[1]He who slumbers not.
[1]He who slumbers not.
Fra Angelo and his nephew were silent for a few moments. The monk was absorbed by the bitter yet glorious memories of his younger days. Michel gazed at him with delight; and, no longer wondering at the martial air and muscular strength concealed beneath the frock, mused with the admiration of an artist upon the strange poesy of that life of devotion to a single idea. If there was something abnormal and, to a certain extent, entertaining in the history of the Capuchin, who still boasted of his life as a bandit and seriously regretted it, there was something truly noble in the way in which the ex-brigand preserved his individual dignity, compromised as it had been in such extraordinary adventures. Dagger or crucifix in hand, slaying traitors in the forest or begging for the poor at the gates of palaces, he was always the same, proud, ingenuous, unbending in his ideas, seeking to do good by the most vigorous methods, detesting cowardly acts with such intensity that he was still quite capable of punishing them with his own hand, utterly unable to understand the selfish motives by which the world is governed, or to believe that any man would not be ready at any moment to attempt the impossible rather than palter with the expedients suggested by cold circumspection.
"Why do you admire the secondary hero of my story?" he said to his nephew when he emerged from his reverie. "Self-sacrifice and patriotism must amount to something in your eyes, for that man had no other motive, and, in the present state of society, would have been only a poor fool—perhaps a lunatic."
"Yes, uncle, sincere devotion and the sacrifice of one's whole individuality to an idea are noble things, and if I had known you in those days—if I had been a man grown—I should probably have followed you into the mountains. I might have been less devotedly attached than you were to the Prince of Castro-Reale, but I trust I should have had the same illusions and the same love for the cause of my country."
"Really, young man?" said Fra Angelo, fixing his penetrating eyes upon Michel's face.
"Really, uncle," the young man replied, proudly raising his head, and sustaining that searching glance with the assurance of conviction.
"And is it too late now to attempt anything, my poor boy?" said Fra Angelo, with a sigh. "Has the time passed when we can believe in the triumph of the truth, and is the new society, which I have had no better chance to study in my cloister than in my bandit's cave, determined to allow itself to be crushed forever?"
"I hope not, uncle. If I thought so, it seems to me that I should no longer have any blood in my veins, inspiration in my brain, or love in my bosom, and that I should no longer be capable of being an artist. But still we must recognize the fact that society is not what it must have been in this island at the beginning of your enterprise. Even if it has taken some steps toward intellectual discoveries, it is certain that the impulses of the heart have lost their energy."
"And you call that progress?" exclaimed the Capuchin, sorrowfully.
"No, far from it," Michel replied; "but how can those who are born during this state of society breathe any other air than that in which they were born, or entertain other ideas than those which have been forced into them? Must we not yield to the evidence, and bend our necks to the yoke of reality? Did not you yourself, my excellent uncle, when you passed from the exciting life of a free adventurer to the inflexible discipline of the cloister, did not you find that society was not what you thought, and that it was no longer possible to effect anything by violence?"
"Alas! that is true!" replied the monk. "During the ten years that I passed in the mountains, I did not know what revolutions were taking place in the manners of civilized mankind. When theDestatorehad sent me into the cities with his agents, to try to make satisfactory terms with the nobles whom he had known as loyal patriots, and with the rich and well-educated middle class citizens whom he had known as ardent liberals, I was forced to the conviction that those people were no longer the same, that they had brought up their children with other ideas, that they no longer cared to risk their fortunes and their lives in those hazardous undertakings in which only faith and enthusiasm can perform miracles. Yes, yes, the world had progressed—backward, according to my idea. People no longer talked of anything but making money, of fighting monopolies, of establishing competition, of founding new industries. They all deemed themselves rich already, they were in such haste to become so, and the government could purchase whomsoever it pleased, by the promise of the most trifling privilege. Yes, they had but to promise, to hold out hopes of fortune, and the most ardent patriots pounced upon those hopes, saying: 'industry will give us back our liberty!'
"The common people also believed it, and every employer could bring his employés to the feet of the new masters, the poor creatures imagining that their arms were about to bring them in millions. It was a sort of fever, a universal mania. I sought men, I found only machines. I talked of the fatherland and honor, they replied by discussing sulphur and silk weaving. I went away disheartened, but uncertain, not daring to censure too severely what I had seen, and saying to myself that it was not for me, ignorant and uncivilized as I was, to pass judgment upon the new resources which these mysterious discoveries were going to create for my country.
"But since then, great heaven! I have seen the result of these fine promises so far as the common people are concerned! I have seen some shrewd fellows restore their own fortunes by ruining their friends and paying court to the ruling powers. I have seen many families of petty tradespeople attain great wealth; but I have seen honorable men persecuted more and more; I have seen, especially, and I see now every day, more beggars and more poor wretches without bread, without homes, without education, without a future. And I ask myself what good you have done with your new ideas, your progress, your theories of equality! You despise the past, you spit upon the old abuses, and you have killed the future by creating new abuses more monstrous than the old. The best among you, the young men, are on the alert for the revolutionary doctrines of nations more advanced than ours. You consider yourselves highly enlightened, very strong, when you can say: 'No more nobles, no more priests, no more convents, no more of anything connected with the past!' And you do not see that you no longer have the poesy, the faith and the pride which gave life to the past.
"Let us see!" added the Capuchin, folding his arms over his heaving breast, and eyeing Michel with a half fatherly, half bullying, air: "you are a very young man, a child! You consider yourself very clever, because you know what people say and think in society at this moment. You look at this stupid monk, who passes the day breaking rock in order to set out an extra row of peppers or tomatoes on the lava next year, and you say:
"'That's a strange way for a man to pass his life! And yet this man was neither lazy nor dull. He might have been a lawyer or a tradesman, and have earned money like other men. He might have married, had children, and taught them to hold their own in society. He preferred to bury himself alive in a convent and beg! It is because he is under the influence of the past, and has always been the dupe of the old chimeras and old superstitions of his country!'
