The Wing-and-Wing Part 23

A ray of satisfaction gleamed athwart the pale countenance of the priest--a sincerely pious man, or fear of personal consequences might have kept him aloof from such a scene--and he closed his eyes while he expressed his grat.i.tude to G.o.d in the secret recesses of his own spirit.

Then he turned to the prince and spoke cheeringly.

"Son," he said, "if thou quittest life with a due dependence on the Son of G.o.d, and in this temper toward thy fellow-creatures, of all this living throng thou art he who is most to be envied! Address thy soul in prayer once more to Him who thou feelest can alone serve thee."

Caraccioli, aided by the priest, knelt on the scaffold; for the rope hung loose enough to permit that act of humiliation, and the other bent at his side.

"I wish to G.o.d Nelson had nothing to do with this!" muttered Cuffe, as he turned away his face, inadvertently bending his eyes on the Foudroyant, nearly under the stern of which ship his gig lay. There, in the stern-walk, stood the lady, already mentioned in this chapter, a keen spectator of the awful scene. No one but a maid was near her, however; the men of her companionship not being of moods stern enough to be at her side. Cuffe turned away from this sight in still stronger disgust; and just at that moment a common cry arose from the boats.

Looking round, he was just in time to see the unfortunate Caraccioli dragged from his knees by the neck, until he rose, by a steady man-of-war pull, to the end of the yard; leaving his companion alone on the scaffold, lost in prayer. There was a horrible minute of the struggles between life and death, when the body, so late the tenement of an immortal spirit, hung, like one of the jewel-blocks of the ship, dangling pa.s.sively at the end of the spar, as insensible as the wood which sustained it.

CHAPTER XV.

"Sleep, sleep, thou sad one, on the sea; The wash of waters lulls thee now; His arm no more will pillow thee, Thy hand upon his brow; He is not near, to hurt thee, or to save: The ground is his--the sea must be thy grave."

DANA.

A long summer's evening did the body of Francesco Caraccioli hang suspended at the yard-arm of the Minerva; a revolting spectacle to his countrymen and to most of the strangers who had been the witnesses of his end. Then was it lowered into a boat, its feet loaded with a double-headed shot, and it was carried out a league or more into the bay and cast into the sea. The revolting manner in which it rose to the surface and confronted its destroyers a fortnight later has pa.s.sed into history; and, to this day, forms one of the marvels related by the ignorant and wonder-loving of that region[6]. As for Ghita, she disappeared no one knew how; Vito Viti and his companions being too much absorbed with the scene to note the tender and considerate manner in which Raoul rowed her off from a spectacle that could but be replete with horrors to one so situated. Cuffe himself stood but a few minutes longer; but he directed his boat's crew to pull alongside of the Proserpine. In half an hour after the execution took place this frigate was aweigh; and then she was seen standing out of the bay, before a light air, covered with canvas from her truck to her hammock-cloths.

Leaving her for the moment, we will return to the party in the skiff.

[6] Singular as was this occurrence, and painful as it must have proved to the parties to the execution, it is one of the simplest consequences of natural causes. All animal matter swells in water previously to turning corrupt. A body that has became of twice its natural size, in this manner, as a matter of course, displaces twice the usual quant.i.ty of water; the _weight_ of the ma.s.s remaining the same. Most human frames floating, in their natural state, so long as the lungs are inflated with air, it follows that one in this condition would bring up with it as much weight in iron, as made the difference between its own gravity and that of the water it displaced. The upright att.i.tude of Caraccioli was owing to the shot attached to the feet; of which, it _is_ also probable, one or two had become loosened.

Neither Carlo Giuntotardi nor Ghita Caraccioli--for so we must continue to call the girl, albeit the name is much too ill.u.s.trious to be borne by one of her humble condition in life--but neither of these two had any other design, in thus seeking out the unfortunate admiral, than to perform what each believed to be a duty. As soon as the fate of Caraccioli was decided, both were willing to return to their old position in life; not that they felt ashamed to avow their connection with the dead, but because they were quite devoid of any of that worldly ambition which renders rank and fortune necessary to happiness.

