Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope.
But it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free
movements. They hung together intertwisted in the characters of specious
pacificator and appealing citizen, both breathless.
“There! you want to hand me up neatly; I know your vanity, my Beppo; and
you don't even know my name,” said the prisoner.
“I know your ferret of a face well enough,” said Beppo. “You dog the
signorina. Come up, and don't give trouble.”
“Am I not a sheep? You worry me. Let me go.”
“You're a wriggling eel.”
“Catch me fast by the tail then, and don't hold me by the middle.”
“You want frightening, my pretty fellow!”
“If that's true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in sending you to do
it. Stop a moment. You're blown. I think you gulp down your minestra too
hot; you drink beer.”
“You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last.”
“I left Milan for the purpose--don't you see? Act fairly, my Beppo, and
let us go up to the signorina together decently.”
“Ay, ay, my little reptile! You'll find no Austrians here. Cry out to
them to come to you from Baveno. If the Motterone grew just one tree!
Saints! one would serve.”
“Why don't you--fool that you are, my Beppo!--pray to the saints
earlier? Trees don't grow from heaven.”
“You'll be going there soon, and you'll know better about it.”
“Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time or other!”
The struggles between them continued sharply during this exchange
of intellectual shots; but hearing Ugo Corte's voice, the prisoner's
confident audacity forsook him, and he drew a long tight face like the
mask of an admonitory exclamation addressed to himself from within.
“Stand up straight!” the soldier's command was uttered.
Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the power to obey or
to speak.
Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force of his huge fist he
swung him round and stretched him out at arm's length, all collar and
shanks. The man hung like a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured
out the tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle,
showing that he could have answered one whom he did not fear. The
charge brought against him was, that for the last six months he had been
untiringly spying on the signorina.
Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told him to walk
aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evidently become miserably
disconcerted. He walked in trepidation, speechless, and when
interrogated on the height his eyes flew across the angry visages with
dismal uncertainty. Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not
expected to come among them, and forthwith began to excite Giulio and
Marco to the worst suspicions, in order to indulge his royal poetic soul
with a study of a timorous wretch pushed to anticipations of extremity.
“The execution of a spy,” he preluded, “is the signal for the ringing
of joy-bells on this earth; not only because he is one of a pestiferous
excess, in point of numbers, but that he is no true son of earth. He
escaped out of hell's doors on a windy day, and all that we do is to
puff out a bad light, and send him back. Look at this fellow in whom
conscience is operating so that he appears like a corked volcano! You
can see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact
colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective,
thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned
without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical
preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is
stronger:--observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt.
He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to
indicate that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending
years. Now, you dangling soul! answer me:--what name hailed you when on
earth?”
The fan, with no clearly serviceable tongue, articulated, “Luigi.”
“Luigi! the name Christian and distinctive. The name historic:-Luigi
Porco?”
“Luigi Saracco, signore.”
“Saracco: Saracco: very possibly a strip of the posterity of cut-throat
Moors. To judge by your face, a Moor undoubtedly: glib, slippery! with
a body that slides and a soul that jumps. Taken altogether, more serpent
than eagle. I misdoubt that little quick cornering eye of yours. Do you
ever remember to have blushed?”
“No, signore,” said Luigi.
“You spy upon the signorina, do you?”
“You have Beppo's word for that,” interposed Marco Sana, growling.
“And you are found spying on the mountain this particular day! Luigi
Saracco, you are a fellow of a tremendous composition. A goose walking
into a den of foxes is alone to be compared to you,--if ever such goose
was! How many of us did you count, now, when you were, say, a quarter of
a mile below?”
Marco interposed again: “He has already seen enough up here to make a
rope of florins.”
“The fellow's eye takes likenesses,” said Giulio.
Agostino's question was repeated by Corte, and so sternly that Luigi,
beholding kindness upon no other face save Vittoria's, watched her, and
muttering “Six,” blinked his keen black eyes piteously to get her sign
of assent to his hesitated naming of that number. Her mouth and the turn
of her head were expressive to him, and he cried “Seven.”
