Ippolito moved a step backwards when he heard the key turned in the
lock, for the door opened inwards. It swung wide, a moment later, and he
faced a multitude of angry eyes. There was Tebaldo pointing to him with
an evil smile on his thin lips, and his lids falling at the angles like
those of a vulture that scents death. There was the young red-haired
lieutenant of infantry, gazing sharply at him; there was a corporal,
with three or four of the foot-carabineers in their forage-caps. These
represented the law. But pressing upon them, around them, and past them,
was also a throng of angry men, and with them half a dozen women, and
some children, even little ones, and the lame boy who waited every day
to call the sacristan, and the fat sacristan himself, with the
disturbing cast in his eye. In the background, just within the door when
all had entered, and leaning against the doorpost, stood Concetta, her
shawl falling back from her head, her splendid eyes gleaming with
insanity.
'Take him,' said Tebaldo, harshly. 'There lies my brother, before the
altar, and his blood is on this man's hands.'
Then came a discordant chorus of cries and curses from the crowd.
'Take the priest of the Saracinesca! Handcuff him! Put him in chains!
Curses on his soul, and on the souls of his dead!'
'He tried to kill him with a stone yesterday!'
'He has done it to-day, the assassin!'
'Let us burn him alive! Let us tear him to pieces! Death to the Roman!'
'Let me get my hands upon his face!' screamed a dishevelled woman.
And a child, that stood near, spat at him.
Ippolito had stepped backwards before them and faced them, pale and
staring in amazement and horror. He could not understand, at first. The
hideous treachery was altogether beyond his belief. Yet Tebaldo's
outstretched hand pointed at him, and it was Tebaldo's voice that was
bidding the soldiers take him. Their faces were impenetrable. Only the
young Piedmontese officer, used to another world in the civilised north,
betrayed in his expression the sort of curiosity one sees in the looks
of people who are watching wild beasts in a cage.
'You had better clear the church,' he said to the carabineers. 'This
confusion is unseemly.'
He was not their officer, but they at once began to obey him. The crowd
resisted a little, when the big men pushed them back with outstretched
arms, as one gathers canes in the brake, to bind them together before
cutting them off at the roots.
'They will let him go, like his brother,' growled an old man, fiercely.
'They will send him to Rome, and then let him go free, because he is a
Roman,' said the crooked little carpenter.
And the little boy spat at Ippolito again, and dodged the hand of one of
the soldiers and ran out. With protesting cries, and with many curses
and many evil threats, the people allowed themselves to be pushed out
without any violence.
'I am the sacristan,' said the fat man, objecting; and they let him
stay.
'I am Concetta,' said the dark girl, gravely.
'Let her stay,' advised the sacristan. 'She saw the priest beat him
yesterday.'
Ippolito had not spoken a word. He had folded his arms, and stood
waiting for the confusion to end. He was fearless, but he could not
realise, at first, that he might be seriously accused of the murder, and
he believed that he should be set free very soon. He understood the
treachery now, however, and his clear eyes fixed themselves on Tebaldo's
face.
When the church was cleared, and the door fastened, the corporal
stepped up to him. Two of his men had gone to examine the body, and to
search for the weapon.
'You are accused of having killed that gentleman,' said the corporal,
quietly. 'He is quite dead, and you are in the church with him. There is
blood on both your hands. What have you to say?'
'I did not kill him,' said Ippolito, simply. 'When I saw that he was
lying before the altar, I examined him, to see if he were dead. That is
how I soiled my hands.'
The two men came back from the altar. They had ascertained that
Francesco had been killed by a knife-thrust, but had not found the
knife.
'I regret that I must search you,' said the corporal, in his quiet,
determined voice.
'You will find a knife in my pocket,' answered Ippolito, very pale, for
he saw how all evidence must go against him.
The corporal looked up sharply, for he himself was surprised. Ippolito
emptied his pockets, not wishing to submit to the indignity of being
searched. He at once produced the sheathed bowie knife and the
handkerchief, which was deeply dyed with blood and not yet dry. Some of
it had stained the yellow leathern sheath in several places. The
corporal drew out the weapon, which was bright and spotless, returned it
to its sheath, and then held up the handkerchief by two corners. It is
very easy to wipe blood from burnished steel, provided it is done
instantly, and the corporal had a wide experience of such matters. He
concluded that Ippolito might have cleaned the knife with the pocket
handkerchief. He handed both objects to one of his men.
