The Gadfly
Chapter I
THE next five weeks were spent by Gemma and the Gadfly in a whirl of excitement and overwork which left them little time or energy for thinking about their personal affairs. When the arms had been safely smuggled into Papal territory there remained a still more difficult and dangerous task: that of conveying them unobserved from the secret stores in the mountain caverns and ravines to the various local centres and thence to the separate villages. The whole district was swarming with spies; and Domenichino, to whom the Gadfly had intrusted the ammunition, sent into Florence a messenger with an urgent appeal for either help or extra time. The Gadfly had insisted that the work should be finished by the middle of June; and what with the difficulty of conveying heavy transports over bad roads, and the endless hindrances and delays caused by the necessity of continually evading observation, Domenichino was growing desperate. “I am between Scylla and Charybdis,” he wrote. “I dare not work quickly, for fear of detection, and I must not work slowly if we are to be ready in time. Either send me efficient help at once, or let the Venetians know that we shall not be ready till the first week in July.”
The Gadfly carried the letter to Gemma and, while she read it, sat frowning at the floor and stroking the cat’s fur the wrong way.
“This is bad,” she said. “We can hardly keep the Venetians waiting for three weeks.”
“Of course we can’t; the thing is absurd. Domenichino m-might unders-s-stand that. We must follow the lead of the Venetians, not they ours.”
“I don’t see that Domenichino is to blame; he has evidently done his best, and he can’t do impossibilities.”
“It’s not in Domenichino that the fault lies; it’s in the fact of his being one person instead of two. We ought to have at least one responsible man to guard the store and another to see the transports off. He is quite right; he must have efficient help.”
“But what help are we going to give him? We have no one in Florence to send.”
“Then I m-must go myself.”
She leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a little frown.
“No, that won’t do; it’s too risky.”
“It will have to do if we can’t f-f-find any other way out of the difficulty.”
“Then we must find another way, that’s all. It’s out of the question for you to go again just now.”
An obstinate line appeared at the corners of his under lip.
“I d-don’t see that it’s out of the question.”
“You will see if you think about the thing calmly for a minute. It is only five weeks since you got back; the police are on the scent about that pilgrim business, and scouring the country to find a clue. Yes, I know you are clever at disguises; but remember what a lot of people saw you, both as Diego and as the countryman; and you can’t disguise your lameness or the scar on your face.”
“There are p-plenty of lame people in the world.”
“Yes, but there are not plenty of people in the Romagna with a lame foot and a sabre-cut across the cheek and a left arm injured like yours, and the combination of blue eyes with such dark colouring.”
“The eyes don’t matter; I can alter them with belladonna.”
“You can’t alter the other things. No, it won’t do. For you to go there just now, with all your identification-marks, would be to walk into a trap with your eyes open. You would certainly be taken.”
“But s-s-someone must help Domenichino.”
“It will be no help to him to have you caught at a critical moment like this. Your arrest would mean the failure of the whole thing.”
But the Gadfly was difficult to convince, and the discussion went on and on without coming nearer to any settlement. Gemma was beginning to realize how nearly inexhaustible was the fund of quiet obstinacy in his character; and, had the matter not been one about which she felt strongly, she would probably have yielded for the sake of peace. This, however, was a case in which she could not conscientiously give way; the practical advantage to be gained from the proposed journey seemed to her not sufficiently important to be worth the risk, and she could not help suspecting that his desire to go was prompted less by a conviction of grave political necessity than by a morbid craving for the excitement of danger. He had got into the habit of risking his neck, and his tendency to run into unnecessary peril seemed to her a form of intemperance which should be quietly but steadily resisted. Finding all her arguments unavailing against his dogged resolve to go his own way, she fired her last shot.
“Let us be honest about it, anyway,” she said; “and call things by their true names. It is not Domenichino’s difficulty that makes you so determined to go. It is your own personal passion for—”
“It’s not true!” he interrupted vehemently. “He is nothing to me; I don’t care if I never see him again.”
He broke off, seeing in her face that he had betrayed himself. Their eyes met for an instant, and dropped; and neither of them uttered the name that was in both their minds.
“It—it is not Domenichino I want to save,” he stammered at last, with his face half buried in the cat’s fur; “it is that I—I understand the danger of the work failing if he has no help.”