“So; first six, and next seven,” said Corte.
“Six, I meant, without the signorina,” Luigi explained.
“You saw six of us without the signorina! You see we are six here,
including the signorina. Where is the seventh?”
Luigi tried to penetrate Vittoria's eyes for a proper response; but
she understood the grave necessity for getting the full extent of his
observations out of him, and she looked as remorseless as the men. He
feigned stupidity and sullenness, rage and cunning, in quick succession.
“Who was the seventh?” said Carlo.
“Was it the king?” Luigi asked.
This was by just a little too clever; and its cleverness, being seen,
magnified the intended evasion so as to make it appear to them that
Luigi knew well the name of the seventh.
Marco thumped a hand on his shoulder, shouting--“Here; speak out! You
saw seven of us. Where has the seventh one gone?”
Luigi's wits made a dash at honesty. “Down Orta, signore.”
“And down Orta, I think, you will go; deeper down than you may like.”
Corte now requested Vittoria to stand aside. He motioned to her with his
hand to stand farther, and still farther off; and finally told Carlo to
escort her to Baveno. She now began to think that the man Luigi was in
some perceptible danger, nor did Ammiani disperse the idea.
“If he is a spy, and if he has seen the Chief, we shall have to detain
him for at least four-and-twenty hours,” he said, “or do worse.”
“But, Signor Carlo,”--Vittoria made appeal to his humanity,--“do they
mean, if they decide that he is guilty, to hurt him?”
“Tell me, signorina, what punishment do you imagine a spy deserves?”
“To be called one!”
Carlo smiled at her lofty method of dealing with the animal.
“Then you presume him to have a conscience?”
“I am sure, Signor Carlo, that I could make him loathe to be called a
spy.”
They were slowly pacing from the group, and were on the edge of the
descent, when the signorina's name was shrieked by Luigi. The man came
running to her for protection, Beppo and the rest at his heels. She
allowed him to grasp her hand.
“After all, he is my spy; he does belong to me,” she said, still
speaking on to Carlo. “I must beg your permission, Colonel Corte and
Signor Marco, to try an experiment. The Signor Carlo will not believe
that a spy can be ashamed of his name.--Luigi!”
“Signorina!”--he shook his body over her hand with a most plaintive
utterance.
“You are my countryman, Luigi?”
“Yes, signorina.”
“You are an Italian?”
“Certainly, signorina!”
“A spy!”
Vittoria had not always to lift her voice in music for it to sway the
hearts of men. She spoke the word very simply in a mellow soft tone.
Luigi's blood shot purple. He thrust his fists against his ears.
“See, Signor Carlo,” she said; “I was right. Luigi, you will be a spy no
more?”
Carlo Ammiani happened to be rolling a cigarette-paper. She put out
her fingers for it, and then reached it to Luigi, who accepted it with
singular contortions of his frame, declaring that he would confess
everything to her. “Yes, signorina, it is true; I am a spy on you. I
know the houses you visit. I know you eat too much chocolate for your
voice. I know you are the friend of the Signora Laura, the widow of
Giacomo Piaveni, shot--shot on Annunciation Day. The Virgin bless him!
I know the turning of every street from your house near the Duomo to
the signora's. You go nowhere else, except to the maestro's. And it's
something to spy upon you. But think of your Beppo who spies upon me!
And your little mother, the lady most excellent, is down in Baveno, and
she is always near you when you make an expedition. Signorina, I know
you would not pay your Beppo for spying upon me. Why does he do it? I
do not sing 'Italia, Italia shall be free!' I have heard you when I was
under the maestro's windows; and once you sang it to the Signor Agostino
Balderini. Indeed, signorina, I am a sort of guardian of your voice. It
is not gold of the Tedeschi I get from the Signor Antonio Pericles.”
At the mention of this name, Agostino and Vittoria laughed out.
“You are in the pay of the Signor Antonio-Pericles,” said Agostino.
