ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth. He found prison life fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp and dark; but he had been brought up in a palace in the Via Borra, and neither close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him. The food, also, was both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained permission to send him all the necessaries of life from home. He was kept in solitary confinement, and, though the vigilance of the warders was less strict than he had expected, he failed to obtain any explanation of the cause of his arrest. Nevertheless, the tranquil frame of mind in which he had entered the fortress did not change. Not being allowed books, he spent his time in prayer and devout meditation, and waited without impatience or anxiety for the further course of events.
One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell and called to him: “This way, please!” After two or three questions, to which he got no answer but, “Talking is forbidden,” Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable and followed the soldier through a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors, and stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light room in which three persons in military uniform sat at a long table covered with green baize and littered with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory way. They put on a stiff, business air as he came in, and the oldest of them, a foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform, pointed to a chair on the other side of the table and began the preliminary interrogation.
Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn at, and had prepared himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold and formal, but perfectly courteous. The usual questions as to his name, age, nationality, and social position were put and answered, and the replies written down in monotonous succession. He was beginning to feel bored and impatient, when the colonel asked:
“And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know about Young Italy?”
“I know that it is a society which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing people to revolt and drive the Austrian army out of the country.”
“You have read this paper, I think?”
“Yes; I am interested in the subject.”
“When you read it you realized that you were committing an illegal action?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did you get the copies which were found in your room?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Mr. Burton, you must not say 'I cannot tell' here; you are bound to answer my questions.”
“I will not, then, if you object to 'cannot.'”
“You will regret it if you permit yourself to use such expressions,” remarked the colonel. As Arthur made no reply, he went on:
“I may as well tell you that evidence has come into our hands proving your connection with this society to be much more intimate than is implied by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It will be to your advantage to confess frankly. In any case the truth will be sure to come out, and you will find it useless to screen yourself behind evasion and denials.”
“I have no desire to screen myself. What is it you want to know?”
“Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be implicated in matters of this kind?”
“I thought about the subject and read everything I could get hold of, and formed my own conclusions.”
“Who persuaded you to join this society?”
“No one; I wished to join it.”
“You are shilly-shallying with me,” said the colonel, sharply; his patience was evidently beginning to give out. “No one can join a society by himself. To whom did you communicate your wish to join it?”
Silence.
“Will you have the kindness to answer me?”
“Not when you ask questions of that kind.”
Arthur spoke sullenly; a curious, nervous irritability was taking possession of him. He knew by this time that many arrests had been made in both Leghorn and Pisa; and, though still ignorant of the extent of the calamity, he had already heard enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for the safety of Gemma and his other friends. The studied politeness of the officers, the dull game of fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and evasive answers, worried and annoyed him, and the clumsy tramping backward and forward of the sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon his ear.
“Oh, by the bye, when did you last meet Giovanni Bolla?” asked the colonel, after a little more bandying of words. “Just before you left Pisa, was it?”
“I know no one of that name.”
“What! Giovanni Bolla? Surely you know him—a tall young fellow, closely shaven. Why, he is one of your fellow-students.”
“There are many students in the university whom I don't know.”
“Oh, but you must know Bolla, surely! Look, this is his handwriting. You see, he knows you well enough.”
The colonel carelessly handed him a paper headed: “Protocol,” and signed: “Giovanni Bolla.” Glancing down it Arthur came upon his own name. He looked up in surprise. “Am I to read it?”
“Yes, you may as well; it concerns you.”
He began to read, while the officers sat silently watching his face. The document appeared to consist of depositions in answer to a long string of questions. Evidently Bolla, too, must have been arrested. The first depositions were of the usual stereotyped character; then followed a short account of Bolla's connection with the society, of the dissemination of prohibited literature in Leghorn, and of the students' meetings. Next came “Among those who joined us was a young Englishman, Arthur Burton, who belongs to one of the rich shipowning families.”
The blood rushed into Arthur's face. Bolla had betrayed him! Bolla, who had taken upon himself the solemn duties of an initiator—Bolla, who had converted Gemma—who was in love with her! He laid down the paper and stared at the floor.
“I hope that little document has refreshed your memory?” hinted the colonel politely.
Arthur shook his head. “I know no one of that name,” he repeated in a dull, hard voice. “There must be some mistake.”
“Mistake? Oh, nonsense! Come, Mr. Burton, chivalry and quixotism are very fine things in their way; but there's no use in overdoing them. It's an error all you young people fall into at first. Come, think! What good is it for you to compromise yourself and spoil your prospects in life over a simple formality about a man that has betrayed you? You see yourself, he wasn't so particular as to what he said about you.”
A faint shade of something like mockery had crept into the colonel's voice. Arthur looked up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his mind.
“It's a lie!” he cried out. “It's a forgery! I can see it in your face, you cowardly——You've got some prisoner there you want to compromise, or a trap you want to drag me into. You are a forger, and a liar, and a scoundrel——”
“Silence!” shouted the colonel, starting up in a rage; his two colleagues were already on their feet. “Captain Tommasi,” he went on, turning to one of them, “ring for the guard, if you please, and have this young gentleman put in the punishment cell for a few days. He wants a lesson, I see, to bring him to reason.”