When he left the crowd of boats, Raoul pulled toward the rocks which bound the sh.o.r.es of the bay, near the gardens of Portici. This was a point sufficiently removed from the common anchorage to be safe from observation; and yet so near as to be reached in considerably less than an hour. As the light boat proceeded Ghita gradually regained her composure. She dried her eyes and looked around her inquiringly, as if wondering whither their companion was taking them.

"I will not ask you, Raoul, why you are here at a moment like this, and whence you have come," she said; "but I may ask whither you are now carrying us? Our home is at St. Agata, on the heights above Sorrento, and on the other side of the bay. We come there annually to pa.s.s a month with my mother's sister, who asks this much of our love."

"If I did not know all this, Ghita, I would not and could not be here. I have visited the cottage of your aunt this day; followed you to Naples, heard of the admiral's trial and sentence, understood how it would affect your feelings, traced you on board the English admiral's ship, and was in waiting as you found me; having first contrived to send away the man who took you off. All this has come about as naturally as the feeling which has induced me to venture again into the lion's mouth."

"The pitcher that goes often to the well, Raoul, gets broken at last,"

said Ghita, a little reproachfully, though it surpa.s.sed her power to prevent the tones of tenderness from mingling with her words.

"You know all, Ghita. After months of perseverance and a love such as man seldom felt before, you deliberately and coldly refused to be my wife;--nay, you have deserted Monte Argentaro purposely to get rid of my importunities; for there I could go with the lugger at any moment; and have come here, upon this bay, crowded with the English and other enemies of France, fancying that I would not dare to venture hither.

Well, you see with what success; for neither Nelson nor his two-deckers can keep Raoul Yvard from the woman he loves, let him be as victorious and skilful as he may!"

The sailor had ceased rowing, to give vent to his feelings in this speech, neither of the two colloquists regarding the presence of Giuntotardi any more than if he had been a part of themselves. This indifference to the fact that a third person was a listener proceeded from habit, the worthy scholar and religionist being usually too abstracted to attend to concerns as light as love and the youthful affections. Ghita was not surprised either at the reproaches of her suitor or at his perseverance; and her conscience told her he uttered but the truth, in attributing to her the motives he had, in urging her uncle to make their recent change of residence; for, while a sense of duty had induced her to quit the towers, her art was not sufficient to suggest the expediency of going to any other abode than that which she was accustomed to inhabit periodically, and about which Raoul knew, from her own innocent narrations, nearly as much as she knew herself.

"I can say no more than I have said already," the thoughtful girl answered, after Raoul had begun again to row. "It is better on every account that we should part. I cannot change my country; nor can you desert that glorious republic of which you feel so proud. I am an Italian, and you are French; while, more than all, I worship my G.o.d, while you believe in the new opinions of your own nation. Here are causes enough for separation surely, however favorably and kindly we may happen to think of each other in general."

"Tell me not any more of the heart of an Italian girl, and of her readiness to fly to the world's end with the man of her choice!"

exclaimed Raoul, bitterly. "I can find a thousand girls in Languedoc who would make the circuit of the earth yearly rather than be separated a day from the seamen they have chosen for their husbands."

"Then look among the girls of Languedoc for a wife," answered Ghita, with a smile so melancholy that it contradicted her words. "Better to take one of your own nation and opinions, Raoul, than risk your happiness with a stranger, who might not answer all your hopes when you came to know her better."

"We will not talk further of this now, dearest Ghita; my first care must be to carry you back to the cottage of your aunt--unless indeed you will at once embark in le Feu-Follet and return to the towers?"

"Le Feu-Follet!--she is hardly here, in the midst of a fleet of her enemies!--Remember, Raoul, your men will begin to complain if you place them too often in such risks to gratify your own wishes."