She passed over the feeble little subterfuge, and went on as if there had been no interruption:
“It is your passion for running into danger which makes you want to go there. You have the same craving for danger when you are worried that you had for opium when you were ill.”
“It was not I that asked for the opium,” he said defiantly; “it was the others who insisted on giving it to me.”
“I dare say. You plume yourself a little on your stoicism, and to ask for physical relief would have hurt your pride; but it is rather flattered than otherwise when you risk your life to relieve the irritation of your nerves. And yet, after all, the distinction is a merely conventional one.”
He drew the cat’s head back and looked down into the round, green eyes. “Is it true, Pasht?” he said. “Are all these unkind things true that your mistress is s-saying about me? Is it a case of mea culpa; mea m-maxima culpa? You wise beast, you never ask for opium, do you? Your ancestors were gods in Egypt, and no man t-trod on their tails. I wonder, though, what would become of your calm superiority to earthly ills if I were to take this paw of yours and hold it in the c-candle. Would you ask me for opium then? Would you? Or perhaps—for death? No, pussy, we have no right to die for our personal convenience. We may spit and s-swear a bit, if it consoles us; but we mustn’t pull the paw away.”
“Hush!” She took the cat off his knee and put it down on a footstool. “You and I will have time for thinking about those things later on. What we have to think of now is how to get Domenichino out of his difficulty. What is it, Katie; a visitor? I am busy.”
“Miss Wright has sent you this, ma’am, by hand.”
The packet, which was carefully sealed, contained a letter, addressed to Miss Wright, but unopened and with a Papal stamp. Gemma’s old school friends still lived in Florence, and her more important letters were often received, for safety, at their address.
“It is Michele’s mark,” she said, glancing quickly over the letter, which seemed to be about the summer-terms at a boarding house in the Apennines, and pointing to two little blots on a corner of the page. “It is in chemical ink; the reagent is in the third drawer of the writing-table. Yes; that is it.”
He laid the letter open on the desk and passed a little brush over its pages. When the real message stood out on the paper in a brilliant blue line, he leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing.
“What is it?” she asked hurriedly. He handed her the paper.
“DOMENICHINO HAS BEEN ARRESTED. COME AT ONCE.”
She sat down with the paper in her hand and stared hopelessly at the Gadfly.
“W-well?” he said at last, with his soft, ironical drawl; “are you satisfied now that I must go?”
“Yes, I suppose you must,” she answered, sighing. “And I too.”
He looked up with a little start. “You too? But—”
“Of course. It will be very awkward, I know, to be left without anyone here in Florence; but everything must go to the wall now except the providing of an extra pair of hands.”
“There are plenty of hands to be got there.”
“They don’t belong to people whom you can trust thoroughly, though. You said yourself just now that there must be two responsible persons in charge; and if Domenichino couldn’t manage alone it is evidently impossible for you to do so. A person as desperately compromised as you are is very much handicapped, remember, in work of that kind, and more dependent on help than anyone else would be. Instead of you and Domenichino, it must be you and I.”
He considered for a moment, frowning.
“Yes, you are quite right,” he said; “and the sooner we go the better. But we must not start together. If I go off to-night, you can take, say, the afternoon coach to-morrow.”
“Where to?”
“That we must discuss. I think I had b-b-better go straight in to Faenza. If I start late to-night and ride to Borgo San Lorenzo I can get my disguise arranged there and go straight on.”
“I don’t see what else we can do,” she said, with an anxious little frown; “but it is very risky, your going off in such a hurry and trusting to the smugglers finding you a disguise at Borgo. You ought to have at least three clear days to double on your trace before you cross the frontier.”
“You needn’t be afraid,” he answered, smiling; “I may get taken further on, but not at the frontier. Once in the hills I am as safe as here; there’s not a smuggler in the Apennines that would betray me. What I am not quite sure about is how you are to get across.”
“Oh, that is very simple! I shall take Louisa Wright’s passport and go for a holiday. No one knows me in the Romagna, but every spy knows you.”
“F-fortunately, so does every smuggler.”
She took out her watch.
“Half-past two. We have the afternoon and evening, then, if you are to start to-night.”
