“It is late, and that castle seems lulled in sleep,But within its walls are tapers gleaming;And along its apartments the females creep,With steps all hush’d, and eyes that are streaming.”
“It is late, and that castle seems lulled in sleep,But within its walls are tapers gleaming;And along its apartments the females creep,With steps all hush’d, and eyes that are streaming.”
For oh! softly glides that serpent, whose sting is the surest death; and smooth shows that dark water, which has blackest rocks beneath it. There is silence, and calmness, and all is still, without the walls of the Arestino Palace; but a volcano offever and of passion—of fierceness, rage, and fury—flames within!
It is night, and the lady of that bright palace lies upon a bed from which she never more must rise! Is it the course of age—Nature’s slow wane—that calls upon the lady?—No! She shows yet in beauty’s fullest—loveliest—prime. Her youth has seen its spring, but scarce yet fallen into summer. July has yet to come, though May has passed from us! And all that was the opening blossom—bud of love—now revels in the glorious flower. Not age? Not age. Why then—the plague?—Why ay—the plague! for there be other plagues—is it not so—than pestilence? There is the fire that burns, and the famine that pines us—the sun-stroke that withers, the tempest to wreck—there is the mildew that blasts, and the quicksand that swallows—there are floods—lightnings—hurricanes—earthquakes—fear ye for these? Alas! for every one poor life that dies by such slight accidents—think!—think of ambition—envy—avarice—false honour—glory in arms—the lust of beauty—pride—the thirst of power—the zealot’s triumph—and the soldier’s dreams!—for every single wretch, since order first arose, that perished, cut off by nature’s shock or violence—how many thousands—say!—have drawn their timeless fates from that worst spring of human woe, the human heart?
Alas! alas! Yet why is the lady thus passing—untouchedby sickness—in the pride of youth? Enough—enough! she sleeps—or shortly shall do so. Oh, gentle Death, there is no sleep blest and secure but thine! Revenge! “’tis Heaven’s prerogative, not ours.” So say divines; but men think otherwise when injury stirs them. Now, all her crimes, with all her charms, rest in eternal silence! Has the owl shrieked, or the bat struck on the window? No! these are the death-tokens of sterner regions. But the livelong night yon thistlefinch has sung under the casement—she sings the last dirge of the Lady of Arestino! Yet the lady’s fault was common in the land where she lived. Common? Ay, common! Common as the penalty—she is dying—which has followed it.
She dies! and justly—let her meet her doom! She is the ruin of a name that never knew reproach before. The honour of a noble house is gone—their shield is sullied! Blood may wash out the spot—but what the stain? Scorn crooks her white lip, and says, “That shall endure for ever!”
And if, for such a crime, blood must be spilled—what slave is he denies that blood should be the blood of woman?—For man—ay, smile!—he has wronged me. And though his body were a poisonous plant that it were death to touch, I’d cast myself upon it! cut—carve it—to morsels—motes. He dies, thoughLifedied with him—for I am suffering! but—in death—he shall have justice.
Man wars on man. It is his instinct—compact. He injures—stabs me! Granted. What should stay him? Is it love for his fellow—kindness—charity? What will—for “love” or “charity”—that “fellow” do for him? Will he honour in poverty? Defend in danger? Abstain to prey upon when time shall serve? No!—none of these, methinks. He may deride his weakness; insult his misery; publish for sport the tale that maddens him; maltreat and crush, as far as strength and law will serve! Away then with the jest of “Duty”—my “Practice” towards my neighbour is to eye him as my spoil!
Man breaks no faith with man, for he has pledged none. He casts away no fame, no reputation. He does not wreck the heart that blindly trusted—leaned upon—him. He does not, for an hour’s indulgence, whim, or vanity, give up all honour—name—esteem—respect—rank—kindred—friends—the world—for ever! This is the sacrifice that woman offers. Let her demand it from her lover—see if he dares to make it? Ask him—let the mistress that he sues to ask him!—to lie—to beg—to steal—to take a blow—be branded as a wretch—shunned by the honoured of his own sex—scorned even by the worthy of the other? His answer is—that he can bleed—can die—can give up fortune—hope—nay, even her love—but may not lose hiscaste—live in the world’s contempt—his own disgust—for ever.
Yet fate had dealt harshly with the lady of Arestino! She was a wife, but she was the unwooed, unwilling wife of a proud and unfeeling husband. Eight years she had been wedded, and eight years her heart had slept as dead; or, waking, waked but to swell with sullen bitterness against that power by which its rights had been despised. He who is wise, though his self-love may suffer, makes his wooing otherwise than this. He will not trust his all of hope in life to one whose every hope in life himself has blasted! Ye who seek service, love, or safety, seek it with the free! Will ye have chains?—then look that they be chains of adamant! ye made a traitor when ye made a slave.
Chained to the twisted roots of a tall willow which hung its branches across the stream, and almost hidden from view by the drapery of weeping foliage that surrounded it, a light skiff lay pulling in the soft current of the Arno. Towards this point the travellers made their way with rapid and anxious steps, and, as if by common agreement, both in silence. The Chevalier, pressing strongly through the low copsewood, was the first that reached it; and when he saw the stream, and the small boat rippling upon it, he never spoke one word, but drew a long-repressed breath, as of one relieved from much apprehension, and forthwith fell upon hisknees, and returned thanks to Heaven. For a gleam of hope seemed to make it possible that his journey might yet be a fortunate one; and though the business was such as Heaven might scarcely countenance, yet the Chevalier had a kind heart, and was a good Catholic; and he could not help feeling that gratitude was due somewhere. And, for the rest, he had no nice scruples, or reserves of pride, that he should check his feelings in the sight of his domestic; for those were days in which the distinctions of rank made no question; they were understood and settled; and a nobleman might even pray to God by the side of his vassal, without looking for assumption, or supposing any infraction of his dignity.
But it was on the north bank of the river that the Chevalier and his attendant had halted. It was hard upon the hour of midnight now, and the moon was up, for she was near her full; and the prospect which, under her broad light, presented itself, southward and west of Florence, over one of the richest plains of Italy, was singularly opposed to the scene of ruin and desertion which had exhibited itself in the country eastward of the city. On their left, winding along the stream, lay the “City of Flowers” itself, glorious and rich as ever, even in that brief distance. The work of man remained entire, where man himself was fallen; and the tall spires of the Italian churches glittered withtheir gilded vanes in the cold moonshine, as they lightly shot upwards, towering into the clear blue sky. In front was the south bank of the Arno, scarce three bow-shots across—crowded with splendid palaces and villas—the chosen seat of half the great and gay of Florence. And this spot, by some wild hazard or caprice, the pestilence had scarcely touched on. It might be that the west winds, which had prevailed almost constantly since the commencement of the malady, had carried the city’s infection in an opposite course; but certainly all here was safe—all lived and flourished.
The rich moonlight played among the trellised vines, and trembled in the orange groves in the wide gardens of these mansions, which stretched themselves, sloping downwards, to the very margin of the river. The lilies that grew in the last flower-bed bent their white necks as they sprang to kiss the stream; and the perfume which they exhaled rose the sweeter from its cool freshness.
