

colour, a sort of renaissance Christianity, which bore a likeness to the

character of the art-world in which it had grown up,--a Christianity of

florid ornament and of somewhat fantastic issues.

As the Duke gradually became weaker, and seemed every day to be on the

point of death, he became the more anxious that Inglesant's marriage

should be completed, and at last insisted upon his delaying his return

to Rome no longer. Inglesant, who expected almost hour by hour the

Duke's decease, would have been content to wait; but the dying man would

take no denial. He pleased himself with giving orders for Inglesant's

train, and ordered his favourite page, an Austrian boy, to accompany

him, and to return immediately when the marriage was celebrated, that he

might receive the fullest description of the particulars of the event.

It was long before sunrise that Inglesant set out, accompanied by his

train, hoping to cross the mountains before the heat began. His company

consisted of several men-at-arms, with their grooms and horse boys, and

the Austrian page. They ascended the mountains in the earlier part of

the night, and towards dawn they reached a flat plain. The night had

been too dark to allow them to see the steep and narrow defiles, full of

oaks and beech; and as they passed over the dreary plain in the white

mist, their figures seemed vast and indistinct in the dim light; but

now, as the streaks of the dawn grew brighter in the east behind them,

they could see the fir trees clothing the distant slopes, and here and

there one of the higher summits still covered with white snow. The

scene was cold and dead and dreary as the grave. A heavy mist hung over

the mountain plain, and an icy lake lay black and cold beneath the

morning sky. As they reached the crest of the hill the mist rose,

stirred by a little breeze at sunrise, and the gorges of the descent lay

clear before them. The sun arose behind them, gilding the mountain

tops, and tracing streaks and shades of colour on the rising mist

sparkling with glittering dew-drops; while dark and solemn beneath them

lay the pine-clothed ravines and sloping valleys, with here and there a

rocky peak; and farther down still the woods and hills gave place at

last to the plain of the Tiber, at present dark and indistinguishable in

the night.

As the sun arose behind them one by one the pine ravines became lighted,

and the snowy summits, soft and pink with radiant light, stood out

against the sky, which became every instant of a deeper blue. The

sunlight, stealing down the defiles and calling forth into distinct

shape and vision tree and rock and flashing stream, spread itself over

the oak woods in the valleys, and shone at last upon the plain, embossed

and radiant with wood and green meadow, and marble towers and glistering

water--the waters of the Tiber running onwards towards Rome. Mysterious

forms and waves of light, the creatures of the morning and of the mist,

floated before the sight, and from the dark fir trees murmurs and

mutterings of ethereal life fell upon the ear. Sudden and passionate

flushes of colour tinted the pine woods and were gone, and beneath the

branches and across the paths fairy lights played for a moment and

passed away.

The party halted more than once, but it was necessary to make the long

descent before the heat began, and they commenced carefully to pick

their way down the stony mountain road, which wound down the ravines in

wild unequal paths. The track now precipitous, now almost level, took

them round corners and masses of rock sometimes hanging above their

heads, revealing continually new reaches of valley, and new defiles

clothed with fir and oak. Mountain flowers and trailing ivy and

creeping plants hung in festoons on every side, lizards ran across the

path, birds fluttered above them or darted into the dark recesses where

the mountain brooks were heard; everything sang the morning psalm of

life, with which, from field and mountain solitudes, the free children

of nature salute the day.

The Austrian boy felt the beauty of the scene, and broke out into

singing.

"When the northern gods," he said to Inglesant, "rode on their

chevisance they went down into the deep valleys singing magic songs.

Let us into this dark valley, singing magic songs, also go down; who

knows what strange and hidden deity, since the old pagan times lost and

forgotten, we may find among the dark fir dingles and the laurel

shades?"

And he began to sing some love ditty.

Inglesant did not hear him. The beauty of the scene, ethereal and

unreal in its loveliness, following upon the long dark mountain ride,

his sleepless nights and strange familiarity with approaching death by

the couch of the old Duke, confused his senses, and a presentiment of

impending fate filled his mind. The recollection of his brother rose

again in his remembrance, distinct and present as in life; and more than

once he fancied that he heard his voice, as the cry of some mountain

beast or sound of moaning trees came up the pass. No other foreshadowing

than this very imperfect one warned him of the approaching crisis of his

life.

