THE POPE'S MOUTH
Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do. He had not found it
difficult to outstrip the lieutenant (who had to visit Brescia on his
way) and reach the gates of Verona in advance of him, where he obtained
entrance among a body of grape-gatherers and others descending from the
hills to meet a press of labour in the autumnal plains. With them
he hoped to issue forth unchallenged on the following morning; but
Wilfrid's sword had made lusty play; and, as in the case when the order
has been given that a man shall be spared in life and limb, Barto and
his fellow-assailants suffered by their effort to hold him simply half a
minute powerless. He received a shrewd cut across the head, and lay for
a couple of hours senseless in the wine-shop of one Battista--one of
the many all over Lombardy who had pledged their allegiance to the Great
Cat, thinking him scarcely vulnerable. He read the letter, dizzy with
pain, and with the frankness proper to inflated spirits after loss of
blood, he owned to himself that it was not worth much as a prize. It was
worth the attempt to get possession of it, for anything is worth what
it costs, if it be only as a schooling in resolution, energy, and
devotedness:--regrets are the sole admission of a fruitless business;
they show the bad tree;--so, according to his principle of action, he
deliberated; but he was compelled to admit that Vittoria's letter was
little else than a repetition of her want of discretion when she was on
the Motterone. He admitted it, wrathfully: his efforts to convict this
woman telling him she deserved some punishment; and his suspicions being
unsatisfied, he resolved to keep them hungry upon her, and return to
Milan at once. As to the letter itself, he purposed, since the harm in
it was accomplished, to send it back honourably to the lieutenant, till
finding it blood-stained, he declined to furnish the gratification of
such a sight to any Austrian sword. For that reason, he copied it, while
Battista's wife held double bandages tight round his head: believing
that the letter stood transcribed in a precisely similar hand, he
forwarded it to Lieutenant Pierson, and then sank and swooned. Two days
he lay incapable and let his thoughts dance as they would. Information
was brought to him that the gates were strictly watched, and that troops
were starting for Milan. This was in the dull hour antecedent to the
dawn. 'She is a traitress!' he exclaimed, and leaping from his bed, as
with a brain striking fire, screamed, 'Traitress! traitress!' Battista
and his wife had to fling themselves on him and gag him, guessing him
as mad. He spoke pompously and theatrically; called himself the Eye of
Italy, and said that he must be in Milan, or Milan would perish, because
of the traitress: all with a great sullen air of composure and an odd
distension of the eyelids. When they released him, he smiled and thanked
them, though they knew, that had he chosen, he could have thrown off a
dozen of them, such was his strength. The woman went down on her knees
to him to get his consent that she should dress and bandage his head
afresh. The sound of the regimental bugles drew him from the house,
rather than any immediate settled scheme to watch at the gates.
Artillery and infantry were in motion before sunrise, from various
points of the city, bearing toward the Palio and Zeno gates, and the
people turned out to see them, for it was a march that looked like the
beginning of things. The soldiers had green twigs in their hats, and
kissed their hands good-humouredly to the gazing crowd, shouting bits of
verses:
'I'm off! I'm off! Farewell, Mariandl! if I come back a sergeant-major
or a Field-Marshal, don't turn up your nose at me: Swear you will be
faithful all the while; because, when a woman swears, it's a comfort,
somehow: Farewell! Squeeze the cow's udders: I shall be thirsty enough:
You pretty wriggler! don't you know, the first cup of wine and the
last, I shall float your name on it? Luck to the lads we leave behind!
Farewell, Mariandl!'
The kindly fellows waved their hands and would take no rebuff. The
soldiery of Austria are kindlier than most, until their blood is up.
A Tyrolese regiment passed, singing splendidly in chorus. Songs of
sentiment prevailed, but the traditions of a soldier's experience of the
sex have informed his ballads with strange touches of irony, that help
him to his (so to say) philosophy, which is recklessness. The Tyroler's
'Katchen' here, was a saturnine Giulia, who gave him no response, either
of eye or lip.
