PART IV

I

In what seemed to him a very short time Cosmo found himself under the

colonnade separating the town piled upon the hills from the flat ground

of the waterside. A profound quietness reigned on the darkly polished

surface of the harbour and the long, incurved range of the quays. This

quietness that surrounded him on all sides through which, beyond the

spars of clustered coasters, he could look at the night-horizon of the

open sea, relieved that fantastic feeling of confinement within his own

body with its intolerable tremors and shrinkings and imperious

suggestions. Mere weaknesses all. His desire, however, to climb to the

top of the tower, as if only there complete relief could be found for

his captive spirit, was as strong as ever.

The only light on shore he could see issued in a dim streak from the

door of the guardhouse which he had passed on his return from the tower

on his first evening in Genoa. As he did not wish to pass near the

Austrian sentry at the head of the landing-steps, Cosmo, instead of

following the quay, kept under the portico at the back of the

guardhouse. When he came to its end he had a view of the squat bulk of

the tower across a considerable space of flat waste ground extending to

the low rocks of the seashore. He made for it with the directness of a

man possessed by a fixed idea. When he reached the iron-studded low door

within the deep dark archway at the foot of the tower he found it

immovable. Locked! How stupid! As if those heavy ship guns up there

could be stolen! Disappointed, he leaned his shoulders against the side

of the deep arch, lingering as people will before the finality of a

closed door or of a situation without issue.

His superstitious mood had left him. An old picture was an old picture;

and probably the face of that noble saint copied from an old triptych

and of Madame de Montevesso were not at all alike. At most, a suggestion

which may have been the doing of the copyist and so without meaning. A

copyist is not an inspired person; not a seer of visions. He felt

critical, almost ironic, towards the Cosmo of the morning, the Cosmo of

the day, the Cosmo rushing away like a scared child from a fanciful

resemblance, that probably did not even exist. What was he doing there?

He might have asked the way to the public gardens. Lurking within the

dark archway, muffled up in his blue cloak, he was a suspect figure like

an ambushed spadassin waiting for his victim, or a conspirator hiding

from the minions of a tyrant. "I am perfectly ridiculous," he thought.

"I had better go back as soon as I can." This was his sudden conclusion,

but he did not move. It struck him that he was not anxious to face his

empty room. Was he ready to get into another panic? he asked himself

scornfully. . . . At that moment he heard distinctly the sound of

whispering as if through the wall, or from above or from the ground. He

held his breath. The whispering went on, loquacious. When it stopped,

another voice, as low but deeper and more distinct, muttered the words:

"The hour is past."

Ha! Whispers in the air, sounds wandering without bodies, as mysterious

as though they had come across a hundred miles, for he had heard no

footsteps, no rustle, no sound of any sort. Nothing but the two voices.

They were so weirdly disembodied and unbelievable that he had to clothe

them in attributes: the excitable--the morose. They were quite near. But

he did not know on which side of the arch within which he was hiding.

For he was frankly hiding now--no doubt about it. He had remembered that

he had left his pistols by his bedside. And he was certain he would hear

the voices again. The wait seemed long before the fluent-loquacious came

back through space and was punctually followed by the deep voice which

this time emitted only an unintelligible grunt.

The disagreeable sense of having no means of defence in case of

necessity prevented Cosmo from leaving the shelter of the deep arch. Two

men, the excitable and the morose, were within a foot of him.

Remembering that the tower was accessible on its seaward face, Cosmo

surmised that they had just landed from a boat and had crept round

barefooted, secret and, no doubt, ready to use their knives. Smugglers

probably. That they should ply their trade within three hundred yards of

the guardroom with a sentry outside did not surprise him very much.

These were Austrian soldiers, ignorant of local conditions and certainly

not concerned with the prevention of smuggling. Why didn't these men go

about their business, then? The road was clear. But perhaps they had

gone? It seemed to him he had been there glued to that door for an hour.

As a matter of fact it was not ten minutes. Cosmo, who had no mind to be

stabbed through a mere mistake as to his character, was just thinking of

making a dash in the direction of the guardhouse when the morose but

cautiously lowered voice began, close to the arch, abruptly: "Where did

the beast get to? I thought a moment ago he was coming. Didn't you think

too that there were footsteps--just as we landed?"

Cosmo's uplifted foot came down to the ground. Of the excitable

whisperer's long rigmarole not a word could be made out. Cosmo imagined

him short and thick. The other, whom Cosmo pictured to himself as lean

and tall, uttered the word, "Why?" The excitable man hissed fiercely:

"To say good-bye."--"Devil take all these women," commented the morose

voice dispassionately. The whisper, now raised to the pitch of a

strangled wheeze, remarked with some feeling: "He may never see her

again."

It was clear they had never even dreamt of any human being besides

themselves having anything to do on this part of the shore at this hour

of the night. "Won't they be frightened when I rush out," thought Cosmo

taking off his cloak and throwing it over his left forearm. If it came

to an encounter he could always drop it. But he did not seriously think

that he would be reduced to using his fists.

He judged it prudent to leave the archway with a bound which would get

him well clear of the tower, and on alighting faced about quickly. He

heard an exclamation but he saw no one. They had bolted! He would have

laughed had he not been startled himself by a shot fired somewhere in

the distance behind his back--the most brutally impressive sound that

can break the silence of the night. Instantly, as if it had been a

signal, a lot of shouting broke on his ear, yells of warning and

encouragement, a savage clamour which made him think of a lot of people

pursuing a mad dog. He advanced, however, in the direction of the

portico, wishing himself out of the way of this odious commotion, when

the flash of a musket shot showed him for a moment the tilted head in a

shako and the white cross-belts of an Austrian soldier standing erect in

the middle of the open ground. Cosmo stopped short, then inclined to the

left, moving cautiously and staring into the darkness. The yelling had

died out gradually away from the seashore, where he remembered a cluster

of the poorer sort of houses nestled under the cliffs. He could not

believe that the shot could have been fired at him, till another flash

and report of a musket followed by the whizz of the bullet very near his

hand persuaded him to the contrary. Thinking of nothing but getting out

of the line of fire, he stooped low and ran on blindly till his shoulder

came in contact with some obstacle extremely hard and perfectly

immovable.

He put his hand on it, felt it rough and cold, and discovered it was a

stone, an enormous square block such as are used in building

breakwaters. Several others were lying about in a cluster like a

miniature village on a miniature plain. He crept amongst them, spread

his cloak on the ground, and sat down with his back against one of the

blocks. He wondered at the marvellous eyesight of that confounded

soldier. He was not aware that his dark figure had the starry sky for a

background. "He nearly had me," he thought. His whole being recoiled

with disgust from the risk of getting a musket ball through his body. He

resolved to remain where he was till all that incomprehensible

excitement had quietened down and that brute with wonderful powers of

vision had gone away. Then his road would be clear. He would give him

plenty of time.

The stillness all around continued, becoming more convincing, as the

time passed, inits suggestion of everything being over, convincing

enough to shame timidity itself. Why this reluctance to go back to his

room? What was a room in an inn, in any house? A small portion of space

forced off with bricks or stones in which innumerable individuals had

been alone with their good and evil thoughts, temptations, fears,

troubles of all sorts, and had gone out without leaving a trace. This

train of thought led him to the reflection that no man could leave his

troubles behind . . . never . . . never. . . . "It's no use trying," he

thought with despair. Why should he go to Livorno? What would be the

good of going home? Lengthening the distance would be like lengthening a

chain. What use would it be to get out of sight? . . . "If I were to be

struck blind to-morrow it wouldn't help me." He forgot where he was till

the convincing silence round him crumbled to pieces before a faint and

distant shout which recalled him to the sense of his position. Presently

he heard more shouting, still distant but much nearer. This took his

mind from himself and started his imagination on another track. The man

hunt was not over, then! The fellow had broken cover again and had been

headed towards the tower. He depicted the hunted man to himself as

long-legged, spare, agile, for no other reason than because he wished

him to escape. He wondered whether the soldier with the sharp eyes would

give him a shot. But no shot broke the silence which had succeeded the

distant shouts. Got away perhaps? At least for a time. Very possibly he

had stabbed somebody and . . . by heaven! here he was!

Cosmo had caught the faint sound of running feet on the hard ground. And

even before he had decided that it was no illusion it stopped short and

a bulky object fell hurtling from the sky so near to him that Cosmo

instinctively drew in his legs with a general start of his body which

caused him to knock his hat off against the stone. He became aware of a

man's back almost within reach of his arm. There could be no doubt he

had taken a leap over the stone and had landed squatting on his heels.

Cosmo expected him to rebound and vanish, but he only extended his arm

to seize the hat as it rolled past him and at the same moment pivoted on

his toes, preserving his squatting posture.

"If he happens to have a knife in his hand he will plunge it into me,"

thought Cosmo. So without moving a limb he hastened to say in a loud

whisper: "Run to the tower. Your friends are waiting for you." It was a

sudden inspiration. The man without rising flung himself forward full

length and, propped on his arms, brought his face close to Cosmo. His

white eyeballs seemed to be starting out of his head. In this position

the silence between them lasted for several seconds.

