Volume 1 — Introductory material (continued 6)

After this outburst of bravado, addressed to himself as well as to the ears of any Neapolitan police who might happen to be within hearing, the Piccinino began to talk with Michel in a remarkably self-possessed and tranquil strain. He discussed fine arts, literature, external politics, and the news of the day, with as much freedom, courtesy, and refinement as if they were in a salon or on a public promenade, and as if neither of them had any momentous affair on hand, any exciting subject to engross his thoughts.

Michel soon realized that the Capuchin had in no wise exaggerated his pupil's varied knowledge and great talents. In the matter of the dead languages and classical subjects, Michel was quite unable to hold his own, for he had had neither the means nor the leisure to go to college before embracing an artistic career. The Piccinino, seeing that he was familiar only with translations of the texts which he quoted with an unfailing accuracy of memory, fell back upon history, modern literature, Italian poetry, novels, and the stage. Although Michel had read very extensively for one of his years, and although he had, as he himself put it, polished and sharpened his mind, hastily, by assimilating everything that came within his reach, he found that the peasant of Nicolosi, in the intervals between his hazardous expeditions, in the solitude of his shady garden, had made even better use of his time than he. It was wonderful to see a man who could not walk in boots, or breathe in a cravat, who had never been down to Catania ten times in his life, who lived in retirement on his mountain, and had never seen the world or come in contact with cultivated minds, but who had acquired by reading, reasoning, or the divination of a keen intellect, full knowledge of the modern world in its most trivial details, as he had acquired in the cloister knowledge of the ancient world. No subject was unfamiliar to him; he had learned all by himself several living languages, and he ostentatiously talked with Michel in pure Tuscan, to show him that no one at Rome could speak or pronounce it more correctly and melodiously.

Michel took so much pleasure in listening and replying to him, that he forgot for a moment the distrust which so complicated a mind and a character so difficult to define naturally inspired in him. He made the rest of the journey almost unconsciously, for they were then following a smooth and safe road; and when they arrived at the park of Palmarosa, he started with surprise at the thought of finding himself so soon in Princess Agatha's presence.

Thereupon all that had happened to him during and after the ball passed through his memory like a series of strange dreams. A delicious emotion stole over him, and he no longer felt very indignant or very much horrified at the pretensions of his companion, as he reflected upon those which he himself cherished.

XXVI AGATHA

Michel himself opened the little gate at which the path which they had followed came to an end, and, having crossed the park diagonally, stood at the foot of the staircase cut in the steep rock. The reader will not have forgotten that the Palmarosa palace was built against a precipitous slope, and formed three distinct buildings, which ascended the mountain backward, so to speak; that the topmost floor, called the Casino, being more isolated and cooler than the others, was occupied, according to the invariable custom of the country, by the most distinguished person in the family; that is to say, the mistress's apartments were on a level with the summit of the cliff, which was transformed into a garden, of small extent but most charming, at a great height, and on the opposite side from the main façade of the lower floors. There the princess lived in retirement, as in a luxurious hermitage, having no need to descend the staircase of her palace, or to be seen by her servants, when she chose to take a walk in the fresh air.

Michel had previously seen this sanctuary, but very hurriedly, as we know; and when he was sitting there with Magnani during the ball, he was so excited and talking so earnestly that he had not observed its arrangement and its surroundings.

When he came out upon that terrace with the Piccinino, after scaling the cliff, he obtained a better idea of its location, and observed that it was so disposed that it was in fact a little fortress. The staircase cut in the rock was much better adapted for a means of exit than of entrance; it was so crowded between two walls of lava, and so steep, that a woman's hand could easily have hurled back an insolent or dangerous visitor. Moreover, there was on the last stair, with nothing in the way of a landing between, a small gilt gate, unusually high and narrow, hung between two slender marble columns as smooth as the masts of a ship. On the outer side of both these columns was the sheer precipice, with nothing to grasp except heavy iron scroll-work in the style of the seventeenth century, fashioned to represent fantastic dragons, bristling with spikes in every direction; a decoration that served a double purpose, and was very difficult to surmount when one had no purchase and a precipice under his feet.

This fortification, if we may so describe it, was not without its utility in a region where brigands from the mountain carried on their operations in the valleys and the plain, even to the very gates of the cities. Michel observed the defences with the satisfaction of a jealous lover, but the Piccinino glanced at them with an air of contempt, and even went so far as to say, while they were ascending the staircase, that it was a sugar-plum citadel, which would be very effective at a dessert.

Michel rang the prescribed number of times, and the gate was immediately opened. A veiled woman stood there, impatiently awaiting them. In the darkness, she seized Michel's hand as he entered the garden, and the young artist, recognizing the Princess Agatha by that gentle pressure, trembled and lost his head, so that the Piccinino, who did not lose his, quietly removed the key which Michel had placed in the lock as he rang the bell. The bandit placed it in his belt after closing the gate, and when Michel remembered his oversight, it was too late to repair it. They had all three entered the princess's boudoir, and that was not the moment to seek a quarrel with a man so entirely free from timidity as the Destatore's son.

Agatha had been warned and as fully advised as possible of the character and habits of the man with whom it was necessary for her to enter into relations; she was too much of a Sicilian to have any serious prejudices against the profession of bandit, and she was determined to make the greatest pecuniary sacrifices in order to make certain of the Piccinino's services. Nevertheless, she felt, at sight of him, a painful emotion which she had difficulty in concealing from him; and when he kissed her hand, gazing at her with his bold and mocking eyes, she was conscious of a painful feeling of discomfort, and her face changed perceptibly, although she was able to maintain an affable and courteous demeanor.

She knew that her first care must be to flatter the adventurer's secret vanity, by showing him much consideration and calling him captain to his heart's content. So she did not fail to bestow that title upon him as she invited him to sit at her right hand, while there was a more familiar kindliness in her manner of waving Michel to a chair partly behind her, near the back of her couch. Then, leaning toward him without looking at him, and resting her elbow close to his shoulder, as if to be prepared to call his attention by a movement apparently accidental, she attempted to enter upon the business before them.

But the Piccinino, noticing this manœuvre, and apparently considering that he was too far away from her, left his chair and unceremoniously seated himself beside her, on the sofa.

At that moment the Marquis della Serra, who had probably been waiting in an adjoining room for the conversation to begin, entered noiselessly, saluted the bandit with silent courtesy, and sat down near Michel, after shaking hands with him. Michel felt reassured by the presence of the man whom he could not help looking upon as his rival. He had already begun to wonder if he should not soon be tempted to throw the Piccinino out of the window; and as such an exploit might well have some serious result, he hoped that the bandit would be so far restrained by the marquis's grave face and dignified bearing, that he would not dare to overstep the limits of propriety.

The Piccinino knew that he ran no risk of being betrayed by the Marquis della Serra; indeed it pleased him to see that great nobleman offer him pledges of the alliance about to be made with him, to which the marquis must necessarily become a party.

"So the Marquis della Serra, too, is my friend and my accomplice?" he said to Agatha, in a reproachful tone.

"Signor Carmelo," replied the marquis, "you doubtless know that I was a near kinsman of the Prince of Castro-Reale, and that, consequently, I am your near kinsman. I was very young when the Destatore's true name was discovered by the police of Catania, and perhaps you are aware that I rendered the outlaw some important services at that time."

"I am familiar with my father's story," replied the young bandit, "and it is enough for me to know that the Marquis della Serra has transferred to me the good-will with which he honored him."

Gratified in his vanity, resolved not to play a ridiculous rôle, and equally resolved to make everybody's will bend beneath his own, the Piccinino desired to carry out his purpose with spirit and good taste. So he speedily assumed a graceful and dignified attitude on the sofa, and imparted to his insolent and lustful glance an expression of benignant and almost respectful interest.

The princess broke the ice, and set forth the business in hand concisely, in almost the same words that Fra Angelo had used to induce the young wolf to leave his den. The Piccinino listened to her exposition, and his face did not betray the profound incredulity that lay behind his apparent attention.

But when the princess had finished, he coolly renewed his question as to the will, and declared that, in case it had already been abstracted, the kidnapping of Abbé Ninfo would seem to him a very tardy precaution, and his own intervention a source of useless trouble and expense.

Princess Agatha had not been horribly unhappy to no purpose. She had learned to detect the wiles of concealed passions, and her skill in that respect was not derived from her simple and straightforward mind, but acquired at her own expense in her relations with natures directly contrary to her own. So she very soon concluded that the captain's scruples were feigned, and that he had some secret motive which it was most essential to discover.

"Signor captain," she said, "if you have formed that opinion of my position, we must stop here, for I have asked to see you much more for the purpose of obtaining your advice than of telling you my ideas. However, be good enough to listen to some details which it was not in Fra Angelo's power to give you.

