Gerald Fitzgerald: The Chevalier Part 13

'But what am I to do, then? How can I defend myself,'' 'Fly--leave this--get over to Bolseno, or cross the frontier; neither of them can follow you into Tuscany.'

'Remember, Tina, I have no money. I am almost naked. I know no one.'

'What matters all that if you have life?' said she boldly.

'Well said, girl!' cried he, warmed by the same daring spirit that prompted her words. A slight noise in the garden underneath the window startled Tina, and she stepped quietly from the room and closed the door.

It was some time before Gerald could thoroughly take in the full force of the emergency that threatened him. He knew well that in the Italian nature the sentiment of vengeance occupies no low nor ignominious place, but is cla.s.sed among high and generous qualities; and that he who submits tamely to an injury is infinitely meaner than the man who, at any cost of treachery, exacts his revenge for it.

That a terrible vengeance was often exacted for some casual slight, even a random word, the youth well knew. These were the points of honour in that strange national character of which, even to this hour, we know less than of any people's in Europe; and certainly, no crime could promise an easier accomplishment or less chance of discovery. 'Who is ever to _know_ if I sunk under the Maremma fever,' said he, 'and who to _care_?'

He gazed out upon the lonesome waste of mountain and the black and stagnant lake at its foot, and thought the spot, at least, was well chosen for such an incident. If there were moments in which the dread of a terrible fate chilled his blood and made his heart cold with fear, there were others in which the sense of peril rallied and excited him.

The stirring incidents of his readings were full of suchlike adventures, and he felt a sort of heroism in seeing himself thus summoned to meet an emergency. 'With this good rapier,' said he, taking down Gabriel's sword from its place, 'methinks I might offer a stout resistance. That blade, if I mistake not, already knows the way to a man's heart,' and he flourished the weapon so as to throw himself into an att.i.tude of defence. Too much excited to read, except by s.n.a.t.c.hes, he imagined to his own mind every possible species of attack that might be made upon him. He knew that a fair fight would never enter into _their_ thoughts; that even before the fate reserved for him would come the plan for their own security; and so he pictured the various ways in which he might be taken unawares and disposed of without even a chance of reprisal. As night drew near his anxieties increased. The book in which from time to time he had been reading was the _Life of Benvenuto Cellini_, an autobiography filled with the wildest incidents of personal encounter, and well suited to call up ideas of conflict and peril. Not less, however, was it calculated to suggest notions of daring and defiance; for in every perilous strait and hair-breadth emergency the great Florentine displayed the n.o.blest traits of calm and reasoning courage.

'They shall not do it without cost,' said Gerald, as he stole up noiselessly to his room, never appearing at the supper-table, but retiring to concert his future steps. Gerald's first care on entering his room was to search it thoroughly, though there was not a corner nor a cupboard capable of concealing a child. He went through the process of investigation with all the diligence his readings prompted. He sounded the walls for secret panels, and the floor for trapdoors; but all was so far safe. He next proceeded to barricade his door with chairs; not, indeed, to prevent an entrance, but arrayed so skilfully that they must topple down at the least touch, and thus apprise him of his peril if sleeping. He then trimmed and replenished his lamp, and with his trusty rapier at his side, lay down, all dressed as he was, to await what might happen.

He who has experienced in life what it is to lie watching for the dawn of a day full of Heaven-knows-what fatalities, patiently expecting the sun to rise upon what may prove his saddest, his last hour of existence, even he, however, will fall short of imagining the intense anxiety of one who with aching ears watches for the slightest sound, the lightest footfall, or the lowest word that may betoken the approach of danger.

With the intensity of the emotion the senses become preternaturally acute, and the brain, overcharged with thought, suggests the wildest and strangest combinations. Through Gerald's mind, too, Cellini's daring adventures were pa.s.sing. The dark and narrow streets of old Florence; the m.u.f.fled 'sbirri' crowding in the dim doorways; the stealthy footsteps heard and lost again; the sudden clash of swords and the cries of combat; the shouts for succour, and the heavy plash into the dark waters of the Arno, all filled his waking, ay, and his dreamy thoughts, for he fell asleep at last and slept soundly. The day was just breaking, a grey, half-pinkish light faintly struggling through his window, when Gerald started up from his sleep. He had surely heard a sound. It was his name was called. Was it a human voice that uttered it? or was the warning from a more solemn world? He bent down his head to listen again; and now he distinctly heard a low, creaking sound, and as distinctly saw that the door was slightly moved, and then the words 'Gerald, Gerald,'

whispered. He arose at once, and quickly recognising Tina's voice, drew nigh the door.