“Then the best thing will be for me to go home and settle everything now, and arrange about a good horse. I shall ride in to San Lorenzo; it will be safer.”
“But it won’t be safe at all to hire a horse. The owner will—”
“I shan’t hire one. I know a man that will lend me a horse, and that can be trusted. He has done things for me before. One of the shepherds will bring it back in a fortnight. I shall be here again by five or half-past, then; and while I am gone, I w-want you to go and find Martini and exp-plain everything to him.”
“Martini!” She turned round and looked at him in astonishment.
“Yes; we must take him into confidence—unless you can think of anyone else.”
“I don’t quite understand what you mean.”
“We must have someone here whom we can trust, in case of any special difficulty; and of all the set here Martini is the man in whom I have most confidence. Riccardo would do anything he could for us, of course; but I think Martini has a steadier head. Still, you know him better than I do; it is as you think.”
“I have not the slightest doubt as to Martini’s trustworthiness and efficiency in every respect; and I think he would probably consent to give us any help he could. But—”
He understood at once.
“Gemma, what would you feel if you found out that a comrade in bitter need had not asked you for help you might have given, for fear of hurting or distressing you? Would you say there was any true kindness in that?”
“Very well,” she said, after a little pause; “I will send Katie round at once and ask him to come; and while she is gone I will go to Louisa for her passport; she promised to lend it whenever I want one. What about money? Shall I draw some out of the bank?”
“No; don’t waste time on that; I can draw enough from my account to last us for a bit. We will fall back on yours later on if my balance runs short. Till half-past five, then; I shall be sure to find you here, of course?”
“Oh, yes! I shall be back long before then.”
Half an hour after the appointed time he returned, and found Gemma and Martini sitting on the terrace together. He saw at once that their conversation had been a distressing one; the traces of agitation were visible in both of them, and Martini was unusually silent and glum.
“Have you arranged everything?” she asked, looking up.
“Yes; and I have brought you some money for the journey. The horse will be ready for me at the Ponte Rosso barrier at one in the night.”
“Is not that rather late? You ought to get into San Lorenzo before the people are up in the morning.”
“So I shall; it’s a very fast horse; and I don’t want to leave here when there’s a chance of anyone noticing me. I shan’t go home any more; there’s a spy watching at the door, and he thinks me in.”
“How did you get out without his seeing you?”
“Out of the kitchen window into the back garden and over the neighbour’s orchard wall; that’s what makes me so late; I had to dodge him. I left the owner of the horse to sit in the study all the evening with the lamp lighted. When the spy sees the light in the window and a shadow on the blind he will be quite satisfied that I am writing at home this evening.”
“Then you will stay here till it is time to go to the barrier?”
“Yes; I don’t want to be seen in the street any more to-night. Have a cigar, Martini? I know Signora Bolla doesn’t mind smoke.”
“I shan’t be here to mind; I must go downstairs and help Katie with the dinner.”
When she had gone Martini got up and began to pace to and fro with his hands behind his back. The Gadfly sat smoking and looking silently out at the drizzling rain.
“Rivarez!” Martini began, stopping in front of him, but keeping his eyes on the ground; “what sort of thing are you going to drag her into?”
The Gadfly took the cigar from his mouth and blew away a long trail of smoke.
“She has chosen for herself,” he said, “without compulsion on anyone’s part.”
“Yes, yes—I know. But tell me—”
He stopped.
“I will tell you anything I can.”
“Well, then—I don’t know much about the details of these affairs in the hills,—are you going to take her into any very serious danger?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“Then—yes.”
Martini turned away and went on pacing up and down. Presently he stopped again.
“I want to ask you another question. If you don’t choose to answer it, you needn’t, of course; but if you do answer, then answer honestly. Are you in love with her?”
The Gadfly deliberately knocked the ash from his cigar and went on smoking in silence.
“That means—that you don’t choose to answer?”
“No; only that I think I have a right to know why you ask me that.”
“Why? Good God, man, can’t you see why?”
“Ah!” He laid down his cigar and looked steadily at Martini. “Yes,” he said at last, slowly and softly. “I am in love with her. But you needn’t think I am going to make love to her, or worry about it. I am only going to—”
His voice died away in a strange, faint whisper. Martini came a step nearer.
“Only going—to—”
“To die.”