"My uncle the cardinal has made a will in which he constitutes me his sole heir; and it was only about ten days ago that, on his way from Catania to his villa of Ficarazzi, where he now is, he made a détour in order to pay me a visit which I did not expect. I found my uncle in the same physical condition as when I saw him a little while before, at Catania; that is to say, helpless, deaf, and unable to speak distinctly enough to make himself understood without the assistance of Abbé Ninfo, who knows or guesses his desires with rare sagacity—unless he interprets or translates them to suit himself with unmeasured insolence! However, on that occasion, Abbé Ninfo seemed to me to follow my uncle's wishes in every respect; for the object of that visit was to show me the will, and to inform me that the cardinal's affairs were in perfect order."

"Who showed you the will, signora?" said the Piccinino; "for his eminence cannot move his arm or his hand at all, can he?"

"Patience, captain, I will not omit any detail. Doctor Recuperati, the cardinal's physician, had charge of the will, and I understood clearly enough, from my uncle's glances and his excitement, that he did not wish that document to leave his hands. Two or three times Abbé Ninfo came forward to take it, on the pretext of handing it to me, and my uncle glared at him with his terrible eyes and roared like a dying lion. The doctor replaced the will in his portfolio and said to me: 'I beg that your ladyship will not share his eminence's anxiety. However great the esteem and confidence inspired by Abbé Ninfo, this paper having been entrusted to my keeping, no other person than myself—not even the Pope or the king—shall touch a document of so much importance to you.' Doctor Recuperati is an honorable, incorruptible man, and as firm as a rock in emergencies."

"True, signora," said the bandit, "but he is stupid, and Abbé Ninfo is not."

"I am well aware that Abbé Ninfo is audacious enough to invent some sort of a fable and lead the excellent doctor into a commonplace trap. That is why I have requested you, captain, to remove that hateful schemer from the scene for a time."

"I will do it, if it is not too late; for I should not care to risk my bones for nothing, and especially to endanger my reputation for talent, for which I care more than for my life. Once more, signora, do you think that it is not too late to resort to this expedient?"

"If it is too late, captain, it has been so not more than two hours," replied Agatha, observing him closely; "for, two hours ago, I paid a visit to my uncle, and the doctor, at a sign from him, showed me the paper once more, in Abbé Ninfo's presence."

"And it was the same?"

"Absolutely the same."

"There was no codicil in Ninfo's favor?"

"Not a word had been changed or added. The priest himself, who blandly pretends to be interested in my behalf, and whose every sidelong glance seems to say to me: 'You will have to pay me for my zeal,' insisted on my re-reading the paper carefully."

"And you did it?"

"I did it."

The Piccinino, in view of the princess's self-possession and tranquillity, began to form a more exalted idea of her merit; for hitherto he had seen in her nothing more than a seductive and charming woman.

"I am very well satisfied with these explanations," he said; "but, before taking any steps, I must know something more. Are you quite sure, signora, that within the last two hours Abbé Ninfo has not taken Doctor Recuperati by the throat and extorted that paper from him?"

"How can I know, captain? You alone can tell me, when you have consented to begin your secret investigation. However, the doctor is a strong and brave man, and his simplicity would not go so far as to allow himself to be robbed by a weak, chicken-hearted creature like Abbé Ninfo."

"But what would prevent Ninfo, who is a scoundrel of the first order, and has relations with all the greatest villains in the country, from hiring a bravo, who, for an honorable reward, may have lain in wait for the doctor and murdered him—or who is all ready to do it at this moment?"

The tone in which the Piccinino presented this suggestion caused the three persons who were listening to him a painful shock.

"Poor doctor!" cried the princess, turning pale; "can it be that such a crime has been planned or executed? In heaven's name, explain yourself, signor captain!"

"Never fear, signora, that crime has not been committed; but it might have been, for it was determined upon."

"In that case, signor," said the princess, seizing both the bandit's hands with a gesture of entreaty, "pray go at once. Save the life of an honorable man, and make sure of the person of a vile knave, capable of any crime."

"And suppose the will falls into my hands during the battle?" said the bandit, rising but not releasing the princess's hands, which he had seized in a firm grasp as soon as they touched his.

"The will, signor captain?" she replied, energetically. "Of what moment is half of my fortune, when it is a question of saving victims from the assassin's dagger? I care not what happens to the will. Seize the monster who covets it. Ah! if I thought that I could satisfy his resentment by giving it up to him, he might long ago have looked upon himself as its undisturbed possessor!"

"But suppose that I become its possessor?" said the adventurer, fastening his lynx eyes on Agatha's; "that would not suit Ninfo, who knows very well that his eminence is in no condition to make or even to dictate another. But would you, signora, who have been imprudent enough to tell me what I did not know, who have informed me to what a ridiculous custodian a document of so great importance has been entrusted—would you be perfectly at ease?"

The princess had understood for a long time that the bandit would do nothing unless he could see a possibility of obtaining possession of the will to his own advantage. She had powerful reasons for being ready to sacrifice it to him, and to hand over an enormous sum to him without regret, when he should come to bargain with her for the restitution of her proof of inheritance; for everybody knew, and the bandit, who seemed to have studied the affair so carefully beforehand, probably was not ignorant of the fact, that there was an earlier will in the hands of a notary, which disinherited Agatha in favor of a distant relation. In a paroxysm of hatred and resentment against his niece, the cardinal had made that first will, and had made no secret of the fact. To be sure, when he became so ill, and received from her marks of sincere respect and affection, he had made different arrangements. But he had left the previous will in existence, in case it should be his pleasure to destroy the new one. When the wicked have a good impulse, they always leave a door open for the return of their evil genius.

Agatha had already made up her mind with respect to the Piccinino's ambitions; but by the way in which he allowed them to appear, she understood that there was a large admixture of vanity in his avarice, and she had the fortunate inspiration to gratify both of the bandit's passions at the same time.

"Signor de Castro-Reale," she said, making an effort to pronounce a name that she abhorred, and to confer it upon him as a title rightfully belonging to the Destatore's natural child, "the will would be so safe in your hands, that I should be glad if I could place it there myself."

Agatha had conquered. The bandit's head was completely turned, and another passion, which was contending with greed in his heart, gained the upper hand in a twinkling. He put both of the signora's trembling hands to his lips and bestowed upon them a kiss so long and so passionate that Michel and the marquis himself shuddered. Another hope than that of wealth took possession of the Piccinino's brain. A violent passion had sprung to life within him on the night of the ball, when he saw her admired and coveted by so many men whom she did not even deign to notice, himself included; for she believed that she had never seen him before this interview, although he hoped that she was simply pretending not to recognize his face.

He had been incited especially by the apparent hopelessness of such a conquest. Although somewhat disdainful and apparently chaste with the women of his own station, the Piccinino had the appetites of a wild beast; but vanity filled so large a place in all his instincts that he rarely had an opportunity to satisfy them. This time the opportunity was still uncertain, but the prospect was most intoxicating to his enterprising, obstinate nature, fruitful in expedients, and enamored of difficult exploits, reputed to be impossible.

"Well, signora," he cried at last, in a chivalrous tone, "your confidence in me proceeds from a noble heart, and I will not fail to justify it. Have no fear for Doctor Recuperati: he is in no danger whatsoever. It is quite true that Abbé Ninfo made a bargain this very day with a certain man, who promised to murder him; but, not only does the abbé propose to wait until the cardinal is on his death-bed, which is not the case as yet, but the dagger which is to strike your friend will not leave its sheath without my permission. There is no reason for such great haste, therefore, and I can safely return to my mountain for a few days. Ninfo is to come in person to advise us of the favorable moment to bury the knife in the good doctor's ample waistcoat, and, when that moment comes, instead of performing that agreeable duty, we will seize the abbé's person, begging him to enjoy the mountain air with us until it shall please your ladyship to restore his liberty."

The princess, who had been perfectly self-possessed thus far, became perturbed and replied in a quivering voice:

"I thought, captain, that you knew of another circumstance which makes us all very impatient to know that Abbé Ninfo is on the mountain. Doctor Recuperati is not the only one of my friends who is in danger, and I instructed Fra Angelo to tell you our other reasons for desiring to be rid of his presence forthwith."

The catlike Piccinino had not finished playing with the victim he coveted. He pretended not to understand or not to remember that Michel and his father were principally interested in the abbé's abduction.

"I think," he said, "that your highness exaggerates the dangers of Ninfo's presence about the cardinal. You must be aware that his eminence has the most profound contempt for that underling; that he can hardly endure his presence, although he realizes the advantage of having so zealous and quick-witted an interpreter; in short, that the cardinal, while he may need his services, will never allow him to meddle with his affairs. Your highness knows that there is a small legacy for the poor abbé in the will, and I fancy that you will not stoop to contest the payment of it."

