The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 101

"I declare, I will have him over here; now don't go, sit down like a good fellow; there's no man understands character better than yourself, and I am positively curious to see how you will read this man on a closer inspection."

"He does not interest, he merely disgusts, me."

Pracontal arose, drew nigh the window, and waved his napkin in sign to the man, who at once got up from his seat, and slowly, and half indolently, came over to the window. He was dressed in a sort of gray uniform of jacket and trousers, and wore a kerchief on his head for a cap, a costume which certainly in no degree contributed to lessen the unfavorable impression his face imparted, for there was in his look a mixture of furtiveness and ferocity positively appalling.

"Do you like him better now?" asked Longworth, in English.

And the fellow grinned at the words.

"You understand English, eh?" asked Pracontal.

"Ay, I know most modern languages."

"What nation are you?"

"A Savoyard."

"Whence do you come now?"

"From the galleys at Ischia."

"Frank that, anyhow," cried Longworth. "Were you under sentence there?"

"Yes, for life."

"For what offence?"

"For a score that I committed, and twice as many that I failed in."

"Murder, a.s.sa.s.sination?"

He nodded.

"Let us hear about some of them," said Pracontal, with interest.

"I don't talk of these things; they are bygones, and I 'd as soon forget them."

"And do you fancy they 'll be forgotten up there," said Pracontal, pointing upwards as he spoke.

"What do you know about 'up there,'" said he, sternly, "more than myself? Are not your vague words, 'up there,' the proof that it 's as much a mystery to _you_ as to _me?_"

"Don't get into theology with him, or you 'll have to listen to more blasphemy than you bargain for," whispered Long-worth; and whether the fellow overheard or merely guessed the meaning of the words, he grinned diabolically, and said,--

"Yes, leave that question there."

"Are you not afraid of the police, my friend?" asked Longworth. "Is it not in their power to send you back to those you have escaped from?"

"They might with another, but the Cardinal Secretary knows _me_. I have told him I have some business to do at Rome, and want only a day or two to do it, and he knows I will keep my word."

"My faith, you are a very conscientious galley-slave!" cried Pracontal.

"Are you hungry?" and he took a large piece of bread from the sideboard and handed it to him. The man bowed, took the bread, and laid it beside him on the window-board.

"And so you and Antonelli are good friends?" said Longworth sneeringly.

"I did not say so. I only said he knew me, and knew me to be a man of my word."

"And how could a Cardinal know--" when he got thus far he felt the unfairness of saying what he was about to utter, and stopped, but the man took up the words with perfect calmness, and said:--

"The best and the purest people in this world will now and then have to deal with the lowest and the worst, just as men will drink dirty water when they are parched with thirst."

"Is it some outlying debt of vengeance, an old vendetta, detains you here?" asked Longworth.

"I wouldn't call it that," replied he, slowly, "but I'd not be surprised if it took something of that shape, after all."

"And do you know any other great folk?" asked Pra-contal, with a laugh.

"Are you acquainted with the Pope?"

"No, I have never spoken to him. I know the French envoy here, the Marquis de Caderousse. I know Field-Marshall Kleinkoff. I know Bra.s.sieri--the Italian spy--they call him the Duke of Bra.s.sieri."

"That is to say, you have seen them as they drove by on the Corso, or walked on the Pincian?" said Longworth.

"No, that would not be acquaintance. When I said 'know' I meant it."

"Just as you know my friend here, and know _me_ perhaps?" said Pracontal.

"Not only him, but _you_," said the fellow, with a fierce determination.

"_Me_, know me? what do you know about _me?_"

"Everything," and now he drew himself up, and stared at him defiantly.

"I declare I wonder at you, Anatole," whispered Long-worth. "Don't you know the game of menace and insolence these rascals play at?" And again the fellow seemed to divine what pa.s.sed, for he said:--

"Your friend is wrong this time. I am not the cheat he thinks me."

"Tell me something you know about me," said Pracontal, smiling; and he filled a goblet with wine, and handed it to him.

The other, however, made a gesture of refusal, and coldly said,--"What shall it be about? I 'll answer any question you put to me."

"What is he about to do?" cried Longworth. "What great step in life is he on the eve of taking?"

"Oh, I'm not a fortune teller," said the man, roughly; "though I could tell you that he's not to be married to this rich Englishwoman. That fine bubble is burst already."

Pracontal tried to laugh, but he could not; and it was with difficulty he could thunder out,--"Servants' stories and lackeys' talk!"

"No such thing, sir. I deal as little with these people as yourself.

You seem to think me an impostor; but I tell you I am less of a cheat than either of you. Ay, sir, than you, who play fine gentlemen, mi Lordo, here in Italy, but whose father was a land-steward; or than you--"

"What of me--what of _me?_" cried Pracontal, whose intense eagerness now mastered every other emotion.