He was staring straight before him with a cold, fixed look, as if he were dead already. When he spoke again his voice was curiously lifeless and even.
“You needn’t worry her about it beforehand,” he said; “but there’s not the ghost of a chance for me. It’s dangerous for everyone; that she knows as well as I do; but the smugglers will do their best to prevent her getting taken. They are good fellows, though they are a bit rough. As for me, the rope is round my neck, and when I cross the frontier I pull the noose.”
“Rivarez, what do you mean? Of course it’s dangerous, and particularly so for you; I understand that; but you have often crossed the frontier before and always been successful.”
“Yes, and this time I shall fail.”
“But why? How can you know?”
The Gadfly smiled drearily.
“Do you remember the German legend of the man that died when he met his own Double? No? It appeared to him at night in a lonely place, wringing its hands in despair. Well, I met mine the last time I was in the hills; and when I cross the frontier again I shan’t come back.”
Martini came up to him and put a hand on the back of his chair.
“Listen, Rivarez; I don’t understand a word of all this metaphysical stuff, but I do understand one thing: If you feel about it that way, you are not in a fit state to go. The surest way to get taken is to go with a conviction that you will be taken. You must be ill, or out of sorts somehow, to get maggots of that kind into your head. Suppose I go instead of you? I can do any practical work there is to be done, and you can send a message to your men, explaining—”
“And let you get killed instead? That would be very clever.”
“Oh, I’m not likely to get killed! They don’t know me as they do you. And, besides, even if I did—”
He stopped, and the Gadfly looked up with a slow, inquiring gaze. Martini’s hand dropped by his side.
“She very likely wouldn’t miss me as much as she would you,” he said in his most matter-of-fact voice. “And then, besides, Rivarez, this is public business, and we have to look at it from the point of view of utility—the greatest good of the greatest number. Your 'final value'—isn’t that what the economists call it?—is higher than mine; I have brains enough to see that, though I haven’t any cause to be particularly fond of you. You are a bigger man than I am; I’m not sure that you are a better one, but there’s more of you, and your death would be a greater loss than mine.”
From the way he spoke he might have been discussing the value of shares on the Exchange. The Gadfly looked up, shivering as if with cold.
“Would you have me wait till my grave opens of itself to swallow me up?
“If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride—
Look here, Martini, you and I are talking nonsense.”
“You are, certainly,” said Martini gruffly.
“Yes, and so are you. For Heaven’s sake, don’t let’s go in for romantic self-sacrifice, like Don Carlos and Marquis Posa. This is the nineteenth century; and if it’s my business to die, I have got to do it.”
“And if it’s my business to live, I have got to do that, I suppose. You’re the lucky one, Rivarez.”
“Yes,” the Gadfly assented laconically; “I was always lucky.”
They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and then began to talk of business details. When Gemma came up to call them to dinner, neither of them betrayed in face or manner that their conversation had been in any way unusual. After dinner they sat discussing plans and making necessary arrangements till eleven o’clock, when Martini rose and took his hat.
“I will go home and fetch that riding-cloak of mine, Rivarez. I think you will be less recognizable in it than in your light suit. I want to reconnoitre a bit, too, and make sure there are no spies about before we start.”
“Are you coming with me to the barrier?”
“Yes; it’s safer to have four eyes than two in case of anyone following you. I’ll be back by twelve. Be sure you don’t start without me. I had better take the key, Gemma, so as not to wake anyone by ringing.”
She raised her eyes to his face as he took the keys. She understood that he had invented a pretext in order to leave her alone with the Gadfly.
“You and I will talk to-morrow,” she said. “We shall have time in the morning, when my packing is finished.”
“Oh, yes! Plenty of time. There are two or three little things I want to ask you about, Rivarez; but we can talk them over on our way to the barrier. You had better send Katie to bed, Gemma; and be as quiet as you can, both of you. Good-bye till twelve, then.”
He went away with a little nod and smile, banging the door after him to let the neighbours hear that Signora Bolla’s visitor was gone.
Gemma went out into the kitchen to say good-night to Katie, and came back with black coffee on a tray.
“Would you like to lie down a bit?” she said. “You won’t have any sleep the rest of the night.”
