The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti Part 12

The Public Accuser rose and cross-examined Arthur Clyde, for form's sake, I suppose. But the jury professed themselves satisfied with the evidence before them, and before I quite knew what had happened I was in a chariot in the street--a chariot with no horses at all, but a thousand men, to draw it. The story was abroad. The city rang with it. I had risked my life to save a friend from suspicion, and those who cursed me in the morning cheered me in the afternoon, until they were too hoa.r.s.e to cheer me longer. Happily, Cecilia's name was kept out of this noisy chorus of applause which roared so in my ears. I was glad and excited, and had no objection to be made a hero. As soon as I could be rescued, Mr. Gregory bore me away to Posilipo, where I found Arthur quite worn out with the fatigue and excitement of the day. Those influences r.e.t.a.r.ded his recovery for a week or two, but before the autumn came he was well and strong again. I begged hard of Mr. Gregory and the Advocate, and at last they came to agree with me, and to this day Arthur does not know of my suspicions of him. He regards my reception by the populace as a curious ill.u.s.tration of the excitability of an Italian mob--as no doubt it was.

Giovanni Fornajo, otherwise John Baker, went to the Sardinian salt mines for the term of his natural life, and is serving there now.

I am G.o.dfather to Cecilia's boy, and I am an Italian old bachelor.

I shall never marry, but I am contented. My last news is that my old patron, at the age of fifty-five, has proposed to Miss Grammont, and that she has not refused him.

If you will look into the little churchyard at Posilipo you will find a flat marble slab with a name on it, and no more. The name it bears is that of Alberto Lezzi, who but for his early death would have been one of the great legal orators of Europe. The case which first brought him into note was mine. I have not told you his name before, but my advocate was the great Alberto Lezzi. It was his hand which averted the tragedy of my life, and it is to his memory that I dedicate this story.