And the Arno itself was no tide-water, no stream for traffic here. Though bolder and deeper, then, at the bridge of Florence, than its current flows at present, yet the little draught that was carried upon it never came above the city. A light breeze from the southward had just swept the mist from the surface of the water; and the white fleeces of weed which floated on its shallows, gently waving with the motion of the stream, gave lustre by their contrastto the deeper blue tint of those calm, unruffled, basin-like, unfathomable pools, which seemed to drink up the strong light from above, rather than to reflect it, so glorious was the brightness of the scene. There was a calm, a repose, at that hour, on the banks of that bright river, as if peace and safety had reigned throughout the world. Yet the silence was not the silence of desolation—it was not the repose of death—but the repose of nature sleeping. The soul felt as though it could lie down for ever upon those green banks, content, and happy, and at rest; and a voice seemed to float across the bright still water, calling on it to come and dwell beneath its lucid deepness.
But there are minds to which repose must live a stranger; hearts which in the tomb alone can hope for slumber, or the folding of the hands to sleep: the eye of the Chevalier Di Vasari gazed on the mild scene before him, but in his soul there was a fever which defied its influence. Two months before, and at that same hour, he had stood, as he stood now, upon the banks of the Arno; he had crossed that river then to fly from Florence, pursued by danger, and struggling for his life. He now returned. For what?—for love, or vengeance? What was his hope—his wish? He scarce knew what. End as his errand might, it must be in perplexity, in wretchedness!
It was no time, however, then, for thought. Atask was to be done; the hour was arrived, and the way lay open before him. Passing his horse’s rein to his attendant, he first loosened the long cloak from his shoulder, and cast it over the loins of the reeking, yet still untired brute. “Poor Bayard!” he said, patting the gallant animal’s neck, who thrust his nose against his master’s breast, as if acknowledging the attention, “you have striven hard to-night for a work in which you have but little interest! Look to him well, Jacopo,” continued the Chevalier; “and—take my sword also—see that your own horse be well clothed up, for they are sweating both; and when the day breaks, the air from the river here will be cold and chilly.”
“Your lordship will not go quite unarmed?” said the domestic, as he took the offered sword from his master’s hand.
“I scarcely know that,” returned the latter, in a melancholy tone. “A light foot, and the skill of a physician, would be the gifts most like to aid me now. But should I need defence, which Heaven avert, my poniard here, Jacopo, would be the better weapon, which lies as close and silent till I want its service, next my own heart, as it would do the next moment within that of my enemy.”
As he spoke, the Chevalier drew from its sheath (within his vest) a dagger of unusual breadth and strength, and rich and costly workmanship. The handle of the weapon was of gold embossed; thesheath of the same metal, set with jewels; the blade of pure Damascus steel, but wrought with curious emblems. It was an heirloom in the family of Di Vasari, brought from the East by their first ancestor, famous in the wars of Spain and of the Crusades; and for eight score years, sleeping or waking, that dagger had never left the bosom of the leader of their house.
“This is defence—more than defence enough!” said the Chevalier, as he slowly replaced the instrument in its scabbard. The broad blade flashed as he waved it in the moonlight; and the name of the first proprietor, “Di Vasari” showed in cold, dull characters, like unpolished silver, worked upon the dark unburnished steel.
At that moment the deep tones of the great bell at the Duomo chimed midnight. The Chevalier drew his boat shoreward, and cast off the fastening which confined it.
“Sleep not, Jacopo, I charge you!” were his last words. “Look to our horses carefully. It is three hours yet to daylight; and within two, at farthest, expect my return.”
A long low neigh from the black horse Bayard followed the skiff as it pushed off from the shore. Silently, yet swiftly, as it cut through the glassy water, the fish were scared that fed or sported at the bottom. Plunging from sedge and shallow, they turned their broad sides to the moonlight, as theyshot along; and showed, exaggerated in the liquid medium as by a lens, to twenty times their real bulk.
Still the oars touched the stream lightly; there was no plash, no rolling in the thowls; they scarcely broke the water as they dipped. Jacopo marked his master’s progress steadfastly till the boat gained the centre of the stream. A small islet, planted with willow and acacia, here broke the view across; the little skiff shot round it like a swallow on the wing, but then could be discerned no farther.
“Be quiet, knave!” exclaimed the valet, checking a second neigh of anxiety from the black horse, as the bark disappeared. “I doubt I had better make thee fast yet, or thou’lt be off into the river after our master, and leave me here behind.” He unbitted both the horses, loosened the girths of their heavy saddles, and clothing them as well as he might with the spare mantello and their own housings, fed them copiously with meal that had been brought along. Then, first feeling for the rosary within the breast of his garment, he drew his good broadsword from its scabbard, gave a last glance to see that his beasts were in safety, and seated himself, with his face to the river, at the foot of the most convenient tree he could select. And in this position, well on the alert to guard against surprise, and recommending himself especially to the protection of St Jago, with his weapon in one hand,and his wine-flask in the other, in silence he expected the event.
It was a chamber for luxury to dwell in, that in which the Countess Arestino lay, suited to tastes which knew no limit but their will, and decked for climates to which winter was a stranger. The walls were hung with draperies of pale-blue silk; richly wrought carpets—the treasures of the East—were spread at intervals upon the floor of shining marble. Oil from the Tuscan olive, mixed with frankincense and myrrh, burned in silver lamps, whose pale flames lighted the lofty chamber without sullying its delicious coolness. And in every window, flowers disposed in vases of alabaster, each carved with the work of half an artist’s life, loaded the light breeze which whispered through the lattice with the richest odours of the season.
The painting of the roof—alone a masterpiece!—was executed by such hands as already, if not noble, claimed little less than noble’s deference, and showed more even than noble’s pride. The mattressed couches, ranged around the chamber, suiting in colour with its pale-blue tapestry, were of a satin, rich, and quaintly patterned, and bordered with embroidery of flowering silver. And those couches, with their pillows of down and velvet—light and elastic as they bounded to the touch—wereharsh and rude compared with the bed on which the Countess lay—but she slept not.
“Giuletta! Giuletta! The twelfth hour is passed, and still comes he not? Camilla—Girl, canst thou hear nothing—is Camilla surely at the gate?”
“What, nothing! why then the messenger——? Yet he hadnotfailed; it was impossible!”
“The danger, perhaps?” doubtfully whispered a dark-haired girl, who watched beside the turret-stair.
“Danger! When had Lorenzo di Vasari gone back for danger!”
“Sickness?”
“Why, sickness?——Yet, no—no—he was not sick—it was not that!—Once more, Giuletta—for mercy! How sayest thou! All is silent still? Then he would not come! He was false—faithless—perjured—fled to his new minion—wedded to another!—Why, rather than that, let him have died—have perished! by plague—by flood—by fire—by knife or poison! Was not she, the Countess, dying—(and did she shrink to die?)—dying for the love she had borne him? Let her behold him lifeless! Mark his last gasp! Hear his last sigh! Know that he died without help—without hope—but let her not know him the husband of Perline di Francavilla!”