The sun was fully up, and the light already brilliant and intense, when

they approached a projecting point where the slope of wood ended in a

tower of rock jutting upon the road. The path by which they approached

it was narrow and ragged, but beyond the rock the ground spread itself

out, and the path was carried inward towards the right, having the

sloping hillside on the one hand, covered with scattered oaks, while, on

the other, a slip of ground separated it from the ravine. At the

turning of the road, where the opening valley lay before them as they

reached the corner, face to face with Inglesant as he checked his horse,

was the Italian, the inquisitive stranger of the theatre at Florence,

the intruder into the Conclave, the masque of the Carnival ball, the

assassin of the Corso--that Malvolti who had treacherously murdered his

brother and sought his own life. Alone and weary, his clothes worn and

threadbare, he came toiling up the pass. Inglesant reined in his horse

suddenly, a strange and fierce light in his eyes and face. The Italian

started back like some wild creature of the forest brought suddenly to

bay, a terrified cry broke from him, and he looked wildly round as if

intending flight. The nature of the ground caught him as in a trap; on

the one hand the sloping hillside steep and open, on the other tangled

rugged ground, slightly rising between the road and the precipice, cut

off all hope of sudden flight. He looked wildly round for a moment,

then, when the horsemen came round the rocky wall and halted behind

their leader, his eyes came back to Inglesant's face, and he marked the

smile upon his lips and in his eyes, and saw his hand steal downwards to

the hunting piece he carried at the saddle; then with a terrible cry, he

threw himself on his knees before the horse's head, and begged for

pity,--pity and life.

Inglesant took his hand from his weapon, and turning slightly to the

page and to the others behind him, he said,--

"This man, messeri, is a murderer and a villain, steeped in every crime;

a cruel secret midnight cut-throat and assassin; a lurker in secret

corners to murder the innocent. He took my brother, a noble gentleman

whom I was proud to follow, treacherously at an advantage, and slew him.

I see him now before me lying in his blood. He tried to take my

life,--I, who scarcely even knew him,--in the streets of Rome. Now he

begs for mercy, what say you, gentleman? what is his due?"

"Shoot the dog through the head. Hang him on the nearest tree. Carry

him into Rome and torture him to death."

The Italian still continued on his knees, his hands clasped before him,

his face working with terror and agony that could not be disguised.

"Mercy, monsignore," he cried. "Mercy. I cannot, I dare not, I am not

fit to die. For the blessed Host, monsignore, have mercy--for the love

of Jesu--for the sake of Jesu."

As he said these last words Inglesant's attitude altered, and the cruel

light faded out of his eyes. His hand ceased to finger the carabine at

his saddle, and he sat still upon his horse, looking down upon the

abject wretch before him, while a man might count fifty. The Italian

saw, or thought he saw, that his judge was inclining to mercy, and he

renewed his appeals for pity.

"For the love of the crucifix, monsignore; for the blessed Virgin's

sake."

But Inglesant did not seem to hear him. He turned to the horsemen

behind him, and said,--

"Take him up, one of you, on the crupper. Search him first for arms.

Another keep his eye on him, and if he moves or attempts to escape,

shoot him dead. You had better come quietly;" he continued, "it is your

only chance for life."

Two of the men-at-arms dismounted and searched the prisoner, but found

no arms upon him. He seemed indeed to be in the greatest distress from

hunger and want, and his clothes were ragged and thin. He was mounted

behind one of the soldiers and closely watched, but he made no attempt

to escape, and indeed appeared to have no strength or energy for such an

effort.

They went on down the pass for about an Italian league. The country

became more thickly wooded, and here and there on the hillsides patches

of corn appeared, and once or twice in a sheltered spot a few vines. At

length, on the broad shoulder of the hill round which the path wound,

they saw before them a few cottages, and above them, on the hillside, in

a position that commanded the distant pass till it opened on the plain,

was a Chapel, the bell of which had just ceased ringing for mass.

