Whosoever Shall Offend Part 33

"Do you think any one would try to catch him if I let him run loose?"

asked Ercole, as if in doubt. "He killed a full-grown wolf before he was two years old, and not long ago he worried a sheepdog of the Campagna as if it had been nothing but a lamb. Do you think any one would try to catch him?"

"If it fell to me, I should go to confession first," said Paoluccio.

So Ercole left the inn and trudged along the road to Rome with Nino at his heels, without once looking behind him; past the Baldinotti houses and into the Via Appia Nuova, and on into the city through the gate of San Giovanni, where the octroi men stopped him and made him show them what he had in his canvas bag. When they saw that there was no cheese left and but little bread, they let him go by without paying anything.

He went up to the left and sat down on the ground under the trees that are there, and he filled his little clay pipe and smoked a while, without even speaking to his dog. It was quiet, for it was long past the hour when the carts come in, and the small boys were all gone to school, and the great paved slope between the steps of the basilica and the gate was quite deserted, and very white and hot.

Ercole was not very tired, though he had walked all night and a good part of the morning. He could have gone on walking till sunset if he had chosen, all the way to his little stone house near Ardea, stopping by the way to get a meal; and then he would not have slept much longer than usual. A Roman peasant in his native Campagna, with enough to eat and a little wine, is hard to beat at walking. Ercole had not stopped to rest, but to think.

When he had thought some time, he looked about to see if any one were looking at him, and he saw that the only people in sight were a long way off. He took his big clasp-knife out of his pocket and opened it. As the clasp clicked at the back of the blade Nino woke and sat up, for the noise generally meant food.

The blade was straight and clean, and tolerably sharp. Ercole looked at it critically, drew the edge over his coa.r.s.e thumb-nail to find if there were any nick in the steel, and then scratched the same thumb-nail with it, as one erases ink with a knife, to see how sharp it was. The point was like a needle, but he considered that the edge was dull, and he drew it up and down one of the brown barrels of his gun, as carefully as he would have sharpened a razor on a whetstone. After that he stropped it on the tough leathern strap by which he slung the gun over his shoulder when he walked; when he was quite satisfied, he shut the knife again and put it back into his pocket, and fell to thinking once more.

Nino watched the whole operation with bloodshot eyes, his tongue hanging out and quivering rhythmically as he panted in the heat to cool himself.

When the knife disappeared, and the chance of a crust with it, the dog got up, deliberately turned his back to his master, and sat down again to look at the view.

"You see," said Ercole to himself and Nino, "this is an affair which needs thought. One must be just. It is one thing to kill a person's body, but it is quite another thing to kill a person's soul. That would be a great sin, and besides, it is not necessary. Do I wish harm to any one? No. It is justice. Perhaps I shall go to the galleys. Well, I shall always have the satisfaction, and it will be greater if I can say that this person is in Paradise. For I do not wish harm to any one."

Having said this in a tone which Nino could hear, Ercole sat thinking for some time longer, and then he rose and slung his gun over his shoulder, and went out from under the trees into the glaring heat, as if he were going into the city. But instead of turning to the left, up the hill, he went on by the broad road that follows the walls, till he came to the ancient church of Santa Croce. He went up the low steps to the deep porch and on to the entrance at the left. Nino followed him very quietly.

Ercole dipped his finger into the holy water and crossed himself, and then went up the nave, making as little noise as he could with his hob-nailed boots. An old monk in white was kneeling at a broad praying-stool before an altar on the left. Ercole stood still near him, waiting for him to rise, and slowly turning his soft hat in his hands, as if it were a rosary. He kept his eyes on the monk's face, studying the aged features. Presently the old man had finished his prayer and got upon his feet slowly, and looked at Ercole and then at Nino. Ercole moved forward a step, and stood still in an att.i.tude of respect.

"What do you desire, my son?" asked the monk, very quietly. "Do you wish to confess?"

"No, father, not to-day," answered Ercole. "I come to pray you to say three ma.s.ses for the soul of a person who died suddenly. I have also brought the money. Only tell me how much it will be, and I will pay."

"You shall give what you will, my son," the monk said, "and I will say the ma.s.ses myself."

Ercole got out his sheepskin purse, untied the strings, and looked into it, weighing it in his hand. Then he seemed to hesitate. The monk looked on quietly.

"It is of your own free will," he said. "What you choose to give is for the community, and for this church, and for the chapel of Saint Helen.

It is better that you know."

Ercole drew the mouth of the purse together again and returned it to the inside of his waistcoat, from which he produced a large old leathern pocket-book.

"I will give five francs," he said, "for I know that if you say the ma.s.ses yourself, they will be all good ones."

A very faint and gentle smile flitted over the aged face. Ercole held out the small note, and the monk took it.

"Thank you," he said. "Shall I say the ma.s.ses for a man or a woman?"

"As it pleases you, father," Ercole answered.

"Eh?" The old monk looked surprised.

"It does not matter," Ercole explained. "Is not a ma.s.s for a man good for a woman also?"

"We say 'his' soul or 'her' soul, as the case may be, my son."

"Is that written in the book of the ma.s.s?" inquired Ercole distrustfully.

"Yes. Also, most people tell us the baptismal name of the dead person."

"Must I do that too?" Ercole asked, by no means pleased.

"Not unless you like," the monk answered, looking at him with some curiosity.

"But it is in the book of the ma.s.s that you must say 'his' or 'her'

soul?"

"Yes."

"Then the ma.s.ses will not be good unless you say the right word." Ercole paused a moment in deep thought, and looked down at his hat. "It will be better to say the ma.s.ses for a female," he said at length, without meeting the monk's eyes.

"Very well," the latter answered. "I will say the first ma.s.s to-morrow."

"Thank you," said Ercole. "My respects!"

He made a sort of bow and hurried away, followed by Nino. The old monk watched him thoughtfully, and shook his head once or twice, for he guessed something of the truth, though by no means all.

CHAPTER XVI

"One might almost think that you wished to marry Aurora yourself," said Corbario, with a sneer.

He was standing with his back to the fire in the great library of the villa, for it was late autumn again; it was raining hard and the air was raw and chilly.

"You may think what you please," Marcello answered, leaning back in his deep leathern chair and taking up a book. "I am not going to argue with you."

"Insufferable puppy," growled Folco, almost under his teeth; but Marcello heard.

He rose instantly and faced the elder man without the slightest fear or hesitation.

"If this were not my house, and you my guest, I would have you put out of doors by the servants," he said, in a tone Corbario had never heard before. "As it is, I only advise you to go before I lose my temper altogether."

Corbario backed till his heels were against the fender, and tried to smile.

"My dear Marcello!" he protested. "What nonsense is this? You know I am not in earnest!"

"I am," said Marcello quietly enough, but not moving.

The half-invalid boy was not a boy any longer, nor an invalid either, and he had found his hold on things, since the days when Folco had been used to lead him as easily as if he had no will of his own. No one would have judged him to be a weak man now, physically or mentally. His frame was spare and graceful still, but there was energy and directness in his movements, his shoulders were square and he held his head high; yet it was his face that had changed most, though in a way very hard to define.

A strong manhood sometimes follows a weak boyhood, very much to the surprise of those who have long been used to find feebleness where strength has suddenly developed. Marcello Consalvi had never been cowardly, or even timid; he had only been weak in will as in body, an easy prey to the man who had tried to ruin him, body and soul, in the hope of sending him to his grave.

"I really cannot understand you, my dear boy," Corbario said very sweetly. "You used to be so gentle! But now you fly into a pa.s.sion for the merest thing."