The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy hole under ground. Instead of bringing Arthur “to reason,” it thoroughly exasperated him. His luxurious home had rendered him daintily fastidious about personal cleanliness, and the first effect of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor heaped with accumulations of filth and garbage, the fearful stench of fungi and sewage and rotting wood, was strong enough to have satisfied the offended officer. When he was pushed in and the door locked behind him he took three cautious steps forward with outstretched hands, shuddering with disgust as his fingers came into contact with the slippery wall, and groped in the dense blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down.
The long day passed in unbroken blackness and silence, and the night brought no change. In the utter void and absence of all external impressions, he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and when, on the following morning, a key was turned in the door lock, and the frightened rats scurried past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden panic, his heart throbbing furiously and a roaring noise in his ears, as though he had been shut away from light and sound for months instead of hours.
The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern gleam—a flood of blinding light, it seemed to him—and the head warder entered, carrying a piece of bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step forward; he was quite convinced that the man had come to let him out. Before he had time to speak, the warder put the bread and mug into his hands, turned round and went away without a word, locking the door again.
Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For the first time in his life he was savagely angry. But as the hours went by, the consciousness of time and place gradually slipped further and further away. The blackness seemed an illimitable thing, with no beginning and no end, and life had, as it were, stopped for him. On the evening of the third day, when the door was opened and the head warder appeared on the threshold with a soldier, he looked up, dazed and bewildered, shading his eyes from the unaccustomed light, and vaguely wondering how many hours or weeks he had been in this grave.
“This way, please,” said the cool business voice of the warder. Arthur rose and moved forward mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's attempt to help him up the steep, narrow steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached the highest step a sudden giddiness came over him, so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
“There, he'll be all right now,” said a cheerful voice; “they most of them go off this way coming out into the air.”
Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was dashed into his face. The blackness seemed to fall away from him in pieces with a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly into full consciousness, and, pushing aside the warder's arm, walked along the corridor and up the stairs almost steadily. They stopped for a moment in front of a door; then it opened, and before he realized where they were taking him he was in the brightly lighted interrogation room, staring in confused wonder at the table and the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
“Ah, it's Mr. Burton!” said the colonel. “I hope we shall be able to talk more comfortably now. Well, and how do you like the dark cell? Not quite so luxurious as your brother's drawing room, is it? eh?”
Arthur raised his eyes to the colonel's smiling face. He was seized by a frantic desire to spring at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear it with his teeth. Probably something of this kind was visible in his face, for the colonel added immediately, in a quite different tone:
“Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water; you are excited.”
Arthur pushed aside the glass of water held out to him; and, leaning his arms on the table, rested his forehead on one hand and tried to collect his thoughts. The colonel sat watching him keenly, noting with experienced eyes the unsteady hands and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim gaze that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
“Now, Mr. Burton,” he said after a few minutes; “we will start at the point where we left off; and as there has been a certain amount of unpleasantness between us, I may as well begin by saying that I, for my part, have no desire to be anything but indulgent with you. If you will behave properly and reasonably, I assure you that we shall not treat you with any unnecessary harshness.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Arthur spoke in a hard, sullen voice, quite different from his natural tone.
“I only want you to tell us frankly, in a straightforward and honourable manner, what you know of this society and its adherents. First of all, how long have you known Bolla?”
“I never met him in my life. I know nothing whatever about him.”
“Really? Well, we will return to that subject presently. I think you know a young man named Carlo Bini?”
“I never heard of such a person.”
“That is very extraordinary. What about Francesco Neri?”
“I never heard the name.”
“But here is a letter in your handwriting, addressed to him. Look!”
Arthur glanced carelessly at the letter and laid it aside.
“Do you recognize that letter?”
“No.”
“You deny that it is in your writing?”
“I deny nothing. I have no recollection of it.”
“Perhaps you remember this one?”
A second letter was handed to him, and he saw that it was one which he had written in the autumn to a fellow-student.
“No.”
“Nor the person to whom it is addressed?”
“Nor the person.”
“Your memory is singularly short.”
“It is a defect from which I have always suffered.”
“Indeed! And I heard the other day from a university professor that you are considered by no means deficient; rather clever in fact.”
“You probably judge of cleverness by the police-spy standard; university professors use words in a different sense.”
The note of rising irritation was plainly audible in Arthur's voice. He was physically exhausted with hunger, foul air, and want of sleep; every bone in his body seemed to ache separately; and the colonel's voice grated on his exasperated nerves, setting his teeth on edge like the squeak of a slate pencil.
“Mr. Burton,” said the colonel, leaning back in his chair and speaking gravely, “you are again forgetting yourself; and I warn you once more that this kind of talk will do you no good. Surely you have had enough of the dark cell not to want any more just for the present. I tell you plainly that I shall use strong measures with you if you persist in repulsing gentle ones. Mind, I have proof—positive proof—that some of these young men have been engaged in smuggling prohibited literature into this port; and that you have been in communication with them. Now, are you going to tell me, without compulsion, what you know about this affair?”