"Very good! now, do you know what I think as I look at you? I say to myself: 'Here is a young man who has come much in contact with the minds of other men, who has very quickly thrown off the fetters of his class, who does not choose to share the sufferings of his native country, the labors of his kinsmen. He will succeed; he is a handsome youth, keener and more logical in his ideas and his words at eighteen than I was at thirty. He knows a multitude of things which had seemed useless to me and which I did not even suspect, until the leisure of the cloister enabled me to educate myself a little. He stands there, smiling at my enthusiasm, and, mounted on his sound sense, his premature experience, his knowledge of men, and his profound study of the science of personal interest, looks upon me in his mind as a teacher looks upon his pupil. He is the mature man; and I, an old brigand and old monk, am the fearless youth, the blind and artless child! Strange transposition! He represents the new generation, all for gold and glory; and I the dust of ruins, the silence of the tomb!'
"Very good! but let the tocsin sound, let the volcano rumble, let the people roar, let that black point which we see in the roadstead, and which is the ship of State, bristle with guns to destroy the city at the first breath of aspiration toward liberty; let the brigands come down from the mountains, let the flames soar aloft to the clouds; and in that last convulsion of the dying fatherland, the young artist will take his brushes, he will go and take his seat upon a hill, out of all danger, and he will paint a picture, saying to himself: 'What an unfortunate people, and what a magnificent spectacle! I must hasten to put it on canvas! in an instant this people will have ceased to exist, its last hour is striking!'
"Whereas the old monk will take his gun, which is not yet rusty; he will turn his sleeves back to the shoulder, and without stopping to ask himself what will be the result of it all, he will rush into the scrimmage and will fight for his countrymen until his crushed and trampled body no longer resembles a human being. And I would rather die so, boy, than survive, as you will do, the destruction of my race!"
"My father! my father! do not believe it," cried Michel, conquered and carried off his feet by the Capuchin's exaltation. "I am not a coward! and if my Sicilian blood flowed sluggishly on foreign soil, it is quickened by the fiery breath which your breast exhales. Do not crush me beneath that terrible malediction! Take me in your arms and set me on fire with your flames. With you I feel really alive, and this new life intoxicates and enraptures me!"
"Good! here is an honest impulse at last!" said the monk, embracing him. "I like this better than the fine theories concerning art which you have persuaded your father to respect blindly."
"Forgive me, uncle," rejoined Michel, with a smile, "I do not surrender on that point. I will maintain with my last breath the dignity and importance of art. You said just now that in the midst of civil war I would coolly go and sit down in a corner, to paint episodes of the conflict instead of fighting. I would fight, I beg you to believe, and I would fight hard if the object were to drive out the enemy. I would gladly lay down my life; glory would come to me more quickly so than I shall attain it by studying painting, and I love glory: in that respect I fear that I am incorrigible. But if I were in truth doomed to survive the downfall of my people after fighting in vain for their triumph, it is probable that I should collect my painful reminiscences and paint many pictures, to reproduce and perpetuate the memory of those bloody catastrophes. The more excited and desperate I was, the better and more striking my work would be. It would speak to men's hearts; it would arouse admiration for our heroism, pity for our misfortunes, and I assure you that it might prove that I had served our cause better with my brush than I had done with my gun."
"Very good! very good!" rejoined the monk, with an ingenuous outburst of sympathy. "That is well said and well thought. We have a brother here who is a sculptor, and I consider that his work is no less useful to the cause of religion than mine is to the convent when I break up this lava. But that brother has faith, and he can carve the features of the Blessed Madonna without lowering the idea that we form of her. You will paint fine pictures, Michel; but only on the condition that you have taken part in the battle with heart and hand, and have been a zealous actor, not an unmoved spectator of events."
"Now we are altogether in accord, my father; there is no genius in art without conviction and without emotion: but as there is nothing more for us to dispute about, if you are content with me at last, pray tell me what is going on, and wherein you expect my assistance. Are we on the eve of some important undertaking?"
Fra Angelo was so excited that he had lost all notion of his surroundings. Suddenly his gleaming eyes filled with tears, his heaving breast fell with a deep sigh, his hands, which quivered as if they were feeling for pistols in his belt, fell back upon the cord around his waist and touched his chaplet.
"Alas! no," he said, glancing about with startled eyes, like a man suddenly aroused from sleep, "we are on the eve of nothing, and it may be that I shall die in my cell without ever renewing the priming of my gun. It was all a dream which you shared with me for an instant; but do not regret it, young man, it was a noble dream, and that instant, which did me inestimable good, may have made you a better man. The result of it has been that I know you and esteem you. Now we are friends for life and death. Let us not despair of anything. Look at Ætna! it is peaceful and radiant; it is hardly smoking, and does not make a sound. To-morrow, perhaps, it may belch forth its burning lava again and utterly destroy the ground on which we stand. It is the emblem and the image of the Sicilian people, and the hour forVespersmay strike in the midst of dancing or of slumber. But the sun is sinking, and I have no more time to waste before telling you what I have to tell that concerns you. It is a matter entirely personal to you, of which I desired to speak with you, and it is a very serious matter. You cannot extricate yourself from it without my assistance and that of certain other persons who, like myself, are prepared to risk their liberty, their honor, and their lives, to save you."
"Is it possible, uncle?" cried Michel; "can I not take the risk alone? must you be involved in the mysterious perils which surround me without my knowledge? Is it not my father alone who is in danger, and cannot I save him?"
"Your father is in danger, too, but in less danger than you. Do not question me, but believe me. As I have told you, I detest unnecessary violence, but I shrink from nothing which is right and necessary. I must assist you, and I will assist you. You and your father can do nothing without the Capuchin of Ætna and the remnant of theDestatore'sband. We are all ready. You will forgive me if, before assuming such grave risks, I desired to ascertain how far you were deserving of the devotion of which you are to reap the benefits. If you had proved to be an egotist simply, I would have assisted you to escape; but, if you are worthy of the name of Sicilian, we will assist you to triumph over destiny."
