The Bravo of Venice Part 2

Abellino smiled, or rather grinned, and murmured hoa.r.s.ely--"I am starving."

"Answer, fellow! Dost thou mean honestly by us?"

"That must the event decide."

"Mark me, knave; the first suspicion of treachery costs you your life. Take shelter in the Doge's palace, and girdle yourself round with all the power of the Republic--though clasped in the Doge's arms, and protected by a hundred cannons, still would we murder you!

Fly to the high altar; press the crucifix to your bosom, and even at mid-day, still would we murder you. Think on this well, fellow, and forget not we are banditti!"

"You need not tell me that. But give me some food, and then I'll prate with you as long as you please. At present I am starving.

Four-and-twenty hours have elapsed since I last tasted nourishment."

Cinthia now covered a small table with her best provisions, and filled several silver goblets with delicious wine.

"If one could but look at him without disgust," murmured Cinthia; "if he had but the appearance of something human! Satan must certainly have appeared to his mother, and thence came her child into the world with such a frightful countenance. Ugh! it's an absolute mask, only that I never saw a mask so hideous."

Abellino heeded her not; he placed himself at the table, and ate and drank as if he would have satisfied himself for the next six months.

The banditti eyed him with looks of satisfaction, and congratulated each other on such a valuable acquisition.

If the reader is curious to know what this same Abellino was like, he must picture to himself a young, stout fellow, whose limbs perhaps might have been thought not ill-formed, had not the most horrible countenance that ever was invented by a caricaturist, or that Milton could have adapted to the ugliest of his fallen angels, entirely marred the advantages of his person. Black and shining, but long and straight, his hair flew wildly about his brown neck and yellow face. His mouth so wide, that his gums and discoloured teeth were visible, and a kind of convulsive twist, which scarcely ever was at rest, had formed its expression into an internal grin. His eye, for he had but one, was sunk deep into his head, and little more than the white of it was visible, and even that little was overshadowed by the protrusion of his dark and bushy eyebrow. In the union of his features were found collected in one hideous a.s.semblage all the most coa.r.s.e and uncouth traits which had ever been exhibited singly in wooden cuts, and the observer was left in doubt whether this repulsive physiognomy expressed stupidity of intellect, or maliciousness of heart, or whether it implied them both together.

"Now, then, I am satisfied," roared Abellino, and dashed the still full goblet upon the ground. "Speak! what would you know of me? I am ready to give you answers."

"The first thing," replied Matteo, "the first thing necessary is to give us a proof of your strength, for this is of material importance in our undertakings. Are you good at wrestling?"

"I know not; try me."

Cinthia removed the table.

"Now, then, Abellino, which of us will you undertake? Whom among us dost thou think that thou canst knock down as easily as yon poor dabbler in the art, Pietrino?"

The banditti burst into a loud fit of laughter.

"Now, then," cried Abellino, fiercely; "now, then, for the trial.

Why come you not on?"

"Fellow," replied Matteo, "take my advice; try first what you can do with me alone, and learn what sort of men you have to manage. Think you, we are marrowless boys, or delicate signors?"

Abellino answered him by a scornful laugh. Matteo became furious.

His companions shouted aloud, and clapped their hands.

"To business!" said Abellino; "I'm now in a right humour for sport!

Look to yourselves, my lads." And in the same instant he collected his forces together, threw the gigantic Matteo over his head as had he been an infant, knocked Struzza down on the right hand, and Pietrino on the left, tumbled Thomaso to the end of the room head over heels, and stretched Baluzzo without animation upon the neighbouring benches.

Three minutes elapsed ere the subdued bravoes could recover themselves. Loudly shouted Abellino, while the astonished Cinthia gazed and trembled at the terrible exhibition.

"By the blood of St. Januarius!" cried Matteo at length, rubbing his battered joints, "the fellow is our master! Cinthia, take care to give him our best chamber."

"He must have made a compact with the devil!" grumbled Thomaso, and forced his dislocated wrist back into its socket.

No one seemed inclined to hazard a second trial of strength. The night was far advanced, or rather the grey morning already was visible over the sea. The banditti separated, and each retired to his chamber.

CHAPTER IV: THE DAGGERS.

Abellino, this Italian Hercules, all terrible as he appeared to be, was not long a member of this society before his companions felt towards him sentiments of the most unbounded esteem. All loved, all valued him, for his extraordinary talents for a bravo's trade, to which he seemed peculiarly adapted, not only by his wonderful strength of body, but by the readiness of his wit, and his never- failing presence of mind. Even Cinthia was inclined to feel some little affection for him, but--he really was too ugly.

Matteo, as Abellino was soon given to understand, was the captain of this dangerous troop. He was one who carried villainy to the highest pitch of refinement, incapable of fear, quick and crafty, and troubled with less conscience than a French financier. The booty and price of blood, which his a.s.sociates brought in daily, were always delivered up to him: he gave each man his share, and retained no larger portion for himself than was allotted to the others. The catalogue of those whom he had despatched into the other world was already too long for him to have repeated it: many names had slipped his memory, but his greatest pleasure in his hour of relaxation was to relate such of these murderous anecdotes as he still remembered, in the benevolent intention of inspiring his hearers with a desire to follow his example. His weapons were kept separate from the rest, and occupied a whole apartment. Here were to be found daggers of a thousand different fashions, WITH guards and WITHOUT them; two, three, and four-edged. Here were stored air- guns, pistols, and blunderbusses; poisons of various kinds and operating in various ways; garments fit for every possible disguise, whether to personate the monk, the Jew, or the mendicant; the soldier, the sailor, or the gondolier.

