Less than half-an-hour afterwards a rumour swept through the Vatican
like the gust of whistling wind that goes before a storm. The Pope met
it as he was coming from Mass.
"What is it, Gaetanino?" he asked.
"Something about an assassination, your Holiness," said the valet, and
the Pope stood as if thunderstruck, for he thought of Rossi and the
King.
After a while the vague report became more definite. It was not the King
but the Prime Minister who had been assassinated.
The Pope's private room began to fill with pallid faces. The Cardinal
Secretary was there, the Maestro di Camera, and at length the little
Majordomo. By this time a special message had reached the Vatican from
one of its watchers outside, and they were able to discuss the
circumstances. The Prime Minister had been found dead in his official
palace in the Piazza Navona. He had dined at the Quirinal and remained
there for the opening of the State Ball, therefore he could not have
reached the Palazzo Braschi before eleven or twelve o'clock. Two shots
had been heard about midnight, and the body had been discovered in the
early morning.
The Pope listened and said nothing.
The Cardinal Secretary told another story. The Deputy Rossi, who had
been brought to Rome by the train from Genoa, which arrived punctually
at 11.45, had been rescued by a gang of ruffians at the station. The
rescue had been prearranged, and the man had jumped into a coupé and
driven off at a gallop. The coupé had gone down the Via Nazionale, and a
few minutes before twelve o'clock it had been seen to turn into the
Piazza Navona. It was by the accident that the Carabineers had followed
in pursuit of the escaped prisoner that the murder had been discovered.
Still the Pope said nothing. But his head was held down, and his soul
was full of trouble.
The group of prelates looked into each other's faces with suspicion and
terror. A storm was gathering round the Vatican, and who could say what
would happen if the Pope persisted in the course he had just taken? At
length the Cardinal Secretary approached his Holiness, and said, with a
deep genuflexion:
"Holy Father, I fear the tenderness of your fatherly heart has betrayed
you into sheltering a criminal. It is not merely that the man Rossi is a
revolutionary accused of an attempt to overthrow the Government of his
country. There cannot be a question that he is a murderer also, and if
you keep him here you will violate the law of every civilised State and
expose yourself to the condemnation of the world."
The Pope did not reply. Other words in another voice were drumming in
his ears with a new and terrible meaning: "I have broken the law of God
and of my country, and if you have any fear of the consequences you must
turn me out while there is still time."
"Your Holiness will also remember," said the Cardinal Secretary, "that
by the regulation of the civil authorities which guarantees to the Holy
Father the rights of sovereignty, it is expressly stated that he holds
no powers which are contrary to the laws of the State and of public
order. Therefore to conceal and protect a criminal would be of itself to
commit a crime, and God alone can say what the consequence might be to
the Vatican and to the Church."
"Oh, silence! silence!" cried the Pope, lifting a face full of
suffering. "Leave me! leave me!"
The Cardinal Secretary and his colleagues bowed to the Pope and backed
out of the room. A moment afterwards the young Monsignor entered. He was
bringing a newspaper in his hand, for as Cameriere Participante he was
one of the Pope's readers.
"Holy Father," he said in his nervous voice, "I bring you bad news."
"What is it, my son?" said the Pope, with a pitiful expression.
"The assassin of the Prime Minister turns out to be some one..."
"Well?"
"Some one known to your Holiness."
"Don't be afraid for the Holy Father.... Tell me, Monsignor."
"It is a lady, your Holiness."
"A lady?"
"She has been arrested and has confessed."
"Confessed?"
"It is Donna Roma Volonna, your Holiness. She shot the Prime Minister
with a revolver, and her motive was revenge."
The Pope lifted his head, and looked at the young Monsignor with an
expression which no language can describe. Relief, joy, shame, and
remorse were mingled in one flash on his broken and bankrupt face. He
was silent for a moment, and then he said:
"Say nothing of this to the young man in the room below. If he is in
sanctuary let him also be in peace. Whatever he is to hear of the world
without must come through me alone. Give that as my order to everybody.
And may God who has had mercy on His servant be good to us all!"