Masin led the way back, Toto followed and Malipieri went last, so that
the mason was between his two captors. They did not quite trust him,
and Masin was careful not to walk too fast where the way was so
familiar to him, while Malipieri was equally careful not to lag behind.
In this order they reached the mouth of the overflow shaft, covered
with the loaded boards. Masin bent down and examined them, for he
wished to convince himself that the stones had been moved since he had
himself placed them there. A glance showed that this was the case, and
he was about to go on, when he bent down again suddenly and listened,
holding up his hand.
"There is water," he said, and began to lift off the stones, one by one.
Toto helped him quickly. There were only three or four, and they were
not heavy. When the mouth of the shaft was uncovered all three knelt
down and listened, instinctively lowering their lanterns into the
blackness below. The shaft was not wider than a good-sized
old-fashioned chimney, like those in Roman palaces, up and down which
sweeps can just manage to climb.
The three men listened, and distinctly heard the steady falling of a
small stream of water upon the stones at the bottom.
"It is raining," Toto said confidently, but he was evidently as much
surprised by the sound as the others. "There must be some communication
with the gutters in the courtyard," he added.
"There is probably a thunderstorm," answered Malipieri. "We can hear
nothing down here."
"If I had gone down again, I should have been drowned," Toto said,
shaking his head. "Do you hear? Half the water from the courtyard must
be running down there!"
The sound of the falling stream increased to a hollow roar.
"Do you think the water can rise in the shaft?" asked Malipieri.
"Not unless the river rises and backs into it," replied Toto. "The
drain is large below."
"That cannot be 'lost water,' can it?"
"No. That is impossible."
"Put the boards in their place again," Malipieri said. "It is growing
late."
It was done in a few moments, but now the dismal roar of the water came
up very distinctly through the covering. Malipieri had been in many
excavations, and in mines, too, but did not remember that he had ever
felt so strongly the vague sense of apprehension that filled him now.
There is something especially gloomy and mysterious about the noise of
unexplained water heard at a great depth under the earth and coming out
of darkness. Even the rough men with him felt that.
"It is bad to hear," observed Masin, putting one more stone upon the
boards, as if the weight could keep the sound down.
"You may say that!" answered Toto. "And in this tomb, too!"
They went on, in the same order as before. The passage to the dry well
had been so much enlarged that by bending down they could walk to the
top of the rope ladder. Malipieri went down first, with his lantern.
Toto followed, and while Masin was descending, stood looking at the
bones of the dead mason, and at the skull that grinned horribly in the
uncertain yellow glare.
He took a half-burnt candle from his pocket, and some sulphur matches,
and made a light for himself, with which he carefully examined the
bones. Malipieri watched him.
"The man who was drowned over sixty years ago," said the architect.
"This," answered Toto, with more feeling than accuracy, "is the blessed
soul of my grandfather."
"He shall have Christian burial in a few days," Malipieri said gravely.
Toto shrugged his shoulders, not irreverently, but as if to say that
when a dead man has been without Christian burial sixty years, it
cannot make any difference whether he gets it after all or not. "The
crowbar is still good," Toto said, stooping down to disengage it from
the skeleton's grasp. But Malipieri laid a hand on his shoulder, for it
occurred to him that the mason, armed with an iron bar, might be a
dangerous adversary if he tried to escape.
"You do not need that just now," said the architect.
Toto glanced at Malipieri furtively and saw that he was understood. He
stood upright, affecting indifference. They went on, through the breach
to which the slit had been widened. Toto moved slowly, and held his
candle down to the running water in the channel.
"There is plenty of it," he observed.
"Where does it come from?" asked Malipieri, suddenly, in the hope of an
unguarded answer.
"From heaven," answered Toto without hesitation; "and everything that
falls from heaven is good," he added, quoting an ancient proverb.
"What would happen if we closed the entrance, so that it could not get
in at all?"
"The book of wisdom," Toto replied, "is buried under Pasquino. How
should I know what would happen?"
"You know a good many things, my friend."
Malipieri understood that the man would not say more, and led the way
out.
"Good-bye, grandpapa," growled Toto, waving his hairy hand towards the
well. "Who knows whether we shall meet again?"
They went on, and in due time emerged into the upper air. It was
raining heavily, as Toto had guessed, and before they had reached the
other end of the courtyard they were drenched. But it was a relief to
be out of doors, and Malipieri breathed the fresh air with keen
delight, as a thirsty man drinks. The rain poured down steadily and ran
in rivers along the paved gutters, and roared into the openings that
carried it off. Malipieri could not help thinking how it must be
roaring now, far down at the bottom of the old shaft, led thither
through deep-buried and long-forgotten channels.
Upstairs, Masin was inclined to be friendly with his fellow-craftsman,
and gave him dry clothes to sleep in, and bread and cheese and wine in
his own room. In spite of his experiences, Masin had never known how to
be suspicious. But as Malipieri looked once more at the man's stony
face and indistinguishable eyes, he thought differently of his
prisoner. He locked the outer door and took the key of the patent lock
with him when he went to bed at last.
It does not often rain heavily in Rome, late in the spring, for any
long time, but when Malipieri looked out the next morning, it was still
pouring steadily, and the sky over the courtyard was uniformly grey. It
is apparently a law of nature that exceptions should come when least
wanted.
In spite of the weather Malipieri went out, however, and did not even
send for a cab. The porter was in a particularly bad humour and eyed
him distrustfully, for he had been put to the trouble of cleaning the
stairs where the three men had left plentiful mud in their track during
the night. Malipieri nodded to the old man as usual, and was about to
go out, but turned back and gave him five francs. Thus mollified the
porter at once made a remark about the atrocious weather and proceeded
to ask how the work was progressing.