One day he summoned Abellino to attend him in his armoury.

"Mark me," said he, "thou wilt turn out a brave fellow, that I can see already. It is now time that you should earn that bread for yourself which hitherto you have owed to our bounty. Look! Here thou hast a dagger of the finest steel; you must charge for its use by the inch. If you plunge it only one inch deep into the bosom of his foe, your employer must reward you with only one sequin: if two inches, with ten sequins; if three, with twenty; if the whole dagger, you may then name your own price. Here is next a gla.s.s poniard; whomsoever this pierces, that man's death is certain. As soon as the blow is given, you must break the dagger in the wound.

The flesh will close over the point which has been broken off, and which will keep its quarters till the day of resurrection! Lastly, observe this metallic dagger; its cavity conceals a subtle poison, which, whenever you touch this spring, will immediately infuse death into the veins of him whom the weapon's point hath wounded. Take these daggers. In giving them I present you with a capital capable of bringing home to you most heavy and most precious interest."

Abellino received the instruments of death, but his hand shook as it grasped them.

"Possessed of such unfailing weapons, of what immense sums must your robberies have made you master!"

"Scoundrel!" interrupted Matteo, frowning and offended, "amongst us robbery is unknown. What? Dost take us for common plunderers, for mere thieves, cut-purses, housebreakers, and villains of that low, miserable stamp?"

"Perhaps what you wish me to take you for is something worse; for, to speak openly, Matteo, villains of that stamp are contented within plundering a purse or a casket, which can easily be filled again; but that which we take from others is a jewel which a man never has but once, and which stolen can never be replaced. Are we not, then, a thousand times more atrocious plunderers?"

"By the house at Loretto, I think you have a mind to moralise, Abellino?"

"Hark ye, Matteo, only one question. At the Day of Judgment, which think you will hold his head highest, the thief or the a.s.sa.s.sin?"

"Ha! ha! ha!"

"Think not that Abellino speaks thus from want of resolution. Speak but the word, and I murder half the senators of Venice; but still--"

"Fool! know, the bravo must be above crediting the nurse's antiquated tales of vice and virtue. What is virtue? What is vice?

Nothing but such things as forms of government, custom, manners, and education have made sacred: and that which men are able to make honourable at one time, it is in their power to make dishonourable at another, whenever the humour takes them; had not the senate forbidden us to give opinions freely respecting the politics of Venice, there would have been nothing wrong in giving such opinions; and were the senate to declare that it is right to give such opinions, that which to-day is thought a crime would be thought meritorious to-morrow. Then, prithee, let us have no more of such doubts as these. We are men, as much as the Doge and his senators, and have reasons as much as THEY have to lay down the law of right and wrong, and to alter the law of right and wrong, and to decree what shall be vice, and what shall be virtue."

Abellino laughed. Matteo proceeded with increased animation -

"Perhaps you will tell me that your trade is DISHONOURABLE! And what, then, is the thing called HONOUR! 'Tis a word, an empty sound, a mere fantastic creature of the imagination! Ask, as you traverse some frequented street, in what honour consists? The usurer will answer--'To be honourable is to be rich, and he has most honour who can heap up the greatest quant.i.ty of sequins.' 'By no means,' cries the voluptuary; 'honour consists in being beloved by a very handsome woman, and finding no virtue proof against your attacks.' 'How mistaken!' interrupts the general; 'to conquer whole cities, to destroy whole armies, to ruin all provinces, THAT indeed brings REAL honour.' The man of learning places his renown in the number of pages which he has either written or read; the tinker, in the number of pots and kettles which he has made or mended; the nun, in the number of GOOD things which she has done, or BAD things which she has resisted; the coquette, in the list of her admirers; the Republic, in the extent of her provinces; and thus, my friend, every one thinks that honour consists in something different from the rest. And why, then, should not the bravo think that honour consists in reaching the perfection of his trade, and in guiding a dagger to the heart of an enemy with unerring aim?"

"By my life, 'tis a pity, Matteo, that you should be a bravo; the schools have lost an excellent teacher of philosophy."

"Do you think so? Why, the fact is thus, Abellino. I was educated in a monastery; my father was a dignified prelate in Lucca, and my mother a nun of the Ursuline order, greatly respected for her chast.i.ty and devotion. Now, Signor, it was thought fitting that I should apply closely to my studies; my father, good man, would fain have made me a light of the Church; but I soon found that I was better qualified for an incendiary's torch. I followed the bent of my genius, yet count I not my studies thrown away, since they taught me more philosophy than to tremble at phantoms created by my own imagination. Follow my example, friend, and so farewell."

CHAPTER V: SOLITUDE.