Arthur bent his head lower. A blind, senseless, wild-beast fury was beginning to stir within him like a live thing. The possibility of losing command over himself was more appalling to him than any threats. For the first time he began to realize what latent potentialities may lie hidden beneath the culture of any gentleman and the piety of any Christian; and the terror of himself was strong upon him.
“I am waiting for your answer,” said the colonel.
“I have no answer to give.”
“You positively refuse to answer?”
“I will tell you nothing at all.”
“Then I must simply order you back into the punishment cell, and keep you there till you change your mind. If there is much more trouble with you, I shall put you in irons.”
Arthur looked up, trembling from head to foot. “You will do as you please,” he said slowly; “and whether the English Ambassador will stand your playing tricks of that kind with a British subject who has not been convicted of any crime is for him to decide.”
At last Arthur was conducted back to his own cell, where he flung himself down upon the bed and slept till the next morning. He was not put in irons, and saw no more of the dreaded dark cell; but the feud between him and the colonel grew more inveterate with every interrogation. It was quite useless for Arthur to pray in his cell for grace to conquer his evil passions, or to meditate half the night long upon the patience and meekness of Christ. No sooner was he brought again into the long, bare room with its baize-covered table, and confronted with the colonel's waxed moustache, than the unchristian spirit would take possession of him once more, suggesting bitter repartees and contemptuous answers. Before he had been a month in the prison the mutual irritation had reached such a height that he and the colonel could not see each other's faces without losing their temper.
The continual strain of this petty warfare was beginning to tell heavily upon his nerves. Knowing how closely he was watched, and remembering certain dreadful rumours which he had heard of prisoners secretly drugged with belladonna that notes might be taken of their ravings, he gradually became afraid to sleep or eat; and if a mouse ran past him in the night, would start up drenched with cold sweat and quivering with terror, fancying that someone was hiding in the room to listen if he talked in his sleep. The gendarmes were evidently trying to entrap him into making some admission which might compromise Bolla; and so great was his fear of slipping, by any inadvertency, into a pitfall, that he was really in danger of doing so through sheer nervousness. Bolla's name rang in his ears night and day, interfering even with his devotions, and forcing its way in among the beads of the rosary instead of the name of Mary. But the worst thing of all was that his religion, like the outer world, seemed to be slipping away from him as the days went by. To this last foothold he clung with feverish tenacity, spending several hours of each day in prayer and meditation; but his thoughts wandered more and more often to Bolla, and the prayers were growing terribly mechanical.
His greatest comfort was the head warder of the prison. This was a little old man, fat and bald, who at first had tried his hardest to wear a severe expression. Gradually the good nature which peeped out of every dimple in his chubby face conquered his official scruples, and he began carrying messages for the prisoners from cell to cell.
One afternoon in the middle of May this warder came into the cell with a face so scowling and gloomy that Arthur looked at him in astonishment.
“Why, Enrico!” he exclaimed; “what on earth is wrong with you to-day?”
“Nothing,” said Enrico snappishly; and, going up to the pallet, he began pulling off the rug, which was Arthur's property.
“What do you want with my things? Am I to be moved into another cell?”
“No; you're to be let out.”
“Let out? What—to-day? For altogether? Enrico!”
In his excitement Arthur had caught hold of the old man's arm. It was angrily wrenched away.
“Enrico! What has come to you? Why don't you answer? Are we all going to be let out?”
A contemptuous grunt was the only reply.
“Look here!” Arthur again took hold of the warder's arm, laughing. “It is no use for you to be cross to me, because I'm not going to get offended. I want to know about the others.”
“Which others?” growled Enrico, suddenly laying down the shirt he was folding. “Not Bolla, I suppose?”
“Bolla and all the rest, of course. Enrico, what is the matter with you?”
“Well, he's not likely to be let out in a hurry, poor lad, when a comrade has betrayed him. Ugh!” Enrico took up the shirt again in disgust.
“Betrayed him? A comrade? Oh, how dreadful!” Arthur's eyes dilated with horror. Enrico turned quickly round.
“Why, wasn't it you?”
“I? Are you off your head, man? I?”
“Well, they told him so yesterday at interrogation, anyhow. I'm very glad if it wasn't you, for I always thought you were rather a decent young fellow. This way!” Enrico stepped out into the corridor and Arthur followed him, a light breaking in upon the confusion of his mind.
“They told Bolla I'd betrayed him? Of course they did! Why, man, they told me he had betrayed me. Surely Bolla isn't fool enough to believe that sort of stuff?”
“Then it really isn't true?” Enrico stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked searchingly at Arthur, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course it's a lie.”
“Well, I'm glad to hear it, my lad, and I'll tell him you said so. But you see what they told him was that you had denounced him out of—well, out of jealousy, because of your both being sweet on the same girl.”
“It's a lie!” Arthur repeated the words in a quick, breathless whisper. A sudden, paralyzing fear had come over him. “The same girl—jealousy!” How could they know—how could they know?