"My friends, but who are you?" muttered the man.

And then the recognition came, instantaneous and mutual. Cosmo simply

said, "Hallo!" while the man, letting himself fall to the ground,

uttered in a voice faint with emotion, "My Englishman!"

"There were two of them," said Cosmo.

"Two? Did they see you?"

Cosmo assured him that they had not. The other, still agitated by the

unexpectedness of that meeting, asked, incredulous and even a little

suspicious: "What am I to think, then? How could you know that they were

my friends?"

Cosmo disregarded the question. "You will be caught if you linger here,"

he whispered.

The other, as though he had not heard the warning, insisted: "How could

they have mentioned my name to you?"

"They mentioned no names. . . . Run."

"I don't think they are there now," said the fugitive.

"Yes. There was noise enough to scare anybody away," commented Cosmo.

"What have you done?"

The other made no answer, and in the pause both men listened intently.

The night remained dark. Cosmo thought: "Some smuggling affair," and the

other muttered to himself, "I have misled them." He sat up by the side

of Cosmo and put Cosmo's hat, which he had been apparently holding all

the time, on the ground between them.

"You are a cool hand," said Cosmo. "The soldiers . . ."

"Who cares for the soldiers? They can't run."

"They have muskets, though."

"Oh, yes. I heard the shots and wondered at whom they were fired."

"At me. That's why I have got in here. There is one of them who can see

in the dark," explained Cosmo, who had been very much impressed. His

friend of the tower emitted a little chuckle.

"And so you have hidden yourself in here. Soldiers, water, and fire soon

make room for themselves. But they did not know who they were after.

They got the alarm from that beast."

He paused suddenly, and Cosmo asked: "Who was after you?"

"One traitor and God knows how many _sbirri._ If they had been only ten

minutes later they would have never set eyes on me."

"I wonder they didn't manage to cut you off, if they were so many," said

Cosmo.

"They didn't know. Look! Even now I have deceived them by doubling back.

You see I was in a house." He seemed to hesitate.

"Oh, yes," said Cosmo. "Saying good-bye."

The man by his side made a slight movement and preserved a profound

silence for a time.

"As I have no demon," he began slowly, "to keep me informed about other

people's affairs, I must ask you what you were doing here?"

"Why, taking the air like that other evening. But why don't you try to

get away while there is time?"

"Yes, but where?"

"You were going to leave Genoa," said Cosmo. "Either on a very long or a

very deadly journey."

Again the man by his side made a movement, of surprise and remained

silent for a while. This was very extraordinary, as though some devil

having his own means to obtain knowledge had taken on himself for a

disguise the body of an Englishman of the kind that travels and stays in

inns. The acquaintance of Cosmo's almost first horn in Genoa was very

much puzzled and a little suspicious, not as before something dangerous

but as before something inexplicable, obscure to his mind like the

instruments that fate makes use of sometimes in the affairs of men.

"So you did see two men a little while ago waiting for me?"

"I did not see them. They seemed to think you were late," was the

surprising answer.

"And how do you know they were waiting for me?"

"I didn't," said Cosmo naturally. And the other muttered a remark that

he was glad to hear of something that Cosmo did not know. But Cosmo

continued: "Of course I didn't, not till you jumped in here."

The other made a gesture requesting silence and lent his ear to the

unbroken stillness of the surroundings.

"Signore," he said suddenly in a very quiet and distinct whisper, "it

may be true that I was about to leave this town, but I never thought of

leaving it by swimming. No doubt the noise was enough to frighten

anybody away, but it has been quiet enough now for a long time and I

think that I will crawl on as far as the tower to see whether perchance

they didn't think it worth while to bring their boat back to the foot of

the tower. I have put my enemies off the track and I fancy they are

looking for me in very distant places from here. The treachery, signore,

was not in the telling them where I was. Anybody with eyes could have

seen me walking about Genoa. No, it was in the telling them who I was."

He paused again to listen and suddenly changed his position, drawing in

his legs.

"Well," said Cosmo, "I myself wonder who you are." He noticed the

other's eyes rolling, and the whisper came out of his lips much faster

and, as it were, more confidential.

"Attilio, at your service," the mocking whisper fell into Cosmo's ear.

"I see the signore is not so much of a wizard as I thought." Then with

great rapidity: "Should the signore find something, one never knows,

Cantelucci would be the man to give it to."

And suddenly with a half turn he ran off on all fours, looking for an

instant monstrous and vanishing so suddenly that Cosmo remained

confounded. He was trying to think what all this might mean, when his

ears were invaded by the sound of many footsteps and before he could

make a move to get up he found himself surrounded by quite a number of

men. As a matter of fact there were only four; but they stood close over

him as he sat on the ground, their dark figures blotting all view, with

an overpowering effect. Very prudently Cosmo did not attempt to rise; he

only picked up his hat, and as he did so it seemed to him that there was

something strange about the feel of it. When he put it on his head some

object neither very hard nor very heavy fell on the top of his head. He

repressed the impulse to have a look at once. "What on earth can it be?"

he thought. It felt like a parcel of papers. It was certainly flat. An

awestruck voice said, "That's a foreigner." Another muttered, "What's

this deviltry?" As Cosmo made an attempt to rise with what dignity he

might, the nearest of the band stooped with alacrity and caught hold of

his arm above the elbow as if to help him up, with a muttered,

"_Permesso, signore._" And as soon as he regained his feet his other arm

was seized from behind by someone else without any ceremony. A slight

attempt to shake himself free convinced Cosmo that they meant to stick

on.

"Would it be an accomplice?" wondered a voice.

"No. Look at his hat. That's an Englishman."

"So much the worse. They are very troublesome. Authority is nothing to

them."

All this time one or another would take a turn to peer closely into

Cosmo's face, in a way which struck him as offensive. Cosmo had not the

slightest doubt that he was in the hands of the municipal _sbirri._ That

strange Attilio had detected their approach from afar. "He might have

given me a warning," he thought. His annoyance with the fugitive did not

last long; but he began to be angry with his captors, of which every

one, he noticed, carried a cudgel.

"What authority have you to interfere with me?" he asked haughtily. The

wretch who was holding his right arm murmured judicially: "An Inglese,

without a doubt." A stout man in a wide-brimmed hat, who was standing in

front of him, grunted: "The authority of four against one," then

addressed his companions to the general effect that he didn't know what

the world was coming to if foreigners were allowed to mix themselves up

with conspirators. It looked as if they had been at a loss what to do

with their captive. One of them insinuated: "I don't know. Those

foreigners have plenty of money and are impatient of restraint. A poor

man may get a chance."

Cosmo thought that probably each of them was provided with a stiletto.

Nothing prevented them from stabbing him in several places, weighting

his body with some stones from the seashore, and throwing it into the

water. What an unlucky reputation to have! He remembered that he had no

money with him. The few coins he used to carry in his pocket were lying

on his mantelpiece in the bedroom at the inn. This would have made no

difference if those men had been bandits, since they would not be aware

of the emptiness of his pockets. "I could have probably bribed them to

let me go," he thought, after he had heard the same man add with a

little laugh, "I mean obliging poor men. Those English _signori_ are

rich and harmless."

Cosmo regretted more than ever not being able to make them an offer. It

would have been probably successful, as they seemed to be in doubt what

to do next. He mentioned he was living at the Casa Graziani. "If one of

you will go with me there you shall be recompensed for your trouble." No

answer was made to that proposal except that one of the men coughed

slightly. Their chief in a hat with an enormous brim seemed lost in deep

thought, and his immobility in front of Cosmo appeared to the latter

amusingly mysterious and sinister. A sort of nervous impatience came

over Cosmo, an absurd longing to tear himself away and make a dash for

liberty, and then an absurd discouragement as though he were a criminal

with no hiding-place to make for. The man in the big hat jerked up his

head suddenly and disclosed the irritable state of his feelings at the

failure of getting hold of that _furfante._ "As to that Englishman," he

continued in his rasping voice not corresponding to his physical bulk,

"let him be taken to the guardroom. He will have to show his papers."

Cosmo was provoked to say: "Do you expect a gentleman to carry his

papers with him when he goes out for a walk?"

He was disconcerted by an outburst of laughter on three sides of him.

The leader in the hat did not laugh; he only said bitterly; "We expect

papers from a man we find hiding."

"Well, I have no papers on me," said Cosmo, and immediately in a sort of

mental illumination thought, "Except in my hat." Of course that object

reposing on the top of his head was a bundle of papers, dangerous

documents. Attilio was a conspirator. Obviously! The mysterious allusion

to something he was to find and hand over to Cantelucci became clear to

Cosmo. He felt very indignant with his mysterious acquaintance. "Of

course he couldn't foresee I was going to get into this predicament," he

thought, as if trying to find an excuse for him already.

"_Avanti_," commanded the man in front of him.