'Little mother, little sister, little sweetheart, 'ade! ade!' My little
sweetheart, your meadow is half-way up the mountain; it's such a green
spot on the eyeballs of a roving boy! and the chapel just above it, I
shall see it as I've seen it a thousand times; and the cloud hangs near
it, and moves to the door and enters, for it is an angel, not a cloud; a
white angel gone in to pray for Katerlein and me: Little mother, little
sister, little sweetheart, 'ade! ade!' Keep single, Katerlein, as long
as you can: as long as you can hold out, keep single: 'ade!''
Fifteen hundred men and six guns were counted as they marched on to one
gate.
Barto Rizzo, with Battista and his wife on each side of him, were among
the spectators. The black cock's feathers of the Tyrolese were still
fluttering up the Corso, when the woman said, 'I 've known the tail of a
regiment get through the gates without having to show paper.'
Battista thereupon asked Barto whether he would try that chance. The
answer was a vacuous shake of the head, accompanied by an expression
of unutterable mournfulness. 'There's no other way,' pursued Battista,
'unless you jump into the Adige, and swim down half-a-mile under water;
and cats hate water--eh, my comico?'
He conceived that the sword-cut had rendered Barto imbecile, and pulled
his hat down his forehead, and patted his shoulder, and bade him have
cheer, patronizingly: but women do not so lightly lose their impression
of a notable man. His wife checked him. Barto had shut his eyes, and
hung swaying between them, as in drowsiness or drunkenness. Like his
body, his faith was swaying within him. He felt it borne upon the
reeling brain, and clung to it desperately, calling upon chance to aid
him; for he was weak, incapable of a physical or mental contest, and
this part of his settled creed that human beings alone failed the
patriotic cause as instruments, while circumstances constantly
befriended it--was shocked by present events. The image of Vittoria,
the traitress, floated over the soldiery marching on Milan through her
treachery. Never had an Austrian force seemed to him so terrible. He had
to yield the internal fight, and let his faith sink and be blackened,
in order that his mind might rest supine, according to his remembered
system; for the inspiration which points to the right course does not
come during mental strife, but after it, when faith summons its agencies
undisturbed--if only men will have the faith, and will teach themselves
to know that the inspiration must come, and will counsel them justly.
This was a part of Barto Rizzo's sustaining creed; nor did he lose his
grasp of it in the torment and the darkness of his condition.
He heard English voices. A carriage had stopped almost in front of him.
A General officer was hat in hand, talking to a lady, who called him
uncle, and said that she had been obliged to decide to quit Verona on
account of her husband, to whom the excessive heat was unendurable.
Her husband, in the same breath, protested that the heat killed him.
He adorned the statement with all kinds of domestic and subterranean
imagery, and laughed faintly, saying that after the fifteenth--on which
night his wife insisted upon going to the Opera at Milan to hear a new
singer and old friend--he should try a week at the Baths of Bormio, and
only drop from the mountains when a proper temperature reigned, he being
something of an invalid.
'And, uncle, will you be in Milan on the fifteenth?' said the lady; 'and
Wilfrid, too?'
'Wilfrid will reach Milan as soon as you do, and I shall undoubtedly be
there on the fifteenth,' said the General.
'I cannot possibly express to you how beautiful I think your army
looks,' said the lady.
'Fine men, General Pierson, very fine men. I never saw such
marching--equal to our Guards,' her husband remarked.
The lady named her Milanese hotel as the General waved his plumes,
nodded, and rode off.
Before the carriage had started, Barto Rizzo dashed up to it; and 'Dear
good English lady,' he addressed her, 'I am the brother of Luigi, who
carries letters for you in Milan--little Luigi!--and I have a mother
dying in Milan; and here I am in Verona, ill, and can't get to her, poor
soul! Will you allow me that I may sit up behind as quiet as a mouse,
and be near one of the lovely English ladies who are so kind to
unfortunate persons, and never deaf to the name of charity? It's my
mother who is dying, poor soul!'
The lady consulted her husband's face, which presented the total blank
of one who refused to be responsible for an opinion hostile to the
claims of charity, while it was impossible for him to fall in with
foreign habits of familiarity, and accede to extraordinary petitions.
Barto sprang up. 'I shall be your courier, dear lady,' he said, and
commenced his professional career in her service by shouting to the
vetturino to drive on. Wilfrid met them as he was trotting down from
the Porta del Palio, and to him his sister confided her new trouble in
having a strange man attached to her, who might be anything. 'We don't
know the man,' said her husband; and Adela pleaded for him: 'Don't speak
to him harshly, pray, Wilfrid; he says he has a mother dying in Milan.'