Following on that last word, like its response orecho—raised, spell-like, by its utterance—a distant foot is heard upon the winding turret-stair. Light as it falls, the Countess’s ear has caught and recognised it! Low as it treads, the rush with which it comes is that of lightning. In one moment more the tapestried door has flown open—a cavalier, hurried and travel-worn, flings himself by the Countess’s bedside. The door is closed; the attendant has left the chamber; the Knight has redeemed his faith; and the lady and her lover—it is for the last time—are to be alone together!
The Chevalier di Vasari held his lady’s hand clasped within both his own; and he so held it long, and spoke not. He pressed it to his burning forehead, not to his lips; his face was buried in the drapery of the bed by which he knelt; and his sobs, although repressed with pain, were deep and audible. Justly condemned by his mistress, or unjustly; false to his vows, or true; he was at least no lover of profession, no idler, who gained and flung away for pride: but what he felt, he spoke right on, whether from the heart or from the senses (which are nearer akin, perhaps, in the purest passion, than philosophers will admit); and if he had changed—why was it, but because, in love, there can be no such pledge as “Constancy?” because men can hold no control over an emotion which is as involuntary as their laughter or their tears;—and because he who promises, but for one day, thecontinuance of his passion to a woman—if he were to promise the continuance of life, might as well have the power to perform!
And if Love, as sure he is so, be the child of accident—of situation; warmed in this hour, and cherished by that which chills and wastes him in the next; aided to-day by absence, which makes that precious which possession held too cheap; to-morrow, triumphing by that very presence which overcomes, when at a distance we might have denied;—if these be truths—as sure they are—take one truth more, and let who can gainsay it—love, born amidst zephyrs, lives but in a storm! Flowers may charm; but these have thorns; which, cease to pique, and he will cease to worship them. Pain is his food, of life—far more than pleasure! mistresses or wives, the women who goad us to distraction are those ever from whom we have the hardest task to part. Di Vasari was of that age, and of that temperament, in which absence was likely to weaken a passion rather than increase it. We sigh to Eugenia of Sophia’s coldness, and end in forgetting Sophia altogether! But the heart that wanders is not lost for ever. He had quitted Florence with unwillingness—in horror—almost in despair. Quitted it only, at last, because, unhappily, his stay might have aggravated those dangers which were past his hope to aid. And was it in man, now, that he could look upon that beautifulform—that form which he had so loved, so worshipped—and fancy but the possibility of its destruction—of its decay! See those dark eyes, into which he had so often gazed for hope and happiness—their lustre yet undimmed, but shining over a pallid cheek, and soon to shine no more! That long black hair which flowed in ringlets down a neck so full and white! Those fair round arms and polished throat—these are charms to live, and still have power, long after the transient red and white, which charms the first observer, is familiar! Could he behold his mistress—so young and beauteous still—so soon to be resigned for ever—now before him, and not forget that any other woman lived, on whom he ever had bestowed a thought? not feel that, without her life—her love—her safety—life—all the world—to him, would be no longer worth possessing?
The Countess gazed upon her lover as he knelt; and she, too, for a long space, gazed without speaking; for with her, far less than even with Di Vasari, was there that full indulgence of grief which soothes and satisfies the heart: but her thoughts were those of doubt—and fancied wrong—and wounded pride—and passion scorned or slighted. Fierce as had been the paroxysms which that day had convulsed and shaken her; bodily pain, and mental suffering; her pride still towered over all; her beauty showed untainted! Scorning death in his triumph; hatinghis approach, yet smiling on it; never more carefully than in that hour—her last of life—had the Countess’s toilet been adjusted. Her force of mind, and feverish heat of purpose, rose even above the anodynes which gave her a temporary release from personal suffering. Excited as she already was by passion, almost to frenzy, the very narcotics which should have deadened the brain’s action, turned to stimulants, and served only to add new fury to its purpose. Her cheek had lost its tint of freshness. Her eyes, that glistened with tears repressed, had something of wildness in their expression. And her lips had faded from their ruby hue. But, other than this, her beauty was still uninjured; all her features were full and animated; it was scarce possible to contemplate her as a being who in a few hours should cease to move—to think—to have intent—existence.
At length the Countess spoke. Her hand lay passive in her lover’s grasp. But it was cold—damp—and nerveless—trembling;—it suffered, not returned, his ardent pressure. “You would see me once more then, Lorenzo?” she said; and her words were uttered with pain and difficulty. For though her features remained unmoved, her eyes were blind with tears; and the tone of her voice was more terrible in its hollow, wilful steadiness, than if she had at once resigned the contest, and given way to the storm of grief that overwhelmedher.—“You have left Arezzo, and safety, and your new bride that shall be, to watch the last moments of one who can now no more be worth your thinking of; but who, whatever may be the faults she has to answer for, dies for one only, Lorenzo,—the fault of having loved you!”
The Chevalier’s cheek was paler even than that of the Countess. His voice was drowned with sobs—he could not speak—the words choked him in their utterance. He lifted his face from the velvet covering in which it had lain buried—he clasped his hands together;—the hand of the Countess fell from his grasp.—“And is there then,” at last he said, “oh God!—is there then, Angiolina, indeed no hope?”
“For me, Lorenzo,” said the Countess, “there is no hope. Worlds could not purchase for me another hour’s life. We meet now for the last time! You are ill, Lorenzo,—you have travelled far—I should not have sent to you—I trouble you too much. But I am going on a long journey—a travel from which I shall not return. I am a weak creature—too weak—but I am dying. Bless you, Lorenzo, for thinking of me this once! I shall die now content—content and happy. For I shall not have seen him, for whom I sacrificed both life and honour—while I still lived—devoted to another.”
Avarice, ambition, terror, may have mercy; but there is one passion lurks within the human breast,whose very instinct’s murder. Once lodged within the heart, for life it rules—ascendant and alone! Sports in the solitude like an antic fiend; it feeds on blood, and rivers would not sate its appetite. Minds strongest in worth and valour stoop to meanness and disgrace before it. The meanest soul—the weakest—it can give courage to, beyond the daring of despair! What is the sting which no balm can assuage? What is the wound that death alone can heal? What is the injury that—once done—can never be repaired? whose is the sword that, once when drawn, the scabbard must be cast away for ever? When is it that man has no ear but for the tale that falls like molten lead upon his brain; no eye but for the plucked-out heart of him he hates; no hand but for that clutch—that one last clutch—which earth may not resist—that gripes his dagger? Who is it that bears about him a life, horrible to himself, and dangerous to the world? Who has been wise, yet now will cast away reason?—was kind and pitiful, yet mimics the humanity of the wild dog? Who is it hews his foe to mammocks; writes “Acquittal” on his tomb—and dies? Who is it that stabs, yet will not blame; drinks—as his draught of life—another’s blood; yet feels there is but one relief—to shed his own? That wretch isJealous! Oh! talk not of remembrance—consciousness beyond the grave!—once sleeping, let the jealous never wake again! Pity him, whateverhis crimes! Were they ten thousand fathom past the reach of mercy, they are punished. The gamester whose last piece is lost—the merchant whose whole risk the sea has swallowed up—the child whose air-bubble has burst,—may each create a bauble like the former! But he whose treasure was in woman’s love; who trusted as men once trust, and was deceived!—that hope once gone! weep—search—regret—despair—seek thyself blind—there is again no finding—no restoring it! Woman! symbol of woe, and nature’s weakness! gamester of hope and happiness! thy love must be integral—single—perfect—or be nothing. Like the glass toy that has amused thy childhood, entire it sparkles, shining, bright, and precious; but from the farthest thread—the finest—break off but one fibre—it is gone—form—shape—design—material—substance! That flaw has shivered it to countless atoms; and where the jewel was, a heap of dust, which men despise and trample on, alone remains!