The grip on his arm of the two others tightened, resistance was no use

though he felt sorely tempted again to engage in a struggle. If only he

could free himself for a moment, dash off into the darkness, and throw

that absurd packet away somewhere before they caught him again. It was a

sort of solution; but he discovered in himself an unsuspected and

unreasoning loyalty. "No! Somebody would find it and take it to the

police," he thought. "If we come near the quay I may manage to fling it

on the water."

He said with lofty negligence: "You needn't hold my arms."

This suggestion was met by a profound silence. Neither of the men

holding him relaxed his grasp. Another was treading close on his heels,

while the police-hound in the big hat marched a couple of paces in front

of him, importantly.

Before long they approached the guardhouse close enough for Cosmo to see

the sentry at the foot of the steps, who challenged them militarily. The

shim in the hat advanced alone and made himself known in the light

streaming through the door. It was too late to attempt anything. As he

was impelled by his two captors inside the guardroom, which was lighted

by a smoky lamp and also full of tobacco smoke, Cosmo thought, "I am in

for it. What a horrible nuisance! I wonder whether they will search me?"

At Cosmo's entrance with his escort several soldiers reclining on the

floor raised their heads. It was a small place which may have been used

as a store for sails or cordage. The furniture consisted of one long

bench, a rack of muskets, a table, and one chair. A sergeant sitting on

that chair rose and talked with the head _sbirro_ for a time in a

familiar and interested manner about the incidents of the chase, before

he even looked at Cosmo. Cosmo could not hear the words. The sergeant

was a fine man with long black moustaches and a great scar on his cheek.

He nodded from time to time in an understanding manner to the man in the

hat, whom the light of the guardroom disclosed as the possessor of very

small eyes, a short thick beard, and a pear-shaped yellow physiognomy

which had a pained expression. At the suggestion of the _sbirri_ (they

had let him go) Cosmo sat down on a bench running along the wall. Part

of it was occupied by a soldier stretched at full length with his head

on his knapsack and with his shako hung above him on the wall. He was

profoundly asleep. "Perhaps that's the fellow who took those shots at

me," thought Cosmo. Another of the _sbirri_ approached Cosmo and with a

propitiatory smile handed him his cloak. Cosmo had forgotten all about

it.

"I carried it behind the signore all the way," he murmured with an air

of secrecy; and Cosmo was moved to say: "You ought to have brought it to

me at Cantelucci's inn," in a significant tone. The man made a

deprecatory gesture and said in a low voice: "The signore may want it

to-night."

He was young. His eyes met Cosmo's without flinching.

"I see," whispered Cosmo. "What is going to be done with me?" The man

looked away indifferently and said: "I am new at this work; but there is

a post of royal gendarmerie on the other side of the harbour."

He threw himself on the bench by Cosmo's side, stretched his legs out,

folded his arms across his breast, and yawned unconcernedly.

"Can I trust him?" Cosmo asked himself. Nobody seemed to pay any

attention to him. The _sbirro_ in the hat bustled out of the guardroom

in great haste; the other two remained on guard; the sergeant sitting

astride the chair folded his arms on the back of it and stared at the

night through the open door. The _sbirro_ by Cosmo's side muttered,

looking up at the ceiling: "I think Barbone is gone to find a boatman."

From this Cosmo understood that he was going to be taken across the

harbour and given up to the gendarmes. He thought, "If they insist upon

searching me I would have to submit and in any case a hat is not a

hiding-place. I may just as well hand the packet over without a

struggle." A bright idea struck him. "If those fellows take me over

there in a boat to save themselves the trouble of walking round the

harbour I will simply contrive to drop my hat overboard--even if they do

hold my arms during the passage." He was now convinced that Attilio

belonged to some secret society. He certainly was no common fellow. He

wondered what had happened to him. Was he slinking and dodging about the

low parts of the town on his way to some refuge; or had he really found

the excitable man and the grumpy man still waiting under the tower with

a boat? Most unlikely after such an alarming commotion of yells and

shots. He feared that Attilio, unable to get away, could hardly avoid

being caught to-morrow, or at the furthest next day. He himself

obviously did not expect anything better; or else he would not have been

so anxious to get rid of those papers. Cosmo concluded that conspirators

were perfectly absurd with their passion for documents, which were

invariably found at a critical time and sent them all to the gallows.

He noticed the eyes of the sergeant, a Croat, with pendent black

moustaches, fixed on his hat, and at once felt uneasy as if he had

belonged to a secret society himself. His hat was the latest thing in

men's round hats which he had bought in Paris. But, almost directly, the

sergeant's eyes wandered off to the doorway and resumed their stare.

Cosmo was relieved. He decided, however, to attempt no communication

with the young police fellow whose lounging attitude, abandoned and

drowsy, and almost touching elbows with him, seemed to Cosmo too

suggestive to be trustworthy. And indeed, he reflected, what could he do

for him?

His excitement about this adventure was combined in a strange way with a

state of inward peace which he had not known for hours. He wondered at

his loyalty to the astute Attilio. He would have been justified in

regarding the transaction as a scurvy trick; whereas he found that he

could not help contemplating it as a matter of trust. He went on

exercising his wits upon the problem of those documents (he was sure

those were papers of some kind) which he had been asked to give to

Cantelucci (how surprised he would be), since apparently the innkeeper

was a conspirator too. Yet, he thought, it would be better to destroy

them than to let them fall into the hands of the Piedmontese justice, or

the Austrian military command. "I must contrive," he thought, "to get

rid of them in the boat. I can always shake my hat overboard

accidentally." But the packet would float and some boatman would be sure

to find it during the day. On the other hand, by the time daylight came

the handwriting would probably have become illegible. Or perhaps not?

Fire, not water, was what he needed. If there had been a fire in that

inexpressibly dirty guardroom he would have made use of it at once under

the very noses of those wild-looking Croats. But would that have been

the proper thing to do in such a hurry?

He had not come to any conclusion before Barbone returned, accompanied

by a silver-haired, meek old fellow, with a nut-brown face, bare-footed

and bare-armed, and carrying a pair of sculls over his shoulder, whom

Barbone pushed in front of the sergeant. The latter took his short pipe

out of his mouth, spat on one side, looked at the old man with a fixed

savage stare, and finally nodded. At Cosmo he did not look at all, but

to Barbone he handed a key with the words, "Bring it back." The _sbirri_

closed round Cosmo and Barbone uttered a growl with a gesture towards

the door. Why Barbone should require a key to take him out of doors

Cosmo could not understand. Unless it were the key of liberty. But it

was not likely that the fierce Croat and the gloomy Barbone should have

indulged in symbolic actions. The mariner with the sculls on his

shoulder followed the group patiently to where, on the very edge of the

quay, the Austrian soldier with his musket shouldered paced to and fro

across the streak of reddish light from the garrison door. He swung

round and stood, very martial, in front of the group, but at the sight

of the key exhibited to him by Barbone moved out of the way. The air was

calm but chilly. Below the level of the quay there was the clinking of

metal and the rattling of small chains, and Cosmo then discovered that

the key belonged to a padlock securing the chain to which quite a lot of

small rowing boats were moored. The young policeman said from behind

into Cosmo's ear, "The signore is always forgetting his cloak," and

threw it lightly on Cosmo's shoulders. He explained also that every

night all the small boats in the port were collected and secured like

this on both sides of the port and the Austrians furnished the sentry to

look after them on this side. The object was that there should be no

boats moving after ten o'clock, except the galley of the _dogana_ and of

course the boat of the English man-of-war.

"Come and see me at noon at Cantelucci's inn," whispered Cosmo, to which

the other breathed out a "Certainly, Excellency," feelingly before going

up the steps.

Cosmo found himself presently sitting in a boat between two _sbirri._

The ancient fellow shoved off and shipped his oars. From the quay, high

above, Barbone's voice shouted to him, "The gendarmes will take charge

of your boat for the rest of the night." The old boatman's only answer

was a deep sigh, and in a very few strokes the quay with the sentry

receded into the darkness. One of the _sbirri_ remarked in a tone of

satisfaction, "Our service will be over after we have given up the

signore there." The other said, "I hope the signore will consider we

have been kept late on his account." Cosmo, who was contemplating with

immense distaste the prospect of being delivered up to the gendarmes,

emitted a mirthless laugh, and after a while said in a cold tone: "Why

waste your time in pulling to the other side of the harbour? Put me on

board the nearest vessel. I'll soon find my way to the quay from one

_tartane_ to another, and your service would be over at once."

The fellow on his left assumed an astonishing seriousness: "Most of

those _tartanes_ have a dog on board. We could not expose an illustrious

stranger to get bitten by one of these ugly brutes."

But the other had no mind for grave mockery. In a harsh and overbearing

tone he ordered the boatman to pull well into the middle of the harbour

away from the moored craft.