"No, surely not!" replied the princess, surprised to find that the bandit was so familiar with the contents of the will; "but it is not the paltry fear that the abbé may obtain more or less money from the cardinal that I have in my mind at this moment, I assure you. I have already told you, captain, and Fra Angelo also must have told you, that his brother and nephew are in great danger so long as Abbé Ninfo is in a position to injure them with my uncle, the cardinal, and the Neapolitan police."

"Ah!" said the crafty Piccinino, putting his hand to his forehead, "I had forgotten that, and yet it is a matter of importance to you, princess, I agree. Indeed I have several things to tell you in that connection which you do not know. But it is a very delicate subject," he said, feigning hesitation, "and it would be difficult for me to explain myself in the presence of the two gentlemen who honor me with their attention."

"You can say anything before the Marquis della Serra and Michelangelo Lavoratori," said the princess, somewhat alarmed.

"No, signora, I know my duty too well to do so, and my respect for you is too great to allow me to forget the proprieties to that point. If your highness is disposed to listen to me without witnesses, I will inform you of what has been planned and determined upon. If not," he added, pretending to be preparing to go, "I will go and wait at Nicolosi until you deign to advise me of the day and hour when it will be agreeable to you to listen to me."

"At once, signor, at once," rejoined the princess hastily. "I am more interested and more alarmed because the lives of my friends are endangered for my sake than by any question of money. Come," she added, rising, and resolutely placing her arm in the bandit's, "we will talk in my flower-garden, and these gentlemen will await us here. Stay, stay, my friends," she said to the marquis and Michel, who would have retired, although the idea of that tête-à-tête caused them both an indefinable dread; "I really need a breath of fresh air, and Signor de Castro-Reale is kind enough to offer me his arm."

Michel and the marquis, as soon as they were alone, looked at each other as if they had had the same thought, and, hastening each to a window, stood where they would not lose sight of the princess for an instant, although they could not overhear a conversation from which she herself seemed content to exclude them.

XXVII DIPLOMACY

"How did it happen, dear princess," said the bandit, in a careless tone, as soon as he and Agatha were in the garden, arm-in-arm, "that you were imprudent enough to try to make me speak of Michel in presence of a cicisbeo so valuable to you as the Marquis della Serra? Your highness forgets one thing: that if I know the secrets of Villa Ficarazzi, I probably know those of Villa Palmarosa as well, since Abbé Ninfo maintains an equally assiduous surveillance over both houses."

"So Abbé Ninfo has seen you first, eh, captain?" rejoined the princess, trying to assume an equally unembarrassed tone; "and he took you into his confidence in order to obtain your services in his interest?"

Agatha knew very well what to think in that respect. Certainly, if she had not discovered that the abbé had already sought the Piccinino's assistance in abducting, or perhaps murdering Michel, she would not have thought it necessary to resort to him in order to procure the abduction of the abbé. But she was careful not to allow her real motive to be discovered. She desired that the bandit's self-love should be flattered by what he might consider an instinctive impulse on her part.

"From whatever source I derive my information," he replied, with a smile, "I leave it to you to judge of its accuracy. The last time that the cardinal came to visit your highness, there was a young man at the gate of your park whose distinguished features and bearing were in striking contrast with his costume, which was covered with dust and worn by a long journey. What caprice induced the cardinal to examine that young man and to insist upon questioning him? that is something which Ninfo himself does not know and has commissioned me to find out, if possible. One thing is certain: that the mania, which has beset the cardinal for a long time, of inquiring the name and age of all the young men of the lower classes whose faces attract his attention, has survived the loss of activity and memory. It is as if he still retained a sort of vague distrust, a relic of his exalted police functions; and his imperative glance commands Abbé Ninfo to ask questions and report to him. It is true that when the abbé showed him the written result of his investigation, he seemed to take no interest in it; in like manner, whenever the abbé annoys him with his impertinent requests or insinuating questions, his eminence, after reading the first words, closes his eyes angrily, to show that he doesn't wish to be fatigued any more. Perhaps your highness did not know these details, which Doctor Recuperati knows nothing of; for, during the few hours' sleep which the excellent doctor is permitted to enjoy, the watchfulness of the devoted servants with whom Your Highness has surrounded the cardinal does not avail to prevent Ninfo from entering his room, waking him without ceremony, and placing before him certain written sentences from which he hopes for favorable results. When the cardinal is awakened in this way, his pain and his anger make his mind momentarily more lucid than usual; he reads, seems to understand, and tries to utter words of which an occasional syllable is intelligible to his persecutor; but almost immediately he collapses again, and the feeble flame of his life is so much nearer extinction."

"So that villain has ceased to be a mere flatterer and spy, to become my unfortunate uncle's torturer and assassin?" cried the princess, indignantly. "You must see, signor captain, that he must be delivered from him at once, and that I need no other motive for desiring that he be taken out of our way."

"Pardon me, signora," rejoined the bandit, obstinately. "If I had not informed you of these things, you would still have personal motives of even greater weight, which you do not choose to tell me, but which I have learned from Ninfo. I never enter into an affair without making myself thoroughly acquainted with it; and it sometimes falls to my lot, as you see, to question both parties. Permit me to continue my disclosures, therefore, and I trust that they will lead to disclosures on your part.

"Abbé Ninfo did not examine very closely or ask many questions of the individual at your highness's park gate. After a moment, seeing that the cardinal continued somewhat agitated by the encounter, as if the young man's face had aroused memories which he could not arrange and place,—for his eminence often wears himself out, it seems, in such painful mental toil,—the abbé retraced his steps and examined the young man more carefully. The young man evidently had some reason for being on his guard, for he deceived the abbé, who really took him for a poor devil, and even gave him alms. But two days later, the abbé, having, for the purpose of spying, disguised himself as a workman employed in the preparations for your ball, soon discovered that his poor devil was a brilliant artist, very much petted and favored by your highness, and by no means in a position to accept alms at the gate of a palace, since he is the son of a well-to-do artisan, Pier-Angelo Lavoratori.

"On the night succeeding this discovery, the abbé did not fail to place before Monsignor Hieronymo a sheet of paper containing this information in large letters. But by dint of trying to tighten the last remaining chords of the instrument, the abbé broke them. The cardinal did not understand. The names of Pier-Angelo and Michelangelo Lavoratori conveyed no meaning to him. He muttered a violent oath because Ninfo disturbed his slumber. And so," added the Piccinino, with malicious significance, "the fears which your highness entertains, or pretends to entertain, with respect to Pier-Angelo are entirely without foundation. Although the cardinal long ago prosecuted that excellent man as a conspirator, he has so completely forgotten him that even Ninfo has no hope of reviving the memory of an affair of which he himself knows nothing, and your protégé is in no danger from any denunciation by him, at present."

"I breathe again," said the princess, allowing the bandit to take her hand in his, and even responding to his pressure, with generous confidence. "Your words do me good, captain, and I bless you for having confidence enough in me to reveal the truth to me. That was my whole fear; but, since the cardinal remembers nothing and the abbé knows nothing, I trust to your sagacity for the rest. Look you, captain, it seems to me this is what we have to do. Do you find in your fertile genius some method of obtaining possession of the will, and see that the abbé is informed of it, so that there will be no further occasion for him to persecute the worthy doctor; then keep the abbé's attention diverted so that he will allow my unfortunate uncle to die in peace. That will conclude by diplomatic methods an affair in which I have feared that blood might be shed over paltry questions of money."

"Your excellency goes very fast!" rejoined the Piccinino. "The abbé cannot be put to sleep so easily with regard to another subject, which it is impossible for me, despite my respect, my awe and my embarrassment, to pass over in silence."

"Speak, speak!" said Agatha, hastily.

"Very well, since your highness authorizes me to do so, and does not choose to understand a hint, I will tell you that Abbé Ninfo, while in quest of political intrigues which he has not succeeded in discovering, has put his hand upon a love affair which he has turned to his advantage."

"I do not understand," said the princess, with an air of sincerity that startled the adventurer.

"Can Ninfo have been gulling me," he thought, "or is this woman strong enough to hold her own against me? We will see."

"Signora," he said, in a honeyed tone, holding Agatha's hand against his breast, "you will detest me, I suppose. However, I must serve you against your will by telling you what I know. The abbé discovered that Michelangelo was admitted every day at certain hours to the private apartment in your Casino; that he did not eat with your servants or with the other workmen, but with you, in secret; in a word, that, when he took his siesta, he rested from his artistic labors in the arms of the loveliest and most lovable of women."

"It is false!" cried the princess; "it is an abominable falsehood. I treated that young man with the distinction which I considered that I owed to his talent and his ideas. He ate with his father in a room next to mine, and took his siesta in my picture gallery. Abbé Ninfo did not watch very closely, or he might have told you that Michel, being utterly tired out, passed two or three nights under my roof."

"He told me that, too," replied the Piccinino, who always chose to seem to know beforehand what anyone told him.