“Wait a minute, my lad.” Enrico stopped in the corridor leading to the interrogation room, and spoke softly. “I believe you; but just tell me one thing. I know you're a Catholic; did you ever say anything in the confessional———”
“It's a lie!” This time Arthur's voice had risen to a stifled cry.
Enrico shrugged his shoulders and moved on again. “You know best, of course; but you wouldn't be the only young fool that's been taken in that way. There's a tremendous ado just now about a priest in Pisa that some of your friends have found out. They've printed a leaflet saying he's a spy.”
He opened the door of the interrogation room, and, seeing that Arthur stood motionless, staring blankly before him, pushed him gently across the threshold.
“Good-afternoon, Mr. Burton,” said the colonel, smiling and showing his teeth amiably. “I have great pleasure in congratulating you. An order for your release has arrived from Florence. Will you kindly sign this paper?”
Arthur went up to him. “I want to know,” he said in a dull voice, “who it was that betrayed me.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows with a smile.
“Can't you guess? Think a minute.”
Arthur shook his head. The colonel put out both hands with a gesture of polite surprise.
“Can't guess? Really? Why, you yourself, Mr. Burton. Who else could know your private love affairs?”
Arthur turned away in silence. On the wall hung a large wooden crucifix; and his eyes wandered slowly to its face; but with no appeal in them, only a dim wonder at this supine and patient God that had no thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed the confessional.
“Will you kindly sign this receipt for your papers?” said the colonel blandly; “and then I need not keep you any longer. I am sure you must be in a hurry to get home; and my time is very much taken up just now with the affairs of that foolish young man, Bolla, who tried your Christian forbearance so hard. I am afraid he will get a rather heavy sentence. Good-afternoon!”
Arthur signed the receipt, took his papers, and went out in dead silence. He followed Enrico to the massive gate; and, without a word of farewell, descended to the water's edge, where a ferryman was waiting to take him across the moat. As he mounted the stone steps leading to the street, a girl in a cotton dress and straw hat ran up to him with outstretched hands.
“Arthur! Oh, I'm so glad—I'm so glad!”
He drew his hands away, shivering.
“Jim!” he said at last, in a voice that did not seem to belong to him. “Jim!”
“I've been waiting here for half an hour. They said you would come out at four. Arthur, why do you look at me like that? Something has happened! Arthur, what has come to you? Stop!”
He had turned away, and was walking slowly down the street, as if he had forgotten her presence. Thoroughly frightened at his manner, she ran after him and caught him by the arm.
“Arthur!”
He stopped and looked up with bewildered eyes. She slipped her arm through his, and they walked on again for a moment in silence.
“Listen, dear,” she began softly; “you mustn't get so upset over this wretched business. I know it's dreadfully hard on you, but everybody understands.”
“What business?” he asked in the same dull voice.
“I mean, about Bolla's letter.”
Arthur's face contracted painfully at the name.
“I thought you wouldn't have heard of it,” Gemma went on; “but I suppose they've told you. Bolla must be perfectly mad to have imagined such a thing.”
“Such a thing——?”
“You don't know about it, then? He has written a horrible letter, saying that you have told about the steamers, and got him arrested. It's perfectly absurd, of course; everyone that knows you sees that; it's only the people who don't know you that have been upset by it. Really, that's what I came here for—to tell you that no one in our group believes a word of it.”
“Gemma! But it's—it's true!”
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood quite still, her eyes wide and dark with horror, her face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round them both, shutting them out, in a world apart, from the life and movement of the street.
“Yes,” he whispered at last; “the steamers—I spoke of that; and I said his name—oh, my God! my God! What shall I do?”
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence and the mortal terror in her face. Yes, of course, she must think———
“Gemma, you don't understand!” he burst out, moving nearer; but she recoiled with a sharp cry:
“Don't touch me!”
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden violence.
“Listen, for God's sake! It was not my fault; I——”
“Let go; let my hand go! Let go!”
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away from his, and struck him across the cheek with her open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma's white and desperate face, and the right hand which she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton dress. Then the daylight crept back again, and he looked round and saw that he was alone.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great house in the Via Borra. He remembered that he had been wandering about the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he had no idea. Julia's page opened the door, yawning, and grinned significantly at the haggard, stony face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to have the young master come home from jail like a “drunk and disorderly” beggar. Arthur went upstairs. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval. He tried to pass with a muttered “Good evening”; but Gibbons was no easy person to get past against his will.
“The gentlemen are out, sir,” he said, looking critically at Arthur's rather neglected dress and hair. “They have gone with the mistress to an evening party, and will not be back till nearly twelve.”
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock. Oh, yes! he would have time—plenty of time———
“My mistress desired me to ask whether you would like any supper, sir; and to say that she hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly wishes to speak to you this evening.”
“I don't want anything, thank you; you can tell her I have not gone to bed.”
He went up to his room. Nothing in it had been changed since his arrest; Montanelli's portrait was on the table where he had placed it, and the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He paused a moment on the threshold, listening; but the house was quite still; evidently no one was coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the room and locked the door.