It was like crossing a lake overshadowed by the hills with the

breakwaters prolonging the shore to seaward. The old man raised and

dipped his oars slowly, without a sound, and the long trails of

starlight trembled on the ripples on each side of the boat. When they

had progressed far enough to open the harbour entrance Cosmo detected

between the end of the jetties far away--he was glancing casually

about--a dark speck about the size of a man's head, which ought not to

have been there. The air was perfectly still and the stars thick on the

horizon. It struck him at once that it could be nothing than either the

English man-of-war's boat or the boat of the _dogana_, since no others

were allowed to move at night. His thoughts were, however, so busy with

speculating as to what he had better do that he paid no more attention

to that remarkable speck. He looked absently at the silver-haired

boatman pulling an easy stroke and asked himself: Was it or was it not

time to lose his hat overboard? How could he contrive to make it look

plausible in this absurd calm? Then he reproached himself for reasoning

as if those two low fellows (whose proximity had grown extremely irksome

to him) had wits of preternatural sharpness. If he were to snatch it and

fling it away they would probably conclude that he was trying to make

himself troublesome, or simply mad, or anything in the world rather than

guess that he had in his hat something which he wanted to destroy. He

undid quietly the clasp of his cloak and rested his hands on his knees.

His guardians did not think it necessary now to hold his arms. In fact

they did not seem to pay much attention to him. Cosmo asked himself for

a moment whether he would island up suddenly and jump into the water. Of

course he knew that fully clothed and in his boots they would very soon

get hold of him, but the object would have been attained. However, the

prospect of being towed behind a boat to the custom-house quay by the

collar of his coat and being led into the presence of the gendarmes

looking like a drowned rat was so disagreeable that he rejected that

plan.

By that time the boat had reached little more than half way across the

harbour. The great body of the shipping was merged with the shore. The

nearest vessels were a polacca brig and xebec lying at anchor. Both were

shadowy, and the last, with her low spars, a mere low smudge on the dim

sheen of the water. From time to time the aged boatman emitted a moan.

The boat seemed hardly to move. Everything afloat was silent and dark.

The crews of the coasters were ashore or asleep; and if there were any

dogs on board any of them they too seemed plunged in the same slumber

that lay over all things of the earth, and by contrast with which the

stars of heaven looked intensely wakeful. In the midst of his

perplexities Cosmo enjoyed the feeling of peace that had come to him

directly his trouble had begun.

"We will be all night getting across," growled suddenly the man on his

left. ". . . I don't know what Barbone was thinking of to get this

antiquity out of his bed."

"I told him there was hardly any breath in my old body," declared the

boatman's tranquil voice.

Apparently in order to speak he had to cease rowing, for he rested on

his oars while he went on in the grave-like silence. "But he raged like

a devil; and rather than let him wake up all the neighbours I came out.

I may just as well die in the boat as in bed."

Both _sbirri_ exclaimed indignantly against Barbone, but neither offered

to take the sculls. With a painful groan the old man began to pull

again. Cosmo asked: "What's that dark thing between the heads of the

jetties?" One of his captors, turning his head to look, said, "That must

be the galley. I wish she would come this way. We would ask her for a

tow." The other man remarked sarcastically, "No fear, they are all

snoozing in her except one perhaps to keep a lookout. It's an easy life.

. . . _Voga, vecchio, yoga._"

Cosmo thought suddenly that if by any chance the man-of-war boat

happened to be pulling that way he would hail her without hesitation,

and, surely, the officer in charge would not leave him in the hands of

those villains without at least listening to his tale. Unluckily their

way across the harbour did not take them near the man-of-war. The light

at her mizzen peak seemed to Cosmo very far away; so that if it had not

burned against the dark background of the land it would have seemed more

distant than any star, and not half as brightly vigilant. He took his

eyes from it and let them rest idly on the water ahead. The _sbirro_ on

his right hand emitted an immense yawn. This provided the other to

mutter curses on the tediousness of all this affair. Cosmo had been too

perplexed to feel bored. Just then as if in antagonism to those

offensive manifestations he felt very alert. Moreover, the moment when

something would have to be done was approaching, a tension of all his

senses accumulating in a sort of all-over impatience. While in that

state, staring into the night, he caught sight of the man-of-war's boat.

But was it?--well, it was something dark on the water, and as there was

no other boat about . . . It was small--well, far off and probably end

on. . . . He had heard no sound of rowing . . . lying on her oars . . .

He could see nothing now . . . well, here goes, on the chance.

Without stirring a limb he took a long breath and let out the shout of

"Boat ahoy" with all the force of his lungs. The volume of tone

astonished himself. It seemed to fill the whole of the harbour so

effectually that he felt he needn't shout again and he remained as still

as a statue. The effect on his neighbours was that both gave a violent

start, which set the boat rolling slightly, and in their bewilderment

they bent forward to peer into his face with immense eyes. After a time

one of them asked in an awestruck murmur, "What's the matter, signore?"

and seized his cloak. The other, Cosmo heard distinctly whisper to

himself, "That was a war cry," while he also grabbed the cloak. The

clasp being undone, it slipped off Cosmo's shoulders and then they clung

to his arms. It struck Cosmo as remarkable that the old boatman, had not

ceased his feeble rowing for a moment.

The shout had done Cosmo good. It reestablished his self-respect somehow

and it sent the blood moving through his veins as if indeed it had been

a war cry. He had shaken their nerves. If they had not remained

perfectly motionless holding his arms there would have started a

scrimmage in that boat which would certainly have ended in the water.

But their grip was feeble. They did nothing, but, bending towards each

other in front of Cosmo till their heads almost touched, watched his

lips from which such an extraordinary shout had come. Cosmo stared

stonily ahead as if unconscious of their existence, and again he had

that strange illusion of a dark spot ahead of the boat. He thought,

"That's no illusion. What a fool I was. It must be a mooring buoy." A

couple of minutes elapsed before he thought again, "That old fellow will

be right into it, presently."

He didn't consider it his business to utter a warning because the bump

he expected happened almost immediately. He had misjudged the distance.

Owing to the slow pace the impact was very slight, slighter even than

Cosmo expected against such a heavy body as a mooring buoy would be. It

was really more like a feeble hollow sound than a shock. Cosmo, who was

prepared for it, was really the one that felt it at once, and the

ancient boatman looked sharply over his shoulder. He uttered no sound

and did not even attempt to rise from the thwart. He simply, as it

seemed to Cosmo, let go the oars. The _sbirri_ only became aware of

something having happened after the hollow bump was repeated, and Cosmo

had become aware that the object on the water was not a buoy but another

boat not much bigger than theirs. Then they both exclaimed and in their

surprise their grip relaxed. One of them cried in astonishment, "An

empty boat." It was indeed a surprising occurrence. With no particular

purpose in his mind Cosmo stood up while one of the _sbirri_ stood up

either to catch hold of the boat or push it away, for the two boats were

alongside each other by that time. A strange voice in the dark said very

loud: "The man in the hat," and as if by enchantment three figures

appeared standing in a row. Cosmo had not even time to feel surprised.

The two boats started knocking about considerably, and he felt himself

seized by the collar and one arm and dragged away violently from between

the two _sbirri_ by the power of irresistible arms which as suddenly let

him go as if he were an inanimate object, and he fell heavily in the

bottom of the second boat almost before his legs were altogether clear

of the other. During this violent translation his hat fell off his head

without any scheming on his part.

He was not exactly frightened but he was excusably flustered. One is not

kidnapped like this without any preliminaries every day. He was

painfully aware of being in the way of his new captors. He was kicked in

the ribs and his legs were trodden upon. He heard blows being struck

against hard substances which he knew were human skulls because of the

abortive yells ending in groans. There was a determination and ferocity

in this attack combined with the least possible amount of noise. All he

could hear were the heavy blows and the hard breathing of the

assailants. Then came a sort of helpless splash. "Somebody will get

drowned," he thought.

He made haste to pull himself forward from under the feet of the

combatants. Luckily for his ribs they were bare, which also added to the

quietness of that astonishing development. Once in the bows he sat up,

and by that time everything was over. Three shadowy forms were standing

in! a row in the boat, motionless, like labourers who had accomplished a

notable task. The boat out of which he had been dragged was floating

within a yard or two, apparently empty. The whole affair, which could

not have lasted more than a minute, seemed to Cosmo to have been

absolutely instantaneous. Not a sound came from the shipping along the

quays, not even from the brig and the xebec which were the nearest. A

sense of final stillness such as follows, for instance, the explosion of

a mine and resembles the annihilation of all one's perceptive faculties

took possession of Cosmo for a moment. Presently he heard a very earnest

but low voice cautioning the silent world: "If you dare make a noise I

will come back and kill you." It was perfectly impersonal; it had no

direction, no particular destination. Cosmo, who heard the words

distinctly, could connect no image of a human being with them. He was

roused at last when, dropping his hand on the gunwale, he felt human

fingers under it. He snatched his hand away as if burnt and only then

looked over. The white hair of the old boatman seemed to rest on the

water right against the boat's side. He was holding on silently, even in

this position displaying the meek patience of his venerable age--and

Cosmo contemplated him in silence. A voice, not at all impersonal this

time, said from the stem sheets, "Get out your oars."

