The Wing-and-Wing Part 10

There was a manner of established confidence in the way in which she trusted herself under the muzzles of guns that might have destroyed her in a very few minutes, and no one who saw her approach could very well believe that she was anything but a known, as well as a confirmed, friend.

"Would any of the republican rascals, think you, Signor Andrea," asked Vito Viti, in triumph, "dare to come into Porto Ferrajo in this style; knowing, too, as does this 'Sir Smees,' the sort of people he will have to deal with! Remember, Vice-governatore, that the man has actually been ash.o.r.e among us, and would not be likely to run his head into the lion's mouth."

"Thou hast changed thine opinion greatly, neighbor Vito," answered the vice-governatore, somewhat dryly, for he was far from being satisfied on the subject of Sir Cicero and on those of certain other circ.u.mstances in English history and politics; "it better becomes magistrates to be cautious and wary."

"Well, if there be a more cautious and circ.u.mspect man in Elba than the poor podesta of the Porto Ferrajo, let him stand forth, o' G.o.d's name, and prove his deeds! I do not esteem myself, Signor Vice-governatore, as the idlest or as the most ignorant man in the Grand Duke's territories.

There may be wiser, among whom I place your eccellenza; but there is not a more loyal subject or a more zealous friend of truth."

"I believe it, good Vito," returned Andrea, smiling kindly on his old a.s.sociate, "and have ever so considered thy advice and services. Still, I wish I knew something of this Sir Cicero; for, to be frank with thee, I have even foregone my siesta in searching the books in quest of such a man."

"And do they not confirm every syllable the Signor Smees has said?"

"So far from it, that I do not even find the name. It is true, several distinguished orators of that nation are styled _English_ Ciceroes; but then all people do this, by way of commendation."

"I do not know that, Signore--I do not know that--it may happen in our Italy; but would it come to pa.s.s, think you, among remote and so lately barbarous nations as England, Germany, and France?"

"Thou forgettest, friend Vito," returned the vice-governatore, smiling now, in pity of his companion's ignorance and prejudices, as just before he had smiled in kindness, "that we Italians took the pains to civilize these people a thousand years ago, and that they have not gone backward all this time. But there can be no doubt that 'ze Ving-y-Ving' means to enter our bay again, and there stands the 'Signor Smees' examining us with a gla.s.s, as if he, too, contemplated another interview."

"It strikes me, Vice-governatore, that it would be a sin next to heresy to doubt the character of those who so loyally put their trust in us. No republican would dare to anchor in the bay of Porto Ferrajo a second time. _Once_ it might possibly be done; but _twice?_--no, never, never."

"I do not know but you are right, Vito, and I am sure I hope so. Will you descend to the port and see that the forms are complied with? Then glean such useful circ.u.mstances as you can."

The crowd was now in motion toward the lower part of the town to meet the lugger; and at this suggestion the podesta hurried down in the throng, to be in readiness to receive the "Signor Smees" as soon as he should land. It was thought more dignified and proper for the vice-governatore to remain, and await to hear the report of the supposed English officer where he was. Ghita was one of the few also who remained on the heights, her heart now beating with renewed apprehensions of the dangers that her lover had again braved on her account, and now nearly overflowing with tenderness, as she admitted the agreeable conviction that, had she not been in Porto Ferrajo, Raoul Yvard would never have incurred such risks.

Ghita delle Torri, or Ghita of the Towers, as the girl was ordinarily termed by those who knew her, from a circ.u.mstance in her situation that will appear as we advance in the tale, or Ghita Caraccioli, as was her real name, had been an orphan from infancy. She had imbibed a strength of character and a self-reliance from her condition, that might otherwise have been wanting in one so young, and of a native disposition so truly gentle. An aunt had impressed on her mind the lessons of female decorum; and her uncle, who had abandoned the world on account of a strong religious sentiment, had aided in making her deeply devout and keenly conscientious. The truth of her character rendered her indisposed to the deception which Raoul was practising, while feminine weakness inclined her to forgive the offence in the motive. She had shuddered again and again, as she remembered how deeply the young sailor was becoming involved in frauds,--and frauds, too, that might so easily terminate in violence and bloodshed; and then she had trembled under the influence of a gentler emotion as she remembered that all these risks were run for her. Her reason had long since admonished her that Raoul Yvard and Ghita Caraccioli ought to be strangers to each other; but her heart told a different story. The present was an occasion suited to keeping these conflicting feelings keenly alive, and, as has been said, when most of the others hastened down toward the port to be present when the Wing-and-Wing came in, she remained on the hill, brooding over her own thoughts, much of the time bathed in tears.