"_Peste!_--I keep them in good humor by rich prizes. They have been successful; and that which makes yonder Nelson popular and a great man makes Raoul Yvard popular and a great man also in his little way. My crew is like its captain--it loves adventures and it loves success."

"I do not see the lugger--among a hundred ships, there is no sign of yours?"

"The Bay of Napoli is large, Ghita," returned Raoul, laughing; "and le Feu-Follet takes but little room. See-yonder vaisseaux-de-ligne appear trifling among these n.o.ble mountains and on this wide gulf; you cannot expect my little lugger to make much show. We are small, Ghita mia, if not insignificant!"

"Still, where there are so many vigilant eyes, there is always danger, Raoul! Besides, a lugger is an unusual rig, as you have owned to me yourself."

"Not here, among all these eastern craft. I have always found, if I wished to be unnoticed, it was best to get into a crowd; whereas he who lives in a village lives in open daylight. But we will talk of these things when alone, Ghita--yonder fisherman is getting ready to receive us."

By this time the skiff was near the sh.o.r.e, where a little yawl was anch.o.r.ed, containing a solitary fisherman. This man was examining them as they approached; and, recognizing Raoul, he was gathering in his lines and preparing to raise his grapnel. In a few minutes the two craft lay side by side; and then, though not without difficulty, owing to a very elaborate disguise, Ghita recognized Ithuel Bolt. A very few words sufficed to let the American into all that it was necessary he should know, when the whole party made its arrangements to depart. The skiff which Raoul, having found it lying on the beach, had made free with without leave, he anch.o.r.ed, in the full expectation that its right owner might find it some day or other; while its cargo was transferred to the yawl, which was one of the lugger's own attendants. The latter was a light, swift-pulling little boat, admirably constructed and fit to live in a sea-way; requiring, moreover, but two good oars, one of which Raoul undertook to pull himself, while Ithuel managed the other. In five minutes after the junction was made the party was moving again from the land in a straight line across the bay, steering in the direction of its southern cape, and proceeding with the steady, swift movement of men accustomed to the toil.

There are few portions of the sea in which a single ship or boat is an object of so little notice as the Bay of Naples. This is true of all times and seasons; the magnificent scale on which nature has created her panorama rendering ordinary objects of comparative insignificance; while the constant movement, the fruit of a million of souls thronging around its teeming sh.o.r.es, covers it in all directions with boats, almost as the streets of a town are crowded with pedestrians. The present occasion, too, was one likely to set everything in motion; and Raoul judged rightly when he thought himself less likely to be observed in such a scene than on a smaller and less frequented water. As a matter of course, while near the mole, or the common anchorage, it was necessary to pa.s.s amid a floating throng; but, once beyond the limits of this crowd, the size of the bay rendered it quite easy to avoid unpleasant collisions without any apparent effort; while the pa.s.sage of a boat in any direction was an occurrence too common to awaken distrust. One would think no more of questioning a craft that was encountered, even in the centre of that s.p.a.cious bay, than he would think of inquiring about the stranger met in the market-place. All this both Raoul and Ithuel knew and felt; and once in motion, in their yawl, they experienced a sense of security that for the four or five previous hours had not always existed.

By this time the sun was low, though it was possible, as Raoul perceived, to detect the speck that was still swinging at the Minerva's fore-yard-arm; a circ.u.mstance to which the young man, with considerate feeling, refrained from adverting. The Proserpine had been some time in motion, standing out of the fleet under a cloud of canvas, but with an air so light as to permit the yawl to gain on her, though the heads of both were turned in the same direction. In this manner mile after mile was pa.s.sed, until darkness came. Then the moon arose, rendering the bay less distinct, it is true, but scarcely more mysterious or more lovely, than in the hours of stronger light. The gulf, indeed, forms an exception in this particular to the general rule, by the extent of its sh.o.r.es, the elevation of its mountains, the beauty of its water--which has the deep tint of the ocean off soundings--and the softness of the atmosphere; lending to it by day all the mellowed and dreamy charms that other scenes borrow from the illusions of night and the milder brilliance of the secondary planets. Raoul did not exert himself at the oar; and, as he sat aft, his companion was obliged to take the stroke from his movement. It was so pleasant to have Ghita with him, on his own element, that he never hurried himself while in the enjoyment of her society. The conversation, it will readily be imagined, was not lively; but the saddened melancholy of Ghita's voice, as she occasionally hazarded a remark of her own, or answered one of his questions, sounded sweeter in his ears than the music of the ship's bands that was now wafted to them across the water.