“Lorenzo!” said the Countess, in a hurried tone,—“Lorenzo, a chill is creeping over me. It is cold now—cold as the grave—I feel that I am dying. It is terrible, Lorenzo, to die so young! You will pray for me, though you have ceased to love me? Think of me, once more—only once—when Perline di Francavilla is your happy bride. Do not let her triumph too far; but think of me even on your bridalday, one moment, before you forget me for ever. For then, oh, Lorenzo—then—I shall be a thing fit only to forget. A poor, passive, nameless thing, beyond the reach of memory or sensation. And the tears of my friends, and the triumph of my foes, will be alike; for they will both be unknown and unnoticed by me.”
“Angiolina!” cried the Chevalier, “if you would not destroy me quite, have mercy!”
“Have you not now come from Arezzo, Di Vasari?”
There are moments in which, even to serve its need, the heart revolts from falsehood.—There was no answer. “Have you not daily seen Perline di Francavilla there? Have you not—perjured as you are—have you not pledged your false heart to her?”
“Then, never—by all my hopes in heaven!” exclaimed the Chevalier, urged almost beyond self-control; and changing his tone from that of sorrow almost into one of injury and recrimination—for if his conscience did not entirely acquit him of blame, yet neither was he guilty in the extent to which he was accused.—“Forced, by your own command—would I had never listened to it!—to quit Florence, chance more than purpose led me to Arezzo. If I have seen Perline di Francavilla there,” continued the speaker—and here his voice did falter something—“it has been only in that common intercourse, which the long connection of our housesrendered unavoidable. But your token said, that you were in sickness—in danger—What was Perline, then, or all the world, to me? Am I not here to save—to perish for—Angiolina—to perish with you? For why should one live on, who now can live only to a sense of wretchedness! If I had wronged your trust—say that I had been light and thoughtless—he trifles with the richest gem in fancied safety, who hugs his treasure close, and feels its value when its loss is threatened. Angiolina, you have wronged me. You will regret to have done so; but my errand shall be fulfilled. I came to aid—to avenge—or perish with you.”
The words of the Chevalier were wild; but he spoke them heartily, and his manner was sincere. For the outward act too—it was at some hazard—and the plague still raging—that he had returned to Florence. It was at some hazard that he stood, even at that moment, unaided, and almost unarmed, within walls where but a whisper of his name would have armed an hundred swords against his life. But Perline di Francavilla lived!—the Countess saw but that—would live and triumph—when she should be no more—despised—forgotten. The helplessness—the hopelessness—of all defence against such a consummation—the very sense of that helplessness seemed to exasperate her almost to frenzy.
Eagerly grasping her lover’s hands, her actionseemed to demand the repetition of his promise. But the words which should have expressed the demand were wanting. A sudden, but sinking change was taking place in the lady’s appearance—the poison had run its course; and the crisis of her fate was approaching.
Slowly drawing her hand across her brow, as if to clear the mist that made her vision indistinct, she seemed anxiously to search out some object, which the fading sight had scarcely strength enough to reach.
At that moment, a dial, which faced the feet of the couch on which she lay, struck, with its shrill bell, the first hour of the morning.
The stroke seemed to fall upon the Countess, and paralyse her remaining faculties.
“Angiolina!” cried the Chevalier, springing from the floor—“Angiolina! speak, for mercy’s sake! Angiolina!—she is dying!”
His attention was quickly called to his own safety: a footstep as he spoke approached distinctly through the corridor.
“Angiolina!” He started to the door by which he had entered. “Ruin and despair!” it was closed without—it would not open.
The footsteps came on still. Why, then, there was but one hope—his dagger was in his hand.
The Lady Angiolina heard—she saw what was passing. She moved—she pointed. No—it waswrong—not there! She made a last effort—shespoke, once more. “Yonder, Lorenzo—There—there!”
It was but the advantage of a moment. The curtains of the couch on which the Countess was lying parted the coming and the going guest. The light fall of the swinging door by which the new visitor entered the chamber, echoed the heavy drop of that which had shut the Chevalier from view.
It was not the Count di Arestino whose approach had created this alarm, but that which followed made the presence of his Lordship speedily desired. The female who entered the chamber found her mistress lying insensible, and in a state which left little doubt of her immediate dissolution. From that moment the Countess lived nearly two hours, but she never spoke again. Her confessor came. He pressed the cross to the lips of the expiring lady, and some said that she shrank from it; but the most believed that she was insensible, and the last absolution of the dying was administered. The Count Ubaldi stood by his wife’s bedside. He wore no outward semblance of excessive grief. It might be that his heart bled inwardly; but he scarcely dreamed who had knelt on that same spot so short a time before him.
“It was at the bell of one,” said Giuletta, in alow voice to her companion, “that my lady desired me to waken her. And when I came, as the clock struck, I found her even alone, and thus.”
As she spoke, the shrill tongue of the dial once more struck the hour of two. A slight struggle agitated the features of the Countess at the sound! she clasped her hands as if in prayer, or from some suddenly excited recollection.
In another moment the source of all the anxiety expressed around was at an end. The domestics yet wept; the confessor still bent with the sacred image over his penitent; the Count Arestino still gazed coldly on—upon what? It was not upon his wife—for the Countess Arestino was no more.
“For though he ’scaped by steel or ball,And safe through many a peril pass’d,The pitcher oft goes to the well,But the pitcher comes home broke at last.”
“For though he ’scaped by steel or ball,And safe through many a peril pass’d,The pitcher oft goes to the well,But the pitcher comes home broke at last.”
The judges of Florence were met, and there were crowds round the gate of the Palazzo di Governo; for a criminal, sentenced to death that day, was to suffer the torture before he underwent his final doom.
Of what crime had the prisoner been guilty? He was a common robber, guilty of a hundred crimes, for any of which his life was forfeit. But there was one charge to which, guilty or not guilty, he refusedto plead; and as a disclosure was important, he was to be racked to induce him to confess.
On the morning of the Vigil of St Luke it was that Lorenzo di Vasari had quitted Arezzo. His journey had been taken on the sudden, and no one had been acquainted with its object. Various circumstances in the manner of his departure led to the inference that his absence was to be a short one; and yet two months had elapsed since he had so departed, and intelligence of his course, or of his safety, his family had none.
It was strange—and men declared it so—where the Chevalier Lorenzo could be hidden. He had been traced to Florence. On that dark night, and in those deserted streets, when he felt most sure no eye beheld him, he had nevertheless been seen, mounted on his black horse, and followed by his servant, first passing the column of Victory in the Via di Repoli, and afterwards halting in conference upon the Ponta St Trinita.