"Very well, Signor de Castro-Reale," said Agatha, in a firm voice, looking him full in the face, "there is no doubt about the fact; but I can swear upon my mother's soul and your mother's that that young man never saw me until the day of the ball, when his father first introduced him to me, in presence of two hundred mechanics. I talked to him during the ball, on the main staircase, and the Marquis della Serra, who was escorting me, complimented him, as I did myself, upon his paintings. From that moment down to this very evening Michel had never seen me; ask himself! You are not a man whom one can deceive, captain; use your perspicacity, and I will trust it."

The Piccinino quivered with pleasure at this concise declaration, made with the assurance which truth alone can give, and he pressed Agatha's hand against his breast with such force that she detected his sentiments at last. She had a moment of terror, augmented by a ghastly reminiscence. But she realized, in a flash, the full extent of the dangers to which Michel had been exposed, and, postponing the matter of her own safety to a more favorable season, she determined to deal tenderly with Carmelo Tomabene's pride.

"What motive could Abbé Ninfo have had in telling us that extraordinary story?" he exclaimed.

Agatha fancied that she could understand that the abbé had detected the violent passion for herself by which she saw at last that the bandit was possessed, and that he had endeavored to incite him to vengeance by his tale of intrigue. "If that is so," she thought, "I will use the same weapons, vile Ninfo, since you have been kind enough to furnish me with them."

"Listen, captain," she said; "you who know men so well and read so readily the innermost folds of the conscience, must have discovered that, in addition to all his manifest vices, the abbé is an insatiable libertine? Do you suppose that he has confined himself to coveting my inheritance? did he not let you see that it was not for money alone that he would try to sell me a part of it if he should succeed in obtaining possession of it?"

"Yes!" cried the Piccinino, this time with the utmost sincerity; "I thought that I could detect revolting desires and hopes on the part of that monster of ugliness and lust. His affected incredulity concerning the possibility of resistance by a woman, in such cases, is simply an attempt to console himself when he thinks of his own physical and moral ugliness. Yes, yes, I suspected it in spite of his hypocrisy. I will not say that he loves you; that would be a profanation of the word love; but he desires you, and he is jealous. Jealous, do I say! Ah! that word again is too respectable! Jealousy is the passion of young hearts, and his is decrepit. He suspects and detests everybody about you. In fact, he has devised an infernal method of conquering you: judging rightly that the desire to ransom your inheritance would not suffice, and supposing that you loved this young artist, he has determined to use him as a hostage and to compel you to purchase at his own price the life and liberty of Michelangelo."

"I ought to have expected that," replied the princess, affecting an air of contemptuous tranquillity, although her whole body was bathed in cold perspiration. "And so he selected you, captain, as his associate in an undertaking worthy of those men who devote themselves to the most hideous of all trades, the mere name of which is so degrading that no true woman could bear to speak it in any tongue! It seems to me that that mark of confidence on the part of the excellent Abbé Ninfo merits a somewhat severe punishment at your hands!"

Agatha had touched the right chord. The abbé's execrable projects, which had previously moved the young bandit to nothing more than satirical contempt, appeared to him now in the light of a personal insult and kindled the thirst for vengeance in him. So true is it that love, even in a wild, unbridled heart, arouses the sentiment of manly dignity.

"Severe punishment!" he said, in a deep voice, with clenched teeth; "he shall have it!—But," he added, "have no further anxiety about anything, signora; deign to place your fate in my hands unreservedly."

"My fate is already in your hands, captain," replied Agatha; "my fortune, my reputation, and the lives of my friends: think you that I have an anxious air?"

And she looked him through and through with a profound gaze, wherein she was so happily inspired by the superior sagacity of the courageous woman, that the Piccinino felt its influence and found that respect and awe were mingled with his passion.—"Ah! you romantic woman," he thought, "you have not outgrown the belief that a bandit chief must be a stage hero or a chevalier of the Middle Ages! And here am I compelled to play that part for your pleasure! Very well, I will play it. Nothing is difficult to him who has read much and reasoned much.—Indeed, why should I not be a hero in good earnest?" he said to himself, as he walked silently beside that trembling woman whom he believed to be so trustful and confiding, pressing her arm to his side with his own trembling arm. "If I have not deigned to be one hitherto, it is simply because the opportunity has never offered, and my essays at grandeur would have been absurd. With such a woman as this, the game is well worth the candle, and I cannot believe that it is difficult to be sublime when the reward is destined to be so sweet. It is an undertaking founded upon a selfish motive more elevated, but no less substantial or less logical than others."

Before assuming definitively the attitude of the princess's true knight, he determined to do away with a lingering remnant of distrust, and he was almost ingenuous in seeking to cure himself of it.

"The only weakness of which I am conscious," he said, "is the dread of playing a ridiculous rôle. Ninfo wished me to play an infamous one, he shall be punished for it; but if your highness really loves that young man—why, that young man also will have reason to regret having deceived me!"

"How am I to understand you?" rejoined Agatha, leading him into the ray of light which the chandelier in her boudoir cast into the garden; "I do really love Michelangelo, Pier-Angelo, and Fra Angelo, as devoted friends and estimable men. To rescue them from the enmity of a villain I would give all the money that anyone might ask. But look at me, captain, and look at that young man musing yonder behind that window. Do you consider that there can possibly exist a bond based upon impure passion between two persons of our respective ages and conditions? You do not know my character. Nobody has ever understood it. Will you be the first one to do it justice? I wish it might be so, for I care very much for your esteem, and I should think that I was wholly undeserving of it if I entertained for that child sentiments which I feared to allow you to detect."

As she spoke, Agatha, who had dropped the bandit's arm, took it again to return to the boudoir; and he was so grateful to her for that mark of trustful friendship, of which she desired Michel and the marquis to be witnesses, that he felt intoxicated and, as it were, beside himself with joy.

XXVIII JEALOUSY

Neither the marquis nor Michel had heard a word of the conversation we have reported. But the first was tranquil in his mind, the other was not. The marquis, having assured himself that the princess was calm, had no fear that she incurred any immediate danger with the brigand; whereas Michel, not being familiar with her character, suffered keenly at the bare thought that the Piccinino might, in his speech, have gone beyond the bounds of respect. His suffering was intensified when he saw the Piccinino's face as he returned to the boudoir.

That face, ordinarily so indifferent and composed, was, as it were, illuminated by confidence and joy. The little man seemed to have grown a cubit taller, and his black eyes flashed flames which one would not have believed could be kindled in a head so cool and calculating.

No sooner had the princess, who was somewhat fatigued from having walked a long while in a small space, seated herself on the couch, to which he escorted her with the most dignified courtesy, than he fell, rather than sat down upon a chair, on the other side of the small boudoir, but with his face turned toward her as if he had stationed himself there to gaze at her in the glare of the chandelier. In truth, the Piccinino, after having enjoyed in the garden the sweetness of her voice, the flattering significance of her words, and the softness of her hand, desired, in order to put the finishing touch to the sensuous delight which he had felt for the first time in his life, to gaze at her at his leisure, without the labor of speech or of thought. He fell into a silent meditation, more eloquent than Michel could have desired. He feasted his bold eyes with the sight of that exquisite and fascinating woman, whom it seemed to him that he already possessed, as with a treasure which he had stolen, and which he took pleasure in gloating over, as it lay gleaming before him.

The young painter's distress was intensified by the fact that, under the mysterious influence of that all-pervading passion, which but just born was already spreading with the rapidity of a conflagration, the bandit acquired a strange power of fascination. His exquisite beauty shone forth like a star emerging from the vapors on the horizon. All that was unusual in the outlines of his features and disquieting in their veiled expression gave way to a subtle charm, an overpowering effusiveness, albeit silent, and, as it were, overwhelmed by its own ardor. He was lying back in his chair, but no longer affected indifference or absent-mindedness. His hanging arms, his bent back, his eyes, glistening and fascinated, and fixed intently on the princess, indicated that he was shattered, as it were, by the explosion of a force unknown to himself, and drowned in the anticipated joys of his triumph. Michel was afraid of him for the first time. He would still have defied him fearlessly in the ill-omened solitude of the Destatore's Cross; but in that room, radiant with a strange ecstasy, he seemed too overpowering for any woman to escape the fascination of that basilisk glance.

However, Agatha did not seem to notice it, and whenever he turned his eyes from the bandit to her, he found her apparently calm and undisturbed, having no thought either of attacking or of defending herself.

"My friends," she said, after pausing a moment to take breath, "we can say good-night and separate with our minds at rest. I place my full confidence in this new friend whom Providence, acting through the wisdom of Fra Angelo, has sent to us. You will share my confidence when I tell you that he knew beforehand, and knew far better than ourselves, what we had to fear and to hope."