Tebaldo's lids had quivered and his lips had moved a little as he looked
on. It seemed as though some supernatural power were conspiring in his
favour against his enemy. But he said nothing. The young officer opened
his blue eyes very wide, and thoughtfully twisted his small, red
moustache.
Ippolito emptied the other pocket of his cassock, and produced a small
volume of the Breviary, containing the offices for the spring, a little
flexible morocco pocket-book, containing a few bank-notes, and an
ivory-handled penknife.
'It is enough,' said the corporal. 'These things do not interest us.
Your name,' he added, taking out his note-book and pencil.
'Ippolito Saracinesca.'
'Son of whom?'
'Of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Prince of Sant' Ilario, of Rome.'
'Age?'
'Twenty-seven years.'
'Your occupation?'
'A priest.'
'Present residence?'
'Rome. I am staying with my brother at Camaldoli.'
The corporal noted the answers rapidly in his book, and returned it to
his pocket, buttoning his tunic again. Then he was silent for a moment.
'You have already given your account of the affair,' he said presently
to Tebaldo. 'It is not necessary to repeat it. But this girl--what has
she to say?' He turned to Concetta.
Gravely, but with gleaming eyes, the pale and beautiful girl came
forward and faced Ippolito.
'Yesterday at sunset I was at the gate of the cemetery,' she said. 'This
man's brother, who lives at Camaldoli, shot this Don Tebaldo's brother,
to whom I was betrothed, and he is buried in the cemetery. Therefore, I
go every day to the gate, to visit him. Yesterday Don Francesco came up
the road and was speaking to me. He who lies there dead was talking with
me but yesterday. God give his soul peace and rest. Then this priest,
coming down from Santa Vittoria, fell upon him from behind
treacherously, and choked him by the collar, and beat him upon the head,
so that he fell down fainting. But certain peasants came by that way and
lifted him up and took him into our village, but the priest went down to
Camaldoli. This I saw, and this I tell you. And now two Saracinesca have
killed two Pagliuca.'
She ceased speaking, and her white hands drew her shawl over her head,
for she was in church, where a woman's head should be covered.
'Do you admit the truth of what this girl says?' asked the corporal,
turning to Ippolito.
'It is true that I beat Francesco Pagliuca with my hands yesterday
afternoon.'
'Do you not admit also that you killed him to-day, in this church, with
that knife? Don Tebaldo testifies that he saw you do it.'
The young priest drew himself up to his height, and his clear gaze
riveted itself on Tebaldo's half-veiled eyes. The good man faced the bad
silently for many seconds.
'Did you testify that you saw me kill your brother?' asked Ippolito, at
last.
'I did, and I shall repeat my testimony at the proper time,' answered
Tebaldo, steadily.
But under the clear, high innocence that silently gave him the lie, his
eyelids dropped more and more, till he looked down.
'Do you admit that you killed him?' asked the corporal again.
'I did not kill him.'
'But you must necessarily know who did, if you did not,' said the
soldier. 'The sacristan says that you sent a boy for him some time ago.
The man is only just dead, as my men have seen. You must have been in
the church when he was killed, and you must have seen the man who did
it.'
Ippolito had not seen the deed done, but he had seen the murderer. It
would be hard to answer on the one point and not on the other, and by
the very smallest slip he might unintentionally say something which
might end in the betrayal of the secret told him in confession. He
therefore kept silent.
'You say nothing? You insist in saying nothing?' asked the corporal.
'I say nothing beyond what I have said. I did not do it.'
'And you,' continued the soldier, addressing Tebaldo, 'you testify that
you saw this man do it?'
'I do. Those things would bear evidence without me.' added Tebaldo,
pointing to the knife and the bloody handkerchief, which latter one of
the soldiers held by a single corner in order not to soil his fingers.
'Those things, and the man's hands,' he added. 'Moreover, his brother
killed my other brother, as everyone knows, and he himself admits that
he assaulted Francesco only last night. You can hardly hesitate about
arresting him, corporal. The fact that he is a Roman and that we are
Sicilians is hardly a sufficient defence, I think.'