But those who had seen the travellers as they paused upon the bridge, were themselves night prowlers, digging after hidden spoil in the Jews’ Quarter, and they had not watched them, for they had business of their own, more urgent, to attend to. It was recollected that they had at length ridden off westwards, in the direction of the Porto Pisano; but with that movement all traces both of master and attendant ceased.
Now this disappearance was strange; and except that there had been foul play in some quarter, what other solution could be imagined for it? Why had the Chevalier Lorenzo first quitted Florence? It was not from fear of the plague, for he had returned in the height of it. And when was it that he had so returned—himself to disappear so strangely? when but on the very night, and almost at the very hour, that the Countess Arestino had died! The belief of all made the duty of none. Men might suffer wrong, and never know they suffered it; or they might be wronged, and yet sit down contented. But yet the Count Ubaldi, by those who knew him, was scarcely numbered as one who would so sit down; and there had been a rumour once, though it had passed away, which joined the name of the Chevalier di Vasari too closely with that of the Lady Angiolina. And had Lorenzo’s true kinsman, the soldier Carlo, lived, less doubt had drawn his sword for vengeance or for explanation.
But “true Carlo” was dead—your honest men are ever so—dead in the wars of Germany and Spain. And Gonsalvo di Vasari, the last relative and next heir, seemed less curious to revenge his kinsman’s death than to inherit. No man in Florence doubted Gonsalvo’s courage, but still his dagger slept in its sheath. It might be he believed his cousin had taken no wrong; or it might bethat—take the worst to be proved—his conscience whispered he might have juster cause of quarrel. But week after week elapsed, and even month after month; and though all concluded the absent Lorenzo to be dead, yet no certain tidings even of his death could be obtained, so that the title to his large estates remained in abeyance. The disappearance of the servant Jacopo, too, seemed more puzzling to many people than any other part of the affair. When one morning, about ten weeks after the absentees had been lost sight of, and while men were still debating whether they had been swallowed up, horses, arms, purses, and all, by some local earthquake, or translated suddenly to the skies, and there converted into constellations, as a great mob was sweeping over the piazza Santa Croce, conducting a robber, who had just been condemned, to the place of execution, a citizen, whom accident or curiosity had drawn close to the person of the culprit, suddenly exclaimed, that “he wore a cloak which had belonged to Lorenzo di Vasari!”
“Holy Virgin! will you not hear what I say?” insisted the person who thus stopped his fellow-creatures on their passage to the other world.—“Should I not know the cloak, when I made it myself?” he continued. Which was at least so far likely to be true, that the spokesman was a tailor.
“But the man is going to be hanged, and what more can you have if he had stolen fifty cloaks?”replied the superintending officer, giving the word that the cavalcade, which had halted, should again move forward.
The chief party (as one would have thought) to this dispute—that is, the prisoner who sat in the cart—remained perfectly silent; but the interruption of Nicolo Gozzi bade fair, nevertheless, to be overruled. For the culprit was no other than the famous Luigino Arionelli, or, as he was surnamed, “Luigino the Vine-dresser,” who had been the terror of all Florence during the period of the plague; and a great many people had come out to see him hanged, who were not disposed to go home disappointed of the ceremony. And the provost, too, who commanded, was well disposed to get rid of the interference, if he could; for since the law had resumed its powers, despatch (in matters of justice) was rather the order of the day. The disorders which had to be regulated were many and dangerous; and the object being to get rid of such as suddenly as possible, a good many of the delays which were used to lie between the commission of crimes and their final punishment had been agreed to be dispensed with. So that, upon the whole, Signor Gozzi’s remonstrances were generally treated as impertinent; and it was a moot point, whether he did not seem more likely to be personally added to the execution, than to put a stop to it; when luckily there came up a servant of the house of Di Vasari,attracted by the uproar, who identified the cloak in question, not merely as having belonged to the Chevalier Lorenzo, but as being the same which he had worn on the night of his disappearance.
This strange declaration—backed by a recollection that Gonsalvo di Vasari’s interests must not be treated lightly—decided the commander of the escort in favour of delay; and the culprit, who had been observed to pay deep attention to all that passed, was reconducted to prison. When questioned, however, both casually in his way back to the jail by the officer of justice, and formally, afterwards, by Gonsalvo di Vasari himself, he maintained a determined silence. A sort of examination—if such it could be called when no answers were given—was prolonged for several hours; but no further facts were discovered; and not a word, either by persuasions or menaces, could be extorted from the prisoner. In the end, the chief judge, the Marquis Peruzzi, to whose daughter Gonsalvo di Vasari was affianced, suggested that time should be given for consideration, and that—Arionelli being retained in close confinement—all proceedings should be staid for four days. This recommendation was agreed to, not because it was the course which any one desired to take, but because it was the only course, under the circumstances, which seemed open. Arionelli was then shut up anew under close caution. Gonsalvo di Vasari and his friends betookthemselves to study how they might hunt out fresh evidence; or, against the next day of examination, work upon the prisoner so that he should confess. And the gossips of Florence had enough of employment in discussing the singular providence which had at last led to the detection of the Chevalier’s murderer, puzzling what could be the object of his present silence, and disputing whom his disclosures would impeach.
“Bring in the prisoner,” said the presiding judge.
The day of examination was come, and the judges had taken their seats in the Palazzo di Governo. The Gonfalonière, the Marquis Peruzzi, sat as president, with Gonsalvo di Vasari and the Count Arestino, both as members of the Council. Two secretaries, with writing implements before them, sat at the head of a long table placed below the president’s chair; and a few ushers and inferior retainers of the Court, distinguished by their robes and wands, waited in different quarters of the apartment. But no other members of the Council than those already described were present, for the affair was one rather of individual than of general interest; and the heads of Florence were still too much engaged with private calamities and difficulty, to have any more leisure to spare than was absolutely necessary for the service or direction of the public.
“Let the prisoner be brought in!” said the Marquis Peruzzi.
One of the secretaries signed to an attendant, who rang a small hand-bell which stood upon the table.
Upon which the folding-doors at the lower end of the hall were thrown open, and a guard of soldiers, marching in, ranged themselves (a precaution temporarily adopted in that stormy period) on two sides of the chamber. The prisoner, Arionelli, came next, handcuffed and heavily ironed, followed by six or seven unpleasant but not formidable-looking persons, the servants of the executioner. The doors were then again closed and carefully fastened, as if to prevent the possibility of intrusion from without; the soldiers rested their lances, but remained in an attitude of attention; and a curtain was drawn aside by some unseen hand from a recess in the south side of the apartment, which showed the rack and its apurtenances prepared, and the machinery for the water torture.
“Luigino Arionelli!” then said the chief secretary, “do you yet repent you of your contumacy; and will you confess to this tribunal that which you know touching the fate of Lorenzo di Vasari?”