"It is a decidedly interesting affair, it is true," said the Piccinino, making an effort to emerge from his dreaming; "and it is time that this young man should know why I roared with laughter when he came to see me. You will laugh too, I hope, Master Michelangelo, when you learn that you came and entrusted your fate to a man who had been strenuously urged, an hour earlier, to do you a bad turn; and if I were not calm and prudent in such affairs, if I believed blindly the words of those who came to consult me, while you were urging me in her highness's behalf to kidnap Abbé Ninfo, I should have seized you and thrown you into my cellar, securely bound and gagged, at the request of Abbé Ninfo. I see by your manner that you would have resisted vigorously. Oh! I know that you are brave, and I fancy that you are stronger than I. You have an uncle who has kept his muscles in play so persistently for twenty years past, breaking stone, that he cannot have lost any of the strength which caused him to be called Iron Arm when he plied another trade on the mountain; but, when one is engaged in a matter of great political moment, one takes precautions, and I had but to touch a little bell to have my house surrounded by determined men, who would not have afforded you even the pleasure of resistance."

Having spoken thus, his eyes fixed upon Michel with a playful expression, the Piccinino turned again to the princess. She had concealed her pallor behind her fan, and when the brigand met her eyes, they were armed with a tranquil expression which dispelled the last traces of his ironical humor. The secret pleasure which it always afforded him to frighten those who ventured into his presence disappeared before that womanly glance, which seemed to say to him: "You shall not do it, I forbid you."

So that he at once assumed an expression of hearty good-will, and said to Michel:

"You see, my young friend, that I had my reasons for insisting upon an explanation of the affair, and for not being in too much of a hurry. Now that I am convinced that honor and truth are on one side, infamy and falsehood on the other, my choice is made, and you can sleep with both eyes shut. I propose to go with you to Catania," he added, addressing Michel in an undertone, "where I must arrange the worthy abbé's departure for to-morrow. But I absolutely require two hours' rest. Can you promise me a corner in your house where I can sleep soundly for two hours without danger of being seen? For my features are hardly known in the city, and I do not wish them to become known there until it is necessary. Tell me, can I enter your house without fear of inquisitive eyes, especially women's eyes?"

"I have a young sister who is moderately inquisitive," replied Michel smiling; "but she will be in bed at this time of night. Trust me, as I trusted you; I will give you my own bed, and sit up in the room if you wish."

"I accept," said the bandit, who, while talking with Michel, was trying to overhear the words, unimportant in themselves, which the princess was exchanging with the marquis, in order not to embarrass the conversation between the two young men. Michel observed that, notwithstanding the Piccinino's assertion that he could not do two things at once, he did not lose a gesture, a word, or a movement of Agatha's, while he was talking with him.

When he was assured of the two hours' absolute rest which was, he said, indispensable to put him in a condition to act intelligently, the Piccinino rose and prepared to retire. But the coquettish moderation with which he arranged his cloak about his flexible figure, the languid grace of his preoccupied air during that momentous operation, and the imperceptible quivering of his silky black moustache, showed plainly enough that he went away with regret, and after the manner of a man who is striving to dispel the mists of drunkenness in order to return to work.

"You do not wish to be seen?" said Agatha; "then step into the marquis's carriage with Michel. He will drive you to the outskirts of the city, and you can slip through the narrow streets."

"Many thanks, signora!" replied the bandit. "I have no desire to take your servants and the signor marquis's into my confidence. To-morrow morning Abbé Ninfo, whose discernment exceeds their discretion, would learn that a mountaineer came out of your apartments whom nobody had seen go in; and the excellent abbé, thinking that that performance savored somewhat of the bravo, would insult me by withdrawing the confidence with which he honors me. I must be his fidus Achates and his very good friend for twelve hours more. I will go out with Michel as I came."

"And when shall I see you again?" said Agatha, courageously offering him her hand, despite the lustful flame in his unshrinking eyes.

"You will not see me again," he replied, putting one knee to the floor and kissing her hand with a sort of frenzy in marked contrast to the humility of his attitude, "until your orders are carried out. I cannot fix the day and hour, but I will answer for the safety of all your friends—even the stout doctor—with my life! I know the way to your Casino. When I ring one, three and seven at the gate of your flower-garden, will your ladyship deign to admit me to your presence?"

"You can rely upon it, captain," she replied, giving no sign of the alarm caused her by that request.

The Marquis della Serra did not fail to take his leave at the same time that the two young men went from the boudoir into the garden. His respect for the princess was so punctilious that he would not for the world have assumed the attitude of a favored lover. But he descended the staircase of the palace slowly, still disturbed in mind, and ready to go up again at the slightest noise.

On leaving the garden, the Piccinino locked the gate himself and handed the key to Michel, reproaching him for his carelessness.

"Except for me," he said, "this all-important key—this key that cannot be replaced—would have been left in the lock."

A moment's self-possession, before entering the boudoir, had sufficed for the bandit to take the impression of the key on a lump of wax which he always carried with him for emergencies.

They had no sooner started down the staircase cut in the rock than Agatha's maid, who was entirely devoted to her, came to her and said:

"The young man whom your highness sent for is waiting in the picture gallery."

Agatha put her finger to her lips to warn the maid to speak lower on such occasions, and went down to the floor below, where Magnani had been waiting more than half an hour.

Poor Magnani had been more dead than alive since he received the princess's mysterious message. Being very different from the Piccinino, he was so far from entertaining the slightest hope that he imagined the worst that could possibly happen. "I must have made a terrible mistake," he said to himself, "in confiding to Michel the secret of my folly. He probably talked about it with his sister, and Mila has seen the princess, who treats her like a spoiled child. The chatter of that girl, who cannot understand the gravity of such a disclosure, terrified and disgusted the princess. But why not banish me without any explanation? What can she say to me that will not be horribly painful and uselessly cruel?"

That hour of suspense seemed to him a century. He was cold; he felt as if he should die, when the secret door of the gallery opened noiselessly, and he saw Agatha approaching him, pale with the excitement through which she had just passed, and diaphanous in her white lace cape. The enormous gallery was lighted only by a single glass lamp. It seemed to him that the princess did not walk, but that she glided toward him, after the manner of a ghost.

She approached without hesitation, and offered him her hand as if he were an intimate friend. And, as he hesitated to give her his, thinking that he was dreaming, fearing that he might misunderstand the meaning of that gesture, she said to him in a soft but firm voice:

"Give me your hand, my child, and tell me if you still feel for me the friendship which you once expressed when you thought that you owed me some gratitude for your mother's cure. Do you remember? I have never forgotten that generous outburst of your heart!"

Magnani could not reply. He dared not put Agatha's hand to his lips. He pressed it gently in his as he bent over it. She felt that he was trembling.

"You are very timid," she said; "I hope that if you are afraid of me there is no touch of distrust in your fear. I must speak to you quickly; do you answer in the same way. Are you disposed to do me a very great favor, at the risk of your life? I ask it in your mother's name!"

Magnani fell on his knees. Only with his eyes, which were streaming with tears, could he testify his enthusiasm and his devotion. Agatha understood him.

"You must return to Catania," she said; "run until you overtake two men who have just left here and who will not have five minutes' start of you. One is Michelangelo Lavoratori; you can readily recognize him in the moonlight. The other is a mountaineer wrapped in his cloak. Follow them without seeming to watch them, but do not lose sight of them. At the least suspicious gesture on that man's part, you will hurl yourself upon him and throw him down. You are strong," she added, touching the young artisan's robust arm; "but he is active and cunning. Be on your guard! See, here is a dagger; use it only in self-defence. That man is either my enemy or my preserver, I do not know which. Spare his life, if possible. Fly with Michel, if you can thereby avoid a bloody battle. You live in the same house with Michel, do you not?"

"Almost, signora."

"Be where you can assist him at the first alarm. Do not go to bed; pass the night as near his room as you can. The man I speak of will go away before daylight; do not leave your house and do not let Michel go away unless you go together, always together, do you understand? And be ready until I give different orders. To-morrow I will explain everything to you; I will see you. Rely upon me, from this day forth, as a second mother. Come, my child, follow me; I will put you on the track of Michel and his companion."

She took him by the arm and hastily led him up to the Casino, which they passed through without a word. She opened the garden gate, and pointing to the staircase in the rock, "Go," she said, "celerity, caution, and your noble heart, the heart of a man of the people, for your friend's buckler!"

Magnani descended the stairs as swiftly and noiselessly as an arrow. He wasted no time in reflection, nor did he exhaust the force of his determination by worrying. He did not even ask himself the question whether Michel was his fortunate rival, and whether he should not be tempted to run him through the heart. Impelled by the magic force which Agatha's hand and breath had given him, he was all ready to lay down his life for that favored child of fortune, and he felt no more regret than hesitation at the thought of sacrificing himself thus. Nay, more, he was happy and proud to obey the woman he loved, and her words rang in his heart like a voice from Heaven.

