Vendetta Part 40

We left the Molo, and paused at a retired street corner leading from the Chiaja.

"You remember Carmelo Neri?" I asked.

Andrea shrugged his shoulders with an air of infinite commiseration.

"Ah! povero diavolo! Well do I remember him! A bold fellow and brave, with a heart in him, too, if one did but know where to find it. And now he drags the chain! Well, well, no doubt it is what he deserves; but I say, and always will maintain, there are many worse men than Carmelo."

I briefly related how I had seen the captured brigand in the square at Palermo and had spoken with him. "I mentioned you," I added, "and he bade me tell you Teresa had killed herself."

"Ah! that I well know," said the little captain, who had listened to me intently, and over whose mobile face flitted a shadow of tender pity, as he sighed. "Poverinetta! So fragile and small! To think she had the force to plunge the knife in her breast! As well imagine a little bird flying down to pierce itself on an uplifted bayonet. Ay, ay! women will do strange things--and it is certain she loved Carmelo."

"You would help him to escape again if you could, no doubt?" I inquired with a half smile.

The ready wit of the Sicilian instantly a.s.serted itself.

"Not I, eccellenza," he replied, with an air of dignity and most virtuous honesty. "No, no, not now. The law is the law, and I, Andrea Luziani, am not one to break it. No, Carmelo must take his punishment; it is for life they say--and hard as it seems, it is but just. When the little Teresa was in the question, look you, what could I do? but now--let the saints that choose help Carmelo, for I will not."

I laughed as I met the audacious flash of his eyes; I knew, despite his protestations, that if Carmelo Neri ever did get clear of the galleys, it would be an excellent thing for him if Luziani's vessel chanced to be within reach.

"You have your brig the 'Laura' still?" I asked him.

"Yes, eccellenza, the Madonna be praised! And she has been newly rigged and painted, and she is as trig and trim a craft as you can meet with in all the wide blue waters of the Mediterranean."

"Now you see," I sad, impressively, "I have a friend, a relative, who is in trouble: he wishes to get away from Naples quietly and in secret.

Will you help him? You shall be paid whatever you think proper to demand."

The Sicilian looked puzzled. He puffed meditatively at his cigar and remained silent.

"He is not pursued by the law," I continued, noting his hesitation. "He is simply involved in a cruel difficulty brought upon him by his own family--he seeks to escape from unjust persecution."

Andrea's brow cleared.

"Oh, if that is the case, eccellenza, I am at your service. But where does your friend desire to go?"

I paused for a moment and considered.

"To Civita Vecchia," I said at last, "from that port he can obtain a ship to take him to his further destination."

The captain's expressive face fell--he looked very dubious.

"To Civita Vecchia is a long way, a very long way," he said, regretfully; "and it is the bad season, and there are cross currents and contrary winds. With all the wish in the world to please you, eccellenza, I dare not run the 'Laura' so far; but there is another means--"

And interrupting himself he considered awhile in silence. I waited patiently for him to speak.

"Whether it would suit your friend I know not," he said at last, laying his hand confidentially on my arm, "but there is a stout brig leaving here for Civita Vecchia on Friday morning next--"

"The day after Giovedi Gra.s.so?" I queried, with a smile he did not understand. He nodded.

"Exactly so. She carries a cargo of Lacrima Cristi, and she is a swift sailer. I know her captain--he is a good soul; but," and Andrea laughed lightly, "he is like the rest of us--he loves money. You do not count the francs--no, they are nothing to you--but we look to the soldi. Now, if it please you I will make him a certain offer of pa.s.sage money, as large as you shall choose, also I will tell him when to expect his one pa.s.senger, and I can almost promise you that he will not say no!"

This proposal fitted in so excellently with my plans that I accepted it, and at once named an exceptionally munificent sum for the pa.s.sage required. Andrea's eyes glistened as he heard.

"It is a little fortune!" he cried, enthusiastically. "Would that I could earn as much in twenty voyages! But one should not be churlish--such luck cannot fall in all men's way."

I smiled.

"And do you think, amico, I will suffer you to go unrewarded?" I said.

And placing two twenty-franc pieces in his brown palm I added, "As you rightly said, francs are nothing to me. Arrange this little matter without difficulty, and you shall not be forgotten. You can call at my hotel to-morrow or the next day, when you have settled everything--here is the address," and I penciled it on my card and gave it to him; "but remember, this is a secret matter, and I rely upon you to explain it as such to your friend who commands the brig going to Civita Vecchia. He must ask no questions of his pa.s.senger--the more silence the more discretion--and when once he has landed him at his destination he will do well to straightway forget all about him. You understand?"

Andrea nodded briskly.

"Si, si, signer. He has a bad memory as it is--it shall grow worse at your command! Believe it!"