Barto kept his head down on his arms and groaned; Adela gave a doleful
little grimace. 'Oh, take the poor beggar,' said Wilfrid; and sang out
to him in Italian: 'Who are you--what are you, my fine fellow?' Barto
groaned louder, and replied in Swiss-French from a smothering depth: 'A
poor man, and the gracious lady's servant till we reach Milan.'
'I can't wait,' said Wilfrid; 'I start in half-an-hour. It's all right;
you must take him now you've got him, or else pitch him out--one of the
two. If things go on quietly we shall have the Autumn manoeuvres in a
week, and then you may see something of the army.' He rode away. Barto
passed the gates as one of the licenced English family.
Milan was more strictly guarded than when he had quitted it. He had
anticipated that it would be so, and tamed his spirit to submit to the
slow stages of the carriage, spent a fiery night in Brescia, and entered
the city of action on the noon of the fourteenth. Safe within the walls,
he thanked the English lady, assuring her that her charitable deed would
be remembered aloft. He then turned his steps in the direction of the
Revolutionary post-office. This place was nothing other than a blank
abutment of a corner house that had long been undergoing repair, and
had a great bank of brick and mortar rubbish at its base. A stationary
melonseller and some black fig and vegetable stalls occupied the
triangular space fronting it. The removal of a square piece of
cement showed a recess, where, chiefly during the night, letters and
proclamation papers were deposited, for the accredited postman to
disperse them. Hither, as one would go to a caffe for the news, Barto
Rizzo came in the broad glare of noon, and flinging himself down like a
tired man under the strip of shade, worked with a hand behind him, and
drew out several folded scraps, of which one was addressed to him by his
initials. He opened it and read:
'Your house is watched.
'A corporal of the P... ka regiment was seen leaving it this morning in
time for the second bugle.
'Reply:--where to meet.
'Spies are doubled, troops coming.
'The numbers in Verona; who heads them.
'Look to your wife.
'Letters are called for every third hour.'
Barto sneered indolently at this fresh evidence of the small amount of
intelligence which he could ever learn from others. He threw his eyes
all round the vacant space while pencilling in reply:--'V. waits for M.,
but in a box' (that is, Verona for Milan). 'We take the key to her.
'I have no wife, but a little pupil.
'A Lieutenant Pierson, of the dragoons; Czech white coats, helmets
without plumes; an Englishman, nephew of General Pierson: speaks
crippled Italian; returns from V. to-day. Keep eye on him;--what house,
what hour.'
Meditating awhile, Barto wrote out Vittoria's name and enclosed it in a
thick black ring.
Beneath it he wrote
'The same on all the play-bills.
'The Fifteenth is cancelled.
'We meet the day after.
'At the house of Count M. to-night.'
He secreted this missive, and wrote Vittoria's name on numbers of slips
to divers addresses, heading them, 'From the Pope's Mouth,' such being
the title of the Revolutionary postoffice, to whatsoever spot it might
in prudence shift. The title was entirely complimentary to his
Holiness. Tangible freedom, as well as airy blessings, were at that time
anticipated, and not without warrant, from the mouth of the successor of
St. Peter. From the Pope's Mouth the clear voice of Italian liberty was
to issue. This sentiment of the period was a natural and a joyful one,
and endowed the popular ebullition with a sense of unity and a stamp of
righteousness that the abstract idea of liberty could not assure to it
before martyrdom. After suffering, after walking in the shades of death
and despair, men of worth and of valour cease to take high personages as
representative objects of worship, even when these (as the good Pope was
then doing) benevolently bless the nation and bid it to have great hope,
with a voice of authority. But, for an extended popular movement a great
name is like a consecrated banner. Proclamations from the Pope's Mouth
exacted reverence, and Barto Rizzo, who despised the Pope (because he
was Pope, doubtless), did not hesitate to make use of him by virtue of
his office.