He was soon in the fields and discovered two men walking along a path. He recognized Michel; he recognized the mountaineer's cloak. He took pains not to show himself; but he measured with a glance the distance and the obstacles that he would have to pass over in case of an alarm. The mountaineer stopped for a moment, talking earnestly. Magnani, with a determined effort of strength and activity, which under other circumstances would have been beyond the power of man, reached a point sufficiently near to overhear him, and found that he was talking of love and poetry.

He allowed them to gain on him again, and, gliding through a narrow path among the blocks of lava that lay in great heaps at the entrance to the city, he arrived before them in the yard of the adjoining houses occupied by his family and Michel's. He watched his young friend and his suspicious guest enter the house. Then Magnani made the circuit of the houses, looking for a place where he could pass the night, unseen, but within hearing of the slightest noise, the slightest commotion inside.

XXIX APPARITIONS

Pier-Angelo had been notified by the princess and by a message from the monk of Mal Passo, that he must not be alarmed by his son's absence, and that, in case of danger, the young man would pass the night either at the convent with his uncle, or in the Marquis della Serra's palace. The princess would have preferred the latter course; but the necessity of showing absolute confidence in the brigand, concerning whose sensitiveness Fra Angelo had fully informed her, had triumphed over her anxiety. With great foresight she had sent for Magnani, and we have seen that she was justified in her reliance upon that excellent young man.

Pier-Angelo, naturally optimistic, and reassured by the message he had received, had gone to bed and was making up for the fatigue of the ball like a man who knows how to use time to advantage. Mila had also gone to her room; but she was not asleep. She had passed the afternoon with the princess, and, upon being questioned by her concerning her friends, had spoken of Antonio Magnani among others with a warmth which would have betrayed the secret of her heart, even if Agatha had not been watchful and penetrating. It was the favorable account the girl had given of her young neighbor which had finally led the princess to call upon him for aid in the embarrassment of her situation. She had said to herself that Magnani might well become Mila's husband some day, and that nothing could be more natural, therefore, than that he should have a share in shaping Michelangelo's destiny. She had entrusted Mila with the message to Magnani to come to her that night, and poor Magnani, on receiving the message, had nearly fainted. Should we not rather say poor Mila? But Mila had attributed the young man's confusion to his timidity alone. Agatha was the last person whom she would have suspected of being her rival, not that she was not in her eyes the loveliest of women, but because, in a pure heart, there is no room for jealousy of the persons whom one loves. On the contrary, the true-hearted child was happy in the mark of esteem and confidence with which her dear Agatha had honored Magnani. She was proud of it for his sake, and would have liked to be able to carry him such messages every day.

But the princess had thought that she ought not to conceal from Mila the fact that Michel was necessarily involved in an adventure in which he might incur some danger, and that Magnani would assist him to defend himself.

So Mila was anxious; she had said nothing to her father of her fears; but she had been out more than ten times on the road to the villa, listening to noises in the distance, watching all the passers-by, and returning to the house each time more distressed and alarmed than before. At last, when eleven o'clock struck, she dared not go out again, but remained in her room, sometimes at the window, where she tired her eyes staring to no purpose, sometimes beside her bed, where she fell on her knees, depressed beyond measure, with her face buried in the pillow. At times her pulses throbbed so violently that she mistook the throbbing for a noise by her side. Then she would start and raise her head, and, hearing nothing, try to pray.

At last, about midnight, she thought that she heard distinctly a faint sound of irregular footsteps in the yard. She looked and fancied that she saw a shadow glide along the wall and disappear in the darkness. It was Magnani; but she could not distinguish any well-defined form, and was not sure that she had not been deceived by her own imagination.

A few moments later two men stole noiselessly up the outside staircase of the house. Mila had begun to pray again, and did not hear them until they were under her window. She ran to the window, and seeing only the tops of their heads, as she was directly above them, she had no doubt that they were her brother and Magnani returning together. She hastily rearranged her lovely hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, and hurried to meet them. But as she passed into Michel's chamber, the outer door of that chamber opened, and she found herself face to face with Michel and a man who was fully a head shorter than Antonio Magnani.

The Piccinino, whose features were hidden by the hood of his cloak, hastily drew back and closed the door, saying: "You probably did not expect your mistress to-night, Michel. Under any other circumstances it would give me great pleasure to see her, for she seemed to be as beautiful as the Madonna; but at this moment you will oblige me greatly if you can send her away without letting her see me."

"Have no fear," replied the young artist. "This woman is my sister, and I will send her back to her own room. Stay here a moment, behind the door."

"Mila," he said, entering the room again and holding the door between his companion and himself, "you seem to have taken a mania for sitting up late like a night-bird. Go back to your own room, my dear love, I am not alone. One of father's apprentices has asked me to take him in, and I am going to share my bed with him. You must see that you shouldn't stay here another moment, unless you want to be seen with your hair and dress in disorder."

"I will go," said Mila; "but tell me first, Michel, whether Magnani came home with you?"

"What does it matter to you?" rejoined Michel, testily. Mila heaved a profound sigh, and returned to her room, where she threw herself on her bed, quite disheartened, but determined to pretend to be asleep, and to listen to everything that was said in the adjoining room. Perhaps something had happened to Magnani; her brother's abrupt manner seemed to her of evil augury.

As soon as the Piccinino found himself alone with Michel, he asked him to throw the bolts and to place a mattress from the bed against the thin warped door of the adjoining room, through which the light could be seen and their voices heard. When that was done, he asked him to make sure that his father was asleep, or, if he were still awake, to wish him good-night, so that the old man might not take it into his head to come upstairs. As he spoke, the bandit unceremoniously threw himself on Michel's bed, having first removed his rich doublet, and, covering his head with his cloak, seemed determined not to lose an instant in going to sleep.

Michel went downstairs as he was requested; but he was no sooner on the staircase than the young outlaw sprang to his feet as swiftly and lightly as a bird, threw the mattress aside, drew the bolt, and approached Mila's bed, beside which her little lamp was still burning.

Mila heard him come in; but she supposed that Michel had come to make sure that she was in bed. It did not occur to her that another could have the audacity to enter her room thus, and, like a child who is afraid of being scolded, she closed her eyes and lay perfectly still.

The Piccinino had never seen a beautiful woman without being disturbed and restless until he had examined her carefully, in order that he might cease to think of her if her beauty was imperfect, or cast his net over her if her style of beauty succeeded in inflaming his disdainful heart, a strange compound of love and indolence, energy and torpor. Few men of twenty-five have lived so chaste and self-restrained a life as the bandit of Ætna; but few imaginations are so fertile as his was in dreams of pleasure and in boundless appetites. It seemed that he was always seeking to kindle his passions in order to test their intensity, but that he abstained from gratifying them most of the time, fearing lest his enjoyment might fall short of the idea he had conceived of it. Certain it is that on the few occasions on which he had given way, he had been profoundly depressed afterwards, and had reproached himself for having expended so much exertion for a pleasure so soon exhausted.

Perhaps he had other reasons for wishing to see Michel's sister's features without Michel's knowledge. However that may be, he gazed at her attentively for a moment, and, enraptured by her beauty, her youthful grace, and her air of innocence, he asked himself whether he would not do better to love that fascinating child rather than a woman older than himself and doubtless more difficult to persuade.

At that moment Mila, weary of feigning sleep, and more eager for news of Magnani than afraid of her brother's reproaches, opened her eyes and saw the stranger leaning over her. She saw his eyes gleaming under his hood, and, terror-stricken, she was on the point of crying out, when he put his hand over her mouth.

"Child," he said in a low voice, "if you say a word, you are lost. Hush, and I will go away. Come, come, my lovely angel," he added, in a caressing tone, "don't be afraid of the friend of your family; before long perhaps you will thank him for having disturbed your sleep."

And, being unable to resist an insane impulse of coquetry, of a sort that often caused him suddenly to forget his resolutions and his cautious instincts, he threw back his hood and disclosed his beautiful features, made still more beautiful by a sweet and winning smile. The innocent Mila thought that she had had a vision. The diamonds that sparkled on the young man's breast so heightened the general effect that she did not know whether it was an angel or a prince in disguise who stood before her. Bewildered, hesitating, she smiled back at him, half fascinated, half terrified. Thereupon he lifted a heavy tress of her black hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, and put it to his lips. Fear gained the upper hand. Again Mila attempted to cry out. The stranger flashed such a terrible glance at her that her voice failed her. He put out the lamp, returned to Michel's room, bolted the door, and replaced the mattress; then, throwing himself on the bed and concealing his face, he seemed to be sleeping soundly when Michel returned. All this had happened in less time than it has required to tell it.

But, for the first time in his life, perhaps, the Piccinino could not compel sleep to deaden the activity of his thoughts. His imagination was an unbroken steed, with whom he had fought so many battles that he believed that he had placed a curb in his mouth forever. But the curb was broken, and that powerful will, exhausted in trivial combats, no longer sufficed to control fierce instincts too long held in check. He was between two violent temptations, which appeared to him in the shape of two women almost equally desirable, and whom the detestable Ninfo had practically offered to share with him. Michel was the hostage whom he had in his hands, and for whose ransom he could demand and perhaps obtain everything.

