heart of the lava, in a soft of cliff behind the house. It not
infrequently happens in those regions overrun by lava, that springs
become choked up by volcanic matter and disappear, to appear again after
the lapse of several years. The people dig in search of the former bed.
They find that the water has broken out a passage under the cold fires
of the volcano, and, as soon as it is given an opportunity, it rushes to
the surface, as pure and healthful as before. The one which bathed the
base of Pier-Angelo's house bubbled up at the bottom of a deep
excavation that had been made in the rock, to which a picturesque
staircase led. It formed a little basin for the laundresses, and a
quantity of white linen, hung upon all the walls of the grotto, kept it
constantly dark and cool there. Pretty Mila, as she tripped up and down
that steep staircase ten times a day, with her jug upon her head, was a
most perfect model for those classical figures which the painters of the
last century inevitably placed in all their Italian landscapes; and in
truth what more natural accessory, what more charming _local color_
could one give to those pictures than the faces and costumes, the
majestic yet sprightly attitudes of those graceful, brown nymphs?
XXXIV
AT THE FOUNTAIN
When Mila descended the staircase cut in the rock, she saw a man sitting
on the edge of the spring, but was not alarmed. Her heart was all full
of love and hope, and the recollection of the dangers that threatened
her was powerless to affect her. Even when she reached the brink of the
spring, this man, whose back was turned to her, and whose head and body
were enveloped in the long hooded cape which the common people wear,[8]
did not arouse her suspicions; but when he turned and asked her in a
soft voice if she would permit him to drink from her jug, she started;
for it seemed to her that she recognized the voice, and she noticed that
there was no one in sight, either above or below the fountain; that not
a child was playing on the staircase as usual, in fact, that she was
alone with this stranger, whose voice terrified her.
She pretended not to have heard him, hastily filled her jug, and
prepared to go up again. But the stranger, reclining on the stones,
either to bar her way or perhaps to rest more comfortably, said to her
in the same caressing tone:
"Rebecca, will you refuse a drop of water to Jacob, the friend and
servant of the family?"
"I do not know you," replied Mila, trying to assume a calm and
indifferent tone. "Can you not put your lips to the cascade? You can
drink from it much better than from a jug."
The stranger calmly passed his arms around Mila's legs, and compelled
her to lean on his shoulder to avoid falling.
"Let me go," she said, terrified and angry, "or I will call for help. I
have no time to jest with you, and I am not one of those who dally with
every strange man they see. Let me go, I tell you, or I will shriek."
"Mila," said the unknown, throwing back his hood, "I am no stranger to
you, although it is not long since we became acquainted. We have
relations together which it is not in your power to break off, and which
it is your duty not to refuse to recognize. The life, fortune, and honor
of those who are dearest to you on earth rest on my zeal and my loyalty.
I have something to say to you; give me your jug, so that if anyone is
watching it will not seem unnatural that you should have stopped here a
moment with me."
On recognizing the mysterious guest of the previous night, Mila was
subjugated as it were by a sort of dread not unmingled with respect. For
we must tell the whole truth: Mila was a woman, and the Piccinino's
beauty, his youth, his expression and his soft voice did not fail to
exert a secret influence upon her sensitive and slightly romantic
instincts.
"My lord," she said to him, for it was impossible not to take him for a
nobleman in disguise, "I will obey you; but do not detain me by force,
and speak more quickly, for this situation is not without danger to us
both."
She handed him her jug, from which he drank without haste; for,
meanwhile, he held the girl's lovely bare arm in his hand and gazed upon
its beautiful shape, pressing it at the same time to force her to tip
the jug gradually, as he quenched his real or pretended thirst.
"Now, Mila," he said, covering his face, which he had left uncovered for
her to admire, "listen to me! The monk who frightened you yesterday will
come here again as soon as your father and brother have gone out: they
are to dine to-day with the Marquis della Serra. Do not try to keep them
at home on any account; if they should stay at home, if they should see
the monk, if they should try to drive him away, it would be the signal
for some disaster which I could not prevent. If you are prudent and
devoted to your family, you will even spare the monk the danger of
showing himself in your house. You will come here as if to wash; I know
that, before going into the house, he will prowl about here and will try
to surprise you outside of your yard, for he is afraid of the neighbors.