“Without being in our pay, you have done us the service to come up here
among us! Bravo! In return for your disinterestedness, we kick you down,
either upon Baveno or upon Stresa, or across the lake, if you prefer
it.--The man is harmless. He is hired by a particular worshipper of the
signorina's voice, who affects to have first discovered it when she
was in England, and is a connoisseur, a millionaire, a Greek, a rich
scoundrel, with one indubitable passion, for which I praise him. We will
let his paid eavesdropper depart, I think. He is harmless.”
Neither Ugo nor Marco was disposed to allow any description of spy to
escape unscotched. Vittoria saw that Luigi's looks were against him, and
whispered: “Why do you show such cunning eyes, Luigi?”
He replied: “Signorina, take me out of their hearing, and I will tell
you everything.”
She walked aside. He seemed immediately to be inspired with confidence,
and stretched his fingers in the form of a grasshopper, at which sight
they cried: “He knows Barto Rizzo--this rascal!” They plied him with
signs and countersigns, and speedily let him go. There ensued a sharp
snapping of altercation between Luigi and Beppo. Vittoria had to order
Beppo to stand back.
“It is a poor dog, not of a good breed, signorina,” Luigi said, casting
a tolerant glance over his shoulder. “Faithful, but a poor nose. Ah! you
gave me this cigarette. Not the Virgin could have touched my marrow as
you did. That's to be remembered by-and-by. Now, you are going to sing
on the night of the fifteenth of September. Change that night.
The Signor Antonio-Pericles watches you, and he is a friend of the
Government, and the Government is snoring for you to think it asleep.
The Signor Antonio-Pericles pacifies the Tedeschi, but he will know all
that you are doing, and how easy it will be, and how simple, for you to
let me know what you think he ought to know, and just enough to keep
him comfortable! So we work like a machine, signorina. Only, not through
that Beppo, for he is vain of his legs, and his looks, and his service,
and because he has carried a gun and heard it go off. Yes; I am a spy.
But I am honest. I, too, have visited England. One can be honest and
a spy. Signorina, I have two arms, but only one heart. If you will
be gracious and consider! Say, here are two hands. One hand does this
thing, one hand does that thing, and that thing wipes out this thing.
It amounts to clear reasoning! Here are two eyes. Were they meant to
see nothing but one side! Here is a tongue with a line down the middle
almost to the tip of it--which is for service. That Beppo couldn't
deal double, if he would; for he is imperfectly designed--a mere dog's
pattern! But, only one heart, signorina--mind that. I will never
forget the cigarette. I shall smoke it before I leave the mountain, and
think--oh!”
Having illustrated the philosophy of his system, Luigi continued: “I
am going to tell you everything. Pray, do not look on Beppo! This is
important. The Signor Antonio-Pericles sent me to spy on you, because he
expects some people to come up the mountain, and you know them; and
one is an Austrian officer, and he is an Englishman by birth, and he
is coming to meet some English friends who enter Italy from Switzerland
over the Moro, and easily up here on mules or donkeys from Pella. The
Signor Antonio-Pericles has gold ears for everything that concerns
the signorina. 'A patriot is she!' he says; and he is jealous of your
English friends. He thinks they will distract you from your studies;
and perhaps”--Luigi nodded sagaciously before he permitted himself to
say--“perhaps he is jealous in another way. I have heard him speak like
a sonnet of the signorina's beauty. The Signor Antonio-Pericles thinks
that you have come here to-day to meet them. When he heard that you
were going to leave Milan for Baveno, he was mad, and with two fists up,
against all English persons. The Englishman who is an Austrian officer
is quartered at Verona, and the Signor Antonio Pericles said that the
Englishman should not meet you yet, if he could help it.”
Victoria stood brooding. “Who can it be,--who is an Englishman, and an
Austrian officer, and knows me?”
“Signorina, I don't know names. Behold, that Beppo is approaching like
the snow! What I entreat is, that the signorina will wait a little for
the English party, if they come, so that I may have something to tell
my patron. To invent upon nothing is most unpleasant, and the Signor
Antonio can soon perceive whether one swims with corks. Signorina, I
can dance on one rope--I am a man. I am not a midge--I cannot dance upon
nothing.”