Inglesant turned his horse's head up the narrow stony path, and when the

gate was reached, he dismounted and entered the Chapel, followed by his

train. The Capella had apparently been built of the remains of some

temple or old Roman house, for many of the stones of the front were

carved in bold relief. It was a small narrow building, and possessed no

furniture save the altar and a rude pulpit built of stones; but behind

the altar, painted on the plaster of the wall, was the rood or crucifix,

the size of life. Who the artist had been cannot now be told; it might

have been the pupil of some great master, who had caught something of

the master's skill, or, perhaps, in the old time, some artist had come

up the pass from Borgo san Sepolcro, and had painted it for the love of

his art and of the Blessed Virgin; but, whoever had done it, it was well

done, and it gave a sanctity to the little Chapel, and possessed an

influence of which the villagers were not unconscious, and of which they

were even proud.

The mass had commenced some short time as the train entered, and such

few women and peasants as were present turned in surprise.

Inglesant knelt upon the steps before the altar, and the men-at-arms

upon the floor of the Chapel, the two who guarded the prisoner keeping

close behind their leader.

The priest, who was an old and simple-looking countryman, continued his

office without stopping; but when he had received the sacred elements

himself, he turned, and, influenced probably by his appearance and by

his position at the altar, he offered Inglesant the Sacrament. He took

it, and the priest, turning again to the altar, finished the mass.

Then Inglesant rose, and when the priest turned again he was standing

before the altar with his drawn sword held lengthwise across his hands.

"My Father," he said, "I am the Cavaliere di San Georgio, and as I came

across the mountains this morning on my way to Rome, I met my mortal

foe, the murderer of my brother, a wretch whose life is forfeit by every

law, either of earth or heaven, a guilty monster steeped in every crime.

Him, as soon as I had met him,--sent by this lonely and untrodden way as

it seems to me by the Lord's hand,--I thought to crush at once, as I

would a venomous beast, though he is worse than any beast. But, my

Father, he has appealed from me to the adorable Name of Jesus, and I

cannot touch him. But he will not escape. I give him over to the Lord.

I give up my sword into the Lord's hands, that He may work my vengeance

upon him as it seems to Him good. Henceforth he is safe from earthly

retribution, but the Divine Powers are just. Take this sword, reverend

Father, and let it lie upon the altar beneath the Christ Himself; and I

will make an offering for daily masses for my brother's soul."

The priest took the sword, and kneeling before the altar, placed it

thereon like a man acting in a dream.

He was one of those child-like peasant-priests to whom the great world

was unknown, and to whom his mountain solitudes were peopled as much by

the saints and angels of his breviary as by the peasants who shared with

him the solitudes and the legends that gave to these mountain fastnesses

a mysterious awe. To such a man as this it seemed nothing strange that

the blessed St. George himself, in jewelled armour, should stand before

the altar in the mystic morning light, his shining sword in his hand.

He turned again to Inglesant, who had knelt down once more.

"It is well done, monsignore," he said, "as all that thou doest

doubtless is most well. The sword shall remain here as thou sayest, and

the Lord doubtless will work His blessed will. But I entreat,

monsignore, thy intercession for me, a poor sinful man; and when thou

returnest to thy place, and seest again the Lord Jesus, that thou wilt

remind Him of His unworthy priest. Amen."

Inglesant scarcely heard what he said, and certainly did not understand

it. His sense was confused by what had happened, and by the sudden

overmastering impulse upon which he had acted. He moved as in a dream;

nothing seemed to come strange to him, nothing startled him, and he took

slight heed of what passed. He placed his embroidered purse, heavy with

gold, in the priest's hand, and in his excitement totally forgot to name

his brother, for whose repose masses were to be said.

He signed to his men to release the prisoner, and, his trumpets sounding

to horse before the Chapel gate, he mounted and rode on down the pass.

But his visit was not forgotten, and long afterwards, perhaps even to

the present day, popular tradition took the story up, and related that

once, when the priest of the mountain Chapel was a very holy man, the

blessed St. George himself, in shining armour, came across the mountains

one morning very early, and himself partook of the Sacrament and all his

train; and appealed triumphantly to the magic sword--set with gold and

precious stones--that lay upon the altar from that morning, by virtue of

which no harm can befall the village, no storm strike it, and, above

all, no pillage of armed men or any violence can occur.