But Raoul had no intention of trusting his Jack-o'-Lantern where it might so readily be extinguished by the hand of man. Instead of taking shelter against any new roving republican who might come along behind the buildings of the port, as had been expected, he shot past the end of the quay and anch.o.r.ed within a few fathoms of the very spot he had quitted that morning, merely dropping his kedge under foot as before.

Then he stepped confidently into his boat and pulled for the landing.

"Eh, Signor Capitano," cried Vito Viti, as he met his new protege with an air of cordiality as soon as the foot of the latter touched the sh.o.r.e, "we looked for the pleasure of receiving you into our bosom, as it were, here in the haven. How ingeniously you led off that _sans culotte_ this morning! Ah, the Inglese are the great nation of the ocean, Colombo notwithstanding! The vice-governatore told me all about your ill.u.s.trious female admiral, Elisabetta, and the Spanish armada; and there was Nelsoni; and now we have Smees!"

Raoul accepted these compliments, both national and personal, in a very gracious manner, squeezing the hand of the podesta with suitable cordiality and condescension, acting the great man as if accustomed to this sort of incense from infancy. As became his public situation, as well as his character, he proposed paying his duty immediately to the superior authorities of the island.

"King George, my master," continued Raoul, as he and Vito Viti walked from the quay toward the residence of Andrea Barrofaldi, "is particularly pointed on this subject, with us all, in his personal orders. 'Never enter a port of one of my allies, Smeet,' he said, the very last time I took leave of him, 'without immediately hastening with your duty to the commandant of the place. You never lose anything by being liberal in politeness; and England is too polished a country to be outdone in these things by even the Italians, the parents of modern civilization.'"

"You are happy in having such a sovrano, and still more so in being allowed to approach his sacred person."

"Oh! as to the last, the navy is his pet; he considers us captains in particular as his children. 'Never enter London, my dear Smeet,' he said to me, 'without coming to the palace, where you will always find a father'--you know he has one son among us who was lately a captain, as well as myself."

"San Stefano! and he the child of a great king! I did not know that, I confess, Signore."

"Why, it is a law in England that the king shall give at least one son to the marine. 'Yes,' said his Majesty, 'always be prompt in calling on the superior authorities, and remember me benevolently and affectionately to them, one and all, even down to the subordinate magistrates, who live in their intimacy.'"

Raoul delighted in playing the part he was now performing, but he was a little addicted to over-acting it. Like all exceedingly bold and decided geniuses, he was constantly striding across that step which separates the sublime from the ridiculous, and consequently ran no small hazard in the way of discovery. But with Vito Viti he incurred little risk on this score, provincial credulity and a love of the marvellous coming in aid of his general ignorance, to render him a safe depository of anything of this sort that the other might choose to advance. Vito Viti felt it to be an honor to converse with a man who, in his turn, had conversed with a king; and as he puffed his way up the steep ascent again he did not fail to express some of the feelings which were glowing in his breast.

"Is it not a happiness to serve such a prince?" he exclaimed--"nay, to die for him!"

"The latter is a service I have not yet performed," answered Raoul, innocently, "but which may one day well happen. Do you not think, podesta, that he who lays down his life for his prince merits canonization?"

"That would fill the calendar too soon, in these wars, Signor Smees; but I will concede you the generals and admirals, and other great personages. Si--a general or an admiral who dies for his sovereign does deserve to be made a saint--this would leave these miserable French republicans, Signore, without hope or honor!"

"They are _canaille_ from the highest to the lowest, and can reasonably expect nothing better. If they wish to be canonized, let them restore the Bourbons, and put themselves lawfully in the way of such a blessing.

The chase of this morning, Signor Vito Viti, must at least have amused the town?"

The podesta wanted but this opening to pour out a history of his own emotions, sensations, and raptures. He expatiated in glowing terms on the service the lugger had rendered the place by leading off the rascally republicans, showing that he considered the manoeuvre of pa.s.sing the port, instead of entering it, as one of the most remarkable of which he had ever heard, or even read.