“Oh, dear no! I shall sleep at San Lorenzo while the men are getting my disguise ready.”
“Then have some coffee. Wait a minute; I will get you out the biscuits.”
As she knelt down at the side-board he suddenly stooped over her shoulder.
“Whatever have you got there? Chocolate creams and English toffee! Why, this is l-luxury for a king!”
She looked up, smiling faintly at his enthusiastic tone.
“Are you fond of sweets? I always keep them for Cesare; he is a perfect baby over any kind of lollipops.”
“R-r-really? Well, you must get him s-some more to-morrow and give me these to take with me. No, let me p-p-put the toffee in my pocket; it will console me for all the lost joys of life. I d-do hope they’ll give me a bit of toffee to suck the day I’m hanged.”
“Oh, do let me find a cardboard box for it, at least, before you put it in your pocket! You will be so sticky! Shall I put the chocolates in, too?”
“No, I want to eat them now, with you.”
“But I don’t like chocolate, and I want you to come and sit down like a reasonable human being. We very likely shan’t have another chance to talk quietly before one or other of us is killed, and—”
“She d-d-doesn’t like chocolate!” he murmured under his breath. “Then I must be greedy all by myself. This is a case of the hangman’s supper, isn’t it? You are going to humour all my whims to-night. First of all, I want you to sit on this easy-chair, and, as you said I might lie down, I shall lie here and be comfortable.”
He threw himself down on the rug at her feet, leaning his elbow on the chair and looking up into her face.
“How pale you are!” he said. “That’s because you take life sadly, and don’t like chocolate—”
“Do be serious for just five minutes! After all, it is a matter of life and death.”
“Not even for two minutes, dear; neither life nor death is worth it.”
He had taken hold of both her hands and was stroking them with the tips of his fingers.
“Don’t look so grave, Minerva! You’ll make me cry in a minute, and then you’ll be sorry. I do wish you’d smile again; you have such a d-delightfully unexpected smile. There now, don’t scold me, dear! Let us eat our biscuits together, like two good children, without quarrelling over them—for to-morrow we die.”
He took a sweet biscuit from the plate and carefully halved it, breaking the sugar ornament down the middle with scrupulous exactness.
“This is a kind of sacrament, like what the goody-goody people have in church. 'Take, eat; this is my body.' And we must d-drink the wine out of the s-s-same glass, you know—yes, that is right. 'Do this in remembrance—'”
She put down the glass.
“Don’t!” she said, with almost a sob. He looked up, and took her hands again.
“Hush, then! Let us be quiet for a little bit. When one of us dies, the other will remember this. We will forget this loud, insistent world that howls about our ears; we will go away together, hand in hand; we will go away into the secret halls of death, and lie among the poppy-flowers. Hush! We will be quite still.”
He laid his head down against her knee and covered his face. In the silence she bent over him, her hand on the black head. So the time slipped on and on; and they neither moved nor spoke.
“Dear, it is almost twelve,” she said at last. He raised his head.
“We have only a few minutes more; Martini will be back presently. Perhaps we shall never see each other again. Have you nothing to say to me?”
He slowly rose and walked away to the other side of the room. There was a moment’s silence.
“I have one thing to say,” he began in a hardly audible voice; “one thing—to tell you—”
He stopped and sat down by the window, hiding his face in both hands.
“You have been a long time deciding to be merciful,” she said softly.
“I have not seen much mercy in my life; and I thought—at first—you wouldn’t care—”
“You don’t think that now.”
She waited a moment for him to speak and then crossed the room and stood beside him.
“Tell me the truth at last,” she whispered. “Think, if you are killed and I not—I should have to go through all my life and never know—never be quite sure—”
He took her hands and clasped them tightly.
“If I am killed— You see, when I went to South America— Ah, Martini!”
He broke away with a violent start and threw open the door of the room. Martini was rubbing his boots on the mat.
“Punctual to the m-m-minute, as usual! You’re an an-n-nimated chronometer, Martini. Is that the r-r-riding-cloak?”
“Yes; and two or three other things. I have kept them as dry as I could, but it’s pouring with rain. You will have a most uncomfortable ride, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, that’s no matter. Is the street clear?”