The Austrian boy returned to Umbria with his story of the marriage; but

the old Duke never heard it. No sooner had Inglesant left him than his

depression and despair returned; he loathed the sight of the day, and of

the costly palace in which he lived; the gay arts and the devised

fancies by which men have sought to lure happiness became intolerable to

him; and, ill as he was, he caused himself to be removed to the Castel

Durante, amid the lonely mountain ravines, to abide his end. As

Inglesant bowed beneath the care-cloth--the fine linen cloth laid over

the newly-married in the Church,--kneeling till mass was ended, with his

heart full of love and brightness and peace, the last of the house of

Revere--"worn out," says the chronicler, with a burst of unusual

candour, "by priestly torments"--breathed his last, and went to another

world, where, it may be hoped, sacrifice and devotion are better

rewarded than they are here, and superstitious terrors are unknown.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

The Castello di San Georgio, or, as it might more properly have been

called, the "Casa" or Villa di San Georgio, was built upon the summit of

a small conical hill, amid the sloping bases of the Apennines, at a part

of their long range where the summits were low and green. In that

delightful region, the cultivation and richness of the plain is united

to the wildness and beauty of the hills. The heat is tempered in the

shady valleys and under the thick woods. A delicious moisture and soft

haze hangs about these dewy, grassy places, which the sun has power to

warm and gladden, but not to parch. Flowers of every hue cover the

ground beneath the oaks and elms. Nightingales sing in the thickets of

wild rose and clematis, and the groves of laurel and of the long-leaved

olives are crowded with small creatures in the full enjoyment of life

and warmth. Little brooks and rippling streams, half hidden by the

tangled thickets, and turned from their courses by the mossy rocks, flow

down from the hill ravines, as joyful and clear as in that old time when

each was the care of some protecting nymph or rural god. In the waters

of the placid lake are reflected the shadows of the hills and the

tremulous shimmer of waving woods.

In this favoured region, the Villa di San Georgio stood upon its leafy

hill-top, set in the background of the mountains. The steep slope was

terraced here and there in patches of ground planted with fruit-trees,

and at the foot, towards the south, a large lake slept beneath the blue

sky, its shores lined with brushwood, interspersed here and there with

grassy slopes, where the orchis and hyacinth and narcissus sprang up

from the green rich turf.

Through this pastoral land, at all seasons of the year, wandering

shepherds with their flocks, peasants with their cattle and dogs, ladies

and cavaliers from the neighbouring villas, woodmen, vine-dressers,

fishermen from the lake, traversed the leafy stage, and diversified the

scene; but when the grape was fully ripe, and the long year was crowned

at last with the fatness of the vintage, a joyous age of rural wealth

and jollity seemed for a time to fill the mellow, golden-tinted land.

Then, indeed, wandering amid the woods and rocks interspersed with

vineyards and patches of yellow wheat, as you met the loaded wain, or

came upon the wine-press, trodden by laughing girls and boys, you seemed

to understand the stories of the rural wanderings of the gods, for you

met with many a scene to which it might well be fancied that they might

still be allured, as to that garden at the foot of Mount Bermion where

the roses grew. The gracious gods of plenty still filled the luscious

vats; rustling Zephyr still whispered love among the flowers, still came

laden with the ripening odours of the fruit. The little cherub Loves

peeped out from behind oak stems and ruined plinth and sculptured

frieze, half hidden among roots and leaves.

The Castello was a modern building, although there were ruins in one of

the courtyards of a very antique date. It consisted of three or four

lofty blocks of buildings, at right angles to each other, covered with

low, red-tiled roofs. The principal windows were in the upper stories,

and gave light to large and handsome rooms, from which on all sides the

most enchanting landscapes satisfied the eye.