"There is a man in the water here," said Cosmo, wondering at his own

voice being heard in those fantastic conditions. It produced, however,

the desired effect, and almost as soon as he had spoken Cosmo had to

help a bearded sailor, who was a complete stranger to him, to haul the

old man inside the boat. He was no great weight to get over the gunwale,

but they had to handle him as if he had been drowned. He never attempted

to help himself. The other men in the boat took an interest in the

proceedings.

"Is he dead?" came a subdued inquiry from aft.

"He is very old and feeble," explained Cosmo in an undertone. Somebody

swore long but softly, ending with the remark: "Here's a complication."

"That scoundrel Barbone dragged out a dying man," began Cosmo

impulsively.

"_Va bene, va bene_ . . . Bundle him in and come aft, signore."

Cosmo, obeying this injunction, found himself sitting in the stem sheets

by the side of a man whose first act was to put his hand lightly upon

his shoulder in a way that conveyed a sort of gentle exultation. The

discovery that the man was Attilio was too startling for comment at the

first moment. The next it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

"It seems as if nothing could keep us apart," said that extraordinary

man in a low voice. He took his hand off Cosmo's shoulder and directed

the two rowers--who, Cosmo surmised, were the whisperers of the

tower--to pull under the bows of the brig. "We must hide from those

custom-house fellows," he said. "I fancy the galley is coming along."

No other word was uttered till one of the men got hold of the brig's

cable and the boat came to a rest with her side against the stem of that

vessel, when Cosmo, who now could himself hear the faint noise of

rowing, asked Attilio in a whisper: "Are they after you?"

"If they are after anything," answered the other coolly, "they are after

a very fine voice. What made you give that shout?"

"I had to behave like a frightened mouse before those _sbirri_, on

account of those papers you left with me, and I felt that I must assert

myself." Cosmo gave this psychological explanation grimly. He changed

his tone to add that, fancying he had seen the shape of the English

man-of-war's boat, the temptation to hail her had been irresistible.

"Possibly that's what started them. They know nothing of us. Luck was on

our side. We slipped in unseen." The sound of rowing meantime had grown

loud enough to take away from them all desire for further conversation,

for the noise of heavy oars working in their rowlocks has a purposeful

relentless character on a still night, and the big twelve-oared galley,

pulled with a short quick stroke, seemed to hold an unerring way in its

hollow thundering progress. For those in the boat concealed under the

bows of the brig the strain of having to listen without being able to

see was growing intolerable. Cosmo asked himself anxiously whether he

was going to be captured once more before this night of surprises was

out, but at the last moment the galley swerved and passed under the stem

of the polacca as if bent on taking merely a sweep round the harbour.

Everybody in the boat drew a long breath. But almost immediately

afterwards the sound of rowing stopped short and everyone in the boat

seemed turned again into stone.

At last Attilio breathed into Cosmo's ear, "_Per Dio!_ They have found

the other boat."

Cosmo was almost ashamed at the swift eagerness of his fearfully

whispered inquiry:

"Are the men in her dead?"

"All I know is that if either of them is able to talk we are lost,"

Attilio whispered back.

"These _sbirri_ were going to deliver me to the gendarmes," Cosmo began

under his breath, when all at once the noise of the oars burst again on

their ears abruptly; but soon all apprehension was at an end, because it

became clear that the sound was receding towards the east side of the

harbour. In fact the custom-house people who had started to row round

because of a vague impression that there had been some shouting in the

harbour had to their immense surprise come upon a boat which at first

seemed empty but which, they soon discovered, contained two human forms

huddled up on the bottom boards, apparently dead, but at any rate

insensible if they were still breathing. Attilio's surmise that as the

quickest way of dealing with this mystery the custom-house officer had

decided to tow the boat at once to the police station on the east side

was perfectly right; and also his conviction that now or never was his

chance to slip out of that harbour where he and his companions felt

themselves in a trap the door of which might snap to at any time. At the

best it was a desperate situation, he felt. Cosmo felt it, too, if in a

more detached way--like a rather unwilling spectator. Yet his anxiety

for the safety of his companions was as great as though he had known

them all his life. Though he had in a way lost sight of his personal

connection he could not help forming his own view, which he poured into

Attilio's ear while the two rowers put all their strength into their

work.

Tensely rigid at the tiller, Attilio had listened, keeping his eyes

fixed on the gap of dark gleaming water between the black heads of the

two breakwaters.

"The signore is right," he assented. "We could not hope to escape from

that galley once she caught sight of us. Our only chance is to slip out

of the port before she gets back to her station outside the jetties.

This affair will be a great puzzle to them. They will lose some time

talking it over with the gendarmes. Unless one or another of those

_sbirri_ comes to himself."

"Yes. Those _sbirri_ . . ." murmured Cosmo.

"What would you have? We did our best with the boat-stretchers, I can

assure you."

Cosmo had no doubt of that. The sound of crashing blows rained on those

wretches' heads had been sickening, but the memory comforted him now. So

did the return of the profound stillness after the noise of the galley's

oars had died out in the distance. Cosmo took heart till it came upon

him suddenly that there never had been a starry sky that gave so much

light, no night so amazingly clear, no harbour of such an enormous

extent. He felt he must not lose a minute. He jumped up and began to

tear off his coat madly. Attilio exclaimed in dismay, "Stay! Don't!" It

looked as though his Englishman had made up his mind to swim for it. But

Cosmo with a muttered, "I must lend a hand," stepped lightly forward

past the rowers, and began to feel under thwarts for a spare oar. Before

he found it his hand came in contact with a naked foot. This recalled to

him the existence of the ancient boatman. The poor old fellow who had

taken no part in the fray had fallen overboard from mere weakness and

had had a long soaking in chilly water. He lay curled up in the bows,

shivering violently like a dog. For the moment Cosmo was simply vexed at

this additional dead weight in the boat. He could think of nothing but

of the custom-house galley. He imagined her long, slim, cleaving the

glassy water, as if endowed with life, while the clumsy tub in which he

sat felt to him a dead thing which had to be tugged along by main force

every inch of the way. He set his teeth hard and pulled doggedly as if

rowing in a losing race, without turning his head once. Suddenly he

became aware of the end of the old Mole gliding past the boat, and that

Attilio instead of holding on this way had taken a sweep and was

following the outer side of the breakwater towards the shore. Presently,

at his word, the oars were taken in, and the boat floated arrested in

shallow water amongst the boulders strewn along the base of the Mole.

The men panted after their exertions. Not a breath of wind stirred the

chilly air. Cosmo returned aft and sat down by Attilio after putting on

his coat.

It seemed as though Attilio, while steering with one hand, had managed

with the other to go through the pockets of Cosmo's coat, for his first

words murmured in an anxious tone were "Signore, where are those

papers?"

Cosmo had forgotten all about them. The shock was severe. "The papers,"

he exclaimed faintly. "In my hat."

"Yes, I put them there. You had it on your head in the boat. I

recognized you by it."

"Of course I had it on. Where is it?"

"God knows," said Attilio bitterly. "I was asking you for the papers."

"I only discovered that the packet was in my hat after I put it on,"

protested Cosmo. "Four were standing over me already."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Attilio, very low.

"Afterwards I was watched all the time."

While they were exchanging those words in the extremity of their

consternation, the man nearest to them went down suddenly on his knees

and began to grope under the thwarts industriously. Having heard the

word "hat" he had remembered that while battling with the _sbirri_ he

had trodden on some round object which had given way under his foot. He

assured the signore that it was a thing that could not be helped while

he tendered to him apologetically the rim with one hand and the crown

with the other. It was crushed flat like an empty bag, but it was seized

with avidity and presently Cosmo's feelings were relieved by the

discovery that it still contained the parcel of papers. Attilio took

possession of it with a low nervous laugh. It was an emotional sound

which, coming from that man, gave Cosmo food for wonder during the few

moments the silence lasted before Attilio announced in a whisper, "Here

she is."

Cosmo, looking seaward, saw on the black and gleaming water, polished

like a mirror for the stars, an opaque hummock resembling the head of a

rock; and he thought that the race had been won by a very narrow margin.

The galley in fact had reached the heads of the jetties a very few

minutes only after the boat. On getting back to his station the officer

in the galley pulled about fifty yards clear of the end of the old Mole

and ordered his men to lay oars in. He had left the solution of the

mystery to the police. It was not his concern; and as he knew nothing of

the existence of an outside boat, it never occurred to him to

investigate along the coast. Attilio's boat lurking close inshore was

invisible from seaward. The distance between the two was great enough to

cause the considerable clatter which is made when several oars are laid

in together at the word of command to reach Cosmo only as a very faint,

almost mysterious, sound. It was the last he was to hear for a very long

time. He surrendered to the soft and invincible stillness of air and sea

and stars enveloping the active desires and the secret fears of men who

have the sombre earth for their stage. At every momentary pause in his

long and fantastic adventure it returned with its splendid charm and

glorious serenity, resembling the power of a great and unfathomable love

whose tenderness like a sacred spell lays to rest all the vividities and

all the violences of passionate desire.