The culprit, to whom this demand was addressed, had he been forty times an outlaw, was a man of excellent presence. Of a stature sufficient to convey the impression of much bodily command and strength, yet boldly and handsomely, rather thanvery robustly, proportioned; the rich cavalier’s dress in which he had been disguised when he was first taken, and of which he still wore the faded remains, accorded well with a deportment as high and unconstrained as that of any noble in whose presence he was standing. His countenance was pale, and something worn as with fatigue; perhaps it was with anxiety; for a dungeon, and the prospect of being hanged on quitting it, are not the best helps to any man’s personal appearance. But he looked at the rack straightforward and steadily, not as with a forced defiance, but as at an object for which he was prepared, if not with which he was familiar; and when he spoke, there was neither faltering in his voice nor apprehension in his feature. “Carlo Benetti!” he said, when the chief secretary had done speaking—“nay, never bend your brow, my lord, for I have worse dangers than your displeasure to meet already. I am at the point of death, when men in most ranks are equal. Have nothing left to lose, so may make shift to bear the heaviest farther penalty you can inflict. Therefore write down—and see you blur it not—that unless upon terms, and not such terms as the rack to begin, and the gibbet to conclude with, neither you nor your masters shall have any information from me.”
The Gonfalonière turned his eye slowly on the instruments of torture. “Do you not fear,” he said,“to die upon that wheel? Reflect! it is a fate to which you have not yet been sentenced; and it is one, compared with which, the death you have to suffer will be as the pleasures of paradise set against the torments of purgatory.”
“When I became a robber,” returned Arionelli, coolly, “I looked for some such fate. I reckoned with myself, that I could scarcely live gaily, and not die irregularly. I wished to rein a fleet horse in the field, rather than wait on one in the stable. To sing and thrum on my guitar in idleness half the night, rather than hold the plough, or ply the hatchet, in labour all day. In short, I wished to feed luxuriously—drink freely—have a brave mistress—spurn at law and honesty—in brief, my lord, become a nobleman, not having been born one; and I was content to pay something, at a long day, for the change.”
The prisoner’s demand was for his own life secured, and for pardon of two of his comrades, who were not yet brought to trial. The disclosures which he could make were desirable; but these were terms on which the State could not purchase them.
“Between the rope and the wheel,” added Arionelli, “it is but an hour’s endurance, which troubles me little.”
“We will try the strength of that endurance,” said the President, turning to Gonsalvo di Vasari,who slightly assented. “Executioner! do your duty. Let the prisoner strip.”
The executioner and his assistants then proceeded immediately to strip the culprit naked to the waist, which they did almost in silence, and very temperately, without any show of violence or roughness; but yet the cold, ready, business-like civility of their manner—the expeditiousness with which they stripped a man for murder and agony, as they might have stripped him for the bath—chilled the heart with more sickness than a demeanour of coarseness or ferocity would have done.
The outlaw smiled bitterly; but it was a smile of confidence and impatience rather than insolence. “Gonfalonière!” he cried, “once more beware! One moment’s haste may kill your hopes for ever. Crack but a sinew—strain but a single limb—let your blind rage but do the smallest act that makes Arionelli’s life not worth preserving,—not all the wealth that Florence holds shall ever buy your secret: I die, and it dies with me.”
No notice was taken of this menace, except by an order to complete the necessary preparations. The criminal was bound to the rack. An attendant had brought the pot of water which stood by to wet the lips of sufferers in their extremity. And the cords were tightened, ready for the first pull, which was commonly followed by a dislocation of both the wrists and shoulders.
At this point many gave way; and it was the custom to try the resolution of culprits under it by a moment’s suspense. But Arionelli uttered no word, nor gave any look, which could be construed into an appeal for mercy. His cheek was flushed—hands clenched—the lips strongly drawn in—the teeth set firm together; but in the whole countenance there was but one expression—that of defiance and disdain; and all eyes were fixed, and all ears were open, for the moment of allowance had expired; when, just as the Gonfalonière’s hand was raised to give the last sign for which the executioner waited, and the prisoner was collecting his strength to meet the impending shock, Gonsalvo di Vasari, who had watched the whole scene in silence, but with the closest attention, made a movement to interfere.
A consultation of some length ensued between the judges, or rather between the first two of them, Gonsalvo di Vasari and the President Peruzzi; for the Count Arestino, although many had been curious to think whether he would or would not be present at the process, seemed merely to have taken his seat as an ordinary member of the council, without feeling any peculiar interest in it. The discussion at the table was carried on in a low tone; but the prisoner watched its progress with an eye of keen and penetrating inquiry. Presently (as well as might be judged from his gestures) theGonfalonière appeared to yield to some proposal from Gonsalvo di Vasari; and the latter wrote a few words on a slip of paper, and handed them to an usher, who bowed and left the room; after which the President made some communication (which was not heard) to the Count Arestino; and Gonsalvo himself took up the examination.
“You demand, then,” said Gonsalvo di Vasari, addressing Arionelli, “your own life, and a pardon for two of your associates who are in custody, as the price of the confession which you are to make relative to the disappearance of the Chevalier Lorenzo di Vasari?”
“As the price of my full answer to all your questions on that subject, as far as my knowledge goes, my lord,” was the reply—“provided, in the mean time, your lordship causes these cords to be loosened, which give me pain something unnecessarily, and which another turn would have drawn too tight for the advantage of your lordship’s objects, or of mine.”
“And these associates, for whose lives you covenant?” continued Di Vasari, when the prisoner’s request had been complied with.
“Are my friends, my lord—men of my own band. They came, indeed, after I was taken, to rescue me at the scaffold; and the least I can do now is to let our cause go together.”
“And what if your obstinate silence (to repaythat intended obligation) should cause them to die a death of torture, as you are like to do yourself?”
“They will be as able to endure such a fate as I am. I play for the higher stake—our lives. And if the die goes against me, we must suffer.”
“And when their turn upon the rack comes,” interrupted the Gonfalonière, “thentheywill disclose your secret.”
“That they will tell you no word of it, my lord, I have the best security—they know nothing of it themselves.”
“You are called,” said Gonsalvo di Vasari, “Luigino Arionelli. Are you not that Luigino Arionelli who is known by the name of ‘The Vine-dresser?’”
“I am known by an hundred names, and seen in an hundred shapes,” returned the robber. “Ask your officers how many they have seen me in, in this last month, and in this very city? I am the Venetian monk from Palestine, who was preaching at the Cross in the Piazza dei Leoni, while the three great houses beyond the square were emptied, on the fifth day of the plague. And I was the Austrian officer who came with his long retinue to the inn of ‘The Golden Flask’ (the host will remember what fell out in that lodging), bringing letters and despatches to the Gonfalonière from Cologne. I was the Genevese physician, who got good practice, and some money, by the ‘infallibleremedy against the plague;’ and your lordships see, whatever I did for others, I had skill enough to keep clear from it myself. And it was I who ransacked half the houses in the Quartiere St Giovanni in only one night; robbing in a bull’s hide, disguised with horns, when two fathers of the Order of Mercy met me, and ran away, mistaking me for the devil.”
“Have you not a wife, or a mistress, who is called Aurelia la Fiore?”
“I have. Close with my proposal!” said the outlaw, who seemed excited by the conversation. “I would live, and be once more at liberty, for her sake!”
“Is she your wife, or your mistress only?”