The corporal understood that he had no choice. He was a very sensible
man and had seen much service in Sicily, and whenever there was
bloodshed he was inclined to attribute the crime to a Sicilian rather
than to an Italian. He liked Ippolito's face and innocent eyes and would
have given much to feel that he had a right to leave him at liberty. But
he had to admit that the evidence was overpoweringly strong against the
accused. At first sight, indeed, it seemed perfectly absurd to suppose
that a young churchman of a sensitive organisation and educated in a
high state of civilisation should suddenly, wilfully, and violently stab
to death such a man as the carabineer believed Francesco Pagliuca to
have been; a man against whom the authorities had been warned, as being
likely on the contrary to do the Saracinesca some injury, if he could; a
man who had grown up in a wild part of Sicily, imbued with the lawless
ideas of the mafia; a man, in fact, who though a nobleman by birth was
looked upon as a 'maffeuso,' and whose brother had certainly had
friendly relations with outlaws. It was not to be denied that the
carabineers and the soldiers were all strongly prejudiced in favour of
the Saracinesca, as against the Corleone.
At the same time, the evidence was overwhelming, and was the more so
because Ippolito was so obstinately silent and would say nothing in
self-defence beyond making a general denial of the charge. In his
difficulty the corporal turned to the officer of the line, both as his
military superior and as a man of higher education than himself. He
wanted support. He begged the lieutenant to speak with him in private
for a moment, and they moved away together to one of the side chapels.
Ippolito folded his arms and paced up and down before the carabineers,
in profound and distressing perplexity. Tebaldo leaned against a pillar
and watched him with evil satisfaction. Concetta went and knelt down,
facing the altar, by a pillar on the opposite side, and the fat
sacristan stood still in the background, watching everybody.
The lieutenant shook his head from time to time while the corporal went
over the case.
'For my part,' said the officer at last, 'I will wager my honour as a
soldier that the priest did not kill him. But you will have to arrest
him, not because of the feeling in the village, but simply because the
evidence appears to be so strong. There is something here which we do
not understand. But soldiers are not called upon to understand. It is
always our duty to act to the best of our ability on what we can see.
Understanding such things belongs to the law. I advise you to take him
to your quarters and get him away from here to-night. He will make no
resistance, of course.'
The corporal was satisfied, though he did not like the duty, and he came
back to Ippolito.
'It is my duty to arrest you,' he said, in a tone which expressed some
respect and much annoyance. Ippolito had stopped in his walk and turned
when he heard the soldier's footsteps behind him.
'You must do what you think right,' he said calmly. 'I am ready.'
The corporal gave an order to his men, and requested Ippolito to walk
between them. Then he himself opened the door of the church.
A multitude of people had assembled outside, and there were now at least
three times as many as had at first followed Tebaldo and the
carabineers. Many more were hurrying down from the gate, and there was
the confused sound of many voices, talking angrily. But when Ippolito
appeared there was silence for a moment. Then, from far back in the
crowd, came a single cry, loud, high, derisive, and full of hatred.
'Assassin!'
The word rang out, and was immediately taken up and repeated by a
hundred men and women, with a sort of concentrated fury that hissed out
the syllables, as though each were a curse.
Ippolito faced the people calmly enough, walking between the four
carabineers, who marched two and two on each side of him, and the
evening light shone full upon his clear-cut features and his innocent,
brave eyes. He needed courage as well as innocence to bear him through
the ordeal, for he knew that but for the handful of soldiers, the crowd
would have made short work of tearing him to pieces in their fury. For
once, the soldiers were on their side against the hated Italians of the
mainland. The people applauded them and their corporal, and the infantry
officer, as they went by.
The children ran before, crying out to the people who were still coming
down from the village.
'Here comes the priest of the Saracinesca!' they shouted. 'Here comes
the assassin!'
'Assassin! assassin!' Ippolito heard the word a thousand times in five
minutes. And some of the people spoke to the soldiers and the corporal.
'Give him to us, Uncle Carabineer!' cried the crooked carpenter. 'What
has the law to do with him? Give him to us! We will serve him half
roasted and half boiled!'
All the people who heard laughed at this and jeered at Ippolito.
'See the blood on his hands!' screamed the carpenter's big wife,
suddenly catching sight of the red stains. 'See the blood of Sicily on
the priest's hands!'
A yell rose from all the multitude, for a hundred had heard the woman's
high, shrill voice, and the rest took up the cry, so that the children
who went before ran back to see what was the matter. One was the woman's
child. She caught him in her strong arms and raised him up to see, as
she marched along.
'See the good Sicilian blood!' she cried into the boy's ear.
'Curses upon the souls of his dead!' yelled the child, half mad with
excitement.
All the people surged along together, running and jostling one another
to keep the priest in sight. And the children whistled and made
cat-calls and strange noises, and the women screamed, and the men cursed
him in their hard voices.