Dreamily Cosmo had lost control of the trend of his thoughts, as one

does on the verge of sleep. He regained it with a slight start and

looked up at the round tower looming up, bulky, at the water's edge. He

was back again, having completed the cycle of his adventures and not

knowing what would happen next. Everybody was silent. The two men at the

thwarts had folded their arms and had let their chins sink on their

breasts; while Attilio, sitting in the stern sheets, held his head up in

an immobility to which his open eyes lent an air of extreme vigilance.

The waste of waters seemed to extend from the shores of Italy to the

very confines of the universe, with nothing on it but the black spot of

the galley which moved no more than the head of a rock. "We can't stay

here till daylight," thought Cosmo.

That same thought was in Attilio's mind. The race between his boat and

the galley had been very close. It was very probable that had it not

been for Cosmo volunteering to pull the third oar it would have resulted

in a dead heat, which of course would have meant capture. As it was,

Attilio had just escaped being seen by pulling short round the jetty

instead of holding on into the open sea. It was a risky thing to do, but

then, since he had jeopardized the success of his escape through his

desire to get hold of Cosmo again, there was nothing before him but a

choice of risks.

Attilio was a native of a tiny white townlet on the eastern shore of the

Gulf of Genoa. His people were all small cultivators and fishermen.

Their name was Pieschi, from whose blood came the well-known conspirator

against the power of the Dorias and in the days of the Republic. Of this

fact Attilio had heard only lately (Cantelucci had told him) with a

certain satisfaction. In his early youth, spent on the coast of the

South American continent, he had heard much talk of a subversive kind

and had become familiar with the idea of revolt looked upon as an

assertion of manly dignity and the spiritual aim of life. He had come

back to his country about six months before and, beholding the aged

faces of some of his people in the unchanged surroundings, it seemed to

him that it was his own life that had been very long, though he was only

about thirty. Being a relation of Cantelucci he found himself very soon

in touch with the humbler members of secret societies, survivals of the

revolutionary epoch, stirred up by the downfall of the Empire and

inspired by grandiose ideas, by the hatred of the Austrian invaders

bringing back with them the old tyrannical superstitions of religion and

the oppression of privileged classes. Like the polite innkeeper he

believed in the absolute equality of all men. He respected all religions

but despised the priests who preached submission and perceived nothing

extravagant in the formation of an Italian empire (of which he had the

first hint from the irritable old cobbler, the uncle of Cecchina) since

there was a great man--a great Emperor--to put at its head, very close

at hand. The great thing was to keep him safe from the attempts of all

these kings and princes now engaged in plotting against his life in

Vienna--till the hour of action came. No small task, for the world

outside the ranks of the people was full of his enemies.

Attilio, still and silent by Cosmo's side, was not reproaching himself

for having gone in the evening to say good-bye to Cecchina. The girl

herself had been surprised to see him, for they had said good-bye

already in the afternoon. But this love affair was not quite two months

old and he could not have been satisfied with a hurried wordless

good-bye, snatched behind a half-closed door, with several people

drinking at the long table in Cantelucci's kitchen on one side and a

crabbed old woman rummaging noisily in a storeroom at the end of the

dark passage. Cecchina had, of course, reproached him for coming, but

not very much. Neither of them dreamed of there being any danger in it.

Then, straight out of her arms, as it were, he had stepped into that

ambush! His presence of mind and his agility proved too much for the

party of the stupid Barbone. It was only after he had given them the

slip in the maze of small garden plots at the back of the houses that he

had time, while lying behind a low wall, to think over this unexpected

trouble. He knew that the fellows who were after him belonged to the

police, because they had called on the soldiers for assistance; but he

concluded that he owed this surprise to some jealous admirer of

Cecchina. It was easy enough for any base scoundrel to set the police

after a man in these troubled times. It may even have been one of

Cantelucci's affiliated friends. His suspicions rested on the small

employees who took their meals at the inn, and especially on a lanky

scribe with a pointed nose like a rat who had the habit of going in and

out through the courier's room, only, Attilio believed, in order to make

eyes at Cecchina. That the ambush had been laid on the evening fixed for

his departure was a mere coincidence.

The real danger of the position was in having the papers on him, but,

anxious that his friends at the tower should not give him up, he came

out of his hiding-place too soon. The soldiers had gone away, but the

_sbirri_ were still half-heartedly poking about in dark corners and

caught sight of him. Another rush saved him for the moment. The position

he felt was growing desperate. He dared not throw away the papers. The

discovery of Cosmo sitting amongst the stones was an event so

extraordinary in itself that it revolutionized his rational view of life

as a whole in the way a miracle might have done. He felt suddenly an

awed and confiding love for that marvellous person fate had thrown in

his way. The pursuit was close. There was no time to explain. There was

no need.

But directly he found himself safe in the boat Attilio began to regret

having parted with the papers. It was not much use proceeding on his

mission without these documents entrusted to him by Cantelucci, acting

on behalf of superior powers.

He asked himself what could have happened to Cosmo? Did the fellows

arrest him on suspicion? That was not very likely, and at worst it would

not mean more than a short detention. They would not dare to search him,

surely. But even if they found the packet Cosmo would declare it his own

property and object to its being opened. He had a complete confidence in

Cosmo's loyalty and, what was more, in that young Englishman's power to

have his own way. He had the manner for that and the face for that. The

face and bearing of a man with whom it was lucky to be associated in

anything.

The galley being just then at the other end of her beat, Attilio saw his

way clear to slip into the harbour. The state of perfect quietness over

the whole extent of the harbour encouraged his native audacity. He began

by pulling to the east side where the gendarmerie office was near the

quay. Everything was quiet there. He made his men lay their oars amongst

the shadows of the anchored shipping and waited. Sleep, breathless

sleep, reigned on shore and afloat. Attilio began to think that Cosmo

could not have been discovered. If so, then he must be nearing

Cantelucci's inn by this time. He resolved then to board one of the

empty coasters moored to the quay, wait for the morning there, and then

go himself to the inn, where he could remain concealed till another

departure could be arranged. He told his men to pull gently to the

darkest part of the quay. And then he heard Cosmo's mighty shout. He was

nearly as confounded by it as the _sbirri_ in the boat. That voice

bursting out on the profound stillness seemed loud enough to wake up

every sleeper in the town, to bring the stones rolling down the

hillsides. And almost at once he thought, "What luck!" The luck of the

Englishman's amazing impudence; for what other man would have thought of

doing that thing? He told his rowers to lay their oars in quietly and

get hold of the boat-stretchers. The extremely, feeble pulling of the

old boatman gave the time for these preparations. He whispered his

instructions: "We've got to get a foreign signore out of that boat. The

others in her will be _sbirri._ Hit them hard." Just before the boats

came into contact he recognized Cosmo's form standing up. It was then

that he pronounced the words, "the man in the hat," which were heard by

Cosmo. Attilio ascribed it all to luck that attended those who had

anything to do with that Englishman. Even the very escape unseen from

the harbour he ascribed, not to Cosmo's extra oar, but to Cosmo's

peculiar personality.

Without departing from his immobility he broke silence by a "signore,"

pronounced in a distinct but restrained voice. Cosmo was glad to learn

the story before the moment came for them to part. But the theory of

luck which Attilio tacked on to the facts did not seem to him

convincing. He remarked that if Attilio had not come for him at all he

would have been far on the way in his mysterious affairs, whereas now he

was only in another trap.

For all answer the other murmured, "_Si_, but I wonder if it would have

been the same. Signore, isn't it strange that we should have been drawn

together from the first moment you put foot in Genoa?"

"It is," said Cosmo, with an emphasis that encouraged the other to

continue, but with a less assured voice.

"Some people of old believed that stars have something to do with

meetings and partings by their disposition and that some if not all men

have each a star allotted to them."

"Perhaps," said Cosmo in the same subdued voice. "But I believe there is

a man greater than you or I who believes he has a star of his own."

"Napoleon, perhaps."

"So I have heard," said Cosmo, and thought, "Here he is, whenever two

men meet he is a third, one can't get rid of him."

"I wonder where it is," said Attilio, as if to himself, looking up at

the sky. "Or yours, or mine," he added in a still lower tone. "They must

be pretty close together."

Cosmo humoured the superstitious strain absently, for he felt a secret

sympathy for that man. "Yes, it looks as if yours and mine had been

fated to draw together."

"No, I mean all three together."

"Do you? Then you must know more than I do. Though indeed as a matter of

fact he is not very far from us where we sit. But don't you think, my

friend, that there are men and women, too, whose stars mark them for

loneliness no man can approach?"

"You mean because they are great."

"Because they are incomparable," said Cosmo after a short pause, in

which Attilio seemed to ponder.