“As chance will have it, not my wife according to the usages of our church. But she might have been. As far as affection is worth—passion, devotion—the asking in vain no prize which hand can win, or sacrifice which heart can make; as far as to have no rival—never to have had a rival—in the heart of her husband, so far she is my wife! There are women, perhaps, worse treated, and wives—the wives of princes—worse deserving.”
“Was not this Aurelia the daughter of an oil-farmer near Ferrara?”
“She was. Then you have heard the tale? I stabbed the noble who thought her worth dishonouring, and would have borne her from me. Fortunehad shared her stores more evenly between us than he imagined. To him she gave the wealth to purchase pleasure; to me the hand to win it. I was a vine-dresser then; and, but for that event, might have been one still.”
“Does Aurelia know this secret, which you would sell to us?”
“That you shall know, my good lord, after you have bought it from me.”
“Where is Aurelia now?”
“If you inherit not your kinsman’s patrimony, Gonsalvo di Vasari, till you learn that, your patience, as well as your purse, shall fare the harder.”
“What if she were in our power?”
The robber smiled contemptuously at the supposition.
“What if I should tell you that she ishere—in chains and peril—and that every insolence you utter added to her danger?”
“That would be almost a false assertion, Gonsalvo di Vasari; and the mouths of your race should be clear from dishonour.”
“Why, let him then see!” exclaimed Di Vasari, starting from his seat. A door opposite to the recess in which the prisoner stood was thrown open; and a female—it was Aurelia herself—bound, and guarded by Gonsalvo’s servants, stood before him.
The recoil of the outlaw burst his bonds likethreads; the cords that tied him seemed to fall off by witchcraft more than to be broken. But the effort was involuntary; it was followed by no movement, and indicated no purpose. For one moment the hands of the guards were upon their swords; but a single glance was enough, and showed the precaution was needless.
The shadow of that passing door, as it swung slowly to upon its muffled hinges, seemed to sweep every trace of former expression from Arionelli’s countenance. Familiar with objects of danger and alarm, a moment sufficed him to perceive that the ground on which he had stood, as on a rock, was gone. One convulsive shudder ran through his frame, as the high clear voice of Aurelia pronounced, in trembling agony, the name of “Luigino!” He bowed his face, as one who abandoned further contest, and seemed to await what was to come.
“Luigino Arionelli,” said Gonsalvo, coldly, and in the measured tone of conscious power, “do you yet repent you of your obstinacy; and will you make confession as to the fate of Lorenzo di Vasari?”
A pause ensued, and the robber attempted to rally his faculties; but the effort was unsuccessful. At length he spoke, but not as he had before spoken; there was a difference in the steadiness of his tone, and a still wider in the carelessness of his manner.—“You know, my lords,” he said, “that the power is now yours. There was but one creature on earthfor whom I could have wept or trembled, and she is in your hands. The struggle is over; I and my companions have lived like men; and I trust we shall die like men. Let my wife depart; she has done the state no wrong, and has no knowledge of that which you desire to learn. And as soon as she shall have passed the boundaries of the Florentine territory, I will confess the whole—much or little—that I can disclose of the fate of the Chevalier di Vasari.”
The very deep, though repressed, anxiety with which the speaker put this proposal, seemed to imply a doubt how far it could be accepted. He was not mistaken; those who held the power, knew the tenure by which they held it, and that tenure they were not disposed to part with.
“Trifle not with the sword and with the fire, if you are wise, Arionelli!” said Gonsalvo di Vasari. “Press not too far upon the patience of this court. She whom you call your wife stands, no less than yourself, within the scope of our danger. Whatever mercy is extended to her, must be upon your full and unconditional submission; and not until all questions which may be put to you have been answered satisfactorily. Therefore I caution you once more; speak instantly, and without reserve; and press no longer on the forbearance of this tribunal; for you guess not the fate which you may draw down upon yourself if you do so.”
The outlaw’s passion rose in his fear’s despite. “And pressmenot too far, my lords,” he exclaimed, “ifyouare wise. For once remove the temptation of Aurelia’s safety—and ten thousand times the torments you command shall never win an answer from me. Take heed, good Gonfalonière, what you do! Ask your slaves here, if, at the foot of the gibbet, I shrank from the death which was before me. You have the power; beware you strain it not too far. I am in your chains—defenceless—helpless. Those arms are bound, whose strength, if they were free, perhaps the stoutest soldier here might find too much to cope with. But go one point only too far—To tear the hook from the fish’s entrails is not to land him! You cannot kill the robber Luigino, though you kill him in extremest tortures, but you kill the secret which you want—the secret for which he dies—at the same moment.”
If there be truth in threats like these, it is a truth for which no man (until they are executed) ever gets credit. He who will die, and die content, for his own vengeance, is the exception to the common rule. Arionelli was bound again to the wheel, and with cords which were stronger than before. Up to that moment his wife had never spoken. Her eyes had remained fixed upon the earth, and there were no sobs accompanied the large drops which fell from them; nor signs scarcely that she wept, beyond the convulsive heaving of her bosom. Once,when the dark attendants surrounded her lover, her lips opened to speak; but she only sank upon her knees—the lips were closed again—and one long shriek issued from them, that seemed to cleave the very roof of the palazzo. And then came the command from Gonsalvo di Vasari—not that which she dreaded, but another—cool, distinct, calculating, and delayed until the confinement of Arionelli was complete.—“Official, bind Aurelia la Fiore, and let the question by water be administered to her.”
An obvious effect was perceptible upon the countenances of the soldiers in the hall when this command was uttered. The outlaw himself was bound—this time his bonds did not give way—and when he heard the words, they seemed to paralyse—to engender a doubt that he miscomprehended—rather than to alarm him. He turned his eye rapidly from his kneeling wife to the judges. Its expression was not of humility, and scarcely that even of entreaty. His appeal was not that of a culprit to the mercy of a judge, but the demand which man makes upon man—upon the common feeling of his fellows—“In the name of God!” was all that he exclaimed, “you cannot mean it?”
Nevertheless, however, the men in black surrounded Aurelia, who stood motionless, attempting neither effort nor remonstrance; and having raised her from the ground, were proceeding to cut the laces which held her bodice; for a part of thehorrible system was, that all who suffered, male or female, were stripped naked before the application of the question. The soldiers, though, from their cold silence and averted looks, they evidently disliked their duty, showed no disposition to flinch from it; and a passionate flood of tears burst from the eyes of the unhappy Aurelia, as the first infamous preparations for adding degradation to the tortures which she was to endure, were completed.