'You have no time to lose, Gerald,' said she rapidly. 'Pippo has taken the boat and is rowing across the lake; and even by this half light I can see a figure standing on the rock at the foot of the mountain waiting for him, just where the pathway from St. Stephano comes down to the water.'

'The Gobbo, I suppose,' said Gerald, half mockingly, as he showed the rapier he still held in his hand.

'And if it be he, boy, there is no need to laugh,' said Tina, shuddering. 'The dark waters of that lake there, that cover some of his handiwork, if they could speak, would tell you so.'

'Then what am I to do, Tina?'' said he, throwing open the door. 'You 'd not have me meet them on the sh.o.r.e there and begin the attack, would you?'

If Gerald threw out this suggestion as impracticable, it was yet precisely the course he was longing himself to follow, and most eager that she should a.s.sent to.

'The Blessed Virgin forbid it!' cried she, crossing herself. 'There is but one road to take, and that is yonder,' and she pointed to a little rugged footpath that wound its way over the mountain, which joined the frontier with Tuscany.

'And am I in meet condition to travel, Tina?' said he jestingly, as he showed his ragged dress and pulled out the lining of his empty pockets.

'There is Signor Gabriel's cape,' said she; 'it is almost as good as a cloak: he left it with me, but I have no need of it; and there is the crown-piece you gave me yourself when you were ill of the fever, and I want it just as little.'

The boy struggled hard to refuse both, but the sorrow Tina felt for the rejection at last overcame him, and, half in shame and half in pleasure--for the sense of exacting sacrifice is pleasure, deny it how we may--he yielded, and accepted her gift.

'Oh, Tina, will there ever come a day when I can repay this kindness?'

said he. 'I almost think there will.'

'To be sure, Gerald, and you 'll not forget me even if there should not.

You who were taught by the pious Frati how to pray will surely say a good word in your devotions for a poor girl like Tina.'

The boy's heart overflowed with emotion at the trait of simple piety, and he kissed her twice with all the affection of a fond brother.

'Good-bye, Tina,' said he, sobbing; 'I feel stronger and stouter in heart, now that I know your kind wishes are going along with me--they are better to me, love, than a purse full of money.'

'Do not take that sword, Gerald,' said she, trying to take the weapon from him. 'If you enter a village with a rapier at your side, they 'll call you a brigand, and give you up to the carabinieri.'

'I'll not quit the good blade so long as I can wear it,' said he resolutely; and then added to himself, 'I am n.o.bly born, and have a right to a sword. "Cinctus gladio," says the old statute of knighthood; and if I be a Geraldine, I am n.o.ble!'

And with these words the boy bade his last farewell, and issued from the house.

CHAPTER XII. A FOREST SCENE

Once more did Gerald find himself alone and penniless upon the world. He was not, however, as when first he issued forth, timid, depressed, and diffident. Short as had been the interval since that time, his mind had made a considerable progress. His various readings had taught him much; and he had already learned that in the Mutual a.s.surance Company we call Life men are ever more or less dependent on their fellows. 'There must, then,' said he to himself, 'be surely some craft or calling to which I can bring skill or apt.i.tude, and some one or other will certainly accept of services that only require the very humblest recognition.' He walked for hours without seeing a living thing: the barren mountain had not even a sheep-walk; and save the path worn by the track of smugglers, there was nothing to show that the foot of man had ever traversed its dreary solitudes. At last he gained the summit of the ridge, and could see the long line of coast to the westward, jagged and indented with many a bay and promontory. There lay St. Stephano: he could recognise it by the light cloud of pale blue smoke that floated over the valley, and marked where the town stood; and, beyond, he could catch the masts and yards of a few small craft that were sheltering in the offing. Beyond these again stretched the wide blue sea, marked at the horizon by some far-away sails. The whole was wrapped in that solemn calm, so striking in the noon of an Italian summer's day. Not a cloud moved, not a leaf was stirring; a faint foam-line on the beach told that there the waves crept softly in, but, except this, all nature was at rest.