And so he had come to the end. There was nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate and useless consciousness to get rid of—and nothing more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide, nor indeed had he thought much about it; the thing was quite obvious and inevitable. He had even no definite idea as to what manner of death to choose; all that mattered was to be done with it quickly—to have it over and forget. He had no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife; but that was of no consequence—a towel would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window. That would do; but it must be firm to bear his weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and took a hammer from a drawer. He knocked in the nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed, when he suddenly remembered that he had not said his prayers. Of course, one must pray before dying; every Christian does that. There are even special prayers for a departing soul.
He went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix. “Almighty and merciful God——” he began aloud; and with that broke off and said no more. Indeed, the world was grown so dull that there was nothing left to pray for—or against. And then, what did Christ know about a trouble of this kind—Christ, who had never suffered it? He had only been betrayed, like Bolla; He had never been tricked into betraying.
Arthur rose, crossing himself from old habit. Approaching the table, he saw lying upon it a letter addressed to him, in Montanelli's handwriting. It was in pencil:
“My Dear Boy: It is a great disappointment to me that I cannot see you on the day of your release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying man. I shall not get back till late at night. Come to me early to-morrow morning. In great haste,
“L. M.”
He put down the letter with a sigh; it did seem hard on the Padre.
How the people had laughed and gossiped in the streets! Nothing was altered since the days when he had been alive. Not the least little one of all the daily trifles round him was changed because a human soul, a living human soul, had been struck down dead. It was all just the same as before. The water had plashed in the fountains; the sparrows had twittered under the eaves; just as they had done yesterday, just as they would do to-morrow. And as for him, he was dead—quite dead.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed his arms along the foot-rail, and rested his forehead upon them. There was plenty of time; and his head ached so—the very middle of the brain seemed to ache; it was all so dull and stupid—so utterly meaningless——
The front-door bell rang sharply, and he started up in a breathless agony of terror, with both hands at his throat. They had come back—he had sat there dreaming, and let the precious time slip away—and now he must see their faces and hear their cruel tongues—their sneers and comments—If only he had a knife———
He looked desperately round the room. His mother's work-basket stood in a little cupboard; surely there would be scissors; he might sever an artery. No; the sheet and nail were safer, if he had time.
He dragged the counterpane from his bed, and with frantic haste began tearing off a strip. The sound of footsteps came up the stairs. No; the strip was too wide; it would not tie firmly; and there must be a noose. He worked faster as the footsteps drew nearer; and the blood throbbed in his temples and roared in his ears. Quicker—quicker! Oh, God! five minutes more!
There was a knock at the door. The strip of torn stuff dropped from his hands, and he sat quite still, holding his breath to listen. The handle of the door was tried; then Julia's voice called:
“Arthur!”
He stood up, panting.
“Arthur, open the door, please; we are waiting.”
He gathered up the torn counterpane, threw it into a drawer, and hastily smoothed down the bed.
“Arthur!” This time it was James who called, and the door-handle was shaken impatiently. “Are you asleep?”
Arthur looked round the room, saw that everything was hidden, and unlocked the door.
“I should think you might at least have obeyed my express request that you should sit up for us, Arthur,” said Julia, sweeping into the room in a towering passion. “You appear to think it the proper thing for us to dance attendance for half an hour at your door——”
“Four minutes, my dear,” James mildly corrected, stepping into the room at the end of his wife's pink satin train. “I certainly think, Arthur, that it would have been more—becoming if——”
“What do you want?” Arthur interrupted. He was standing with his hand upon the door, glancing furtively from one to the other like a trapped animal. But James was too obtuse and Julia too angry to notice the look.
Mr. Burton placed a chair for his wife and sat down, carefully pulling up his new trousers at the knees. “Julia and I,” he began, “feel it to be our duty to speak to you seriously about——”
“I can't listen to-night; I—I'm not well. My head aches—you must wait.”
Arthur spoke in a strange, indistinct voice, with a confused and rambling manner. James looked round in surprise.
“Is there anything the matter with you?” he asked anxiously, suddenly remembering that Arthur had come from a very hotbed of infection. “I hope you're not sickening for anything. You look quite feverish.”
“Nonsense!” Julia interrupted sharply. “It's only the usual theatricals, because he's ashamed to face us. Come here and sit down, Arthur.” Arthur slowly crossed the room and sat down on the bed. “Yes?” he said wearily.
Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat, smoothed his already immaculate beard, and began the carefully prepared speech over again:
“I feel it to be my duty—my painful duty—to speak very seriously to you about your extraordinary behaviour in connecting yourself with—a—law-breakers and incendiaries and—a—persons of disreputable character. I believe you to have been, perhaps, more foolish than depraved—a——”
He paused.
“Yes?” Arthur said again.
“Now, I do not wish to be hard on you,” James went on, softening a little in spite of himself before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner. “I am quite willing to believe that you have been led away by bad companions, and to take into account your youth and inexperience and the—a—a—imprudent and—a—impulsive character which you have, I fear, inherited from your mother.”
Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's portrait and back again, but he did not speak.
“But you will, I feel sure, understand,” James continued, “that it is quite impossible for me to keep any longer in my house a person who has brought public disgrace upon a name so highly respected as ours.”
“Yes?” Arthur repeated once more.
“Well?” said Julia sharply, closing her fan with a snap and laying it across her knee. “Are you going to have the goodness to say anything but 'Yes,' Arthur?”
“You will do as you think best, of course,” he answered slowly, without moving. “It doesn't matter much either way.”
“Doesn't—matter?” James repeated, aghast; and his wife rose with a laugh.
“Oh, it doesn't matter, doesn't it? Well, James, I hope you understand now how much gratitude you may expect in that quarter. I told you what would come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses and their——”
“Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!”
“It's all nonsense, James; we've had more than enough of this sentimentality! A love-child setting himself up as a member of the family—it's quite time he did know what his mother was! Why should we be saddled with the child of a Popish priest's amourettes? There, then—look!”
She pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and tossed it across the table to Arthur. He opened it; the writing was in his mother's hand, and was dated four months before his birth. It was a confession, addressed to her husband, and with two signatures.
Arthur's eyes travelled slowly down the page, past the unsteady letters in which her name was written, to the strong, familiar signature: “Lorenzo Montanelli.” For a moment he stared at the writing; then, without a word, refolded the paper and laid it down. James rose and took his wife by the arm.
“There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs now; it's late, and I want to talk a little business with Arthur. It won't interest you.”
She glanced up at her husband; then back at Arthur, who was silently staring at the floor.
“He seems half stupid,” she whispered.
When she had gathered up her train and left the room, James carefully shut the door and went back to his chair beside the table. Arthur sat as before, perfectly motionless and silent.
“Arthur,” James began in a milder tone, now Julia was not there to hear, “I am very sorry that this has come out. You might just as well not have known it. However, all that's over; and I am pleased to see that you can behave with such self-control. Julia is a—a little excited; ladies often—anyhow, I don't want to be too hard on you.”
He stopped to see what effect the kindly words had produced; but Arthur was quite motionless.
“Of course, my dear boy,” James went on after a moment, “this is a distressing story altogether, and the best thing we can do is to hold our tongues about it. My father was generous enough not to divorce your mother when she confessed her fall to him; he only demanded that the man who had led her astray should leave the country at once; and, as you know, he went to China as a missionary. For my part, I was very much against your having anything to do with him when he came back; but my father, just at the last, consented to let him teach you, on condition that he never attempted to see your mother. I must, in justice, acknowledge that I believe they both observed that condition faithfully to the end. It is a very deplorable business; but——”
Arthur looked up. All the life and expression had gone out of his face; it was like a waxen mask.
“D-don't you think,” he said softly, with a curious stammering hesitation on the words, “th-that—all this—is—v-very—funny?”
“FUNNY?” James pushed his chair away from the table, and sat staring at him, too much petrified for anger. “Funny! Arthur, are you mad?”
Arthur suddenly threw back his head, and burst into a frantic fit of laughing.
“Arthur!” exclaimed the shipowner, rising with dignity, “I am amazed at your levity!”
There was no answer but peal after peal of laughter, so loud and boisterous that even James began to doubt whether there was not something more the matter here than levity.
“Just like a hysterical woman,” he muttered, turning, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders, to tramp impatiently up and down the room. “Really, Arthur, you're worse than Julia; there, stop laughing! I can't wait about here all night.”
He might as well have asked the crucifix to come down from its pedestal. Arthur was past caring for remonstrances or exhortations; he only laughed, and laughed, and laughed without end.
“This is absurd!” said James, stopping at last in his irritated pacing to and fro. “You are evidently too much excited to be reasonable to-night. I can't talk business with you if you're going on that way. Come to me to-morrow morning after breakfast. And now you had better go to bed. Good-night.”
He went out, slamming the door. “Now for the hysterics downstairs,” he muttered as he tramped noisily away. “I suppose it'll be tears there!”
The frenzied laughter died on Arthur's lips. He snatched up the hammer from the table and flung himself upon the crucifix.
With the crash that followed he came suddenly to his senses, standing before the empty pedestal, the hammer still in his hand, and the fragments of the broken image scattered on the floor about his feet.
He threw down the hammer. “So easy!” he said, and turned away. “And what an idiot I am!”
He sat down by the table, panting heavily for breath, and rested his forehead on both hands. Presently he rose, and, going to the wash-stand, poured a jugful of cold water over his head and face. He came back quite composed, and sat down to think.
And it was for such things as these—for these false and slavish people, these dumb and soulless gods—that he had suffered all these tortures of shame and passion and despair; had made a rope to hang himself, forsooth, because one priest was a liar. As if they were not all liars! Well, all that was done with; he was wiser now. He need only shake off these vermin and begin life afresh.
There were plenty of goods vessels in the docks; it would be an easy matter to stow himself away in one of them, and get across to Canada, Australia, Cape Colony—anywhere. It was no matter for the country, if only it was far enough; and, as for the life out there, he could see, and if it did not suit him he could try some other place.