To be sure, he no longer believed in Agatha's passion for the young artist; but he had seen her utter indifference as to the matter of money, when it was a question of saving her friends from perils that threatened them. Was she so disinterested as to think that she ought to sacrifice something more than her fortune to ransom her protégé? Probably not; so that the bandit must rely upon his individual powers of seduction, and he saw in Michel only a means of gaining access to her so that he might exert those powers.

As for the young sister, it seemed to him an easier matter to overcome so innocent a child, not only because of the more direct affection which she undoubtedly entertained for her brother, but also because of her inexperience and the purity of her imagination, which he had tested with a glance.

In respect to youthful charm and mere physical beauty, Mila far surpassed Agatha; but Agatha was a princess, and the instinct of vanity was strong in the bastard of Castro-Reale. She was supposed never to have had a lover, she seemed prudent and strong. She had had twenty years or more to practise self-defence and to repel the assaults of the passions she had inspired; for she was at least thirty years old, and in the fiery climate of Sicily, where plants mature in less time than they require in France to put forth buds, a girl of ten is almost a woman.

It was, therefore, a most glorious conquest to dream about, and for that reason most intoxicating. But there was also the fear of failure, and Carmelo thought that in that case he should die of shame and rage. He had never known pain; it was a word almost devoid of meaning to him until that moment. He was beginning to discover that one can suffer for other causes than anger and ennui. As he lay awake, he watched Michel without his knowledge. He saw him sit down at his table and take his head in his hands, in an attitude of the most complete discouragement.

Michel was profoundly depressed. All his dreams had vanished like smoke. His situation seemed to him sufficiently elucidated by the conversation he had had with the bandit as they returned from the villa. To test him, the Piccinino had repeated Abbé Ninfo's calumnies, pretending to believe them and generously to take Michel's part. The young painter's noble and upright heart had rebelled against a suspicion which assailed the princess's dignity; his denials and his manner of describing his first interview with her in the ball-room had corresponded so closely with the way in which the princess herself had represented the facts to the bandit, that the latter, after a more searching and subtle examination than that of an inquisitor, had ended by becoming convinced that there was nothing criminal in the princess's relations with the artist.

Thereupon, seeing that there was a background of unhappiness to Michel's modesty and loyalty, the Piccinino had concluded that, if the princess did not love him, he wished that she might, and that he had fallen in love with her at first sight. He remembered Michel's abrupt and ironical reply to himself during the ball, and he took a cruel delight in making him feel that he could not hope to be loved by such a woman. It even occurred to him to admit that he questioned him only to test the refinement of his nature, and he ended by repeating word for word what Agatha had said when she pointed to Michel at the window of the boudoir: "Look at that young man and tell me if there can possibly be any wrongful relations between two persons of our respective ages and conditions." Then he added, pressing Michel's hand as they entered the city: "My child, I am pleased with you; for any other man, at your age, would have seized the opportunity to pose as the hero of a mysterious adventure with that adorable woman. Now I see that you are already a serious-minded man, and I can say to you in confidence that she has made an ineffaceable impression on me, and that I shall be like a stone in the crater of the volcano until I have seen her again."

The tone in which the Piccinino proclaimed, so to speak, this confession, combined with the remembrance of his enraptured face and his triumphant attitude when he returned to the boudoir with Agatha, alarmed Michel beyond expression. He had not felt obliged in conscience to tell him what illusions he had cherished, what he had thought that he could read in certain glances, still less what had taken place—and he did not believe that it was altogether a dream—in the grotto of the naiad. Indeed, he would have considered it his bounden duty to deny it with all his strength if his rival could have suspected it. But all his phantoms of pride and happiness took flight before Agatha's cold words, repeated in a dry, cutting tone by the Piccinino. But one point remained obscure in his situation. That was the peculiarly warm affection of the princess for his father and sister. But how could he attribute the honor of that affection to himself? It was based upon an ancient political connection or upon gratitude for some service rendered by Pier-Angelo. Pier-Angelo's son was subjected to the dangers of that connection at the same time that he shared its benefits. When that debt of the heart was paid, it was impossible that Michel could arouse any further interest in the generous patroness of his family. The mysteries that had fascinated him fell back into the domain of reality, and instead of the pleasant labor of combating charming illusions, he had the mortification of feeling that he had combated them unsuccessfully and the pain of being unable to revive them.

"Why should I be jealous of the insolent joy that shone in the eyes of that bandit?" he said to himself in dire distress. "Have I any business even to consider the question whether his strange manner caused the princess pleasurable or painful emotion? What have she and I in common? What am I to her? Pier-Angelo's son! And he, this bold-faced adventurer, is her mainstay and her savior. He will soon have a claim upon her gratitude—perhaps upon her esteem and affection; for it rests only with him to acquire them. He loves her, and if he is not mad he will find some way or other to make her love him. But how can I earn any title to her distinction? Of what consequence are the embryotic products of my art in comparison with the energetic assistance which she demands? It seems to me that she looks upon me as a child, since, instead of calling me to her aid, and entrusting to me some mission of importance to her interests and her personal safety, she does not even consider me capable of defending my own life. She considers me so weak or so timid that in this hour of our common danger she has sought the intervention of a stranger—an ally more dangerous than useful, it may be. O my God! how far she is from looking upon me as a man! Why did she not simply say to me: 'Your father and I are threatened by an enemy. Drop your brushes, take a dagger; defend your father or avenge me!' Fra Angelo reproached me for my indifference; but, instead of correcting it, they actually treat me like a child whom they pity, and whose life they save without troubling themselves about his heart!"

While he abandoned himself to these melancholy reflections, Michelangelo felt as if his heart were breaking, and finding in front of him the sprig of cyclamen, which was still living in its Venetian glass, he let a scalding tear fall upon it.

XXX THE FALSE MONK

Mila had been so astonished and alarmed by the appearance of the Piccinino that she could not possibly sleep. The fact that alarmed her most was that she no longer heard conversation in the adjoining room, and that she could not make sure that her brother was there. She was unwilling to go to bed, and, after a few moments, as her reflections served only to increase her terror, she rose and opened another door of her chamber which opened on an outer gallery, or rather a dilapidated corridor sheltered by an awning, and ending in a staircase which served as a means of communication between her room and those of the other occupants of the house. Mila had never opened that door at night, but this time she went out on the gallery, having fully determined to seek refuge with her father and to sit in his chamber until daylight.

But she had barely taken three steps when a new cause of alarm brought her to a standstill. A man was leaning against the wall of the gallery as motionless as a robber on the watch.

She was about to fly, when a voice said in a whisper: "Is that you, Mila?" And as the man walked toward her she recognized Magnani.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "I am watching here by order of a person who is dear to you. Doubtless you know why, as you transmitted her message to me?"

"I know that my brother has been in danger this evening," replied the girl; "but it seems that you are not the only one whom our dear princess has stationed beside him to defend him. There is another young man in his room, whom I do not know."

"I know it, Mila; but that young man is the very one who is under suspicion; and I must stand guard as near as possible to the place where he is sleeping, until he has left the house."

"But you are a long way from him!" exclaimed Mila, in dismay, "and my brother might be murdered and you not hear it from here."

"But what am I to do?" replied Magnani. "I could not get any nearer to his room. He took pains to lock the door at the foot of the other staircase. So I am here; and I have my eyes and ears open, I assure you!"

"I will watch, too," said the girl, resolutely, "and you can sit up with me, Magnani. Come into my room. Even though people should speak ill of us, if we were seen, even if my father and brother should scold me severely, it makes no difference to me! I am only afraid of the man who is locked into Michel's room with him, or alone—for they put a mattress against my door, and I cannot find out whether Michel is really there. I am afraid for Michel; I am afraid for myself."

And she told how the bandit had entered her room when Michel was apparently not there to oppose his entrance.

Magnani, being unable to explain such an extraordinary occurrence, accepted Mila's suggestion without hesitation. He entered her room, leaving the door of the gallery ajar, in order that he might retire unseen if need were, but all ready to burst in Michel's door at the slightest alarming noise.

When he had listened coolly and cautiously, with his eye and ear glued to the partition, he said to Mila, beckoning her to the side of the room farthest from the door, and speaking very low:

"Set your mind at rest; they are not so well barricaded that I could not see Michel sitting at his table, apparently deep in meditation. I could not make out the other one, but I promise you that they cannot make a movement which I shall not hear, and that their bolt will not hold a second against my fist. I am armed; so don't be afraid any more, my dear Mila."

"No, no, I am not afraid," she said. "Since you have been here, I have recovered the use of my mind. Before you came, I was like a madwoman; I neither saw nor heard anything except through a veil. Have you had no accident, run no risk yourself to-night, Magnani?"