In the dead stillness of night our thoughts turn inward, and we mingle memories with our present reveries; but in the stillness of noonday, when great shadows lie motionless on the hillside, and all is hushed save the low murmur of the laden bee, our minds take the wide range of the world--visiting many lands--mingling with strange people. Action, rather than reflection, engages us; and we combine, and change, and fashion the mighty elements before us as we will. We people the plains with armed hosts; we fill the towns with busy mult.i.tudes--gay processions throng the squares, and banners wave from steeple and tower; over the blue sea proud fleets are seen to move, and thundering echoes send back their dread cannonading: and through these sights and sounds we have our especial part--lending our sympathies here, bearing our warmest wishes there. If we dream, it is of the real, the actual, and the true; and thus dreaming, we are but foreshadowing to ourselves the incidents and accidents of life, and garnering up the resources wherewith to meet them.

Stored as was his mind with recent reading, Gerald's fancy supplied him with innumerable incidents, in every one of which he displayed the same heroic traits, the same apt.i.tude to meet emergency, and the same high-hearted courage he had admired in others. Vain-gloriousness may be forgiven when it springs, as his did, out of thorough ignorance of the world. It is, indeed, but the warm outpouring of a generous temperament, where self-esteem predominates. The youth ardently desired that the good should prosper and the bad be punished: his only mistake was, that he claimed the chief place in effecting both one and the other.

Eagerly bent upon adventure, no matter where, how, or with whom, he stood on the mountain's peak, gazing at the scene beneath him. A waving tract of country, traversed by small streams, stretched away toward Tuscany, but where the boundary lay between the states he could not detect. No town or village could be descried; and, so far as he could see, miles and miles of journey yet lay before him ere he could arrive at a human dwelling. This was indeed the less matter, since Tina had fastened up in his handkerchief sufficient food for the day; and even were night to overtake him, there was no great hardship in pa.s.sing it beneath that starry sky.

'Many there must be,' thought he, 'campaigning at this very hour, in far-away lands, mayhap amid the sand deserts of the East, or crouching beneath the shelter of the drifted snows in the North; and even here are troops of gypsies, who never know what means the comfort of a roof over them.' Just as he said these words to himself, his eyes chanced to rest upon a thin line of pale blue smoke that arose from a group of alders beside a stream in the valley. Faint and thin at first, it gradually grew darker and fuller, till it rose into the clear air, and was wafted slowly along toward the sea.

'Just as if I had conjured them up,' cried Gerald, 'there are the gypsies; and if there be a Strega in the company, she shall have this crown for telling me my fortune! What marvels will she not invent for this broad piece--what dragons shall I not slay--what princesses not marry; not but in reality they do possess some wondrous insight into the future! Signor Gabriel sneered at it, as he sneered at everything-; but there's no denying they read destiny, as the sailor reads the coming storm in signs unseen by others. There is something fine, too, in their clanship; how, poor and houseless, despised as they are, they cling together, h.o.a.rding up their ancient rites and traditions--their only wealth--and wandering through the world, pilgrims of centuries old.'

As he descended the mountain path he continued thus to exalt the gypsies in his estimation, and with that unfailing resource in similar cases, that what he was unable to praise he at least found picturesque. The path led through a wood of stunted chestnut-trees, on issuing from whose shade he could no longer detect the spot he was in search of; the fire had gone out, and the smoke ceased to linger over the place.

'Doubtless the encampment has broken up; they are trudging along toward the coast, where the villages lie,' thought he, 'and I may come up with them to-morrow or next day,' and he stepped out briskly on his way.