"I like that what you said," Attilio was heard at last. "Their stars may

be lonely. Look how still they are. But men are more like ships that

come suddenly upon each other without a warning. And yet they, too, are

guided by the stars. I can't get over the wonder of our meeting

to-night."

"If you hadn't been so long in saying good-bye we wouldn't have met,"

said Cosmo, looking at the two men dozing on the thwarts, the whisperers

of the tower. They were not at all like what he had imagined them to be.

Attilio gazed at his Englishman for a time closely. He seemed to see a

smile on Cosmo's lips. Wonder at his omniscience prevented him from

making a reply. He preferred not to ask, and yet he was incapable of

forming a guess, for there are certain kinds of obviousness that escape

speculation.

"You may be right," he said. "It's the first time in my life that I

found it hard to say good-bye. I begin to believe," he went on

murmuring, "that there are people it would be better for one not to

know. There are women . . ."

"Yes," said Cosmo, very low and as if unconscious of what he was saying.

"I have seen your faces very close together."

The other made a slight movement away from Cosmo and then bent towards

him. "You have seen," he said slowly and stopped short. He was thinking

of something that had happened only two hours before. "Oh well," he said

with composure, "you know everything, you see everything that happens.

Do you know what will happen to us two?"

"It's very likely that when we part we will never see each other again,"

Cosmo said, resting his elbows on his knees and taking his head between

his hands. He did not look like a man preparing to go ashore.

There were no material difficulties absolutely to prevent him from

landing. The foot of the tower with the narrow strip of ground which a

boat could approach was not sixty yards off, and all this was in the

shadow of its own reflection, the high side of the breakwater, the bulk

of the tower, making the glassy water dark in that corner of the shore.

And besides, the water in which the boat floated was so shallow that

Cosmo could have got to land by wading from where the boat lay without

wetting himself much above the knees, should Attilio refuse to come out

from under the shelter of the rock. But probably Attilio would not have

objected. The difficulty was not there.

Attilio must have been thinking on the same subject, as became evident

when he asked Cosmo whether those _sbirri_ knew where he lived. After

some reflection Cosmo said that he was quite certain they knew nothing

about it. The _sbirri_ had put no questions to him. They had not, he

said, displayed any particular curiosity about what he was. "But why do

you ask?"

"Don't you know?" said Attilio, with only half-affected surprise. "There

might have been a dozen of them waiting for you in the neighbourhood on

the chance of your returning, and you have no other place to go to."

"No, I haven't," said Cosmo in a tone as though he regretted that

circumstance. He thought, however, that there might have been some of

them out between the port and the town, and he knew only one way and

that not very well, he added.

As a matter of fact that danger was altogether imaginary, because

Barbone, who certainly was in the pay of the police for work of that

sort, was not imaginative enough to do things without orders, and after

sending his prisoner off left the rest of the gendarmes and went home to

bed, while his young acolyte went about his own affairs. The other two

_sbirri_ were being medically attended to, one of them especially being

very nearly half killed by an unlucky blow on the temple. All the other

_sbirro_ could say in a feeble voice was that there were four in the

boat, that they were attacked by an inexplicable murderous gang, and

that he imagined that the other two, the prisoner and the boatman, were

now dead and very likely at the bottom of the harbour. The brigadier of

the gendarmerie could not get any more out of him, and, knowing

absolutely nothing of the affair, thought it would be time to make his

report to the superior authorities in the morning. All he did was to go

round to the places where the boats were chained, which were under his

particular charge, and count the boats. Not one was wanting. His

responsibility was not engaged.

Thus there was nothing between Cosmo and Cantelucci's inn except his own

distaste. There was a strange tameness in that proceeding, a lack of

finality, something almost degrading. He imagined himself slinking like

a criminal at the back of the beastly guardhouse, starting at shadows,

creeping under the colonnade, getting lost in those dreadful deep lanes

between palaces, with the constant dread of having suddenly the paws of

those vile fellows laid on him and being dragged to some police post

with an absurd tale on his lips and without a hat on his head and what

for? Simply to get back to that abominable bedroom. However, he would

have to go through it.

"Pity you don't know the town," Attilio's cautious voice was heard

again, "or else I could tell you of a place where you could spend the

remainder of the night and send word to your servant to-morrow. But you

could not find it by yourself. And that's a pity. I assure Your

Excellency that she is a real good woman. To have a secret place is not

such a bad thing. One never knows what one may need, and she is a

creature to be trusted. She has an Italian heart and she is a

_giardiniera_ too. What more could I tell you?"

Cosmo thought to himself vaguely that the girl he had seen in

Cantelucci's kitchen did not look like a woman gardener, though of

course if Attilio had a love affair it would be naturally amongst people

of that sort. But it occurred to him that perhaps it was some other

woman Attilio was talking about. He made no movement. Attilio's murmurs

took on a tone of resignation. "Your luck, signore, will depart with

you, and perhaps ours will follow after." Cosmo protested against that

unreasonable assumption, which was of course an absurdity but

nevertheless touched him in one of those sensitive spots which are like

a _défaut d'armure_ in the battle-harness of various conceits which one

wears against one's kind. He considered luck less in a sudden

overwhelming conviction of it, in the manner of a man who had crossed

the path of a radiating influence, or who had awakened a sleeping and

destructive power which would now pursue him to the end of his life. He

was young, farouche, mistrustful and austere, not like a stoic, but in

the more human way like a man who has been born fastidious. In a sense

altogether unworldly. Attilio emitted an audible sigh.

"You won't call it your luck," he pursued. "Well, let us leave it

without a name. It is something in you. Your carelessness in following

your fantasy, signore, as when you forced your presence on me only two

days ago," he insisted, as if carelessness and fantasy were the

compelling instruments of success. His voice was at its lowest as he

added: "Your genius makes you true to your will."

No human being could have been insensible to such words uttered

unexpectedly in a tone of secret earnestness. But Cosmo's inward

response was a feeling of profound despondency. He was crushed by their

appalling unfitness. For the last twenty-four hours he had been asking

himself whether he had a will of his own, and it had seemed to him that

he had lost the notion of the real nature of courage. At that very

moment while listening to the mysteriously low pitch of Attilio's voice

the thought flashed through his mind that there was something within him

that made of him a predestined victim of remorse.

"You can't possibly know anything about me, Attilio," he said, "and

whatever you like to imagine about me, you will have to put me on shore

presently. I can't stay here till the morning, and neither can you," he

added. "What are you thinking of doing? What can you do?"

"Is it possible that it is of any interest to the signore? Only the

other evening I could not induce you to leave me to myself, and now you

are impatient to leave me to my fate. What can I do? I can always take a

desperate chance," he paused, and added through his clenched teeth, "and

when I think what little I need to make it almost safe . . ." The

piously uttered exclamation, "_Ah, Dio!_" was accompanied by a shake of

a clenched fist apparently addressed to the universe, but made as it

were discreetly, in keeping with the low and forcible tones.

"And what is that?" asked Cosmo, raising his head.

"Two pairs of stout arms, nothing more. With four oars and this boat and

using a little judgment in getting away I would defy that fellow there."

He jerked his head towards the galley which in this tideless sea had not

shifted her position a yard. "Yes," he went on, "I could even hope to

remain unseen on account of a quick dash."

And he explained to Cosmo further that in an hour or so a little nearer

the break of day, when men get heavy and sleepy, the watchfulness of

those custom-house people would be relaxed and give him a better chance.

But if he was seen then he could still hope to out-row them, though he

would have preferred it the other way because with a boat making for the

open sea they would very soon guess that there must be some vessel

waiting for her, and by telling the tale on shore, that government xebec

lying in the harbour would soon be out in chase. She was fast, and in

twenty-four hours she would soon manage to overhaul all the craft she

would sight between this and the place he was going to.

"And where is that?" asked Cosmo, letting his head rest on his hands

again.

"In the direction of Livorno," said the other, and checked himself. "But

perhaps I had better not tell you, for should you happen to be

interrogated by all those magistrates, or perhaps by the Austrians, you

would of course want to speak the truth as becomes a gentleman--a

_nobilissimo signore_--unless you manage to forget what I have already

told you or perchance elect to come with us."

"Come with you," repeated Cosmo, before something peculiar in the tone

made him sit up and face Attilio. "I believe you are capable of carrying

me off."

"_Dio ne voglio_," was Attilio's answer, "God forbid. The noise you

would make would bring no end of trouble. But for that perhaps it would

have been better for me," he added reflectively. "Whereas I have made up

my mind that there should be nothing but good from our association. Yet,

signore, you very nearly went away with us without any question at all,

for our head pointed to seaward and you could have had no idea that I

was coming in here. Confess, signore, you didn't think of return then. I

had only to hold the tiller straight another five minutes and I would

have had you in my power."

"You were afraid of the _dogana_ galley, my friend," said Cosmo as if

arguing a point.

"Signore, this minute," said Attilio with the utmost seriousness. "Wake

up there," he said in a raised undertone to his two men. "Take an oar,

Pietro, and pull the boat to the foot of the tower."