Do not be afraid of him; he is a coward, and he will never attempt to
use violence with you in broad daylight, or when he is in any danger of
being discovered. He will talk to you again of his ignoble desires. Cut
the conversation short; but pretend that you have changed your mind.
Tell him to go away because you are watched; but make an appointment
with him for twenty o'clock[9] at a place which I will indicate, and
whither you must go alone, an hour earlier. I will be there. You will
run no risk therefore. I will take charge of the monk, and you will
never hear of him again. You will be delivered from a detestable
persecutor, Princess Agatha will no longer be in danger of being
dishonored by shocking calumnies; your father will no longer have the
threat of imprisonment hanging over him, and your brother Michel that of
the assassin's dagger."
"Great God! great God!" said Mila, panting with fear and surprise, "this
monk is so ill-disposed toward us and able to injure us so! Is he Abbé
Ninfo?"
"Speak lower, girl, and do not let that accursed name reach the ears
that surround you to-day. Be calm; seem to know nothing and to be doing
nothing. If you say a word of all this to anybody, no matter who it may
be, you will be prevented from saving those whom you love. You will be
told to distrust me, because your own prudence and strength of will are
distrusted. Who knows if I shall not be taken for your enemy? I am not
afraid of anyone, but I am afraid that my friends will destroy
themselves by their indecision. You alone can save them, Mila! Will you
do it?"
"Yes, I will," she said; "but what will become of me if you are
deceiving me? if you do not keep the appointment?"
"Why, don't you know who I am?"
"No, I do not know; no one was willing to tell me."
"Look at me, then; venture to examine me carefully, and you will know me
better from my face than all those people do who have spoken to you
about me."
He put aside his hood, and was able to give to his handsome face so
reassuring and affectionate and gentle an expression, that the
simple-hearted Mila yielded to its dangerous influence.
"It seems to me," she said, with a blush, "that you are kind and honest;
if the devil is in you, he has put on the mask of an angel."
[Illustration: _MILA SURPRISED AT THE FOUNTAIN._
_She handed him her jug, from which he drank
without haste; for, meanwhile, he held the girl's
lovely bare arm in his hand and gazed upon its
beautiful shape, pressing it at the same time to force
her to tip the jug gradually, as he quenched his real
or pretended thirst._]
The Piccinino closed his hood to conceal the sensuous gratification
afforded him by that artless confession from the loveliest lips in the
world.
"Very well," he replied, "follow your instinct. Obey only the promptings
of your heart; let me tell you, moreover, that your uncle at Bel Passo
brought me up as his son, that your dear Princess Agatha has placed her
fortune and her honor in my hands, and that, if she were not a woman,
that is to say a bit of a prude, she would have made this most essential
appointment with Abbé Ninfo."
"But I am a woman too," said Mila, "and I am afraid. Why is this
appointment so essential?"
"Don't you know that I am to kidnap Abbé Ninfo? How can I seize him in
the streets of Catania, or at the gates of Villa Ficarazzi? Must I not
lure him out of his den, and lead him into a trap? His evil fate
ordained that he should fall insanely in love with you."
"Oh! don't use the word love in connection with such a man; it makes me
shudder. And you want me to make a pretence of encouraging him! I shall
die of shame and disgust."
"Farewell, Mila," said the bandit, pretending to rise. "I see that you
are a woman like other women, after all, a weak, vain creature, who
thinks only of saving herself, utterly heedless of the calumnies and
blows that may fall upon the heads which should be most sacred to her!"
"No, no, I am not like that!" she replied proudly. "I will sacrifice my
life in this experiment; as for my honor, I shall find a way to die
before it is stained."
"Good, good, my brave girl! Now you are talking as Fra Angelo's niece
should talk. You see that I am perfectly undisturbed on your account,
however, because I know that you are in no danger."
"But are not you in danger, my lord? If you fall, who will protect me
against this monk?"
"A dagger thrust--not in your beautiful bosom, my poor angel, as you
threaten, but in the throat of a vile beast, who is not worthy to die by
a woman's hand, and who will never expose himself to that risk."