"And you will not explain ——"
"I will explain nothing that it is not necessary for you to know. I am not allowed to do otherwise; and you must remember one thing, namely, that by seeking to find out more than I am able to tell you, you will simply increase our risks and add to the complications of your own situation. Come, do me the favor to rely upon your uncle, and to overcome the vain and restless curiosity of childhood. Try to become a man between now and this evening, for this evening it may be necessary to act."
"I will ask but one thing of you, uncle, and that is to provide for my father's safety and my sister's before thinking of me."
"That is all done, my boy; at the first signal your father will seek refuge in the mountains, and your sister with the lady who gave a ball last night. Ah! the bell is ringing for service. I am going to ask the superior's permission to go out with my nephew on some family business. Wait for me at the door of our chapel."
"And suppose he should refuse you?"
"He would compel me to disobey him, which would grieve me deeply, I confess, not because of the penance to-morrow, but because I do not like to fail in my duty. The old soldier looks upon his orders as the supreme law."
Five minutes later, Fra Angelo joined Michel again at the door of the church.
"Granted," he said, "but I am commanded, in order to pay my debt to God, to perform an act of faith and say a short prayer before the altar of the Virgin. As I am excused from attending the evening services, the least I can do is to ask pardon from my greatest superior. Come and pray with me, young man; it can do you no harm, and will give you strength."
Michel followed his uncle to the foot of the altar. The setting sun made the stained-glass windows glow as with fire, and strewed with sapphires and rubies the flagged floor on which the Capuchin knelt. Michel knelt beside him, and watched him as he prayed with simple fervor. A flame-colored pane, whose reflection fell upon his shaven head, made it appear luminous and, as it were, aflame. The young painter was seized with respect and enthusiastic admiration as he looked upon that noble, strong and ingenuous face, which humbled itself in all sincerity in prayer; and he, too, moved to the depths of his heart, prayed for his country, his family and himself, with a simple faith and candor which he had not known since his childhood.
"May I venture to ask you where we are going, uncle?" queried Michel, when they had taken a dark and narrow path which led among the old olive-trees on the mountain.
"Certainly," replied Fra Angelo; "we are going to call upon the last real brigand in Sicily."
"There are some left then?"
"A few, although sadly deteriorated. They are still ready to fight for their country, and they keep alive the last spark of the sacred flame. However, I ought to tell you that they are a sort of cross between the gallant fellows of long ago, who scrupulously refrained from taking a hair from the head of a good patriot, and the cutthroats of the present day, who kill and rob everyone they meet. These men discriminate when they can; but, as their business has become very bad, and as the police are more to be feared than in my time, they cannot always choose; so that I do not hold them up as beyond reproach; but, such as they are, they still have certain virtues which we should seek in vain elsewhere: fidelity to their oaths, remembrance of past services, the revolutionary spirit, love of country; in a word, all that remains of the chivalrous spirit of our old bands still casts a faint gleam in the hearts of a few poor fellows, who live by themselves, a half-sedentary, half-wandering life. That is to say, they are settled in villages or in the open country; they have their families there, and in some cases are supposed to be peaceable husbandmen, submissive to the law, and having no quarrel with thecampiere.[2]If any of them are suspected, or, perhaps, involved in some trouble, they are more wary, do not go to see their wives or children except at night, or else remove their homes to some almost inaccessible location. But the man whom we are going to see is still free from any direct persecution. He lives openly in a neighboring village, and can go where he pleases. You will not regret having made his acquaintance, and I give you leave to study his character, for he is a very interesting and remarkable person."
"Should I be too inquisitive if I asked you to tell me a little something about him beforehand?"
"Certainly you ought to be told about him, and I will tell you. But it is a momentous secret to place in your keeping, Michel, and it makes it necessary for me to tell you another story. Do you know that I am going to place in your hands the fate of a man whom the police are hunting with all the energy and skill of which they are capable, and whose features and true name they have never succeeded in finding out in the six or seven years that have passed since he took up theDestatore'swork? Tell me, my boy, have you never heard of thePiccininoand his band since you have been in Sicily?"
"It seems to me that I have. Yes, yes, uncle, my sister Mila has some fantastic stories about this Piccinino, who is the principal subject of conversation among the young silk-weavers of Catania. He is a redoubtable brigand, they say, who kidnaps women and kills men at the very gates of the city. I have never believed these fables."
"There is some truth at the bottom of all the popular legends," rejoined the monk. "The Piccinino exists and plies his trade. There are two men in him—the man whom thecampieripursue in vain, and the man whom no one dreams of suspecting. The man who leads hazardous expeditions and assembles, at a mysterious signal, all thenottoloni[3]of any consequence, scattered all over the island, to employ them in more or less worthy enterprises; and the man who lives not far from this place, in a pretty country house, free from all molestation, and with the reputation of an intelligent, peaceably disposed man, opposed to bloody strife and advanced opinions. Well, within an hour you will be in that man's presence, you will know his true name, you will know his features, and you will share with only two other persons outside of the band which he commands the responsibility of his secret. You see that I treat you as a man, my child, but one cannot realize the danger of another person until he has himself been exposed to it. Henceforth you will have to pay with your life for the slightest indiscretion, and, in addition, to commit something more than a dastardly act, a horrible crime, of which you will soon know the extent."
"All these warnings are unnecessary, uncle; it is enough for me to know that it would be an abuse of confidence."
"I believe it, and yet I am not so sure of your prudence that I do not feel that I must tell you everything which may increase it. Your father, Princess Agatha, perhaps your sister, and myself beyond any question—all of us—will have sacrificed life and honor for you, if you are false to the oath I require of you. Swear, therefore, upon all that you hold most sacred—upon the Holy Gospel—never to betray, even on the scaffold, the true name of the Piccinino."
"I swear it, uncle. Are you satisfied?"
"Yes."
"And will the Piccinino have the same confidence in my oath that you have?"
"Yes, although confidence is not a failing of his. But when I told him of your visit, I gave him guarantees which could not fail to satisfy him."