As the evening advanced the land-breeze increased, and the Proserpine gradually gained upon the boat. When the latter was about two-thirds of the distance across the bay, the frigate caught the stronger current that came down athwart the campagna, between Vesuvius and the mountains behind Castel-a-Mare, when she drove ahead fast. Her sails, as seamen express it, were all asleep; or swelled outward without collapsing; and her rate of sailing was between five and six miles in the hour. This brought them up with the boat hand-over-hand, as it is called; and Ghita, at Raoul's request, put the helm aside, in order that they might get out of the way of the huge body that was approaching. It would seem that there was some design on the part of the ship in coming so near, for she made a sheer toward the yawl in a way to frighten the timid helmswoman and to induce her to relinquish her hold of the tiller.

"Fear nothing," called out Griffin, in Italian--"we intend to offer you a tow. Stand by and catch the line--Heave!"

A small rope was thrown; and, falling directly across Ithuel's head, that person could do no less than seize it. With all his detestation of the English in general, and of this vessel in particular, the man-of-all-work had the labor-saving propensity of his countrymen; and it struck him as a good thing to make a "king's ship" aid an enemy's privateer by accepting the offer. As he used the line with proper dexterity, the yawl was soon towing on the quarter of the frigate; Raoul taking the helm and giving the boat the sheer necessary to prevent her dragging in alongside. This was a change so sudden and so totally unexpected that Ghita murmured her disapprobation, lest it should lead to a discovery of the true character of her companions.

"Fear nothing, dearest," answered Raoul, "they cannot suspect us; and we may learn something useful by being here. At all events, le Feu-Follet is safe from their designs, just at this moment."

"Are you boatmen of Capri?" called out Griffin, who stood on the taffrail of the ship, with Cuffe and the two Italians near by; the first dictating the questions his lieutenant put.

"S'nore, si," answered Raoul, adopting the patois of the country as well as he could and disguising his deep mellow voice by speaking on a high shrill key. "Boatmen of Capri, that have been to Napoli with wine, and have been kept out later than we intended by the spectacle at the yard-arm of the Minerva. Cospetto! them signori make no more of a prince than we do of a quail in the season, on our little island. Pardon me, dearest Ghita; but we _must_ throw dust into their eyes."

"Has any strange sail been seen about your island within the last twenty-four hours?"

"The bay is full of strange sail, S'nore; even the Turks coming to see us, since the last trouble with the French."

"Aye--but the Turks are now your allies, like us English. Have you seen any other strangers?"

"They tell me there are ships from the far north, too, S'nore, off the town. Russians, I believe, they call them."

"They, too, are allies; but I mean enemies. Has there not been a lugger seen off your island within the last day or two--a lugger of the French?"

"Si--si--I know what you mean now, S'nore; there _has_ been a vessel like that you mention off the island; for I saw her with my own eyes--si--si. It was about the twenty-third hour last evening--a lugger, and we all said she must be French by her wicked looks."

"Raoul!" said Ghita, as if reproaching him for an indiscretion.

"This is the true way to befog them," answered the young man; "they have certainly heard of us; and by seeming to tell a little truth frankly it will give me an opportunity of telling more untruth."

"Ah, Raoul, it is a sad life that renders untruths necessary!"

"It is the art of war, dearest; without it we should soon be outwitted by these knaves of English. Si--si, S'nori; we all said just that concerning her looks and rig."