The weeks that succeeded Inglesant's marriage grew into months, and the

months into years, in this delightful scene. The old Count spent some

months in peaceful satisfaction with his daughter and her husband,

delighted with the company of his one grandchild, a little boy. In the

spacious dining-saloon, with its cool polished floor, it was a pretty

sight to see the old, courteous nobleman tempting the child with the

ripest fruit. The shaded light fell upon the plate and yellow ware on

the table, and upon the old cabinets of Italian marqueterie against the

walls; whilst by the carved mantel-piece sat the pleased parents, of

whom it is recorded that in Rome they passed for the handsomest pair in

Italy. In this way, the days of some three sunny summers passed away,

while the winters were spent in the Papal city.

But this Arcadian life was not lasting. The old Count was not long

content if absent from city life, and the time at the Castello hung

somewhat heavily upon the spirits of both Inglesant and his wife. They

were neither of them fitted by previous habits and education for a

retired country life; but the circumstance which outwardly appeared to

weigh upon Lauretta's mind was uncertainty concerning her brother's

fate. From the time of the marriage the Cavaliere had disappeared, and

from that day no word of tidings had been received respecting him. It

was known that his circumstances were desperate, and the danger he lay

under from secret enemies imminent. The account which her husband had

given her of the condition in which he had seen Malvolti dwelt in her

imagination, and she brooded over the idea of her brother in a similar

state of destitution and misery. It seemed probable that, had he been

assassinated, tidings of the event would have reached his family; and if

alive, it was strange that he had made no application for assistance to

those who were so well able and so willing to render it. This suspense

and mystery were more insupportable than certainty of evil would have

been.

The characters of Inglesant and his wife were of such a nature as most

effectively to produce and aggravate this sleepless uneasiness. Upon

Lauretta's lenient and gracious, if somewhat pleasure-loving

disposition, the impression of the unkindness she had experienced from

her brother faded without leaving a trace, and she thought only of some

pleasant, long-past incidents, when she had been a pretty, engaging

child; whilst the life of romance and excitement, combined with a

certain spiritual Quixotism, which Inglesant had so long followed, had

rendered any other uncongenial to him, and it required little persuasion

to induce him to re-enter upon it.

But there were other causes at work which led to the same result. For

many weeks a sultry wind had, without variation, passed over the south

of Italy, laden with putrid exhalations from the earth, and by its

sullen steadiness causing stagnation in the air. It would be difficult

to describe the terrible effect upon the mind and system of the long

continuance of such a state of the atmosphere. A restless fear and

depression of spirits prepared the body for the seeds of disease, and

the contagion, which was not perhaps generated in the atmosphere, was

carried by it with fearful rapidity. The plague struck down its victims

at once in city and in country, and spared no rank nor condition of

life. Then all bond of fellowship and of society was loosened, strange

crimes and suspicions,--strange even to that land of crime and

treachery,--influenced the lives and thoughts of all men. Innocent

persons were hunted to death, as poisoners and spreaders of infection;

the terrors of the grave broke through the forms of artificial life, and

the depravity of the heart was exposed in ghastly nakedness, as the

bodies of the dead lay unburied by the waysides.

The Castello di San Georgio, standing on the summit of a breezy hill, in

a thinly-peopled district, was as safe a refuge as could perhaps be

found, and, if uneasiness of mind could have been banished, might have

been a happy one. Three hundred years before, in the child-like

unconsciousness of spiritual conflict which the unquestioned rule of

Rome for so long produced, it had been possible, in the days of

Boccacio, for cultivated and refined society to shut itself up in some

earthly paradise, and, surrounded by horrors and by death, to spend its

days in light wit and anecdote, undisturbed in mind, and kept in bodily

health by cheerful enjoyment; but the time for such possibilities as

these had long gone by. A mental trouble and uneasiness, which pervaded

the whole of human life at the most quiet times, gave place, at such

periods of dread and fear, to an intolerable restlessness, which

altogether precluded the placid enjoyment of the present, however

guarded and apparently secure.

The apprehension which most weighed upon Lauretta's mind, was that her

brother, flying from some city where the pestilence raged, might be

refused succour and assistance, and might even be murdered in the

village to which he might flee. Such incidents were of daily occurrence,

nor can it be wondered at that human precaution and terror became cruel

and merciless, when it is an authenticated fact that the very birds

themselves forsook the country places, and disappeared from their native

groves at the approach of the plague. Nor were inanimate things, even,

indifferent to the scourge; patches and blotches of infection broke out

upon the walls and houses, and when scraped off would reappear until the

house itself was burnt down.