Bareheaded he walked between the soldiers, looking far ahead and not
seeing or not wishing to see the people, nor to understand what they
said. He had but one thought--not to break the faith of his priestly
order by betraying the confession. Had he known that death was before
him, he would not have yielded.
Suddenly something struck him on the shoulder, and he started, and his
face changed. Someone had thrown a rotten orange at him, well aimed, and
as it smashed upon his shoulder, some of the yellow juice spurted upon
his cheek. For one moment the calm look was gone, and the clear features
set themselves sternly, and the eyes flashed with human anger at the
indignity of the insult. The crowd screamed with delight, and pushed the
soldiers upon each other.
'Halt!' cried the carabineer corporal.
In a moment his great army revolver was in his hand, and all his men,
watching him, had theirs ready.
'We are acting in the name of the law,' he said, in a loud voice. 'If
anything more is thrown at us, we shall disperse you, and you must take
the consequences.'
'The orange was not thrown at you,' cried the carpenter's wife.
'I have warned you,' said the corporal. 'Stand off, there! Fall back!
Make way!' And he kept his revolver in his hand, as the people slunk
away to right and left, cowed by the sight of the weapon.
After that there was less noise for a while, though he did not pretend
to control that, nor to hinder them from saying what they pleased. And
presently they began again, and the hissing words filled the air, and
pierced the young priest's ears.
But he said nothing, and his face was cold and pale again, as he walked
on, fearless and innocent, keeping the real murderer's secret for the
sake of his own churchman's vow, and holding his head high amidst the
insults and the jeers of the multitude.
It was a long way, for they had to march through the whole town to
reach the quarters of the carabineers in the old convent on the other
side. Ippolito would have marched a whole day's journey without wincing,
if it had fallen to his lot, but he was glad when the wooden gates of
the yard were loudly shut behind him, and he was at last free from his
enemies. He looked round, and Tebaldo was gone, and Concetta, and the
sacristan, as well as all the rest, except the carabineers. The officer
of the line had gone home to write a despatch to his colonel, and
Ippolito was alone with the carabineers.
Meanwhile the little lame boy whom Ippolito employed, and who had a sort
of half-grateful, half-expectant attachment for the kind priest, had
done a brave thing, considering his infirmity. Seeing what was happening
at the church and hearing what all the people said, he quietly slipped
away and limped down to Camaldoli to warn Orsino Saracinesca. It took
him a long time to get there, for he was very lame, having one leg quite
crooked from the knee, besides some natural deformity of the hip. But he
got to the gate at last, and it chanced that Orsino had just come in
from riding and was standing there, his rifle slung behind him, when the
little boy came down.
At first Orsino could not understand, and when he partly understood, he
could not at first believe, the story. The boy's account, however, was
circumstantial, and could not possibly have been invented. Then, when he
felt sure that his brother was accused of Francesco's murder, Orsino's
face darkened, and he called for his horse again and mounted quickly.
The little lame boy looked up to him wistfully, beginning to limp along,
and Orsino bent over in his saddle and picked him up with one hand by
his clothes, and set him before him, though he was a dirty little
fellow. Then he galloped off up the hill. But the boy begged to be let
down to the ground at the cemetery, for he said that his mother would
kill him if she knew that he had warned Orsino.
The crowd was still lingering in the streets as the big man on his big
horse came thundering along the paved way, his rifle at his back and the
holsters on his saddle, his face stern and set. It was as well that he
did not meet Tebaldo Pagliuca just then. It was one thing to throw an
orange at an unarmed priest, and to scream out curses at him; it was
quite another to stand in the way of Orsino Saracinesca, with nearly
thirty shots to dispose of, mounted on his strong horse, and in a bad
temper. The people shrank aside in silence, and looked after the hated
Roman as he galloped by towards the carabineers' quarters.
He struck the gate with his heavy boot by way of knocking, without
dismounting. A man on duty inside asked who he was, for there were
orders to keep the gate shut on account of the crowd.
'Saracinesca!' answered Orsino.
The gate swung back, and he rode in and asked for the corporal,
dismounted, threw the bridle to the soldier, and went into the house.
The corporal met him in the corridor.
'What is the meaning of this?' asked Orsino. 'Is it true that you have
arrested my brother?'
'I was obliged to do so,' answered the corporal, quietly enough. 'I
consulted the lieutenant and he also advised it. I am sorry, but it was
evidently my duty.'
'Release him at once,' said Orsino, in a tone of authority.
The corporal shook his head.