Barto lay against the heap of rubbish, waiting for the approach of his
trained lad, Checco, a lanky simpleton, cunning as a pure idiot, who was
doing postman's duty, when a kick, delivered by that youth behind,
sent him bounding round with rage, like a fish in air. The marketplace
resounded with a clapping of hands; for it was here that Checco
came daily to eat figs, and it was known that the 'povero,' the dear
half-witted creature, would not tolerate an intruder in the place where
he stretched his limbs to peel and suck in the gummy morsels twice or
thrice a day. Barto seized and shook him. Checco knocked off his hat;
the bandage about the wound broke and dropped, and Barto put his hand to
his forehead, murmuring: 'What 's come to me that I lose my temper with
a boy--an animal?'
The excitement all over the triangular space was hushed by an imperious
guttural shout that scattered the groups. Two Austrian officers,
followed by military servants, rode side by side. Dust had whitened
their mustachios, and the heat had laid a brown-red varnish on their
faces. Way was made for them, while Barto stood smoothing his forehead
and staring at Checco.
'I see the very man!' cried one of the officers quickly. 'Weisspriess,
there's the rascal who headed the attack on me in Verona the other day.
It's the same!
'Himmel!' returned his companion, scrutinizing the sword-cut, 'if that's
your work on his head, you did it right well, my Pierson! He is very
neatly scored indeed. A clean stroke, manifestly!'
'But here when I left Milan! at Verona when I entered the North-west
gate there; and the first man I see as I come back is this very brute.
He dogs me everywhere! By the way, there may be two of them.'
Lieutenant Pierson leaned over his horse's neck, and looked narrowly
at the man Barto Rizzo. He himself was eyed as in retort, and with yet
greater intentness. At first Barto's hand was sweeping the air within
a finger's length of his forehead, like one who fought a giddiness for
steady sight. The mist upon his brain dispersing under the gaze of his
enemy, his eyeballs fixed, and he became a curious picture of passive
malice, his eyes seeming to say: 'It is enough for me to know your
features, and I know them.' Such a look from a civilian is exasperating:
it was scarcely to be endured from an Italian of the plebs.
'You appear to me to want more,' said the lieutenant audibly to himself;
and he repeated words to the same effect to his companion, in bad
German.
'Eh? You would promote him to another epaulette?' laughed Captain
Weisspriess. 'Come off. Orders are direct against it. And we're in
Milan--not like being in Verona! And my good fellow! remember your bet;
the dozen of iced Rudesheimer. I want to drink my share, and dream I'm
quartered in Mainz--the only place for an Austrian when he quits Vienna.
Come.'
'No; but if this is the villain who attacked me, and tore my coat from
my back,' cried Wilfrid, screwing in his saddle.
'And took your letter took your letter; a particular letter; we have
heard of it,' said Weisspriess.
The lieutenant exclaimed that he should overhaul and examine the man,
and see whether he thought fit to give him into custody. Weisspriess
laid hand on his bridle.
'Take my advice, and don't provoke a disturbance in the streets. The
truth is, you Englishmen and Irishmen get us a bad name among these
natives. If this is the man who unhorsed you and maltreated you, and
committed the rape of the letter, I'm afraid you won't get satisfaction
out of him, to judge by his look. I'm really afraid not. Try it if you
like. In any case, if you halt, I am compelled to quit your society,
which is sometimes infinitely diverting. Let me remind you that you bear
despatches. The other day they were verbal ones; you are now carrying
paper.'
'Are you anxious to teach me my duty, Captain Weisspriess?'
'If you don't know it. I said I would “remind you.” I can also teach
you, if you need it.'
'And I can pay you for the instruction, whenever you are disposed to
receive payment.'
'Settle your outstanding claims, my good Pierson!'
'When I have fought Jenna?'
'Oh! you're a Prussian--a Prussian!' Captain Weisspriess laughed. 'A
Prussian, I mean, in your gross way of blurting out everything. I've
marched and messed with Prussians--with oxen.'
'I am, as you are aware, an Englishman, Captain Weisspriess. I am due to
Lieutenant Jenna for the present. After that you or any one may command
me.'
'As you please,' said Weisspriess, drawing out one stream of his
moustache. 'In the meantime, thank me for luring you away from the
chances of a street row.'
