ROUGH COMPANY.
If one feeling were more overpowering than another to Horace at that
trying hour, it was the pang of remorse—despair of ever being able to
make up by devotion in the future for ingratitude and disobedience
in the past. Oh! That the selfish and self-willed would anticipate
the hour of final separation from one whose tender love they are now
throwing away as a worthless thing, under whose reproofs they chafe,
for whose infirmities they have no indulgence! A time may come when
they will in vain wish that by the loss of every earthly possession
they could purchase one smile from the eyes, one fond word from the
lips of a now neglected parent.
Horace was roused from his gloomy thoughts by the hoarse voice of
Matteo. "Has any one brought the irons?" he said.
With a heavy clanking sound, a robber threw down on the ground an old
pair of shackles, red with rust, which had, probably at some remote
period, been worn by one of the band. Matteo pointed with his coarse
finger to Horace—a significant action which required no explanation. As
the fetters were being fastened over the slender ankles of the youth,
the chief bade Enrico take charge of the prisoner, for whose safety he
should answer with his own.
Then followed a division of the spoil. Mrs. Cleveland's dressing-case
and desk were forced open with a dagger—the contents of her purse
counted out, the various articles of her luggage placed in separate
heaps. Reserving almost all the gold for himself, Matteo distributed
his booty.
Most of the robbers looked discontented, but not one dared to utter
a murmur. Horace saw with bitter emotion his mother's most valued
trinkets in these rude hands; the Maltese cross which he himself had
given, the mourning brooch with his father's hair, nay, the very
wedding ring which had united his parents, were profaned by the touch
of fingers which might be stained with murder. These papers, some of
them priceless to her who had once owned them, were thrown away or
trampled underfoot.
Matteo beckoned Enrico to some little distance, apparently to give
him some orders, and their departure seemed to be the signal for more
unrestrained and lawless mirth. Then also the murmurs which had been
checked by the presence of the dreaded chief broke out amongst such of
the band as had been disappointed in their share of the plunder.
"What am I to make of trumpery like this?" exclaimed one robber,
holding up to view with great contempt a silver gray cloak with a hood,
a black gown, a lace-trimmed parasol, and a fan!
His appeal was answered by a roar of laughter.
"You may set up for a gentlewoman, Beppo!" shouted one.
"My share matches yours," laughed another, "you've the dress, and I've
the dressing-case!"
"Ay, with silver tops to all the bottles," growled Beppo. "I'll make an
exchange if you will."
The offer was only received with a louder burst of merriment, and the
disappointed Beppo turned fiercely towards Horace.
"Here's a garment more to my mind!" he cried. And flinging down his
bundle of woman's clothes, the robber seized hold of the indignant and
struggling captive, and by force dispossessed him of his coat.
The gang gathered around, much amused at the scene, laughing
uproariously at the vain passionate resistance of Horace.
"There's more peel on the orange," cried one, and the young captive
might have had to submit to further indignities had not Enrico come to
the rescue.
"Hold!" he cried. "The prisoner is in my charge, no one has a right to
touch him but me."
"For seven days," said Beppo significantly, "he'll want no clothes
after that." And putting out his large, coarse foot, he added with a
laugh, "In seven days, I'll have hosen and boots. I take it that his
will just fit me!"
"It's a shame to dig a man's grave before his eyes!" exclaimed Enrico.
"Shame!" repeated Beppo angrily. "Don't come it your brother over us;
it's enough to have one lunatic in a family, say I."
Without taking any notice of the insult, Enrico touched Horace on the
shoulder and bade him come with him; which the youth was ready enough
to do—it being an unutterable relief to him to be removed, even for a
short time, from the company of the rest of the lawless band. Enrico
led his captive into the deep recesses of the wood, seeming to find his
way by instinct through the darkness in which shining fireflies glanced
and played.
Horace envied them their liberty. He walked with difficulty and pain.
His fetters not only impeded his movements but chafed his ankles. He
stumbled over the inequalities of the ground, struck against branches
which he could not see, and his chain caught and entangled in brambles,
and he often felt inclined to throw himself down on the ground in utter
despair of getting on. Enrico neither pitied nor appeared to notice his
sufferings, but hurried him on through the thicket.
Horace, who, notwithstanding his fetters, grasped strongly the hope of
future escape, was eagerly on the watch for landmarks, and strained
his eyes in the darkness to find some. The rippling sound of water,
and the occasional glimpse which he caught through the trees of what
appeared to be a stream, seemed to supply something like a guide. His
hope strengthened as the noise increased so greatly that Horace felt
certain that they were approaching a cataract plunging down the side of
the mountain, the roar of waters could not be mistaken, though nothing
was visible to the eye. Before Enrico reached what must be the head of
the fall, he turned sharply round to the left, and grasping his captive
by the wrist, made him follow in the same direction.
"Is there not a cataract yonder?" asked Horace; it was the first time
that he had addressed his jailer.