He took out his purse. Only thirty-three paoli; but his watch was a good one. That would help him along a bit; and in any case it was of no consequence—he should pull through somehow. But they would search for him, all these people; they would be sure to make inquiries at the docks. No; he must put them on a false scent—make them believe him dead; then he should be quite free—quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the thought of the Burtons searching for his corpse. What a farce the whole thing was!
Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words that occurred to him:
“I believed in you as I believed in God. God is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie.”
He folded up the paper, directed it to Montanelli, and, taking another sheet, wrote across it: “Look for my body in Darsena.” Then he put on his hat and went out of the room. Passing his mother's portrait, he looked up with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied to him.
He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping back the door-bolts, went out on to the great, dark, echoing marble staircase. It seemed to yawn beneath him like a black pit as he descended.
He crossed the courtyard, treading cautiously for fear of waking Gian Battista, who slept on the ground floor. In the wood-cellar at the back was a little grated window, opening on the canal and not more than four feet from the ground. He remembered that the rusty grating had broken away on one side; by pushing a little he could make an aperture wide enough to climb out by.
The grating was strong, and he grazed his hands badly and tore the sleeve of his coat; but that was no matter. He looked up and down the street; there was no one in sight, and the canal lay black and silent, an ugly trench between two straight and slimy walls. The untried universe might prove a dismal hole, but it could hardly be more flat and sordid than the corner which he was leaving behind him. There was nothing to regret; nothing to look back upon. It had been a pestilent little stagnant world, full of squalid lies and clumsy cheats and foul-smelling ditches that were not even deep enough to drown a man.
He walked along the canal bank, and came out upon the tiny square by the Medici palace. It was here that Gemma had run up to him with her vivid face, her outstretched hands. Here was the little flight of wet stone steps leading down to the moat; and there the fortress scowling across the strip of dirty water. He had never noticed before how squat and mean it looked.
Passing through the narrow streets he reached the Darsena shipping-basin, where he took off his hat and flung it into the water. It would be found, of course, when they dragged for his body. Then he walked on along the water's edge, considering perplexedly what to do next. He must contrive to hide on some ship; but it was a difficult thing to do. His only chance would be to get on to the huge old Medici breakwater and walk along to the further end of it. There was a low-class tavern on the point; probably he should find some sailor there who could be bribed.
But the dock gates were closed. How should he get past them, and past the customs officials? His stock of money would not furnish the high bribe that they would demand for letting him through at night and without a passport. Besides they might recognize him.
As he passed the bronze statue of the “Four Moors,” a man's figure emerged from an old house on the opposite side of the shipping basin and approached the bridge. Arthur slipped at once into the deep shadow behind the group of statuary and crouched down in the darkness, peeping cautiously round the corner of the pedestal.
It was a soft spring night, warm and starlit. The water lapped against the stone walls of the basin and swirled in gentle eddies round the steps with a sound as of low laughter. Somewhere near a chain creaked, swinging slowly to and fro. A huge iron crane towered up, tall and melancholy in the dimness. Black on a shimmering expanse of starry sky and pearly cloud-wreaths, the figures of the fettered, struggling slaves stood out in vain and vehement protest against a merciless doom.
The man approached unsteadily along the water side, shouting an English street song. He was evidently a sailor returning from a carouse at some tavern. No one else was within sight. As he drew near, Arthur stood up and stepped into the middle of the roadway. The sailor broke off in his song with an oath, and stopped short.
“I want to speak to you,” Arthur said in Italian. “Do you understand me?”
The man shook his head. “It's no use talking that patter to me,” he said; then, plunging into bad French, asked sullenly: “What do you want? Why can't you let me pass?”
“Just come out of the light here a minute; I want to speak to you.”
“Ah! wouldn't you like it? Out of the light! Got a knife anywhere about you?”
“No, no, man! Can't you see I only want your help? I'll pay you for it?”
“Eh? What? And dressed like a swell, too———” The sailor had relapsed into English. He now moved into the shadow and leaned against the railing of the pedestal.
“Well,” he said, returning to his atrocious French; “and what is it you want?”
“I want to get away from here——”
“Aha! Stowaway! Want me to hide you? Been up to something, I suppose. Stuck a knife into somebody, eh? Just like these foreigners! And where might you be wanting to go? Not to the police station, I fancy?”
He laughed in his tipsy way, and winked one eye.
“What vessel do you belong to?”
“Carlotta—Leghorn to Buenos Ayres; shipping oil one way and hides the other. She's over there”—pointing in the direction of the breakwater—“beastly old hulk!”
“Buenos Ayres—yes! Can you hide me anywhere on board?”
“How much can you give?”
“Not very much; I have only a few paoli.”
“No. Can't do it under fifty—and cheap at that, too—a swell like you.”
“What do you mean by a swell? If you like my clothes you may change with me, but I can't give you more money than I have got.”
“You have a watch there. Hand it over.”