It was in the midst of this ghastly existence, this life in death, that

a wandering mendicant, driven from Rome by the pestilence and craving

alms at the Castello, asserted that he knew the Cavaliere di Guardino,

and that he was ill in Rome, doubtless by this time dead. The man

probably lied, or, if it were true that he had known the Cavaliere, as

he had passed him on the steps of the Trinita, the latter part of his

story was certainly imaginary. It caused Lauretta, however, so much

distress, that her husband, to comfort her, proposed to ride to Rome,

and endeavour to discover the truth. The plague was not so virulent in

Rome as it was in the south of Italy, and especially in Naples, and to a

man using proper precautions the danger might not be very great.

Lauretta was distracted. The restless anxiety, which gave her no peace

until her brother's fate was known, urged her to let her husband go.

How, then, should she be more at ease when, in addition to one vision of

dread and apprehension, she would be haunted by another? The new

anxiety seemed a relief from the old; anyhow the old was

intolerable,--any change offered hope.

Upon his arrival at Rome Inglesant went hither and thither, from place

to place, as one false report and another led him. Every beggar in the

city seemed to have known the Cavaliere. The contagion was sufficiently

virulent to stop all amusements, and to drive every one from the city

who was not compelled to remain. The streets were almost deserted, and

those who passed along them walked apart, avoiding each other, and

seldom spoke. The most frequented places were the churches, and even

there, the services were short and hurried, and divested of everything

that could attract the eye. In the unusual silence the incessant

tolling of the bells was more marked than ever. White processions

carrying the Host glided over the hushed pavements.

Once Inglesant thought he had discovered the man of whom he was in

search. The Cavaliere, the story now ran, had arrived in Rome a few

days ago from Naples, where the plague had the mastery, so that the

living could not bury the dead. He had come, flying towards the healthy

north before the pestilence, which had overtaken him as he entered the

Giovanni gate, and had taken refuge in a pest-house, which had been

established in the courtyard of a little church, "S. Salvatoris in

Laterano ad scalas sanctas." Thither Inglesant repaired, in the full

glare of an afternoon in the late summer. In a sort of cloister, round a

little courtyard, the beds were laid out side by side, on which lay the

dying and the dead. Between the worn stones of the courtyard, sprinkled

with water, bright flowers were springing up. The monks were flitting

about; two or three of these also were dead already. Inglesant inquired

for the stranger who had arrived from Naples. He was dead, the monks

told him, but not yet taken away for burial; he lay there still upon his

couch. They took Inglesant to a corner of the courtyard, where, looking

down upon the dead body, he saw at once it was not that of the

Cavaliere. It was the body of a man in the very prime of life, of a

singularly noble and lofty look. He lay with his hand clasped over a

little bit of crossed wood the monks had made, his eyes closed,

something like a smile upon his lips.

"The Cavaliere will not look like that," thought Inglesant to himself.

Who was he? In some part of Italy, doubtless, there were at that moment

those who waited for him, and wondered, just as he and Lauretta were

doing. Perhaps in some distant lazaretto some one might be standing

over the body of the Cavaliere, at just such a loss for a name and clue.

It did not seem strange to Inglesant; he had wandered through these

cross ways and tangled paths of life from a child.

He went out into the hot sunshine and down the long straight street, by

the great church of the Sancta Maria, into the Via Felix, scarcely

knowing where he went. Across the whole breadth of Rome the few persons

he met regarded him with suspicion, and crossed over to the other side.

He himself carried a pomander of silver in the shape of an apple,

stuffed with spices, which sent out a curious faint perfume through

small holes. He wandered down the steps of the Trinita, where even the

beggars were few and quiet, and seeking unconsciously the cooler air of

the river, passed the desolate Corso, and came down to the Ripetta, to

the steps.