"I defied the vice-governatore to produce an example of a finer professional inspiration in the whole range of history, beginning with his Tacitus and ending with your new English work on Roma. I doubt if the Elder Pliny, or Mark Antony, or even Caesar, ever did a finer thing, Signore; and I am not a man addicted to extravagance in compliments. Had it been a fleet of vessels of three decks, instead of a little lugger, Christendom would have rung with the glory of the achievement!"

"Had it been but a frigate, my excellent friend, the manoeuvre would have been unnecessary. Peste! it is not a single republican ship that can make a stout English frigate skulk along the rocks and fly like a thief at night."

"Ah, there is the vice-governatore walking on his terrace, Sir Smees, and dying with impatience to greet you. We will drop the subject for another occasion, and a bottle of good Florence liquor."

The reception which Andrea Barrofaldi gave Raoul was far less warm than that he received from the podesta, though it was polite, and without any visible signs of distrust.

"I have come, Signor Vice-governatore," said the privateersman, "in compliance with positive orders from my master, to pay my respects to you again, and to report my arrival once more in your bay, though the cruise made since my last departure has not been so long as an East India voyage."

"Short as it has been, we should have reason to regret your absence, Signore, were it not for the admirable proofs it has afforded us of your resources and seamanship," returned Andrea, with due complaisance. "To own the truth, when I saw you depart it was with the apprehension that we should never enjoy this satisfaction again. But, like your English Sir Cicero, the second coming may prove even more agreeable than the first."

Raoul laughed, and he even had the grace to blush a little; after which he appeared to reflect intensely on some matter of moment. Smiles struggled round his handsome mouth, and then he suddenly a.s.sumed an air of sailor-like frankness and disclosed his pa.s.sing sensations in words.

"Signor Vice-governatore, I ask the favor of one moment's private conference; Signor Vito Viti, give us leave a single moment, if you please. I perceive, Signore," continued Raoul, as he and Andrea walked a little aside, "that you have not easily forgotten my little fanfaronade about our English Cicero. But what will you have?--we sailors are sent to sea children, and we know little of books. My excellent father, Milord Smeet, had me put in a frigate when I was only twelve, an age at which one knows very little of Ciceros or Dantes or Corneilles, even as you will confess. Thus, when I found myself in the presence of a gentleman whose reputation for learning has reached far beyond the island he so admirably governs, a silly ambition has led me into a folly that he finds it hard to forgive. If I have talked of names of which I know nothing, it may be a weakness such as young men will fall into; but surely it is no heinous crime."

"You allow, Signore, that there has been no English Sir Cicero?"

"The truth compels me to say, I know nothing about it. But it is hard for a very young man, and one, too, that feels his deficiencies of education, to admit all this to a philosopher on a first acquaintance.

It becomes a different thing when natural modesty is encouraged by a familiar goodness of heart; and a day's acquaintance with the Signor Barrofaldi is as much as a year with an ordinary man."

"If this be the case, Sir Smees, I can readily understand, and as willingly overlook what has pa.s.sed," returned the vice-governatore, with a self-complacency that in nothing fell short of that which Vito Viti had so recently exhibited. "It must be painful to a sensitive mind to feel the deficiencies which unavoidably accompany the want of opportunities for study; and I at least can now say how delightful it is to witness the ingenuousness which admits it. Then, if England has never possessed a Cicero in name, doubtless she has had many in qualifications, after allowing for the halo which time ever throws around a reputation. Should your duty often call you this way, Signore, during the summer, it will add to the pleasure I experience in enjoying the advantage of your acquaintance, to be permitted, in some slight degree, to direct your reading to such works as, with a mind like yours, will be certain to lead to profit and pleasure."

Raoul made a suitable acknowledgment for this offer, and from that moment the best understanding existed between the parties. The privateersman, who had received a much better education than he pretended to, and who was a consummate actor as well as, on certain occasions, a practised flatterer, determined to be more cautious in future, sparing his literary conjectures, whatever liberties he might take with other subjects. And yet this reckless and daring mariner never flattered nor deceived Ghita in anything! With her he had been all sincerity, the influence he had obtained over the feelings of that pure-minded girl being as much the result of the nature and real feeling he had manifested, as of his manly appearance and general powers of pleasing. It would have been, indeed, matter of interesting observation for one curious in the study of human nature to note how completely the girl's innocence and simplicity of character had extended itself over every act of the young man that was any way connected with her; preventing his even feigning that religion which he certainly did not feel, and the want of which was the sole obstacle to the union he had now solicited for near a twelvemonth, and which, of all others, was the object by far the closest to his heart. With Andrea Barrofaldi and Vito Viti, and most especially with the hated English, it was a very different thing, however; and seldom was Raoul happier than when he was employed in precisely such a scene of mystification as that in which he was at that moment engaged.