"I have explored a good deal," answered Malipieri. "The Senator is
coming to-morrow, and you had better sweep carefully. He looks at
everything, you know."
He went out into the pouring rain, keeping a sharp lookout from under
the edge of the umbrella he held low over his head. He had grown
cautious of late. As he expected, he came upon one of the respectable
men he now met so often, before he had turned into the Piazza Agonale.
The respectable man was also carrying his umbrella low, and looking
about him as he walked along at a leisurely pace. Malipieri hailed a
cab.
Even in wet weather there are no closed cabs in that part of Rome. One
is protected from the wet, more or less, by the hood and by a high
leathern apron which is hooked to it inside. The cabman, seated under a
huge standing umbrella, bends over and unhooks it on one side for you
to get in and out.
Malipieri employed the usual means of eluding pursuit. He gave an
address and told the man to drive fast, got out quickly on reaching the
house, enquired for an imaginary person with a foreign name, who, he
was of course told, did not live there, got in again and had himself
driven to Sassi's door, sure of losing his pursuer, if the detective
followed him in another cab. Then he paid the man two fares, to save
time, and went in. He had never taken the trouble to do such a thing
since his political adventures, but he was now very anxious not to let
it be known that he had any dealings with the former agent of the Conti
family.
The matter was settled easily enough and to his satisfaction. Old Sassi
worshipped Sabina, and was already fully persuaded that whatever could
be found under the palace should belong to her, as also that she had a
right to see what was discovered before Volterra did, and before
anything was moved. He was at least as quixotic in his crabbed fashion
as Malipieri himself; and besides, he really could not see that there
was the least harm or danger in the scheme. It certainly would have
been improper for Malipieri to go and fetch the young lady himself, but
it was absurd to suppose that a man over sixty could be blamed for
accompanying a girl of eighteen on a visit to her old home, in her own
interest, especially when the man had been all his life employed by her
family in a position of trust and confidence. Finally, Sassi hated
Volterra with all his heart, as the faithful adherents of ruined
gentlefolks often hate those who have profited by their ruin.
Sassi, as an old Roman, predicted that the weather would improve in the
afternoon. Malipieri advised him nevertheless to keep the hood of his
cab raised when he brought Sabina to the palace. To this Sassi answered
that he should of course get a closed carriage from a livery stable,
and an argument followed which took some time. In the opinion of the
excellent old agent, it would be almost an affront to fetch the very
noble Donna Sabina in a vehicle so plebeian as a cab, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that Malipieri made him understand that a cab
was much safer on such an occasion.
What was important was that the weather should be fine, for otherwise
the Baroness might not go out, and the whole scheme would fail. In that
case, it must be arranged for the following day, and Malipieri would
find an excuse for putting off Volterra's visit.
He left the house on foot. So far, he had not allowed himself to think
too much of the future, and had found little time for such reflection.
He was a man who put all his energy into what he was doing, and was
inclined to let consequences take care of themselves rather than waste
thought in providing for them. He believed he was doing what was just
and honourable, and if there was a spice of adventure and romance in
it, that only made it the more easy to do. The only danger he could
think of was that Sabina might slip in one of the difficult passages
and hurt her foot a little, or might catch cold in the damp vaults.
Nothing else could happen.
He congratulated himself on having got Toto in his power, since Toto
was the only man who understood the ways of the "lost water." If he had
before suspected that there was any one at large in Rome who knew as
much he would have hesitated. But he had made the discovery of the man
and had taken him prisoner at the same moment, and all danger in that
quarter seemed to be removed.
As for the material difficulty, he and Masin could smooth the way very
much in two or three hours, and could substitute a solid wooden ladder
for the one of rope in the well. Sabina was young, slight, and probably
active, and with a little help she would have no difficulty in reaching
the inner chamber. It might be well to cover the skeletons. Young girls
were supposed to be sensitive about such things, and Malipieri had no
experience of their ways. Nevertheless he had an inward conviction that
Sabina would not go into hysterics at the sight.
Old Sassi might not be able to get up the ladder, but once beyond the
reach of social observation, he would trust Sabina to Malipieri and
Masin for a quarter of an hour, and he could wait in the outer cellar.
Malipieri had prepared him for this, and he had made no objection, only
saying that he should like to see the treasure himself if it could
possibly be managed. In his heart, Malipieri hoped that it would prove
too much for the old man and that he might have the pleasure of showing
Sabina what he had found without having the old agent at his elbow.
Toto would be locked in, upstairs, for the day. He could not get out by
the door, and he would not risk breaking his legs by jumping from the
window. The intermediate story of the Palazzo Conti was far too high
for that.
Malipieri calculated that if Sassi were punctual, Sabina would be at
the door of the palace at a quarter-past five. At five minutes past, he
came down, and sent the porter on an errand which would occupy at least
half an hour even if executed with despatch. Masin would keep the door,
he said. The old man was delighted to have an excuse for going out, and
promised himself to spend a comfortable hour in a wine shop if he could
find a friend. His wife, as there was so little to do, had found some
employment in a laundry, to which she went in the morning and which
kept her out all day. No one would see Sabina and Sassi enter, and if
it seemed advisable they could be got out in the same way. No one but
Masin and Malipieri himself need ever know that they had been in the
palace that afternoon.
It was all very well prepared, by a man well accustomed to emergencies,
and it was not easy to see how anything could go wrong. Even allowing
more time than was necessary, Sabina's visit to the vaults could not
possibly occupy much more than an hour.