"Very good! Now tell me what the relations are to be between this man and myself?"
"Patience, boy! I promised you another story, and here it is:
"TheDestatorehaving become addicted to wine in his last years——"
"So theDestatoreis dead, is he, uncle? You did not tell me of his death."
"I will tell you about it, although it is a very painful subject to me! I told you of an abominable crime that he committed. He surprised and carried off a girl,—a mere child,—who was walking with a nurse in this neighborhood, and set her free again in two hours. But, alas! two hours too late! No one witnessed his infamous act, but that very evening he boasted of it to me and sneered at my indignation. I was beside myself with horror and wrath, so that I cursed him, consigned him to the furies, and abandoned him to enter this convent, where I soon took the vows. I loved that man. I had been for many years under his influence; and when I saw him ruining and degrading himself, I feared that I might be led to follow his example. I determined to place between him and myself an insurmountable barrier. I became a monk; that was one of the most potent reasons for my decision.
"My desertion affected him more deeply than I expected. He came secretly to Bel Passo and resorted to every expedient—prayers and threats—to induce me to return. He was eloquent, because he had an ardent and sincere heart, despite his vagaries. I was inexorable, however, and I did my utmost to convert him. I am not eloquent; I was even less so at that time; but I felt so intensely all that I said to him—and faith had taken so strong a hold upon my heart—that my arguments made a profound impression upon him. I induced him to repair his crime as far as possible by marrying the innocent victim of his violence. I went to her by night and obtained her consent to look once more upon the detested brigand's features. They were married that night, secretly but legally, in the chapel before the altar where you prayed just now with me. And when he saw that beautiful, pale-cheeked, terrified maiden, the Prince of Castro-Reale was seized with remorse, and began to love her who was destined always to abhor him! He entreated her to fly with him, and, irritated by her refusal, thought of abducting her. But I had given that child my word, and she displayed a strength of character and a pride far beyond her years. She told him that she would never see him again; and clinging to my gown and our prior's—a worthy man who carried all his secrets with him to the grave—she cried: 'You swore that you would not leave me alone with that man a minute, and would take me back to the door of my home as soon as the marriage ceremony was finished. Do not desert me, or I will beat out my brains on the steps of your church!'
"She would have done as she said, the noble-hearted girl! But I had sworn! I took her home in safety, and she never saw theDestatoreagain.
"As for him, his suffering was beyond words. Resistance inflamed his passion, and, for the first time in his life, he who had seduced and abandoned so many women learned what love is. But he also learned what remorse is, and from that day his mind was diseased. I hoped that he would be truly converted. I had no thought of making a monk of him like myself, but I wanted him to take up his old work, to renounce useless crimes, debauchery and folly. I tried to convince him that, if he should become once more the avenger of his country and the soul of our hope of deliverance, his young wife would forgive him and consent to share his painful but glorious destiny. Doubtless I myself would have thrown my frock to the dogs and followed him.
"But, alas! it would be too easy for men to mend their ways if crime and vice would relax their grasp upon their victims as readily as we desire. TheDestatorewas no longer himself; he had become too thoroughly the man of the past. The remorse that I aroused in him disturbed his reason without appeasing his savage instincts. Sometimes a raving madman, sometimes timid and superstitious, he would pray one day in our humble chapel, bathed in tears; and the next day would return to his vomit—as the Scripture says. He tried to kill all his companions; he tried to kill me. He committed many more excesses, and one morning—it is hard for me to carry my story through to the end, Michel, it gives me so much pain!—one morning he was found dead at the foot of a cross, not far from our convent. He had blown out his brains with a pistol!"
"That was a horrible fate," said Michel, "and I do not know whether it is the tone of your voice, uncle, or the ghastly memories of the place where we are, but my emotions at this moment are most painful. It may be that I heard my father tell the story in my childhood, and that the memory of the terror it caused me then is revived by your words."
"I do not believe that your father ever mentioned it to you," said the Capuchin, after an interval of dismal silence. "I only speak of it because I must, my child; for the remembrance is more painful to me than to anybody on earth, and the place where we now are is by no means calculated to arouse cheerful thoughts in my mind. See, yonder is the cross whose base was drenched with his blood, and there I found him lying, sadly disfigured. It was I who dug his grave with my own hands under yonder rock in the bottom of the ravine. It was I who said the prayers which anybody else would have refused to say for him.
"Poor Castro-Reale, poor captain, poor fellow!" continued the Capuchin, baring his head and extending his arm in the direction of a great black rock which lay on the brink of the stream about fifty feet below the road. "May God, who is inexhaustible mercy and infinite kindness, forgive the errors of your life, as I forgive the sorrow you caused me! I no longer remember aught save your years of valor; your noble deeds, your lofty sentiments, and the ardent aspirations which we shared. God will not be more severe than a poor fellow like me, will he, Michel?"
"I do not believe in the everlasting resentment of the supreme and perfect Being who governs the world," replied the young man. "But let us go on, uncle; I am cold here, and I prefer to confess the strange weakness that I feel rather than remain an instant longer at the foot of this cross. I am afraid!"
"I had rather see you tremble than laugh in this spot!" replied the monk. "Come, give me your hand, and let us go on."
They walked for some time in silence; then Fra Angelo, as if he wished to divert Michel's thoughts, continued thus: "After the death of theDestatore, many people, women especially,—for he had seduced more than one—hurried to his hiding-place, hoping to obtain possession of what money he might have left there for the children whose father he was, or was supposed to be; but on the very morning of his suicide he had taken the booty remaining from his last expeditions and carried it to that one of his mistresses whom he loved best, or, to speak more accurately, whom he hated least; for, although he had many flames, he inspired even more, and all those women, forming a sort of ambulatory harem, annoyed and irritated him beyond measure. They all wanted him to marry them, for they did not know that he was married. Melina, of Nicolosi, alone never burdened him with her reproaches or her demands. She had loved him sincerely; she had abandoned herself to him without resistance and without ulterior motives; she had given him a son whom he preferred to the twelve or fifteen bastards who were reared under his name among the mountains. Most of those bastards are still living, and boast, rightly or wrongly, that they belong to him. All are brigands to a greater or less extent. But the one whom theDestatorenever denied, who resembles him in every feature, although his is a much reduced and blurred impression of the father's masculine and energetic beauty; the one who has grown to manhood with the design of succeeding to his work, with protection and resources to which the others can lay no claim, that one is the son of Melina, the young man whom we shall see very soon; he is the leader of the brigands to whom I have referred, some of whom are, as a matter of fact, his brothers; finally, he is the man whom you are to know under his true name, Carmelo Tomabene, who is also known asThe Piccinino."