"There is also that old boatman," said Cosmo.

"Hold," said Attilio. "Him I will not land. They will be at his place in

the morning, and then he tells his tale . . . unless he is dead. See

forward there."

A very subdued murmur arose in the bows and Attilio muttered, "Pietro

would not talk to a dead man."

"He is extremely feeble," said Cosmo.

It appeared on Attilio's enquiry that this encumbrance as he called him

was just strong enough to be helped over the thwarts. Presently,

sustained under the elbows, he joined Cosmo in the stem sheets, where

they made him sit between them. He let his big hands lie in his lap.

From time to time he shivered patiently.

"That wretch Barbone knows no pity," observed Cosmo.

"I suppose he was the nearest he could get. What tyranny! The helpless

are at the mercy of those fellows. He saved himself the trouble of going

three doors farther."

They both looked at the ancient frame that age had not shrivelled.

"A fine man once," said Attilio in a low voice. "Can you hear me,

_vecchio?_"

"_Si_, and see you too, but I don't know your voice," was the answer in

a voice stronger than either of them expected, but betraying no sort of

interest.

"They will certainly throw him into prison." And to Cosmo's indignant

exclamation Attilio pointed out that the old man would be the only

person they would be able to get hold of and he would have to pay for

all the rest.

Cosmo expressed the opinion that he would not stay there long.

"Better for him to die under the open sky than in prison," murmured

Attilio in a gloomy voice. "Listen, old man, could you keep the boat

straight at a star if I were to point you one?"

"I was at home in a boat before I could speak plainly," was the answer,

while the boatman raised his arm and let it rest on the tiller as if to

prove that he had strength enough for that at least.

"I have my boat's crew, signore. Let him do something for all Italy if

it is with his last breath, that old Genoese. And now if you were only

to take that bow oar you have been using so well only a few moments ago,

I will pull stroke and we will make this boat fly."

Cosmo felt the subdued vibration of this appeal without having paid any

attention to the words. They required no answer. Attilio pressed him as

though he had been arguing against objections. Surely he was no friend

of tyranny or of Austrian oppressors and he wouldn't refuse to serve a

man whom some hidden power had thrown in his way. He, Attilio, had not

sought him. He would have been content never to have seen him. He surely

had nothing that could call him back on shore this very night, since he

had not been more than three days in Genoa. No time for him to have

affairs. The words poured out of his lips into Cosmo's ear while the

white-headed boatman sat still above the torrent of whispered speech,

appearing to listen like a venerable judge. What could stand in the way

of him lending his luck and the strength of his arm? Surely it couldn't

be love, since he was travelling alone.

"Enough," said Cosmo, as if the word had been extorted from him by pain,

but Attilio felt that his cause had been gained, though he hastened to

apologize for the impropriety of the argument, and assure the milord

Inglese that nothing would be easier than to put him ashore in the

course of the next day.

"What do you think. Excellency, there is my own native village not very

far from Genoa on the Riviera di Ponente, and you will be amongst

friends to carry out such orders as you may give, or pass you from one

to another back to Genoa as fast as mules can climb or horses trot. And

it would be the same from any point in Italy. They would get you into

Genoa in disguise, or without disguise, and into the very home of

Cantelucci, so that you could appear there without a soul knowing how

you entered or how you came back."

Cosmo, feeling a sudden relief, wondered that he should have found it in

the mere resolution to go off secretly with only the clothes he stood up

in, absolutely without money or anything of value on him, not even a

watch, and without a hat, at the mere bidding of a man bound on some

secret work, God knows where and for what object, and who had

volunteered to him no statement except that he had cousins in every spot

in Italy and a love affair with an _ortolana._ The enormous absurdity of

it made him impatient to be doing, and upon his expressed desire to make

a start Attilio, with the words, "You command here, signore," told his

men it was time to be moving.

In less than half an hour the boat, with all her crew crouching at the

bottom and using the oars for poling in the shallow water along the

coast with infinite precaution to avoid knocks and bangs as though the

boat, the oars, and everything in her were made of glass, had been moved

far enough from the tower to have her nose put to the open sea. After

the first few strokes Cosmo felt himself draw back again to the receding

shore. But it was too late. He seemed to feel profoundly that he was

not--perhaps no man was--a free agent. He felt a sort of fear, a

faltering of all his limbs, as he swung back to his oar. Then his eyes

caught the galley, indeed everybody's eyes in the boat were turned that

way except the eyes of the ancient steersman, the white-headed figure in

an unexpectedly erect attitude who, with hardly any breath left in his

body and a mere helpless victim of other men's will, had a strange

appearance of the man in command.

In less than ten minutes the galley became invisible, and even the long

shadows of the jetties had sunk to the level of the sea. There was a

moment when one of the men observed without excitement, "She's after

us," but this remark provoked no answer and turned out to be mistaken,

and for an hour longer Attilio, pulling stroke, watched the faint

phosphorescent wake, the evanescent fire under the black smoothness of

the sea, elusive like the tail of a comet amongst the dim reflections of

the stars. Its straightness was the only proof of the silent helmsman

with his arm resting along the tiller being still alive. Then he began

to look about him, and presently, laying in his oar, relieved the old

man at the tiller. He had to take his arm off it. The other never said a

word.

The boat moved slowly now. The problem was to discover the awaiting

felucca without lights and with her sails lowered. Several times Attilio

stood up to have a look without being able to make out anything. He was

growing uneasy. He spoke to Cosmo.

"I hope we haven't passed her by. If we once get her between us and the

land it will be hopeless to catch sight of her till the day breaks.

Better rest on your oars."

He remained standing himself. His eyes roamed to and fro patiently and

suddenly he emitted a short laugh.

"Why, there she is."

He steered, still standing, while the others pulled gently. The old man,

who had not emitted a sound, had slipped off the seat on to the stem

sheets. Attilio said quietly, "Take your oars in," and suddenly Cosmo

felt the boat bump against the low side of the felucca, which he had

never tinned his head to see. No had or even murmur came from her. She

had no lights. Attilio's voice said, "You first, signore," and Cosmo,

looking up, saw three motionless heads above the bulwarks. No word was

spoken to him. He was not even looked at by those silent and shadowy

men. The first sound he heard were the words, "Take care," pronounced by

Attilio in connection with getting the old boatman on board. Cosmo,

standing aside, saw a group carry him over to the other side of the

deck. While the sails were being hoisted he sat on the hatch and came to

the very verge of believing himself invisible till suddenly Attilio

stood by his side.

"Like this we will catch the very first breath of day-break, and may a

breeze follow it to take us out of sight of that town defiled by the

Austrians and soon to be the prey of the nobles and the priests." He

paused. "So at least Cantelucci says. There are bed places below, if you

want to take some rest, signore."

"I am not sleepy," said Cosmo. If no longer invisible, he could still

feel disembodied, as it were. He was neither sleepy nor tired, nor

hungry, nor even curious, as if altogether freed from the weaknesses of

the body, and not indifferent but without apprehensions or speculations

of any sort to disturb his composure as if of a fully informed wisdom.

He did not seem to himself to weigh more than a feather. He was

suffering the reaction of the upheaval of all his feelings and the

endless contest of his thoughts and that sort of mental agony which had

taken possession of him while he was descending the great staircase of

the Palazzo under the eye of the Count of Montevesso. It was as though

one of those fevers in which the victim watches his own delirium had

left him irresponsible, like a sick man in his bed. Attilio went on:

"Cantelucci's an experienced conspirator. He thinks that the force of

the people is such that it would be like an uprising of the ground

itself. May be, but where is the man that would know how to use it?"

Cosmo let it go by like a problem that could await solution or as a

matter of mere vain words. The night air did not stir, and Attilio

changed his tone.

"They had their lines out ever since the calm began. We will have fish

to eat in the morning. You will have to be one of ourselves for a time

and observe the customs of the common people."

"Tell me, Attilio," Cosmo questioned, not widely but in a quiet, almost

confidential tone, and laying his hand for the first time on the

shoulder of that man only a little older than himself. "Tell me, what am

I doing here?"

Attilio, the wanderer of the seas along the southern shores of the earth

and the pupil of the hermit of the plains that lie under the

constellation of the southern sky, smiled in the dark, a faint friendly

gleam of white teeth in an over-shadowed face. But all the answer he

made was:

"Who would dare say now that our stars have not come together? Come to

sit at the stem, signore. I can find a rug to throw over a coil of rope

for a seat. I am now the padrone of that felucca, but of course barring

her appointed work you are entirely the master of her."

These words were said with a marked accent of politeness such as one

uses for a courtesy formula. But he stopped for a moment on his way aft

to point his finger on the deck.

"We have thrown a bit of canvas over him. Yes, that is the old man whose

last bit of work was to steer a boat, and strange to think perhaps it

had been done for Italy."

"Where is his star now?" said Cosmo, after looking down in silence for a

time.

"Signore, it should be out," said Attilio with studied intonation. "But

who will miss it out of the sky?"