"None at all; but what are you looking for, Mila? You will make a noise fumbling in that drawer."

"No, no," she said. "I am getting a weapon too, for I feel as brave as a lion with you."

And she held up an ebony spindle, carved and mounted in silver, the stout, sharp point of which might at need serve the purpose of a stiletto.

"When our dear princess gave me this to-day," she said, "she had no suspicion that I might perhaps use it to defend my brother. But tell me, Magnani, how did the princess receive you, and how did she explain these mysteries which are happening all about us, and which I do not understand at all? We can safely talk here in this doorway; no one will hear us and it will help to make the time seem shorter and less dull."

She sat down on the step outside the door that opened on the gallery. Magnani sat beside her, ready to fly if any inquisitive individual should approach, ready to show himself if Michel's guest made any sign of hostility. They talked in very low tones, and their whispered words expired in the open air, nor did either of the two become so engrossed as to fail to pause and listen intently at the slightest sound.

When Magnani had told Mila what little he knew, she lost herself in vain conjectures as to the identity of that handsome young man, whose expression was at once sweet and fear-inspiring, who styled himself, when speaking with her, the friend of the family, and of whom the princess had said to Magnani: "He is either our savior or our enemy."—And, when Magnani urged her not to try to fathom a secret which the princess and her family apparently deemed it necessary to conceal from her, she replied: "Do not think that I am consumed by silly childish curiosity! No, I have not that wretched failing. But I have been afraid all day long, and yet I am not timid, either. Something incomprehensible is going on about me, and I, too, believe that I am threatened by enemies whom I do not know. I do not dare to mention the subject to my father or to the princess; I am afraid that if they undertake to look out for me, too, they will neglect a part of the precautions demanded by their own safety. But I must think about defending myself; to-morrow, when you go to your work and my father and brother have gone out, I shall begin to tremble again for them, for you and for my self."

"I shall not go to work to-morrow, Mila," said Magnani. "The princess ordered me not to leave your brother, whether he remains at home or goes out. She did not mention you, which fact makes me almost certain that you are not included in the secret persecution at which she has taken fright. But, whatever happens, I shall not stir from here, without having made sure that no one can come and frighten you."

"Listen," she said, "I am going to tell you what happened to me to-day. You know that we often have in our yard some of those begging brothers, who annoy everybody, even the poor people, and whom you cannot get rid of without giving them something. Well, one of them came just after Michel and my father had left the house, and I never saw a monk so persistent, and so bold, and so inquisitive. Just fancy that, when he saw me working at my window, he took up his station just below it, and there he stood, staring at me with a gaze that embarrassed me, although I tried not to meet his eyes. I tossed him some bread in order to get rid of him. He didn't condescend to pick it up. 'Young woman,' he said, 'that is not the way people give alms to a brother of my order. They take the trouble to go downstairs to him and to commend themselves to his prayers, instead of tossing him a crust as if he were a dog. You are not a pious maid, and your parents have brought you up badly. I am sure that you are not a native?'

"I made the mistake of answering him. He had put me in a bad humor with his sermon, and he was so ugly, so dirty, so insolent, that I could not help exhibiting my disgust. It seemed to me that I recognized him as a man I had seen in the morning at the Palmarosa palace. My brother was disturbed by his face at that time, and questioned my uncle Fra Angelo about him. He sent us away in haste, promising to find out who he was, for he did not recognize him as a Capuchin, and my father said that he resembled a certain Abbé Ninfo, who bears us a grudge, apparently. However, either it was not the same man, or else he had changed his disguise; for he wore the costume of a bare-footed Carmelite when he came here; and, instead of a thick, curly black beard, he had a red beard, as short and stiff as a wild boar's hair. He was even more horrible in that dress, and if it was not the same man, why, I can safely say that I have seen to-day the two most repulsive monks in Valdemona."

"And you were imprudent enough to talk with him?" said Magnani.

"Talk is not the word; I requested him to carry his preaching somewhere else, saying that I had no time to go down to him or to listen to his reprimands; that, if he did not consider my alms worthy of his acceptance, he could give it to the first poor person he met, and that, if he was born proud, he had made a great mistake in becoming a mendicant."

"Doubtless he was irritated by your replies?"

"No, for if I had seen that he was mortified or angry, charity or prudence would have kept me from saying so much. But, instead of continuing to scold me, he began to smile; a ghastly sort of smile, to be sure, but not resentful.

"'You are an amusing child,' he said, 'and I forgive your lack of propriety because of your wit and your black eyes.'

"I ask you if it was not very wicked for a monk to pay any attention to the color of my eyes? I told him that he might stay a year under my window before I would look to see what color his were. He called me a flirt; a strange word, isn't it, in the mouth of a man who ought not even to know that there is such a word? I closed my window, but when I opened it a quarter of an hour later, being unable to endure the stifling heat in my room when the sun is high, he was still looking at me. I refused to talk to him any more. He told me that he would stay there until I gave him something better than bread; that he knew that I wasn't a poor girl; that I had a beautiful pin of chased gold in my hair, and that he would gladly accept that, unless I preferred to give him a lock of hair in its place. And he followed that up with such absurd and extravagant compliments that I believed and still believe he was laughing at me, and that it was his spiteful and unseemly way of venting his anger.

"As there were people in the house, particularly your father and one of your brothers, whom I could see working in their rooms within reach of my voice, I was not alarmed by that wretched monk's strange remarks and impertinent glances; I answered only by making fun of him, and, to get rid of him, I promised to give him something on condition that he would go away at once. He declared that he had the right to accept or refuse my offering, and that, if I would let him choose, he would be very modest and would not ruin me.—'What do you want,' I said, 'a skein of silk to mend your ragged frock?'—'No,' he replied, 'it's too badly spun.'—'Do you want my scissors to cut your beard, which is growing all awry?'—'No, for I might perhaps use it to cut off the rosy tip of that impertinent little tongue.'—'A needle, then, to sew up your mouth, which doesn't know what it says?'—'No, for I am afraid that your needle has no sharper point than your epigrams.'

"We jested thus for some time; although he annoyed me, he made me laugh; for it seemed to me that his manner had become more fatherly than threatening, that he was really a monk, one of those persistent jokers such as we all know, who obtain by teasing what they cannot extort by prayer; and lastly, I discovered that he was very bright, and I did not put a stop to that childish badinage so soon as I should have done. I took from the wall a little mirror about the size of my hand, of no value, which he had noticed hanging by my window, as to which he asked me how many hours a day I passed consulting it. I lowered it to him by a silk thread, saying that he would certainly enjoy looking at himself in it much more than I had enjoyed having his face before my eyes so long.

"He seized it eagerly and kissed it, exclaiming in a tone which frightened me: 'Has it retained a reflection of your beauty, O dangerous maiden? Just a reflection! that is very little, but if I could fix it there, I would never take my lips from it.'

"'Fie!' I said, drawing back from the window, 'those words dishonor the frock you wear, and such jesting does not befit a monk.'

"I closed my window again and came to this door where we are now, and opened it so that I could breathe while I worked. But I had not been there five minutes when I saw the Capuchin before me. He had presumed to enter the house, I don't know how; for I had locked the outer door, and he must either have been prowling around in the adjoining house, or have known all the ins and outs of this one.—'Go away,' I said to him; 'no one has a right to enter a house in this way, and if you come near my door, I will call my father and brother, who are in the next room.'

"'I know perfectly well that they are not there,' he replied, with a hateful laugh, 'and as for the neighbors, it would do no good to call them, for I should be far away before they could get here. What makes you afraid of me, young woman? I only wanted to have a nearer view of your soft eyes and your red lips; Raphael's Madonna is a mere maid-servant compared with you. Come, don't be afraid of me'—and, as he spoke, he held the door open, which I tried to shut in his face.—'I would give my life for a kiss from you; but if you refuse me that, give me at least the rose that perfumes your breast; I shall die of joy dreaming that ——'

"I heard no more, for he had let the door go and tried to seize me in his arms. In spite of my terror, I had more presence of mind than he expected; for I stepped quickly to one side, slammed the door in his face, and as he was a little bewildered by the blow, I took advantage of it to run through Michel's room. I ran downstairs at the top of my speed, and didn't stop until I was in the street, for there was no neighbor near enough to depend upon. When I was among the people in the street, I was no longer afraid of the monk, but I wouldn't have come back to my room for anything on earth. I walked to Villa Palmarosa, and didn't feel entirely at ease until the princess had taken me into her room. I passed the rest of the day there, and did not come home until father was ready. But I dared not say anything about what had happened, for the reason I have given you—and if I must be entirely frank, because I felt that I had been imprudent to joke with that wretched begging monk, and that I deserved some blame for it. A rebuke from my father would almost kill me; but from Princess Agatha—why, I would rather be damned at once and forever!'"