The cold sweat poured in streams down Arionelli’s forehead.—“In the name of Heaven,” he cried, “hold but one moment! If you are men, you will not do this deed! Gonfalonière! my Lord di Vasari! Count of Arestino! will you—as your souls may answer it—will you degrade this helpless and innocent female—and in the presence of her husband? Villains! cowards! slaves!” pursued the outlaw, violently, seeing that his words produced no cessation of the proceedings,—“have you not this frame, more noble than your own, but on which you may trample, still unbent and unbroken? Cannot you burst these sinews with a nod? Rend and destroy, with but a word, these limbs, whose force, naked as they are, and even in bonds, your pale hearts quail at? Am I not bound before you? Will not these miscreant agents delight to crush a frame to ruin, which shames, and shows their own too mean and insignificant? and yet willyou—dare you—touch such a piece of Heaven’s handiwork as that woman! My Lord Gonfalonière—you have daughters—Man—if you are one—look at her! Is she more fit than they are for a deed of blood?—Di Vasari!—Gonsalvo!—Villain!—Usurer!—you are a man—young—passionate—can you look upon such a form as hers—and if she had sought your very life a thousand times—would you see it mangled, disgraced, and ruined?—Gonfalonière!—Count Arestino!—Mercy! This wretch I waste my words on. If he can do the deed—no matter with what cause—my words must be too useless to dissuade him from it!”
“Luigino Arionelli!” said the Gonfalonière, more mildly, “why, if this female’s safety be so precious to you, do you not secure it, and answer the questions which we propose?”
“It is because——” The outlaw hesitated.—“Now, Gonfalonière—you are a human creature—make that toad-like wretch take his base hands from her! Now she has fainted—let her not be bound! Villain! rogue! bare but one spot of her fair flesh, and you shall yet expire in tortures!—Marquis! Now thanks and blessings! Let the villains stand from her. Captain! Gentleman of honour! You wear a sword—I have seen you use it in the fight—support her—and may your own wife or sister never ask the same assistance, or lie in the same need!—All who know me—robber asI am—know that I never inflicted injury or insult on a woman. I sent back the Podesta of Trieste’s daughter to her father safe, and without ransom, when the villain churl refused to pay it. Why, thanks! Aurelia! Wife! look up! Oh treat me—robber as I am—but as a man! Let me be free—only to sustain her; and command or question what you will.”
“Luigino!” said the Marquis Arestino, who seemed something affected by the outlaw’s passion, though reasons perhaps prevented his doing anything which might be construed into the showing him favour—“the court in mercy has granted this momentary delay; why is it that you do not use it to confess?”
“It is because—because,” continued Arionelli, passionately, but not violently, “my hope is over—I have nothing to confess. It is because—as I stand in this danger—as I have a soul—I have nothing that can assist you in what you desire to know. When I was stopped and brought back to prison from my way to execution, I was ignorant even of how it arose that I was suspected of this crime. I saw your anxiety for the information which you thought I possessed; and would, if I could, have gained a promise of life for myself and my comrades before I declared the truth. You will not blame me for this effort? It was not quite base or selfish; for, win or lose, it included thosewho had put themselves in danger to aid in my escape. But it is over now. I give it up. The cloak which your people recognise, may or may not, for aught I know, have been taken from the Signor Lorenzo di Vasari. But it was the property—this is all I know—of a robber of my band, who died ten days before my apprehension.”
The countenances of the judges darkened. “Where is this man?” asked the secretary Benetti; “how did he obtain this spoil, and is he one of those already in our power?”
“He is dead, as I have declared already,” said Arionelli—“dead of the plague. I have proof of this. Send for the visitors of the Ospedale St Sulpice, and ask whether two of them did not find, fourteen days since, in the upper floor of a deserted house in the Rua Pulita, a man dead of the plague; and, in the same apartment, a garment of bull’s hide, curiously fitted with a mask and horns? This last garment was mine—I named it before—and it was left there by accident. By the farther token that the directors of St Sulpice commanded the finders to burn it privately, lest its profane exhibition should scandalise the church.”
“That is true, my lord,” whispered the chief secretary to the Gonfalonière; “the fact was known to us when it happened.”
“The man who was found in that apartment,” continued Arionelli, “was called Dominico Torelli:and he died with the cloak which you now challenge in his possession. How he obtained it I know not, for I saw little of his pursuits. We were on ill terms because at other times he had concealed his booty, instead of bringing it fairly to division. Those who follow our profession think but little about forms of burial; when he was dead, his arms and money were shared by such of his associates as were at hand. This rich mantle and the doublet that I wear fell to another’s lot; but they struck my fancy, and I purchased them.”
Gonsalvo di Vasari listened patiently till the outlaw had concluded, but it was with the air of a man who was not unmoved by anything that was saying.
“We are approaching the truth,” said he, coldly; “but we must have it fully. Mark me, Arionelli! Your object is seen, and you deceive yourself to hope it can prevail. This dead robber, whom you would palm upon us, if ever he had existence, was your comrade, your follower. The crime for which you would make him answerable no single hand ever committed; and the spoil obtained was too large to have been so lightly disposed of, as you would persuade us, or concealed. Now listen to me. There are some in Florence know I am not used to trifle. The clue which lies in my hands now to my kinsman’s fate—whether of life or death—words will not induce me to give up. Therefore be wise, and speak at once; for, by the great Heaven, thereis no hope that fraud or obstinacy will avail you! If you should find resolution enough to die silent under this torture, I will try whether your wife here has strength to be equally contumacious.”
The rage of the hunted wolf was in the robber’s countenance. He saw his danger—saw that he was caught in his own toils. The very error of his judges (more than their mercilessness) led inevitably to his destruction.
“Gonfalonière!” he cried, furiously—“Gonsalvo di Vasari! Hold once more! Reflect—there is a line beyond which human suffering does not pass! The meanest wretch in Florence, who cares not for his own life, holds the fate of the highest among ye at his mercy. You feel that you dare not, for fifty times your titles and possessions, commit this villany you meditate, and let me live. There are others—companions—friends—reflect on it!—who will be left behind, and whom an act like this will rouse to certain vengeance. You have no fault to charge on this helpless woman. You can gain nothing of that you seek from her. You sacrifice her to gain that which cannot be gained—for, so help me Heaven in my last hour, I have it not!—from me. Beware! for no deed like that of tyranny and baseness ever passed unpunished. Do not drive a trodden-down wretch to desperation! Do not rush uselessly upon an act which will stand alone in the annals of infamy and crime!—Or, tell me atleast,” continued Arionelli, passionately, “if there is indeed no hope—no chance—of mercy! Before you ruin your own objects, and mine, past helping—Signor di Vasari—I know whom it is I have to deal with—Definitively—what is it that you demand?”
“For the last time,” said Gonsalvo di Vasari, “that this Court will deign to question—full confession as to the fate of my cousin, the Chevalier Lorenzo.”
“If he be dead?”
“A token of his death, and the story of its manner.”
“And though hebedead, shall Aurelia then be free?”
The Gonfalonière replied—“Of that you have our pledge.”
The outlaw paused for a moment, anxiously, and in thought.—“My Lord di Vasari,” he said, “I have already sworn that I had no share in your cousin’s fate. I believe that he has fallen. But means of inquiry I have none, except by message to those who are beyond your warrant, and who knew more of Dominico Torelli’s latter course than I know. Who but myself can do an errand such as this? Who else can search out those who hold life only while they are not found? And me you will not part with? There is but one resource. Aurelia knows the haunts of my band; she canseek those whose aid I need, and will be trusted by them as myself. Let me then be carried back to prison; and let her depart whither I direct; and if in twenty-four hours she return not with some intelligence, my life shall answer the event.”