"And the girl whom Castro-Reale abducted, whom you married to him—will you not tell me her name, uncle?"
"Her name and her story are a secret which only three persons know to-day, she, myself, and one other. Stop there, Michel; no more questions on that subject. Let us return to the Piccinino, son of the Prince of Castro-Reale and of the peasant girl of Nicolosi.
"This intrigue of theDestatorewas several years prior to his crime and his marriage. The treasure he left was not very considerable; but, as everything is relative, it was a fortune to Melina. She brought up her son as if she intended that he should rise above his position; in the bottom of her heart she longed to make a priest of him, and for several years I was his tutor and his guide. But he was barely fifteen years old when, having lost his mother, he left our convent and led a wandering life until he attained his majority. He had always cherished the idea of hunting up his father's former companions, and organizing a new band with their aid; but, from respect for his mother's wishes, for I ought to say that he really loved her, he had worked to acquire an education as if he had, in fact, intended to devote himself to the priestly profession. When he had recovered his liberty, he made use of it without informing me of his purpose. He had always supposed that I would blame him. Later, he was compelled to entrust his secret to me and seek my advice.
"I was not sorry, I confess, to be rid of the guardianship of that young wolf, for he was the most untamable creature that I ever met. As fearless as his father, and even more intelligent, he is by instinct so cautious and cunning, and elusive, that I was uncertain at times whether I was dealing with the vilest of hypocrites or with the shrewdest diplomatist who ever tangled up the affairs of empires. He is a strange mixture of perfidy and honor, of magnanimity and vindictiveness. He has a portion of his father's virtues and good qualities. His vices and failings are of a different sort. Like his father, he is loyal in friendship, and his oath is sacred; but while his father, even when carried away by fierce passions, was always a true believer, and indeed devout in the depths of his heart, the son, if I am not mistaken, and if he has not changed, is the most placid and coolest atheist that ever lived. If he has passions, he gratifies them so secretly that they cannot be discovered. I know of but one, and that I have made no attempt to overcome,—it is hatred of the foreigner and love of country. That love is so intense that he carries it even to love of locality. Far from being a spendthrift like his father, he is economical and orderly, and owns a pretty little estate at Nicolosi, with a garden and some land, where he lives almost always alone, to all appearance, when he is not on some secret expedition in the mountains. But he arranges his absences with so much caution, and receives his friends with so much mystery, that no one ever knows whether he is away from the house, or in his garden, smoking and reading. In order to preserve this skilfully managed freedom of action, he makes a practice of not replying or showing himself when anyone knocks at his door. So that, when he is ten leagues away, no one can say that he is not kept within the walls of his fortress by a fit of unsociability.
"He has retained the costume, and, so far as appears, the habits of a wealthy peasant, and, although he is very well educated and very eloquent on occasion, although he is fitted for any career, and capable of distinguishing himself in many, he has such aversion for society and the laws by which it is governed among us, that he prefers to remain a bandit. To be simply avillano[4]in easy circumstances would not satisfy him. He is energetic and ambitious, he has a genius for the ruses of warfare, and a passion for adventures. Although it is a part of his plan to conceal his shrewdness and his learning, those qualities reveal themselves in spite of him, and he has great influence in his village. He is looked upon there as an original character, but they think highly of his advice, and consult him on every subject. He has made it his duty to oblige everybody, because it is his policy to have no enemies. He explains his frequent absences and the numerous visits he receives as being connected with a small business in grain, which requires journeys into the interior and somewhat extensive connections. He carefully conceals his patriotism, but he investigates and knows all about other people's, and at the first real uprising, he would have but to wave his hand to raise the whole population of the mountain, and the mountain would march with him."
"I can understand that this man is a hero in your eyes, uncle, while you have difficulty in esteeming one whose qualities are so faintly outlined as mine."
"I esteem the quality of words, not their number," replied the Capuchin. "You have said two or three words which satisfy me, and as for my hero, as you call him, he is so far from being lavish with them that I have had to judge him by deeds rather than by speech. I, myself, rarely speak of matters upon which I feel very strongly, and if you find me prolix to-day, it is because I am obliged to tell you in two hours what I have had no chance to tell you in the eighteen years that you have been in this world, a stranger to me. However, reserve is not a defect in my eyes. I loved Castro-Reale as I shall never love anybody else; and we passed whole days together, by ourselves, without speaking a word. He was suspicious, as every true Sicilian should be, and so long as he distrusted himself and others, he had a noble heart and a noble spirit."
"The young man we are going to see must be very deeply attached to you, uncle, since you are sure of finding him prepared to receive me?"
"If he loves anyone on earth, I am that one, although I scolded and worried him well when he was my pupil. However, I am not perfectly certain that he will grant what I have to ask him in your behalf. He will have to overcome some repugnance; but I hope for the best."
"Doubtless he knows all that you will not allow me to know myself of my affairs and my destiny?"
"He? he knows nothing whatsoever of them, and he shall know nothing before you do. The little that you are both to know for the present, I will tell you both. After that, it may be that the Piccinino will guess more than he should. His penetration is very keen; but whatever he may guess, he will never tell you; and he will never ask you what he wants to find out; my mind is at rest so far as that is concerned. Now, silence; we are coming out of the woods into a cultivated and settled part of the mountain. We must be seen by as few people as possible on our way to the place where our man awaits us."
