The Long Night Part 20

"Rather to felicitate yourself," Basterga answered. "Or so I had hoped two days ago."

"Myself?"

"Yes," Basterga replied lightly. "For as soon as I found that I had no need of the _remedium_, I thought of you. That was natural. And it occurred to me--nay, calm yourself!"

"Quick! Quick!

"Nay, calm yourself, my dear Messer Blondel," Basterga repeated with outward solicitude and inward amus.e.m.e.nt. "Be calm, or you will do yourself an injury; you will indeed! In your state you should be prudent; you should govern yourself--one never knows. And besides, the thought, to which I refer--I see you recognise what it was----"

"Yes! yes! Go on! Go on!"

"Proved futile."

"Futile?"

"Yes, I am sorry to say it. Futile."

"Futile!" The wretched man's voice rose almost to a scream as he repeated the word. He rose and sat down again. "Then how did you--why did you----" He stopped, fighting for words, and, unable to frame them, clutched the air with his hands. A moment he mouthed dumbly, then "Tell me!" he gasped. "Speak, man, speak! How was it? Cannot you see--that you are killing me?"

Basterga saw indeed that he had gone nearer to it than he had intended: for a moment the starting eyes and purple face alarmed him. In all haste, he gave up playing with the others fears. "It occurred to me," he said, "that as I no longer needed the medicine myself, there was only the Grand Duke to be considered, I thought that he might be willing to waive his claim, since he is as yet free from the disease. And four days ago I despatched a messenger whom I could trust to him at Turin. I had hopes of a favourable reply, and in that event, I should not have lost a minute in waiting upon you. For I am bound to say, Messer Blondel"--the big man rubbed his chin and eyed the other benevolently--"your case appealed to me in an especial manner. I felt myself moved, I scarcely know why, to do all I could on your behalf.

Alas, the answer dashed my hopes."

"What was it?" Blondel's voice sounded hollow and unnatural. Sunk in the high-backed chair, his chin fallen on his breast, it was in his eyes alone, peering from below bent brows, that he seemed to live.

"He would not waive his claim," Basterga answered gently, "save on a--but in substance that was all."

Blondel raised himself slowly and stiffly in the chair. His lips parted.

"In substance?" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely, "There was more then?"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "There was. Save, the Grand Duke added, on the condition--but the condition which followed was inadmissible."

Blondel gave vent to a cackling laugh. "Inadmissible?" he muttered.

"Inadmissible." And then, "You are not a dying man, Messer Basterga, or you would think--few things inadmissible."

"Impossible, then."

"What was it? What was it?"--with a gesture eloquent of the impatience that was choking him.

"He asked," Basterga replied reluctantly, "a price."

"A price?"

The big man nodded.

The Syndic rose up and sat down again. "Why did you not say so? Why did you not say so at once?" he cried fiercely. "Is it about that you have been fencing all this time? Is that what you were seeking? And I fancied--A price, eh? I suppose"--in a lower tone, and with a gleam of cunning in his eyes--"he does not really want--the impossible? I am not a very rich man, Messer Basterga--you know that; and I am sure you would tell him. You would tell him that men do not count wealth here as they do in Genoa or Venice, or even in Florence. I am sure you would put him right on that," with a faint whine in his tone. "He would not strip a man to the last rag. He would not ask--thousands for it."

"No," Basterga answered, with something of asperity and even contempt in his tone. "He does not ask thousands for it, Messer Blondel. But he asks, none the less, something you cannot give."

"Money?"

"No."

"Then--what is it?" Blondel leant forward in growing fury. "Why do you fence with me? What is it, man?"

Basterga did not answer for a moment. At length, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking between jest and earnest, "The town of Geneva,"

he said. "No more, no less."

The Syndic started violently, then was still. But the hand which in the first instant of surprise he had raised to shield his eyes, trembled; and behind it great drops of sweat rose on his brow, and bore witness to the conflict in his breast.

"You are jesting," he said presently, without removing his hand.

"It is no jest," Basterga answered soberly. "You know the Grand Duke's keen desire. We have talked of it before. And were it only a matter," he shrugged his shoulders, "of the how--of ways and means in fact--there need be no impossibility, your position being what it is. But I know the feeling you entertain on the subject, Messer Blondel; and though I do not agree with you, for we look at the thing from different sides, I had no hope that you would come to it."

"Never!"

"No. So much so, that I had it in my mind to keep the condition to myself. But----"

"Why did you not, then?"

"Hope against hope," the big man answered, with a shrug and a laugh.

"After all, a live dog is better than a dead lion--only you will not see it. We are ruled, the most of us, by our feelings, and die for our side without asking ourselves whether a single person would be a ducat the worse if the other side won. It is not philosophical," with another shrug. "That is all."

Apparently Blondel was not listening, for "The Duke must be mad!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as the other uttered his last word.

"Oh no."

"Mad!" the Syndic repeated harshly, his eyes still shaded by his hand.

"Does he think," with bitterness, "that I am the man to run through the streets crying 'Viva Savoia!' To raise a hopeless _emeute_ at the head of the drunken ruffians who, since the war, have been the curse of the place! And be thrown into the common jail, and hurried thence to the scaffold! If he looks for that----"

"He does not."

"He is mad."

"He does not," Basterga repeated, unmoved. "The Grand Duke is as sane as I am."

"Then what does he expect?"

But the big man laughed. "No, no, Messer Blondel," he said. "You push me too far. You mean nothing, and meaning nothing, all's said and done. I wish," he continued, rising to his feet, and reverting to the tone of sympathy which he had for the moment laid aside, "I wish I might endeavour to show you the thing as I see it, in a word, as a philosopher sees it, and as men of culture in all ages, rising above the prejudices of the vulgar, have seen it. For after all, as Persius says,

Live while thou liv'st! for death will make us all, A name, a nothing, but an old wife's tale.

But I must not," reluctantly. "I know that."

The Syndic had lowered his hand; but he still sat with his eyes averted, gazing sullenly at the corner of the floor.

"I knew it when I came," Basterga resumed after a pause, "and therefore I was loth to speak to you."

"Yes."