'I cannot do that,' he answered. 'You are at liberty to see him, but he
is a prisoner.'
'You are the best judge of your own conduct. You know what you are
doing. I shall telegraph to the Ministry in Rome at once.'
'The Ministry will not order Don Ippolito's release,' answered the
corporal, with conviction.
Orsino stared at him, and laughed rather roughly.
'You are mad,' he replied. 'You will lose your stripes for this, if
nothing worse happens to you. I advise you to let my brother out at
once.'
'Signor Don Orsino,' said the corporal, gravely, 'I am an old soldier. I
am specially instructed to protect you and your interests here. Yet, in
the execution of my duty, I have been absolutely obliged to arrest your
brother, the Reverend Don Ippolito, for killing Don Francesco Pagliuca,
in the church of Santa Vittoria, this afternoon. The evidence was such
that I should have risked degradation and punishment, if I had refused
to arrest him. It is not for me to judge of his possible guilt, which to
me, personally, seems impossible. I could only act as a non-commissioned
officer of carabineers is obliged to act by the terms of our general
orders. I say this to you personally, but I am answerable for the act to
my superiors, and they do not often overlook mistakes. If you will come
with me into my private room, I will tell you all the details of the
case, and show you the knife and the bloodstained handkerchief which we
found in Don Ippolito's pocket. I and my men will do all in our power to
serve you, as we are instructed to do; but to release Don Ippolito
without further proceedings is absolutely out of the question.'
Orsino's expression changed while the man was speaking, for he judged
him to be what he was, an honourable soldier with a vast amount of
common sense. He followed him into the little room which had been the
parlour of the convent, and sat down beside the plain deal table on
which lay several day-books and a heap of large ruled paper with printed
headings over the columns, half filled with neat writing. A little lamp
with a green shade was already burning.
Orsino sat down and listened patiently to all the corporal had to say.
When the latter had finished, he had said more than enough to prove to
any sane person that he had done his duty.
There was the fact of the quarrel on the previous day. It mattered
little that Orsino knew the true cause of the scuffle in the road, and
that the corporal had not known it till Orsino told him. The fact of
violence remained. There was the singularly continuous chain of
circumstantial evidence got in the church. And there was Ippolito's
obstinate silence.
'I see,' said Orsino, gravely. 'I beg your pardon. You have done right.
That Francesco Pagliuca was killed by his brother Tebaldo, I am
convinced.'
'By his own brother?' exclaimed the carabineer, incredulously.
'That is what I believe; but I have no evidence. I should like to see
Don Ippolito, if you please.'
'I am glad that you understand me,' said the corporal, who was used to
being misjudged.
He led the way to a door in the corridor, and opened it. It was not
locked, and he simply closed it by the latch, after admitting Orsino.
The room was a large one, overlooking the ample courtyard, but the two
windows were heavily barred, as indeed were all those on the lower floor
of the old convent. On one side, against the wall, stood a low trestle
bed, covered with one of the soldiers' brown blankets. There was a deal
table that had been painted green, an iron washstand, and half a dozen
rush-bottomed chairs. On the table stood a small lamp, with a shade
precisely like the corporal's own, and beside it there was a big jug of
wine and a heavy glass tumbler into which nothing had as yet been
poured. The corporal had brought the wine himself, supposing that
Ippolito would need it. It was the soldier's idea of comfort and
refreshment.
Ippolito sat by the other side of the table, and started to his feet as
Orsino entered. He smiled rather sadly, for he knew that he was in a
very terrible and dangerous situation. So far as he could see, he might
be sent to penal servitude for Tebaldo's crime, for nothing could have
induced him to break his vow and betray the secret.
Orsino grasped his outstretched hand.
'I knew you would come,' said Ippolito, with a glad intonation. 'Who
called you? They all hate us here. You should have heard how they cursed
me and all of us, in the street. Somebody threw a rotten orange at me,
and hit my shoulder, but the carabineers kept them in order after that.'
Orsino said something under his breath, and looked steadily into his
brother's eyes. At last he spoke, and asked one question, quietly,
coaxingly, as though only half hoping for an answer:
'Did Tebaldo kill him, or did he not?'
Ippolito's eyelids quivered at the suddenness of the question. His soul
abhorred a lie, and most of all one to proclaim the innocence of such a
man. To answer the truth was to betray the confession and to break his
solemn vow before God, as a priest. Silence, perhaps, was equivalent to
casting suspicion on the murderer.
But he kept silent, for he could do nothing else.