The sun was sinking now, and the western sky was all ablaze with a

strange light. All through the streets the image of the dead man had

haunted Inglesant, and the silent city seemed full of such pale and

mystic forms. The great dome of St. Peter's stood out dark and clear

against the yellow light, which shone through the casements below the

dome till the whole seemed faint and ethereal as the air itself. In the

foreground, across the river, were low meadows, and the bare branches of

trees the leaves of which had already withered and fallen. In the

distance the pollard firs upon the ramparts stood out distinctly in

fantastic forms; to the left the spires and domes of the city shone in

the light; in front flowed the dark river, still and slow. The large

steps by the water's edge, usually so crowded and heaped with market

produce, were bare and deserted; a wild superstitious terror took

possession of Inglesant's mind.

In this solitude and loneliness, amid the busiest haunts of life, with

the image of death on every hand, he felt as though the unseen world

might at any moment manifest itself; the lurid sky seemed ready to part

asunder, and amid the silent courts and pavements the dead would

scarcely seem strangers were they to appear. He stood waiting, as

though expecting a message from beyond the grave.

And indeed it seemed to come. As he stood upon the steps a gray form

came along the pathway on the further side beneath the leafless trees

and down the sloping bank. It entered the small boat that lay moored

beneath the alders and guided itself across the stream. It stood erect

and motionless, propelling the skiff doubtless by an oar at the stern,

but from the place where Inglesant stood the boat seemed to move of its

own accord, like the magic bark in some romance of chivalry. In its

left hand the figure held something which shone in the light; the yellow

glamour of the sunset, dazzling to Inglesant's eyes, fluttered upon its

vestment of whitish grey, and clothed in transparent radiance this

shadowy revenant from the tomb. It made no stay at the landing-place,

but, as though on an errand of life and death, it came straight up the

wide curved steps, holding forward in its left hand a crucifix of brass.

It passed within a step of Inglesant, who was standing, wonderstruck, at

the summit of the steps, his silver pomander in his hand. As it passed

him he could see the face, pale and steadfast, with a bright lustre in

the eyes, and looking full upon him without pausing, the friar, if it

were a friar, said,--

"He is in Naples. In that city, or near it, you will find the man you

seek. Ay! and far more than you seek. Let there be no delay on your

part."

Then, still holding the crucifix forward at arm's length, as though to

cleave the poisoned air before him as he went, the figure passed up the

street, turning neither to the right nor to the left, and, taking no

notice of any of the few loiterers in his way, passed quickly out of

sight.

Inglesant turned to two fishermen who were coming slowly down towards

the ferry.

"Did you see that Servite friar?" he said.

The men gazed at him uneasily. "He is light-headed," one of them

muttered; "he has the plague upon him, and does not know what he says."

Though he said this, they might have seen the friar all the same, for

Inglesant's manner was excited, and those were perilous times in which

to speak to strangers in the streets. The two men got into the boat, and

passed over hastily to the other side.

Naples! It was walking straight into the jaws of death. The dead were

lying in the streets in heaps, sprinkled hastily with lime; and lavish

gifts of freedom and of gold could scarcely keep the galley slaves from

breaking out of the city, though they knew that poverty and probably

destruction awaited them elsewhere. But this strange message from

another world, which bore such an impress of a higher knowledge, how

could he disobey it? "Far more than he sought." These words haunted

him. He made inquiries at the monastery of the Jesuits in the Corso,

but could hear nothing of such a man. Most of those to whom he spoke

were of opinion that he had seen a vision. He himself sometimes thought

it an illusion of the brain, conjured up by the story of the man who

came from Naples, by the afternoon heat, and by the sight of the dead;

but in all this the divine wisdom might be working; by these strange

means the divine hand might guide. "Let there be no delay on your part."

These words sounded like a far-off echo of Father St. Clare's voice;

once again the old habit of obedience stirred within him. Wife and

child and home stood in the path, but the training which first love had

been powerless to oppose was not likely to fail now. Once again his

station seemed to be given him. Before--upon the scaffold, at the

traitor's dock, in prison,--he had been found at the appointed post;

would it be worth while now, when life was so much farther run out, to

falter and turn back? The higher walks of the holy life had indeed

proved too difficult and steep, but to this running-footman's sort of

business he had before proved himself equal;--should he now be found

untrustworthy even in this?