The day was intensely hot, and Gerald would gladly have availed himself of any shade, to lie down and enjoy the 'siesta' hours in true Italian fashion. The only spot, however, he could procure likely to offer such shelter was a little copse of olives, at a bend of the river, about a mile away. A solitary rock, with a few ruined walls upon it, rose above the trees, and marked the place as one once inhabited. Following the winding of the stream, he at length drew nigh, and quickly noticed that the gra.s.s was greener and deeper, with here and there a daffodil or a wild-flower, signs of a soil which, in some past time, had been cared for and cultivated. The river, too, as it swept around the base of the rock, deepened into a clear, calm pool, the very sight of which was intensely grateful and refreshing. As the youth stood in admiring contemplation of this fair bath, and inwardly vowing to himself the luxury of a plunge into it, a low rustling noise startled him, and a sound like the sharp stamp of a beast's foot. He quickly turned, and, tracing the noise, saw a very diminutive a.s.s, who, tethered to an olive-tree, was busily munching a meal of thistles, and as busily stamping off the stray forest flies that settled on him. Two panniers, covered over with some tarnished scarlet cloth, and a drum of considerable size and very gaudy colouring, lay on the gra.s.s, with three or four painted poles, a roll of carpet, and a bright bra.s.s basin, such as conjurers use for their trade. There was also a curiously-shaped box, painted in checkers, doubtless some mysteriously gifted 'property.'

Curious to discover the owners of these interesting relics, Gerald advanced into the copse, when his quick hearing was arrested by the long-drawn breathings of several people fast asleep--so, at least, they seemed, by the full-toned chorus of their snorings; though the next moment showed him that they consisted of but three persons, an old, stunted, and very emaciated man; an equally old woman, immensely fat and misshapen, to which her tawdry finery gave something indescribably ludicrous in effect; and a young girl, whose face was buried in the bend of her arms, but whose form, as she lay in the graceful abandonment of sleep, was finely and beautifully proportioned. A coa.r.s.e dress of brown stuff was her only covering, leaving her arms bare, while her legs, but for the sandals of some tawdry tinsel, were naked to the knees and as brown as the skin of an Indian, yet in shape and symmetry they might have vied with the most faultless statue of the antique--indeed, to a sleeping nymph in the gallery of the Altieri Palace was Gerald now comparing her, as he stood gazing on her. The richly floating hair, which, as a protection against the zanzari, she had let fall over her neck and shoulders, only partially defended her, and so she stirred at times, each motion displaying some new charm, some fresh grace of form.

At last, perhaps startled by a thought of her dreams, she gave a sudden cry, and sprang up to a sitting posture, her eyes widely staring and her half-opened lips turned to where Gerald stood. As for him, the amazement that seized him overcame him--for she was no other than the tarantella dancer of the Piazza di Spagna, the Marietta who had so fascinated him on the night he left the convent.

'Babbo! Babbo!' screamed she, in terror, as she caught sight of the naked rapier at the youth's side; and in a moment both the old man and the woman were on their legs.

'We are poor, miserably poor, Signore!' cried the old man piteously; 'mere "vagabonds," and no more.'

'We have not a Bajocclo among us, Signore mio,' blubbered out the old woman.

An honest burst of laughter from Gerald, far more rea.s.suring than words, soon satisfied them that their fears were needless.

'Who are you, then?' cried the girl, as she darted her piercing black eyes toward him; 'and why are you here?'

'The world is wide, and open to all of us, _cara mia_,' said the youth good-humouredly. 'Don't be angry with me because I 'm not a brigand.'

'He says truly,' said the old man.

'_Sangue dei Santi_, but you have given me a hearty fright, boy, what ever brought you here!' said the fat old woman, as she wiped the hot drops from her steaming face.

There is some marvellous freemasonry in poverty--some subtle sympathy links poor men together--for scarcely had Gerald told that he was dest.i.tute and penniless as themselves, than these poor outcasts bade him a frank welcome among them, and invited him to a share of their little scanty supper.

'I 'll warrant me that you have drawn a low number in the conscription, boy; and that's the reason you have fled from home,' said the old woman; and Gerald laughed good-humouredly, as though accepting the suggestion as a happy guess; nor was he sorry to be spared the necessity of recounting his story.