"Sheer two hundred feet over the rocks," was the reply; "we call it
'Cascata della Morte (the death fall),' for a miserable wretch was once
whirled over the edge."
"And perished?" inquired Horace.
"As surely," answered Enrico, "as if he had flung himself from the
top of St. Peter's or down into the crater of Vesuvius. The remains,
when recovered from the stream in the valley yonder, scarcely retained
semblance of the human form."
Horace hardly paid attention to the concluding words, he was so
carefully surveying the path before him. He had left the thick wood
behind him, and had now to pass along a ledge of rock, which seemed
like a shelf jutting out of the mountain, and which overhung a
precipice of whose depth there was not sufficient light to enable him
to judge. To Horace a vast chasm of darkness appeared to spread to the
right.
Here Enrico and his prisoner were challenged by a robber who had been
left as a sentinel to guard this dangerous post.
"Chi va là?" (Who goes there?) cried the man.
Enrico gave the word "Morte," and passed on with his captive.
"I think that I might possibly find my way back from hence to the high
road," thought Horace, "with the sound of the water to guide me, were I
only freed from these shackles. But if a sentinel be always placed here
on the watch, it would render escape well-nigh impossible. One blow
would send one reeling over that rock into depths that it makes the
brain dizzy to think of!"
Enrico now again struck into the forest, and here the path became so
very intricate that Horace soon lost all idea even of the direction in
which he was going, all clue by which he might find his way back. The
path was so much tangled with thicket, that the progress of Enrico and
his prisoner became necessarily very slow, and Horace soon became not
only exhausted, but despairing. It was some time since a word had been
exchanged, but as they toiled on through the brushwood, Enrico said
abruptly to his companion:
"You need not fear insult from me, for I, like yourself, am a gentleman
born. My father was of good family, he was an officer in the royal
army, and died in the service of the king."
"Then how can you—" Horace stopped short, being afraid of saying
something that might offend.
"How can I consort with such ruffians? You would ask. No matter; that
is no business of yours. Men may be bound by other kind of chain than
that which you drag so wearily along."
There was extreme bitterness in the young man's tone, and though Horace
could not see the face of the speaker in the gloom, he imagined how the
thin lip was twitching and the restless eye wandering around.
Horace was anxious to ascertain to a certainty whether Raphael were the
brother to whom reference had been made, and who had been spoken of as
"the Rossignol," but he was afraid of drawing the e improvisatore into
difficulty or danger by letting it be known that he had ever seen him.
As a leading question, Horace asked Enrico whether he knew English,
remembering that Raphael had uttered his second warning in that
language.
"No; is it likely that I should?" answered the robber.
Foiled in his first attempt to gain information, Horace made another.
"Why did that fellow call your brother a lunatic?" said he.
"Because he is one!" replied Enrico impatiently. "None but a madman
would be always putting his head into the lion's mouth, certain that it
must be bitten off at last!"
"Does he belong to the band?" asked Horace.
"Yes—no—what is it to you?" cried Enrico.
This rebuff put an end to the conversation, though it increased the
desire of Horace to know more of the mysterious Raphael; for he was now
certain that the stranger at the door of the inn was the brother of the
bandit Enrico.
At length the long tangled forest was passed, and the way opened on
a rocky space, where, by the faint star-light, no longer hidden by
foliage, Horace saw a bold, partially-wooded cliff rising before
them, a gigantic mass of gloomy shade. Horace had little opportunity,
however, of remarking anything but the difficulty of the ascent, as
progression here took the character of climbing, which the fetters on
his limbs made a terrible effort.
"It is impossible for me to get up, chained as I am!" exclaimed Horace,
after having rubbed the skin from one of his ankles, in a vain attempt
to raise himself to a platform of rock.
"Impossible!" echoed Enrico, with a short, mocking laugh. "It must be
done and the sooner better, or Matteo will be here to quicken your
movements with the point of his stiletto."
Once again Horace tried to get up, the moisture dewing his lip and
brow, both from the pain and the exertion; but cumbered as he was with
his shackles, he could not succeed.
Then Enrico, growing impatient, lent a strong hand to help him. Even
with this assistance, it was with the utmost difficulty that the
suffering youth reached the platform. He stopped for some moments to
recover his breath, and to wipe his heated temples.
"Could you find your way back?" said Enrico.
"The woods seem to me to be a perfect labyrinth."
"Then there is no chance of your attempting an escape?"
"I fear that I have more will than power to escape," replied the young
captive with a sigh.
"Do you know what would follow your making any such attempt?"
"Perhaps—" began Horace.
"Most assuredly," interrupted Enrico, "I should send a bullet through
your head."
"This gentleman, as he calls himself, is not much better than the
rest," was the silent reflection of Horace.
A few more steps, and the two had reached the mouth of a cave which
yawned in the mountain, its mouth half hidden by a thick growth of
cactus, which abounded as a weed in this place. Horace was glad to have
arrived at his destination, whatever it might be, for he felt that he
could not for many minutes more have endured the exhausting effort of
dragging his fettered feet over the rocks.