The vice-governatore having established relations so completely amicable with the "Signor Smees," could do no less than invite his guest to enter the palazzo, along with himself and the podesta. As it was yet too light for the sailor to seek an interview with Ghita, he cheerfully accepted the offer; making a careful examination of the whole of the northern margin of the sea, from his elevated position, however, before he crossed the threshold. This little delay on Raoul's part enabled the podesta to have a pa.s.sing word with his friend un.o.bserved.

"You have found 'Sir Smees,'" said Vito Viti, with earnestness, "all that your wisdom and prudence could desire, I trust? For my part, I consider him a most interesting youth; one destined at some future time to lead fleets and dispose of the fortunes of nations."

"He is more amiable and even better informed than I had thought, neighbor Vito Viti. He gives up his Sir Cicero with a grace that causes one regret it was necessary; and, like yourself, I make no doubt of his becoming an ill.u.s.trious admiral in time. It is true his father, 'Milordo Smees,' has not done justice to his education; but it is not too late yet to repair that evil. Go, desire him to enter; for I am impatient to draw his attention to certain works that may be useful to one in his line of life."

At this suggestion the podesta returned to the door in order to usher the imaginary Guernsey-man into the residence. He found Raoul still standing on the entrance, examining the sea, There were two or three coasters, feluccas, as usual, stealing along the coast, in the Italian fashion, equally afraid of the barbarians of the south sh.o.r.e and of the French of the north. All these would have been good prizes; but, to do the privateersman justice, he was little in the habit of molesting mariners of so low a cla.s.s. There was one felucca, however, that was just rounding the promontory, coming in from the north; and with the people of this craft he determined to have some communication as soon as he returned to the port, with a view to ascertain if she had fallen in with the frigate. Just as he had come to this resolution, the podesta joined him, and he was ushered into the house.

It is unnecessary to give the discourse which succeeded. It related more to literature and matters in general than to anything connected with our tale, the worthy vice-govenatore being disposed to reward the ingenuousness of the young sailor, by furnishing him as much instruction as the time and circ.u.mstances would allow. Raoul bore this very well, waiting patiently for the light to disappear, when he felt a perfect confidence of again meeting Ghita on the promenade. As he had discovered how much more safety there was in diffidence than in pretension, he found his task of deception comparatively easy; and by letting the vice-governatore have his own way, he not only succeeded in gaining that functionary over to a full belief in his a.s.sumed nationality, but in persuading him to believe the "Signor Smees" a young man of even more erudition than he had at first supposed. By means as simple and natural as these, Raoul made more progress in the good graces of Andrea Barrofaldi in the next two hours, than he could have done in a year by setting up his own knowledge and reading as authority.

There is little doubt that the vice-governatore found this interview agreeable, from the time he was disposed to waste on it; and, it is certain, Raoul thought it some of the hardest duty in which he had ever been engaged. As for Vito Viti, he was edified, and he did not care to conceal it, giving frequent manifestations of his satisfaction by expressions of delight; occasionally venturing a remark, as if expressly to betray his own ignorance.

"I have often known you great, vice-governatore," he cried, when Andrea had closed a dissertation on the earlier history of all the northern nations, which lasted fully half an hour, "but never so great as you are to-night! Signore, you have been most ill.u.s.trious this evening! Is it not so, Signor Smees? Could any professor of Pisa, or even of Papua, do more justice to a subject than we have seen done to this to which we have been listening?"

"Signor Podesta," added Raoul, "but one feeling has prevailed in my mind while attending to what has been said; and that has been deep regret that my profession has cut me off from all these rich stores of profound thought. But it is permitted us to admire that even which we cannot imitate."

"Quite true, Signori," answered Andrea, with gentle benevolence, "but with dispositions like yours, Sir Smees, it is not so very difficult to imitate what we admire. I will write out a list of works which I would recommend to your perusal; and, by touching at Livorno or Napoli, you will obtain all the books at reasonable prices. You may expect to see the list on your breakfast table to-morrow morning, as I shall not sleep until it is completed."