The days of Vittoria's youth had been passed in England. It was not
unknown to her that old English friends were on the way to Italy;
the recollection of a quiet and a buried time put a veil across her
features. She was perplexed by the mention of the Austrian officer by
Luigi, as one may be who divines the truth too surely, but will not
accept it for its loathsomeness. There were Englishmen in the army of
Austria. Could one of them be this one whom she had cared for when she
was a girl? It seemed hatefully cruel to him to believe it. She spoke
to Agostino, begging him to remain with her on the height awhile to see
whether the Signor Antonio-Pericles was right; to see whether Luigi was
a truth-teller; to see whether these English persons were really coming.
“Because,” she said, “if they do come, it will at once dissolve any
suspicions you may have of this Luigi. And I always long so much to
know if the Signor Antonio is correct. I have never yet known him to be
wrong.”
“And you want to see these English,” said Agostino. He frowned.
“Only to hear them. They shall not recognize me. I have now another
name; and I am changed. My hat is enough to hide me. Let me hear them
talk a little. You and the Signor Carlo will stay with me, and when they
come, if they do come, I will remain no longer than just sufficient to
make sure. I would refuse to know any of them before the night of the
fifteenth; I want my strength too much. I shall have to hear a misery
from them; I know it, I feel it; it turns my blood. But let me hear
their voices! England is half my country, though I am so willing to
forget her and give all my life to Italy. Stay with me, dear friend, my
best father! humour me, for you know that I am always charming when I am
humoured.”
Agostino pressed his finger on a dimple in her cheeks. “You can afford
to make such a confession as that to a greybeard. The day is your own.
Bear in mind that you are so situated that it will be prudent for you
to have no fresh relations, either with foreigners or others, until your
work is done,--in which, my dear child, may God bless you!”
“I pray to him with all my might,” Vittoria said in reply.
After a consultation with Agostino, Ugo Corte and Marco and Giulio bade
their adieux to her. The task of keeping Luigi from their clutches was
difficult; but Agostino helped her in that also. To assure them, after
his fashion, of the harmlessness of Luigi, he seconded him in a contest
of wit against Beppo, and the little fellow, now that he had shaken off
his fears, displayed a quickness of retort and a liveliness “unknown
to professional spies and impossible to the race,” said Agostino; “so
absolutely is the mind of man blunted by Austrian gold. We know that
for a fact. Beppo is no match for him. Beppo is sententious; ponderously
illustrative; he can't turn; he is long-winded; he, I am afraid, my
Carlo, studies the journals. He has got your journalistic style, wherein
words of six syllables form the relief to words of eight, and hardly one
dares to stand by itself. They are like huge boulders across a brook.
The meaning, do you, see, would run of itself, but you give us these
impedimenting big stones to help us over it, while we profess to
understand you by implication. For my part, I own, that to me, your
parliamentary, illegitimate academic, modern crocodile phraseology,
which is formidable in the jaws, impenetrable on the back, can't
circumvent a corner, and is enabled to enter a common understanding
solely by having a special highway prepared for it,--in short, the
writing in your journals is too much for me. Beppo here is an example
that the style is useless for controversy. This Luigi baffles him at
every step.”
“Some,” rejoined Carlo, “say that Beppo has had the virtue to make you
his study.”
Agostino threw himself on his back and closed his eyes. “That, then, is
more than you have done, signor Tuquoque. Look on the Bernina yonder,
and fancy you behold a rout of phantom Goths; a sleepy rout, new risen,
with the blood of old battles on their shroud-shirts, and a North-east
wind blowing them upon our fat land. Or take a turn at the other
side toward Orta, and look out for another invasion, by no means so
picturesque, but preferable. Tourists! Do you hear them?”
Carlo Ammiani had descried the advanced troop of a procession of
gravely-heated climbers ladies upon donkeys, and pedestrian guards
stalking beside them, with courier, and lacqueys, and baskets of
provisions, all bearing the stamp of pilgrims from the great Western
Island.