They walked silently and cautiously along hedges and clumps of trees, keeping in the shadow and avoiding trodden paths; and in the gathering dusk they soon reached the Piccinino's abode.
[2]The gendarmes or police of the island.
[2]The gendarmes or police of the island.
[3]People who attend to their business by night.
[3]People who attend to their business by night.
[4]That is to say, avillainor serf.
[4]That is to say, avillainor serf.
On that side of the mountain which Fra Angelo and Michel had been constantly ascending for two hours, the large, thickly populated village of Nicolosi is the last civilized point at which the traveller who wishes to visit the top of Ætna stops for breath before entering the grand and imposing region of forests. This second belt is calledSilvosaorNemorosa, and the cold is intense there. The vegetation then becomes depressingly wild and more sparse, until it finally disappears altogether under lichens and heaps of gravel, beyond which all is snow, sulphur, and smoke.
Nicolosi and the magnificent landscape surrounding it were already enveloped in the evening mist when Michel tried to form some idea of the place where he was. The imposing mass of Ætna was of the same uniform shade, and he could barely distinguish, a mile above him, the frowning peak ofMonte-Rosso, that subaltern volcano, one of the twenty or thirty sons of Ætna, extinct or recently opened furnaces, which rear their heads like a battery of artillery at its foot. It was Monte-Rosso that opened its black maw, less than two centuries ago, to vomit forth that death-dealing lava with which the bottom of the bay of Catania is still furrowed. To-day the peasants raise grapes and olives on débris which seems to be burning still.
The Piccinino's house stood by itself on the mountain, about half a mile from the village, from which it was separated by a steep ravine; it was on the uppermost edge of a fertile tract, where the atmosphere was soft and balmy. A few hundred feet higher it began to be cold, and the terrors of the desert were foreshadowed by the absence of tilled land, and by ridges of lava so numerous and so broad that the mountain seemed inaccessible in that direction. Michel observed that the situation was particularly favorable to the purposes of a man who was half citizen, half outlaw. At home, he could enjoy all the comforts of life; on leaving his home, he at once escaped from the presence of his fellow-men and the requirements of the law.
The hill, the slope of which was very abrupt on one side, but gentle and fertile on the other, was covered to its very summit with luxuriant vegetation, whose mysterious exuberance was sedulously fostered by an industrious and intelligent hand. Carmelo Tomabene's garden was renowned for its beauty and the great abundance of its fruits and flowers. But its entrance was jealously guarded, and it was enclosed on all sides by high verdure-covered palisades. The house, which was of considerable size and well built, although without apparent striving for effect, stood upon the site of a small abandoned fort. Some fragments of thick walls, and the base of a square tower, which had been utilized to strengthen and enlarge the new building, which bore the marks of extensive repairs, gave to the modest structure an air of solidity, and of semi-rustic, semi-seignoral importance. However, it was simply the dwelling of a well-to-do farmer, although one felt that a man of refined habits and tastes might find life enjoyable therein.
Fra Angelo approached the gate, and pulled a bell-cord, which, starting among the honeysuckles in which the gate was embowered, followed a long vine-clad arbor and was connected with a bell inside the house; but the sound of the bell was so deadened that it could not be heard outside. The cord was not visible amid the foliage, and one needed to be previously cognizant of its existence to make use of it. The monk pulled the cord three times, at carefully measured intervals; then five times, then twice, then three times again; after which he folded his arms for five minutes, when he repeated the signals in the same order and with the same care. One ring more or less and the mysterious proprietor might have allowed them to wait all night without admitting them.
At last the garden gate was opened. A small man, wrapped in a cloak, approached, took Fra Angelo by the hand, whispered to him for some moments, then turned to Michel, bade him enter, and walked before them, after closing the gate. They walked through the long arbor which formed a cross extending the whole length and width of the garden, and entered the house through a sort of rustic porch formed of large pillars covered with vine and jasmine. Their host then ushered them into a large room, neatly and simply furnished, where everything indicated regularity and sobriety on the part of the owner. There he invited them to sit, and, stretching himself out on an enormous couch covered with red silk, coolly lighted his cigar; then, without any demonstration of friendliness toward the monk, he waited for him to speak. He showed no impatience, no curiosity. He gave his whole attention to removing his brown cloak lined with pink, carefully folding it, and rearranging his silk sash, as if he desired to be perfectly comfortable while listening to what they had to say to him.
But what was Michel's surprise when he finally recognized in the youngvillanoof Nicolosi the stranger who had caused a momentary sensation at the princess's ball, and with whom he had exchanged a few far from friendly words on the stoop of the palace!
He was disturbed by the thought that that incident was unlikely to dispose in his favor the man at whose hands he was about to ask a service. But the Piccinino did not seem to recognize him, and Michel concluded that it would be as well not to remind him of that unpleasant incident.
He had plenty of leisure to examine his features and to seek therein some indication of his character. But it was impossible for him to detect any trace of emotion, of determination, of any human feeling, on that impassive and expressionless face. It was not even impertinent, although his attitude and his silence might seem to denote a purpose to display contempt.
The Piccinino was a young man of about twenty-five years. His short stature and slender figure justified the sobriquet which had been given him, and to which he submitted with more coquetry than vexation.[5]It is impossible to imagine a more slender and delicate, and, at the same time, more perfect figure, than that young man's. Admirably proportioned, and modelled like an antique bronze, he made up for his lack of muscular strength by extreme suppleness. He was reputed to be without a compeer in all bodily exercises, although he was dependent solely upon his address, his coolness, his agility, and the unerring accuracy of his glance. No one could tire him at walking, or overtake him at running. He climbed precipices with the self-possession of a chamois; he was as good a shot with the rifle as with the pistol or the sling; and in all sports of that sort he was so sure of winning all the prizes that he had ceased to take the trouble to compete. He was an excellent horseman and a fearless swimmer; in fact, there was no method of locomotion or of fighting in which he was not certain to display a marked superiority to anyone who ventured to try conclusions with him. Being fully alive to the advantages of physical strength in a mountainous country, and with the life of an adventurer before him, he had striven in early years to acquire what nature seemed to have denied him in that regard. He had exercised and developed his muscles with incredible energy and persistence, and had succeeded in making his fragile frame the trusty slave and obedient instrument of his will.