Barto Rizzo was left behind, and they rode on to the Duomo. Glancing up
at its pinnacles, Weisspriess said:
'How splendidly Flatschmann's jagers would pick them off from there,
now, if the dogs were giving trouble in this part of the city!'
They entered upon a professional discussion of the ways and means of
dealing with a revolutionary movement in the streets of a city like
Milan, and passed on to the Piazza La Scala. Weisspriess stopped before
the Play-bills. 'To-morrow's the fifteenth of the month,' he said.
'Shall I tell you a secret, Pierson? I am to have a private peep at the
new prima donna this night. They say she's charming, and very pert.
“I do not interchange letters with Germans.” Benlomik sent her a neat
little note to the conservatorio--he hadn't seen her only heard of
her, and that was our patriotic reply. She wants taming. I believe I
am called upon for that duty. At least, my friend Antonio-Pericles, who
occasionally assists me with supplies, hints as much to me. You're
an engaged man, or, upon my honour, I wouldn't trust you; but between
ourselves, this Greek--and he's quite right--is trying to get her away
from the set of snuffy vagabonds who are prompting her for mischief, and
don't know how to treat her.'
While he was speaking Barto Rizzo pushed roughly between them, and with
a black brush painted the circle about Vittoria's name.
'Do you see that?' said Weisspriess.
'I see,' Wilfrid retorted, 'that you are ready to meddle with the
reputation of any woman who is likely to be talked about. Don't do it in
my presence.'
It was natural for Captain Weisspriess to express astonishment at this
outburst, and the accompanying quiver of Wilfrid's lip.
'Austrian military etiquette, Lieutenant Pierson,' he said, 'precludes
the suspicion that the officers of the Imperial army are subject
to dissension in public. We conduct these affairs upon a different
principle. But I'll tell you what. That fellow's behaviour may be
construed as a more than common stretch of incivility. I'll do you a
service. I'll arrest him, and then you can hear tidings of your precious
letter. We'll have his confession published.'
Weisspriess drew his sword, and commanded the troopers in attendance to
lay hands on Barto; but the troopers called, and the officer found that
they were surrounded. Weisspriess shrugged dismally. 'The brute must go,
I suppose,' he said. The situation was one of those which were every
now and then occurring in the Lombard towns and cities, when a chance
provocation created a riot that became a revolt or not, according to the
timidity of the ruling powers or the readiness of the disaffected. The
extent and evident regulation of the crowd operated as a warning to the
Imperial officers. Weisspriess sheathed his sword and shouted, 'Way,
there!' Way was made for him; but Wilfrid lingered to scrutinize the
man who, for an unaccountable reason, appeared to be his peculiar enemy.
Barto carelessly threaded the crowd, and Wilfrid, finding it useless to
get out after him, cried, 'Who is he? Tell me the name of that man?' The
question drew a great burst of laughter around him, and exclamations of
'Englishman! Englishman!' He turned where there was a clear way left for
him in the track of his brother officer.
Comments on the petty disturbance had been all the while passing at the
Caffe La Scala, where sat Agostino Balderini, with, Count Medole and
others, who, if the order for their arrest had been issued, were as safe
in that place as in their own homes. Their policy, indeed, was to show
themselves openly abroad. Agostino was enjoying the smoke of paper
cigarettes, with all prudent regard for the well-being of an inflammable
beard. Perceiving Wilfrid going by, he said, 'An Englishman! I continue
to hope much from his countrymen. I have no right to do so, only they
insist on it. They have promised, and more than once, to sail a fleet
to our assistance across the plains of Lombardy, and I believe they
will--probably in the watery epoch which is to follow Metternich. Behold
my Carlo approaching. The heart of that lad doth so boil the brain of
him, he can scarcely keep the lid on. What is it now? Speak, my son.'
Carlo Ammiani had to communicate that he had just seen a black circle
to Vittoria's name on two public playbills. His endeavour to ape a
deliberate gravity while he told the tale, roused Agostino's humouristic
ire.
'Round her name?' said Agostino.
'Yes; in every bill.'
'Meaning that she is suspected!'
'Meaning any damnable thing you like.'
'It's a device of the enemy.'
