TREVANION IN THE TOILS
In sending Trevanion that day to the barracks on the Lung’ Arno--whose
door Cassidy had once seen him enter and in whose vicinity the naval
surgeon, following this clue, had posted his squad of tars--luck
had fallen oddly. The coursed hare has small choice of burrow. The
Lanfranchi entrance was the quarry’s only loophole and he took it.
As the hunted man sprang across the threshold he snatched the great
iron key from the lock and swung it on the head of his pursuer. The
marine dropped with a cut forehead, falling full in the doorway of the
room where the service was in progress.
Instantly the gathering was in confusion. The sermon ceased, women
screamed and their escorts poured into the hall to meet Cassidy,
entering from the street, flushed and exultant, with a half-dozen more
blue-jackets.
His foremost pursuer fallen, Trevanion leaped like a stag for the
stair. But half-way up he stopped at sight of a figure from whom he
could hope no grace. Gordon had heard the signal-shot, armed himself
and hastened to the stairway.
For once in his life Cassidy was oblivious of things religious.
He had forgot the afternoon’s service. He scarcely saw Dr. Nott’s
horror-lifted hands as his cassock fluttered between frightened
worshipers to the door. His look did not travel to Gordon or beyond,
where Teresa’s agitated face watched palely. His round, peering eyes
fastened with malignant triumph on the lowering figure midway of the
marble ascent.
“Now, my fine ensign,” he said with exultation, “what have you to say
to a trip to the _Pylades_?”
Trevanion’s dark face whitened. But his hand still gripped the key.
“I had enough of your cursed ship!” he flung in surly defiance, “and
you’ll not take me, either.”
Cassidy laughed and turned to the seamen at his back. They stepped
forward.
In Gordon’s mind, in that moment of tension, crucial forces were
weirdly contending. Over the heads of the group below, through the
open door, he saw a ship’s jolly-boat, pulling along the Arno bank.
Leghorn--the _Pylades_--and years in a military fortress. That was
what it meant for Trevanion. And what for him? The peace he coveted, a
respite of persecution, for him and for Teresa--the right to live and
work unmolested.
It was a lawless act--seizure unwarranted and on a foreign soil; an
attempt daring but not courageous--they were ten against one. It was
a deed of personal and private revenge on the part of Cassidy. And
the man had taken refuge under his roof. For any other he would have
interposed from a sheer sense of justice and hatred of hypocrisy. But
for _him_--a poltroon, a skulker, and--his enemy?
What right had he to interfere? The manner was high-handed, but the
penalty owed to British admiralty was just. It was not his affair. The
hour he had sat in the moonlight near the Ravenna osteria, when his
conscience had accepted this Nemesis, he had put away the temptation
to harm him; though the other’s weapon had struck, he had lifted no
hand. He had left all to fate. And fate was arranging now. _He_ had not
summoned those marines!
But through these strident voices sounded a clearer one in his soul.
It was not for that long-buried shame and cowardice in Greece--not for
the attempt on his life at Bagnacavallo, nor for anything belonging to
the present--that Trevanion stood now in this plight. It was ostensibly
for an act antedating either, one he himself had known and mentally
condoned years ago--a boy’s desertion from a hateful routine. If he let
him be taken now, was he not a party to Cassidy’s revenge? Would he
be any better than Cassidy? Would it be in him also any less than an
ignoble and personal retaliation--what he had promised himself, come
what might, he would not seek?
He strode down the stair, past Trevanion, and faced the advancing
marines.
“Pardon me,” he said. “This man is in my house. By what right do you
pursue him?”
The blue-jackets stopped. A blotch of red sprang in Cassidy’s
straw-colored cheeks.
“He is a deserter from a king’s ship. These marines are under orders.
Hinder them at your peril!”
“This is Italy, not the high seas,” rejoined Gordon calmly. “British
law does not reach here. You may say that to the captain of the
_Pylades_.”
Cassidy turned furiously to his men. “Go on and take him!” he commanded.
Again they advanced, but they looked full into Gordon’s pistol and the
voice behind it said:
“That, under this roof, no man shall do! On my word as a peer of
England!”
* * * * *
A few moments later, Cassidy, his face purpled with disappointment, had
led his marines into the street, the agitated clergyman had gathered
his flock again, and the hall was clear.
A postern gate opened from the Lanfranchi garden and to this Gordon led
Trevanion without a word. The latter passed out with eyes that did not
meet his deliverer’s.
As Gordon climbed the stairway to where Teresa waited, shaken with the
occurrence, the Rev. Dr. Nott was rounding the services so abruptly
terminated with the shorter benediction:
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. _Amen._”