I laughed, shook hands, and parted with the friendly little fellow, he returning to the Molo, and I slowly walking homeward by way of the Villa Reale. An open carriage coming swiftly toward me attracted my attention; as it drew nearer I recognized the prancing steeds and the familiar liveries. A fair woman clad in olive velvets and Russian sables looked out smiling, and waved her hand.

It was my wife--my betrothed bride, and beside her sat the d.u.c.h.ess di Marina, the most irreproachable of matrons, famous for her piety not only in Naples but throughout Italy. So immaculate was she that it was difficult to imagine her husband daring to caress that upright, well-dressed form, or venturing to kiss those prim lips, colder than the carven beads of her jeweled rosary. Yet there was a story about her too--an old story that came from Padua--of how a young and handsome n.o.bleman had been found dead at her palace doors, stabbed to the heart.

Perhaps--who knows--he also might have thought--

"Che bella cosa e de morire accisa, Nnanze a la porta de la nnamorata!"

Some said the duke had killed him; but nothing could be proved, nothing was certain. The duke was silent, so was is d.u.c.h.ess; and Scandal herself sat meekly with closed lips in the presence of this stately and august couple, whose bearing toward each other in society was a lesson of complete etiquette to the world. What went on behind the scenes no one could tell. I raised my hat with the profoundest deference as the carriage containing the two ladies dashed by; I knew not which was the cleverest hypocrite of the two, therefore I did equal honor to both. I was in a meditative and retrospective mood, and when I reached the Toledo the distracting noises, the cries of the flower-girls, and venders of chestnuts and confetti, the nasal singing of the street-rhymers, the yells of punchinello, and the answering laughter of the populace, were all beyond my endurance. To gratify a sudden whim that seized me, I made my way into the lowest and dirtiest quarters of the city, and roamed through wretched courts and crowded alleys, trying to discover that one miserable street which until now I had always avoided even the thought of, where I had purchased the coral-fisher's clothes on the day of my return from the grave. I went in many wrong directions, but at last I found it, and saw at a glance that the old rag-dealer's shop was still there, in its former condition of heterogeneous filth and disorder. A man sat at the door smoking, but not the crabbed and bent figure I had before seen--this was a younger and stouter individual, with a Jewish cast of countenance, and dark, ferocious eyes. I approached him, and seeing by my dress and manner that I was some person of consequence, he rose, drew his pipe from his mouth, and raised his greasy cap with a respectful yet suspicious air.

"Are you the owner of this place?" I asked.

"Si, signor!"

"What has become of the old man who used to live here?"

He laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and drew his pipe-stem across his throat with a significant gesture.

"So, signor!--with a sharp knife! He had a good deal of blood, too, for so withered a body. To kill himself in that fashion was stupid: he spoiled an Indian shawl that was on his bed, worth more than a thousand francs. One would not have thought he had so much blood."

And the fellow put back his pipe in his mouth and smoked complacently.

I heard in sickened silence.

"He was mad, I suppose?" I said at last.

The long pipe was again withdrawn.

"Mad? Well, the people say so. I for one think he was very reasonable--all except that matter of the shawl--he should have taken that off his bed first. But he was wise enough to know that he was of no use to anybody--he did the best he could! Did you know him, signor?"

"I gave him money once," I replied, evasively; then taking out a few francs I handed them to this evil-eyed, furtive-looking son of Israel, who received the gift with effusive grat.i.tude.

"Thank you for your information," I said coldly. "Good-day."

"Good-day to you, signor," he replied, resuming his seat and watching me curiously as I turned away.

I pa.s.sed out of the wretched street feeling faint and giddy. The end of the miserable rag-dealer been told to me briefly and brutally enough--yet somehow I was moved to a sense of regret and pity. Abjectly poor, half crazy, and utterly friendless, he had been a brother of mine in the same bitterness and irrevocable sorrow. I wondered with a half shudder--would my end be like his? When my vengeance was completed should I grow shrunken, and old, and mad, and one lurid day draw a sharp knife across my throat as a finish to my life's history? I walked more rapidly to shake off the morbid fancies that thus insidiously crept in on my brain; and as before, the noise and glitter of the Toledo had been unbearable, so now I found it a relief and a distraction. Two maskers bedizened in violet and gold whizzed past me like a flash, one of them yelling a stale jest concerning la nnamorata--a jest I scarcely heard, and certainly had no heart or wit to reply to. A fair woman I knew leaned out of a gayly draped balcony and dropped a bunch of roses at my feet; out of courtesy I stooped to pick them up, and then raising my hat I saluted the dark-eyed donor, but a few paces on I gave them away to a ragged child. Of all flowers that bloom, they were, and still are, the most insupportable to me.