Agostino, glad of the pretext to recur to his habitual luxurious irony,
threw himself back, repeating 'It 's a device of the enemy. Calculate,
my son, that the enemy invariably knows all you intend to do: determine
simply to astonish him with what you do. Intentions have lungs,
Carlo, and depend on the circumambient air, which, if not designedly
treacherous, is communicative. Deeds, I need not remark, are a different
body. It has for many generations been our Italian error to imagine
a positive blood relationship--not to say maternity itself--existing
between intentions and deeds. Nothing of the sort! There is only the
intention of a link to unite them. You perceive? It's much to be famous
for fine intentions, so we won't complain. Indeed, it's not our business
to complain, but Posterity's; for fine intentions are really rich
possessions, but they don't leave grand legacies; that is all. They mean
to possess the future: they are only the voluptuous sons of the present.
It's my belief, Carlino, from observation, apprehension, and other gifts
of my senses, that our paternal government is not unacquainted with our
intention to sing a song in a certain opera. And it may have learnt
our clumsy method of enclosing names publicly, at the bidding of a
non-appointed prosecutor, so to, isolate or extinguish them. Who can
say? Oh, ay! Yes! the machinery that can so easily be made rickety is
to blame; we admit that; but if you will have a conspiracy like a Geneva
watch, you must expect any slight interference with the laws that
govern it to upset the mechanism altogether. Ah-a! look yonder, but
not hastily, my Carlo. Checco is nearing us, and he knows that he has
fellows after him. And if I guess right, he has a burden to deliver to
one of us.'
Checco came along at his usual pace, and it was quite evident that he
fancied himself under espionage. On two sides of the square a suspicious
figure threaded its way in the line of shade not far behind him. Checco
passed the cafe looking at nothing but the huge hands he rubbed over and
over. The manifest agents of the polizia were nearing when Checco ran
back, and began mouthing as in retort at something that had been spoken
from the cafe as he shot by. He made a gabbling appeal on either side,
and addressed the pair of apparent mouchards, in what, if intelligible,
should have been the language of earnest entreaty. At the first word
which the caffe was guilty of uttering, a fit of exasperation seized
him, and the exciteable creature plucked at his hat and sent it whirling
across the open-air tables right through the doorway. Then, with
a whine, he begged his followers to get his hat back for him. They
complied.
'We only called “Illustrissimo!”' said Agostino, as one of the men
returned from the interior of the caffe hat in hand.
'The Signori should have known better--it is an idiot,' the man replied.
He was a novice: in daring to rebuke he betrayed his office.
Checco snatched his hat from his attentive friend grinning, and was away
in a flash. Thereupon the caffe laughed, and laughed with an abashing
vehemence that disconcerted the spies. They wavered in their choice of
following Checco or not; one went a step forward, one pulled back; the
loiterer hurried to rejoin his comrade, who was now for a retrograde
movement, and standing together they swayed like two imperfectly jolly
fellows, or ballet bandits, each plucking at the other, until at last
the maddening laughter made them break, reciprocate cat-like hisses of
abuse, and escape as they best could--lamentable figures.
'It says well for Milan that the Tedeschi can scrape up nothing better
from the gutters than rascals the like of those for their service,'
quoth Agostino. 'Eh, Signor Conte?'
'That enclosure about La Vittoria's name on the bills is correct,' said
the person addressed, in a low tone. He turned and indicated one who
followed from the interior of the caffe.
'If Barto is to be trusted she is not safe,' the latter remarked. He
produced a paper that had been secreted in Checco's hat. Under the date
and the superscription of the Pope's Mouth, 'LA VITTORIA' stood out in
the ominous heavily-pencilled ring: the initials of Barto Rizzo were in
a corner. Agostino began smoothing his beard.
'He has discovered that she is not trustworthy,' said Count Medole,
a young man of a premature gravity and partial baldness, who spoke
habitually with a forefinger pressed flat on his long pointed chin.
'Do you mean to tell me, Count Medole, that you attach importance to a
communication of this sort?' said Carlo, forcing an amazement to conceal
his anger.
'I do, Count Ammiani,' returned the patrician conspirator.
'You really listen to a man you despise?'
'I do not despise him, my friend.'
'You cannot surely tell us that you allow such a man, on his sole
authority, to blacken the character of the signorina?'
'I believe that he has not.'