And yet, seeing him reclining thus upon his couch, one might have taken him for a sickly or indolent woman. Michel did not know that, after travelling twenty leagues on foot during the day, he systematically rested for a certain number of hours, and that he had watched and studied himself so closely in every respect that he knew exactly how many moments he must pass in a horizontal position in order to escape the annoyance of a lame back and legs.
His face was of a peculiar type of beauty: it was the Siculo-Arabian[6]type in all its purity. Extraordinary sharpness of outline, a somewhat exaggerated oriental profile, long, languishing, velvety black eyes, a shrewd and lazy smile, a wholly feminine grace, and an indefinable gentleness and coldness which it was impossible to explain at the first glance.
The Piccinino was dressed with extreme care and scrupulous neatness. He wore the picturesque costume of the peasants of the mountain, but it was made of fine, light materials. His breeches, short and tight-fitting, were of a soft woollen fabric, with silk stripes, yellow and brown. His bare leg, white as alabaster, was visible above his scarletspadrilles. His shirt was of embroidered linen, trimmed with lace, and afforded a glimpse of a heavy gold chain, intertwined with hair, upon his breast. His sash was of green silk stitched with silver. He was arrayed from head to foot in smuggled garments, or something worse; for if you had examined the marks on his linen, you might have convinced yourself that it came from the last valise he had robbed.
While Michel was contemplating with admiration, mingled with some inward irony, the ease with which that well-favored youth rolled a cigarette of Algerian tobacco in his fingers, slender and tapering as a Bedouin's, Fra Angelo, who seemed neither surprised nor annoyed by his reception, made a circuit of the room, bolted the door, and, having inquired if they were quite alone in the house, to which query the Piccinino replied in the affirmative with a nod, he began thus:
"I thank you, my son, for not compelling me to wait for this appointment. I have come to ask a favor at your hands: are you able and willing to devote a few days to it?"
"A few days?" repeated the Piccinino, in such a soft voice that Michel was fain to glance anew at the muscles of steel in his legs in order to be sure that it was not a woman who spoke; but the tone of the voice signified too clearly to be misunderstood: "You are jesting!"
"I said a few days," rejoined the monk, calmly. "You will have to go down the mountain, follow this young man, my nephew, to Catania, and stay by him until you have succeeded in relieving him from an enemy who is tormenting him."
The Piccinino turned slowly toward Michel, and stared at him as if he had not previously seen him; then, taking from his belt a richly-mounted stiletto, he presented it to him with an almost imperceptible smile of irony and contempt, as if to say: "You are old enough and strong enough to defend yourself."
Michel, annoyed at being placed in such a position, was about to make a sharp retort, when Fra Angelo cut him short, placing his iron hand on his shoulder.
"Be quiet, my boy," he said; "you do not know what I am talking about, and there is no occasion for you to speak. My friend," he continued, addressing the bandit, "if my nephew were not a man and a Sicilian, I should not introduce him to you. I am going to tell you what we expect of you, unless you tell me beforehand that you cannot or will not help us."
"Padre Angelo," replied the bandit, taking the monk's hand, and putting it to his lips with a caressing gesture and an affectionate glance that changed the character of his face entirely, "whatever you may ask, I am always willing to do for you. But no man can do all that he is willing to do. So I must know what it is."
"A man annoys us."
"I understand."
"We do not wish to kill him."
"You are unwise."
"By killing him we ruin ourselves; by putting him out of the way we are saved."
"He is to be kidnapped then?"
"Yes, but we do not know how to go about it."
"What!youdo not know, Padre Angelo?" said the Piccinino with a smile.
"I should have known in the old days," replied the Capuchin. "I had friends and places of shelter. Now, I am a monk."
"You are foolish," rejoined the bandit with undisturbed tranquillity. "So, I am to kidnap a man, am I? Is he very stout, very heavy?"
"He is very light," replied the monk, who apparently understood that metaphor, "and no one will give you a ducat for his skin."
"In that case, good-evening, father; I can't take him alone and put him in my pocket like a handkerchief. I must have men, and they are not to be had for nothing, as in your day."
"You don't understand me; you may fix the compensation of your men yourself, and they shall be paid."
"Do you make yourself responsible for that, father?"
"I do."
"You alone?"
"I alone. And, so far as you are concerned, if the affair had not been a magnificent one, I should not have selected you."
"Well, we will see about it next week," rejoined the bandit, in order to obtain more ample information as to the profits of the affair.
"In that case, we will say nothing more about it," said the monk, hurt by his distrust; "we must go forward at once or not at all."
"At once? What about a chance to collect my men, persuade them, and give them their instructions?"
"You can do it to-morrow morning, and to-morrow night they can be at their posts."
"I see that you are in no great hurry, or you would have told me to start to-night. If you can wait until to-morrow, you can wait a fortnight."
"No; for I intend to take you away with me now, send you to a certain villa where you will talk with one of the persons interested in the success of the affair, and give you until to-morrow night to inspect the locality, become acquainted with all necessary details, set up your batteries, notify your men, station them, arrange for allies in the citadel. Bah! it is more time than you need! At your age I wouldn't have asked your father for half of it."
Michel saw that the Capuchin had touched the right chord at last; for when he was appealed to as the son of the Prince of Castro-Reale, a title which nobody dared or chose to give him openly, the Piccinino started, sat up and sprang to his feet as if he were ready to start at once. But suddenly he put his hand to his leg and fell back on the couch.
"It is impossible," he said, "I am in too much pain."
"What is the matter?" asked Fra Angelo. "Are you wounded? Is that spent ball of last year still troubling you? In the old days we used to march with bullets in our bodies. Your father did thirty leagues without thinking of having the one extracted that he received in the thigh at Leon-Forte; but the young men of to-day need a year to be cured of a bruise."
