BY ORDER OF THE POPE
Nearing Casa Guiccioli, Gordon saw a crowd clustering a few paces from
the entrance. Servants were watching from the balcony.
A couple of soldiers cocked their guns and would have hindered him, but
he put them aside. On the pavement lay a man in uniform, shot through
the breast. Over him bent a beardless adjutant feeling for a pulse, and
a priest muttering a horrified prayer.
He asked a hurried question or two amid the confusion and dismay: The
prostrate man was the military commandant of Ravenna. No one knew
whence the shot had come a full twenty minutes before. Now his guard
stood, with characteristic Italian helplessness, doing nothing, waiting
orders from they knew not whom or where.
Gordon spoke authoritatively to the subaltern, bade one of the soldiers
go for the police, despatched another with the news to the cardinal and
directed two of the crowd to lift the injured man and carry him to his
own quarters in the casa. This done he sent Fletcher for the surgeon
who had attended his own wound in that same chamber, and stationed the
remaining soldiers at the lower doors. When the room was cleared he
gave his attention to the unconscious commandant.
He stood a moment looking fixedly at the bed. It was this man’s spies
who had dogged him during the past month, persecuted his servants and
attempted to raise the Ravennese against his very presence in the city.
The government he served would have rejoiced to see him, Gordon, lying
stretched there in the other’s place; would have given but lukewarm
pursuit to the assassin. Yet the man before him lay helpless enough
now. Presently the casa would be full of soldiers, dragoons, priests
and all the human paraphernalia of autocratic authority. Who had fired
the shot? And by what strange chance, almost at his own threshold?
He crossed the floor, unlocked a drawer and took out Count Gamba’s
packet with satisfaction. His foot struck something on the floor.
He picked it up. It was a small leather letter-case--evidently fallen
from the pocket of the wounded commandant. He took a step toward the
bed, intending to replace it, and saw Tita at the door.
The latter wore no coat. He was sweaty and covered with dust. He
beckoned Gordon into the next room.
“Excellence,” he asked huskily; “will you not open that _portafogli_?”
“Why?”
“Perhaps to know what he knew.”
“Why should I wish to know?”
“Because he was on his way here--to this casa, Excellence.”
Gordon saw that he was trembling, it seemed with both fatigue and
repressed excitement. “Tell me what you know,” he said.
Tita spoke rapidly, his words tumbling one against another:
“I heard Paolo send your valet after you to-day, Excellence, when no
one had come from the villa. It did not seem right. I watched from the
garden. I could see some one in this room--it was locked when you went.
I climbed a tree. The master and one other--”
“Trevanion!”
“--I could not tell. They were carrying in boxes. When they left the
casa, I got through the window and broke them open. They held bullets
and cans of powder.”
Gordon swept a swift glance around the room. He was beginning to
understand. Ammunition, presumably for the use of the insurrectionists,
here in his rooms--evidence of complicity with the _Carbonari_.
A military search at the proper moment--expulsion from Italy! He
distinguished the outlines clearly.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “go on.”
“I know the police have watched you. I guessed what it meant. I wanted
to get the boxes away, but I could not--the servants would have seen
me. I knew the soldiers would come soon. I climbed to the casa roof.”
The narrator had paused. The paper shook in Gordon’s hand. “No more,
Tita!”
“It was the only way, Excellence!” said Tita, features working. “I
swore on the Virgin to guard whatever came. The servants ran to the
balcony when--it happened. The way was clear. I carried the boxes down
to the garden. There is a covered well. They are there--where no one
would look.”
Gordon was staring at the letter-case, his mind struggling between
revolt at the act itself and a sense of its motive. So it was for him
the shot had been fired! What a ghastly levity that the wounded man
should now be lying here! He shuddered. Tita’s voice spoke again:
“Now, Excellence, will you read what may be in that _portafogli_?”
Gordon strode to the window and opened the case. It contained a single
official letter. He unfolded and scanned it swiftly:
“Rome, Direction-General of Police.
(Most private.)
“Your Excellency:
“The Governor of Rome, in his capacity of Director-General, forwards
the following:
“‘With the approval of Count Guiccioli, her husband, from whom by
papal decree she has been separated, it is deemed advisable since
the death of her father to modify that decree, and to grant to the
Contessa Guiccioli henceforth a retreat in the protection of Holy
Church. You are directed herewith to arrange for her immediate
conveyance to the Convent of Saint Ursula in His Holiness’ estates
below Rome.
“‘CONSALVI, Cardinal,
“‘Secretary of State to Pius VII.’
“Under direction of the Cardinal of Ravenna, you will act upon this
without delay.
“To the Sub-direction of Police at Ravenna.”
Gordon raised his eyes with a start. Teresa--to be shut from the face
of the sun, from flowers, from gladness, for years, at least during
the lifetime of her husband, perhaps forever? _From him?_ Was this the
fate he, cursed as he was, must bring upon her?
He felt his breath stop. What could he do? Take her away? How and
where? “Her immediate conveyance”--“act without delay.” Those were no
ambiguous words; they meant more than soon. If it should be _to-day_!
If authority was on its way to her, even _now_, while he dallied here!
Tita saw the deathly pallor that overspread his face like a white wave.
“What is it, Excellence?” he cried.
Gordon made no reply. He dashed the _portafogli_ on the floor and
rushed from the room.
His horse stood at the casa entrance. He pushed past the stolid
sentinel, threw himself into the saddle, and lashed the animal to an
anguish of speed toward the villa.