Arthur took out a lady's gold watch, delicately chased and enamelled, with the initials “G. B.” on the back. It had been his mother's—but what did that matter now?
“Ah!” remarked the sailor with a quick glance at it. “Stolen, of course! Let me look!”
Arthur drew his hand away. “No,” he said. “I will give you the watch when we are on board; not before.”
“You're not such a fool as you look, after all! I'll bet it's your first scrape, though, eh?”
“That is my business. Ah! there comes the watchman.”
They crouched down behind the group of statuary and waited till the watchman had passed. Then the sailor rose, and, telling Arthur to follow him, walked on, laughing foolishly to himself. Arthur followed in silence.
The sailor led him back to the little irregular square by the Medici palace; and, stopping in a dark corner, mumbled in what was intended for a cautious whisper:
“Wait here; those soldier fellows will see you if you come further.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get you some clothes. I'm not going to take you on board with that bloody coatsleeve.”
Arthur glanced down at the sleeve which had been torn by the window grating. A little blood from the grazed hand had fallen upon it. Evidently the man thought him a murderer. Well, it was of no consequence what people thought.
After some time the sailor came back, triumphant, with a bundle under his arm.
“Change,” he whispered; “and make haste about it. I must get back, and that old Jew has kept me bargaining and haggling for half an hour.”
Arthur obeyed, shrinking with instinctive disgust at the first touch of second-hand clothes. Fortunately these, though rough and coarse, were fairly clean. When he stepped into the light in his new attire, the sailor looked at him with tipsy solemnity and gravely nodded his approval.
“You'll do,” he said. “This way, and don't make a noise.” Arthur, carrying his discarded clothes, followed him through a labyrinth of winding canals and dark narrow alleys; the mediaeval slum quarter which the people of Leghorn call “New Venice.” Here and there a gloomy old palace, solitary among the squalid houses and filthy courts, stood between two noisome ditches, with a forlorn air of trying to preserve its ancient dignity and yet of knowing the effort to be a hopeless one. Some of the alleys, he knew, were notorious dens of thieves, cut-throats, and smugglers; others were merely wretched and poverty-stricken.
Beside one of the little bridges the sailor stopped, and, looking round to see that they were not observed, descended a flight of stone steps to a narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply ordering Arthur to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the boat and began rowing towards the harbour's mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and leaky planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had thrown over him, and peeping out from under them at the familiar streets and houses.
Presently they passed under a bridge and entered that part of the canal which forms a moat for the fortress. The massive walls rose out of the water, broad at the base and narrowing upward to the frowning turrets. How strong, how threatening they had seemed to him a few hours ago! And now——
He laughed softly as he lay in the bottom of the boat.
“Hold your noise,” the sailor whispered, “and keep your head covered! We're close to the custom house.”
Arthur drew the clothes over his head. A few yards further on the boat stopped before a row of masts chained together, which lay across the surface of the canal, blocking the narrow waterway between the custom house and the fortress wall. A sleepy official came out yawning and bent over the water's edge with a lantern in his hand.
“Passports, please.”
The sailor handed up his official papers. Arthur, half stifled under the clothes, held his breath, listening.
“A nice time of night to come back to your ship!” grumbled the customs official. “Been out on the spree, I suppose. What's in your boat?”
“Old clothes. Got them cheap.” He held up the waistcoat for inspection. The official, lowering his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.
“It's all right, I suppose. You can pass.”
He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly out into the dark, heaving water. At a little distance Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.
“Here she is,” the sailor whispered, after rowing for some time in silence. “Keep close behind me and hold your tongue.”
He clambered up the side of a huge black monster, swearing under his breath at the clumsiness of the landsman, though Arthur's natural agility rendered him less awkward than most people would have been in his place. Once safely on board, they crept cautiously between dark masses of rigging and machinery, and came at last to a hatchway, which the sailor softly raised.
“Down here!” he whispered. “I'll be back in a minute.”
The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably foul. At first Arthur instinctively drew back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and rancid oil. Then he remembered the “punishment cell,” and descended the ladder, shrugging his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same everywhere, it seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with vermin, full of shameful secrets and dark corners. Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.
In a few minutes the sailor came back with something in his hands which Arthur could not distinctly see for the darkness.
“Now, give me the watch and money. Make haste!”
Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded in keeping back a few coins.
“You must get me something to eat,” he said; “I am half starved.”
“I've brought it. Here you are.” The sailor handed him a pitcher, some hard biscuit, and a piece of salt pork. “Now mind, you must hide in this empty barrel, here, when the customs officers come to examine to-morrow morning. Keep as still as a mouse till we're right out at sea. I'll let you know when to come out. And won't you just catch it when the captain sees you—that's all! Got the drink safe? Good-night!”
The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the precious “drink” in a safe place, climbed on to an oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the first time since his babyhood, settled himself to sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round him in the darkness; but neither their persistent noise nor the swaying of the ship, nor the nauseating stench of oil, nor the prospect of to-morrow's sea-sickness, could keep him awake. He cared no more for them all than for the broken and dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been the gods of his adoration.