Michel thought that his uncle had gone a little too far, for the Piccinino resumed his recumbent attitude with a gesture of profound indignation, stretched himself on his back, puffed away at his cigarette, and maliciously left to the good priest the embarrassing necessity of continuing the conversation.
But Fra Angelo was perfectly sure that the idea of a supply of ducats had appealed to the young bandit's unsentimental mind, and he continued without the slightest hesitation:
"I give you half an hour, my son, if you absolutely need it; half an hour is a long while for the blood that flows in your veins! then we will all three start."
"Who is this youngster, pray?" said the Piccinino, indicating Michel with the end of his finger, but without removing his eyes from the wall.
"He is my nephew, as I have told you; and Fra Angelo's nephew is to be relied on. But he doesn't know the country, and has not the necessary connections for an affair of this sort."
"Is thesignorinoafraid of compromising himself?"
"No, signor!" cried Michel, irritated beyond endurance, and unable to bear longer the bandit's insolence and the restraint which his uncle imposed upon him. The bandit turned, looked him in the face with his long eyes, which seemed to turn up a little toward the temples, and whose mocking expression was sometimes intolerable. But when he saw Michel's animated face and pale lips, he assumed a more amiable expression, albeit a little suspicious still, and said, offering him his hand:
"Let us be friends, at all events, until we have no other enemies on our hands; that is our wisest course."
As Michel was seated at some distance, he would have had to rise to take that hand, extended with a kingly gesture. He smiled and did not move, at the risk of displeasing his uncle and losing the fruit of their expedition.
But the monk was not sorry to see Michel adopt that attitude with respect to the bandit. The latter understood that he had no weak-spirited creature to deal with, and, rising with an effort, he went to him and took his hand.
"You are cruel, my young master," he said, "to refuse to take two steps toward a man who is completely tired out. You haven't travelled twenty leagues to-day, and you insist upon my starting off again when I have had barely two hours' rest!"
"At your age," said the unrelenting monk, "I used to walk twenty leagues a day, and not take time to sup before starting again. Well, have you decided? Shall we start?"
"You care a good deal about it, don't you? Are you personally interested in the affair?"
"I care about it as I do about my everlasting salvation, and the affair is of the deepest interest to the persons who are dearer to me than anybody else on earth since your father died. My brother is in danger, as well as this excellent young man, for whom I demand your sincere and loyal friendship."
"Have I not shaken his hand?"
"Therefore I count upon you. When I see that you are ready, I will tell you something that will be a more enticing bait to you than gold or glory."
"I am ready. Is it an enemy of the country who is to be killed?"
"I told you that there is nobody to be killed; you forget that I serve the God of peace and mercy. But there is some one to be thwarted, some one whose treacherous plans must be utterly foiled; and that man is a spy and a traitor."
"His name?"
"Will you come?"
"Am I not on my feet?"
"Abbé Ninfo."
The Piccinino began to laugh, a silent laugh in which there was something ghastly.
"May I be permitted to thwart him?" he asked.
"Morally, yes. But not a drop of blood must be shed!"
"Morally! good, I will exert my wits. Courage is not current coin with that fellow; but as we have made our bargain, or nearly so, it is time to explain to me the motive of this abduction."
"I will explain it to you, and you can reflect upon it as we walk."
"Impossible. I cannot do two things at once. I reflect only when my body is at rest."
And he coolly lay down again after relighting his cigarette.
Fra Angelo saw clearly enough that he would not allow himself to be led into action with his eyes closed.
"You know," he said, with no indication of impatience, "that Ninfo is the tool, the spy, the inseparable companion of a certain cardinal?"
"Hieronymo de Palmarosa?"
"You know also that my older brother, Pier-Angelo, was forced to leave Sicily eighteen years ago?"
"I know it. It was his own fault! My father was still alive. He might have joined him instead of abandoning his country."
"You are mistaken; your father was dead. You were an infant, I was a monk! There was nothing to be done here."
"Go on."
"My brother returned, as you know, a year ago; and his son, Michelangelo here, returned a week ago."
"What for?"
"To assist his father in his trade and his country on occasion. But there is already a denunciation hanging over him as well as over his father. The cardinal still has his memory, and does not forgive. Ninfo is prepared to act in his name."
"What are they waiting for?"
"I don't know why the cardinal is waiting so long before dying, but I can say that Ninfo is waiting for the cardinal's death."
"Why?"
"In order to seize his papers before there is time to put seals on them and notify his heiress."
"Who is the heiress?"
"Princess Agatha de Palmarosa."
"Ah! yes," said the bandit, changing his position, "a beautiful woman, so they say."
"That has nothing to do with the affair. But do you understand now why it is necessary that Abbé Ninfo should disappear during the cardinal's last moments?"
"So that he cannot seize the papers, you said. He may cheat Princess Agatha out of important documents, abstract a will. It is a serious matter for her. She is very rich, is she not? Thanks to her father's and uncle'sloyal opinions, the government has left her all her property, and does not crush her life out with forced contributions."
"She is very rich, so that it is a great opportunity for you, for she is no less generous than rich."
"I understand. And then, she is a very beautiful woman!"
His insistence upon that consideration sent a shudder of anger through Michel's veins; the bandit's impertinence seemed intolerable to him; but Fra Angelo was not disturbed by it. He believed that it was simply a trick of the Piccinino's, to conceal his rapacity beneath an air of gallantry.
"So I am to act for your brother and nephew incidentally," continued the bandit, "while in reality I am to rescue the Princess of Palmarosa's future fortune by laying hands upon the suspicious person of Abbé Ninfo? Is that it?"
"That is it," the monk replied. "The signora has to look out for her interests, and I for my family. That is why I have advised her to seek your assistance, and why I consented to convey her request."
The Piccinino seemed to reflect a moment; then, suddenly throwing himself back on his cushions, he exclaimed, in a voice broken by peals of hearty laughter:
"A most excellent story! This is one of the most attractive adventures in which I have ever taken part!"