"Where must I agree to meet him?"
"At Nicolosi, at the house of Carmelo Tomabene, farmer, who, you will
tell him, is your friend and kinsman. You will add that he is absent,
that you have the keys of his house, and that there is a large sheltered
garden which he can enter, unseen by anyone, by going down through the
ravine of the _Destatore's Cross_. Can you remember all that?"
"Perfectly; and will he go?"
"He will go without any doubt, and without a suspicion that this Carmelo
Tomabene is on very intimate terms with a certain Piccinino, who is said
to be a leader of bandits, and to whom, only yesterday, he offered a
princely fortune on condition that he would kidnap your brother and at
need murder him."
"Blessed Madonna, protect me! The Piccinino! I have heard of him; he is
a terrible man. Will he be there with you? I should die of fright if I
saw him!"
"And yet," said the bandit, overjoyed to find that Mila knew so little
of what was going on, "I will wager that, like all the girls in the
neighborhood, you are dying with the longing to see him."
"I should rather like to see him, because they say he is so ugly! But I
should want to be sure that he did not see me!"
"Never fear; there will be nobody but myself at the farmer's house in
Nicolosi. Tell me, are you afraid of me too, child that you are? Have I
a very dreadful, very wicked look?"
"No, indeed you have not! But why must I keep the appointment? Won't it
be enough if I send the abbé--I mean the monk?"
"He is suspicious, like all criminals; he will never go into Carmelo
Tomabene's garden unless he sees you walking there all alone. By going
there an hour in advance of the time fixed, you run no risk of meeting
him on the road; at all events, go by the Bel Passo road, which you
probably know better than the other. Have you ever been to Nicolosi?"
"Never, my lord; is it a very long way?"
"Too far for your little feet, Mila; but you can cling to a mule's back,
can't you?"
"Oh! yes, I think so."
"You will find a perfectly safe, gentle beast behind Villa Palmarosa. A
child will bring it to you, with a white rose for countersign. Drop the
reins on the trusty creature's neck, and have no fear, but let him go as
fast as he will. In less than an hour he will bring you to my gate,
without once missing the way or taking a false step, however horrible
the road he selects may seem to you. You won't be afraid, Mila?"
"And suppose I should meet the abbé?"
"Lash your beast, and don't be afraid that anyone will overtake you."
"But if I am to go by way of Bel Passo, you will surely allow my uncle
to escort me?"
"No, your uncle has business elsewhere for the same good cause; but, if
you notify him, he will insist upon accompanying you. If he sees you, he
will follow you, and our whole undertaking will have come to naught. I
have no time to tell you more. I think that I hear some one calling you.
You hesitate; does that mean that you refuse?"
"I am not hesitating; I will go! My lord, do you believe in God?"
This abrupt and ingenuous question made the Piccinino turn pale and
smile at the same time.
"Why do you ask me that?" he said, pulling his hood over his face.
"Ah! you know why?" said she. "God hears and sees everything. He
punishes falsehood and assists innocence!"
Again they heard Pier-Angelo's voice, calling his daughter.
"Go," said the Piccinino, supporting her with his hands, to assist her
to mount the staircase quickly; "remember, if a single word escapes you,
we are lost."
"You too?"
"I too!"
"That would be a pity," thought Mila, turning at the top of the
staircase to cast a last glance at the comely stranger, of whom it was
impossible not to make a hero and a friend of the first order, and whom,
in her joyous imagination, she placed beside Agatha. He had such a soft
voice and such a sweet smile! His tone was so noble, his authoritative
air so convincing! "I will be brave and discreet," she said. "I am only
a little girl, and yet I am the one who is to save everybody's life!" In
all times, alas! the sparrow has yielded to the fascination of the
vulture.
In all this the Piccinino gave way to an inborn passion for increasing
the difficulties of an adventure to his profit, or simply for amusement.