'Believe? trust him? Then we are all in his hands. What can you mean?
Come to the signorina herself instantly. Agostino, you now conduct
Count Medole to her, and save him from the shame of subscribing to the
monstrous calumny. I beg you to go with our Agostino, Count Medole. It
is time for you--I honour you for the part you have taken; but it is
time to act according to your own better judgement.'
Count Medole bowed.
'The filthy rat!' cried Ammiani, panting to let out his wrath.
'A serviceable dog,' Agostino remarked correctingly. 'Keep true to the
form of animal, Carlo. He has done good service in his time.'
'You listen to the man?' Carlo said, now thoroughly amazed.
'An indiscretion is possible to woman, my lad. She may have been
indiscreet in some way I am compelled to admit the existence of
possibilities.'
'Of all men, you, Agostino! You call her daughter, and profess to love
her.'
'You forget,' said Agostino sharply. 'The question concerns the country,
not the girl.' He added in an underbreath, 'I think you are professing
that you love her a little too strongly, and scarce give her much help
as an advocate. The matter must be looked into. If Barto shall be found
to have acted without just grounds, I am certain that Count Medole'--he
turned suavely to the nobleman--'will withdraw confidence from him;
and that will be equivalent to a rope's-end for Barto. We shall see him
to-night at your house?'
'He will be there,' Medole said.
'But the harm's done; the mischief's done! And what's to follow if you
shall choose to consider this vile idiot justified?' asked Ammiani.
'She sings, and there is no rising,' said Medole.
'She is detached from the patriotic battery, for the moment: it will be
better for her not to sing at all,' said Agostino. 'In fact, Barto has
merely given us warning that--and things look like it--the Fifteenth is
likely to be an Austrian feast-day. Your arm, my son. We will join you
to-night, my dear Count. Now, Carlo, I was observing, it appears to me
that the Austrians are not going to be surprised by us, and it affords
me exquisite comfort. Fellows prepared are never more than prepared
for one day and another day; and they are sure to be in a state of lax
preparation after a first and second disappointment. On the contrary,
fellows surprised'--Agostino had recovered his old smile again--'fellows
surprised may be expected to make use of the inspirations pertaining to
genius. Don't you see?'
'Oh, cruel! I am sick of you all!' Carlo exclaimed. 'Look at her; think
of her, with her pure dream of Italy and her noble devotion. And you
permit a doubt to be cast on her!'
'Now, is it not true that you have an idea of the country not being
worthy of her?' said Agostino, slyly. 'The Chief, I fancy, did not take
certain facts into his calculation when he pleaded that the conspiratrix
was the sum and completion of the conspirator. You will come to Medole's
to-night, Carlo. You need not be too sweet to him, but beware of
explosiveness. I, a Republican, am nevertheless a practical exponent
of the sacrifices necessary to unity. I accept the local leadership of
Medole--on whom I can never look without thinking of an unfeathered pie;
and I submit to be assisted by the man Barto Rizzo. Do thou likewise, my
son. Let your enamoured sensations follow that duty, and with a breezy
space between. A conspiracy is an epitome of humanity, with a boiling
power beneath it. You're no more than a bit of mechanism--happy if it
goes at all!'
Agostino said that he would pay a visit to Vittoria in the evening.
Ammiani had determined to hunt out Barto Rizzo and the heads of the
Clubs before he saw her. It was a relief to him to behold in the Piazza
the Englishman who had exchanged cards with him on the Motterone.
Captain Gambier advanced upon a ceremonious bow, saying frankly, in a
more colloquial French than he had employed at their first interview,
that he had to apologize for his conduct, and to request monsieur's
excuse. 'If,' he pursued, 'that lady is the person whom I knew formerly
in England as Mademoiselle Belloni, and is now known as Mademoiselle
Vittoria Campa, may I beg you to inform her that, according to what
I have heard, she is likely to be in some danger to-morrow?' What the
exact nature of the danger was, Captain Gambier could not say.
Ammiani replied: 'She is in need of all her friends,' and took the
pressure of the Englishman's hand, who would fair have asked more but
for the stately courtesy of the Italian's withdrawing salute. Ammiani
could no longer doubt that Vittoria's implication in the conspiracy was
known.