To be sure, he had no better way of enticing Abbé Ninfo to his house
than by offering a bait to his lust. But he might well have chosen some
other woman than the innocent Mila to play, with the aid of some slight
resemblance or of a similar costume, the part of the person who was to
appear in his garden. The abbé was sometimes insultingly suspicious,
because he was a horrible coward; but, blinded by ridiculous
presumption, and impelled by lecherous impatience, he would have fallen
into the trap. A little violence, a man stationed behind the gate, would
have sufficed to place him in the bandit's hands. There were many other
ruses to which the Piccinino was accustomed to resort, and which might
have succeeded as well; for the abbé, with all his scheming, his
inquisitiveness, his incessant espionage, his impudent falsehoods and
his shameless persistence, was a villain of the lowest order, and the
stupidest and least adroit man on earth. People are too much afraid of
knaves as a general rule; they do not know that the majority of them are
fools. Abbé Ninfo would not have had to take half the trouble to do
twice the harm, if he had had ever so little intelligence and real
penetration.
For instance, we have seen that he was always beside the truth in his
discoveries. He had assumed innumerable disguises and invented a
thousand time-worn methods of watching what was taking place at Villa
Palmarosa; and he was thoroughly persuaded that Michel was the
princess's lover. He was a hundred leagues from suspecting the nature of
the tie between them. He might easily have deceived Doctor Recuperati,
whose unswerving uprightness lacked foresight and intelligence; and yet,
desiring to steal the will from him, he had delayed from day to day, and
had never succeeded in gaining his confidence in the slightest degree.
It was impossible for him to play for five minutes the rôle of a
well-meaning man, his face bore so unmistakably the stamp of unalloyed
and unbounded baseness.
His vices embarrassed him, as he himself admitted, even proclaimed, when
he was intoxicated. Dissolute, avaricious, and so intemperate that he
fuddled his brain when lucidity was most essential to him, he had
conducted a difficult intrigue to a successful end. The cardinal had for
a long time made use of him as a police agent for whom no task was too
vile, and he had never valued him except as a tool of the lowest order.
In his days of cynical wit, the prelate had branded him with an epithet
which we shall not attempt to translate, and from which he had never
been able to rise.
Thus he had had no share in the family affairs and secrets of State
which had filled the life of Monsignor Hieronymo. The contempt which he
inspired in his master had survived his loss of memory, and the aged
prelate, paralyzed and almost in his dotage, was not even afraid of him,
and recovered the power of speech with him only to call him by the
degrading sobriquet which he had previously bestowed on him.
Another proof of the abbé's idiocy was his cherished conviction that he
could seduce all the women who aroused his desires.
"With a little money and a lot of lies," he would say, "with threats,
compliments and promises, a man can obtain the proudest or the humblest
of them."
Consequently he flattered himself that he could obtain a share of
Agatha's fortune by effecting the removal of the man whom he presumed to
be her lover. He was capable of but one thing, of placing Michel at the
muzzle of a bandit's gun, and shouting _fire_! in a moment of
disappointed vanity and greed; he would not have dared to kill him
himself, just as he would not have dared to do violence to Mila, if she
had threatened him with nothing more than a pair of scissors.
But, abject wretch that he was, he had a certain power for evil; it did
not spring from him, the villainy of other men had invested him with it.
The Neapolitan police lent him its dastardly and odious assistance when
he requested it. He had caused many innocent victims to be exiled,
ruined, or cast into dungeons, and he might very well have seized Michel
without having recourse to the brigands of the mountain. But he wished
to be able to surrender him, at need, for a heavy ransom, and he wished
to have the terms of ransom discussed by avowed brigands, whose interest
it would be not to betray him. His whole rôle consisted in seeking out
the _bravi_ and saying to them: "I have discovered a love intrigue which
is worth something. Do the job, and we will divide the profits."
But herein again he had been gulled. A shrewd _bravo_, who _worked_ in
the city under the Piccinino's direction, and who would not have
presumed to do anything without consulting him, had deceived the abbé
by inviting him to a rendezvous at which he had not seen the real
Piccinino, who was present, however, behind a partition. The Piccinino
had thereupon threatened to break the head of the first of the two
accomplices who should say a word or take a step without orders from
him, and they knew that he was a man to keep his word. Indeed, the young
adventurer governed his band with such extraordinary skill, with a
mixture of gentleness and despotism so well blended, that his father had
not been so loved and dreaded as he was, although, to be sure, he had
acted upon a larger scale and his enterprises had been more extensive.
He could be perfectly at ease, therefore; his secrets would not have
been revealed under torture, and he was able to gratify the caprice
which he frequently had, of carrying out entirely alone, without a
confidant and without assistance, an undertaking in which he had no need
of using main force, but only of craft and strategy.
That is why the Piccinino, sure of the success of his plan, which was of
the simplest, chose to blend with it, on his own account, poetic,
strange, and romantic incidents, or real passions, according to his
whim. His vivid imagination and his cold nature involved him constantly
in contradictory enterprises, from which he was always able to extricate
himself, thanks to his great intelligence and his self-control. He had
always sailed his craft so skilfully that, outside of his accomplices
and the very small number of his intimate friends, no one could have
proved that the famous captain, Piccinino, natural son of the
_Destatore_, and the placid villager Carmelo Tomabene were one and the
same man. The latter also was supposed to be a son of Castro-Reale; but
there were so many others in the mountains who prided themselves upon
that perilous origin!
[Footnote 8: It is a double woolen _surtout_, of several different
colors inside and out. It is worn as a protection against the sun's heat
as well as against the cold.]
[Footnote 9: That is to say, four hours before nightfall.]
XXXV
THE COAT OF ARMS
Thus the one really formidable enemy of the Lavoratori family, had he
chosen to assume that character, was the Piccinino; but Mila had no
suspicion of it, and Fra Angelo relied upon that element of heroism
which formed, if we may so express it, half of his ward's character. The
worthy monk was not free from anxiety, none the less; he had hoped that
he would soon see him again, and have an opportunity to make sure of his
disposition in the matter: but he had waited and sought in vain. He was
beginning to wonder if he had not turned the wolf into the sheepfold,
and if it were not a great mistake to act in concert with men who were
capable of doing what one would not be willing to do oneself.
He went to Villa Palmarosa at the usual hour for the daily siesta, and
found Agatha preparing to enjoy the delights of that moment of repose so
essential to Southern peoples.
"Set your mind at rest, my dear padre," she said, "my anxiety vanished
with the daylight. At dawn I was so far from confident concerning your
ward's purposes, that I went myself to make sure that he had not
murdered Michel during the night. But the child was sleeping quietly and
the Piccinino had already gone."
"You went yourself to investigate, signora? What will the people in the
suburb say of such a proceeding?"
"They will never know anything about it, I trust. I was alone and on
foot, entirely covered by an old-fashioned _mazzaro_[10] and, if I met
any persons who know me, they certainly did not recognize me. However,
my good padre, I no longer have any serious fears. The abbé knows
nothing."
"You are sure of it?"
"I am perfectly sure, and the cardinal is as incapable of remembering
anything whatsoever, as the doctor represented him to be. Nevertheless,
the abbé has evil projects on hand. Would you believe that he supposes
Michel to be my lover?"
"And the Piccinino believed it?" said the monk, in dismay.
"He believes it no longer," replied Agatha. "I received a note from him
this morning in which he gives me his word that I can be perfectly at
ease; that the abbé will be in his power in the course of the day, and
that until then he will find a way to keep him so busy that we shall
hear nothing from him. So I breathe freely, and have only one subject of
anxiety; that is, to know how I am to escape the intimacy of Captain
Piccinino hereafter, for he threatens to become too attentive. But we
will talk of that later; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;
and if, after all, it should become necessary for me to tell him the
truth--You do not think him the man to abuse it, do you?"
"I know that he is the man to pretend that he proposes to take advantage
of and abuse every opportunity; but have the courage to treat him always
as a paragon of sincerity and generosity, and you will see that he will
try to live up to the character, and will do it, in spite of the devil."
The princess and the Capuchin talked together for a long while, and
mutually informed each other of all that they knew. After which, Fra
Angelo went down to Catania to cancel Magnani's orders, to make another
appointment with him to meet Agatha, and to take his place as escort to
Michel and his father to the Marquis della Serra's palace; for, in spite
of everything, Fra Angelo did not like the idea of their being alone in
the country, so long as he himself had not seen the _Destatore's_ son.