“Yes; all the spies seem to have gone to bed. I don’t much wonder either, on such a villainous night. Is that coffee, Gemma? He ought to have something hot before he goes out into the wet, or he will catch cold.”
“It is black coffee, and very strong. I will boil some milk.”
She went into the kitchen, passionately clenching her teeth and hands to keep from breaking down. When she returned with the milk the Gadfly had put on the riding-cloak and was fastening the leather gaiters which Martini had brought. He drank a cup of coffee, standing, and took up the broad-brimmed riding hat.
“I think it’s time to start, Martini; we must make a round before we go to the barrier, in case of anything. Good-bye, for the present, signora; I shall meet you at Forli on Friday, then, unless anything special turns up. Wait a minute; th-this is the address.”
He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and wrote a few words in pencil.
“I have it already,” she said in a dull, quiet voice.
“H-have you? Well, there it is, anyway. Come, Martini. Sh-sh-sh! Don’t let the door creak!”
They crept softly downstairs. When the street door clicked behind them she went back into the room and mechanically unfolded the paper he had put into her hand. Underneath the address was written:
“I will tell you everything there.”
Chapter II
IT was market-day in Brisighella, and the country folk had come in from the villages and hamlets of the district with their pigs and poultry, their dairy produce and droves of half-wild mountain cattle. The market-place was thronged with a perpetually shifting crowd, laughing, joking, bargaining for dried figs, cheap cakes, and sunflower seeds. The brown, bare-footed children sprawled, face downward, on the pavement in the hot sun, while their mothers sat under the trees with their baskets of butter and eggs.
Monsignor Montanelli, coming out to wish the people “Good-morning,” was at once surrounded by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain slopes. His passion for wild flowers was affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled his house with weeds and grasses they would have laughed at him; but the “blessed Cardinal” could afford a few harmless eccentricities.
“Well, Mariuccia,” he said, stopping to pat one of the children on the head; “you have grown since I saw you last. And how is the grandmother’s rheumatism?”
“She’s been better lately, Your Eminence; but mother’s bad now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that; tell the mother to come down here some day and see whether Dr. Giordani can do anything for her. I will find somewhere to put her up; perhaps the change will do her good. You are looking better, Luigi; how are your eyes?”
He passed on, chatting with the mountaineers. He always remembered the names and ages of the children, their troubles and those of their parents; and would stop to inquire, with sympathetic interest, for the health of the cow that fell sick at Christmas, or of the rag-doll that was crushed under a cart-wheel last market-day.
When he returned to the palace the marketing began. A lame man in a blue shirt, with a shock of black hair hanging into his eyes and a deep scar across the left cheek, lounged up to one of the booths and, in very bad Italian, asked for a drink of lemonade.
“You’re not from these parts,” said the woman who poured it out, glancing up at him.
“No. I come from Corsica.”
“Looking for work?”
“Yes; it will be hay-cutting time soon, and a gentleman that has a farm near Ravenna came across to Bastia the other day and told me there’s plenty of work to be got there.”
“I hope you’ll find it so, I’m sure, but times are bad hereabouts.”
“They’re worse in Corsica, mother. I don’t know what we poor folk are coming to.”
“Have you come over alone?”
“No, my mate is with me; there he is, in the red shirt. Hola, Paolo!”
Michele hearing himself called, came lounging up with his hands in his pockets. He made a fairly good Corsican, in spite of the red wig which he had put on to render himself unrecognizable. As for the Gadfly, he looked his part to perfection.
They sauntered through the market-place together, Michele whistling between his teeth, and the Gadfly trudging along with a bundle over his shoulder, shuffling his feet on the ground to render his lameness less observable. They were waiting for an emissary, to whom important directions had to be given.
“There’s Marcone, on horseback, at that corner,” Michele whispered suddenly. The Gadfly, still carrying his bundle, shuffled towards the horseman.
“Do you happen to be wanting a hay-maker, sir?” he said, touching his ragged cap and running one finger along the bridle. It was the signal agreed upon, and the rider, who from his appearance might have been a country squire’s bailiff, dismounted and threw the reins on the horse’s neck.
“What sort of work can you do, my man?”
The Gadfly fumbled with his cap.
“I can cut grass, sir, and trim hedges”—he began; and without any break in his voice, went straight on: “At one in the morning at the mouth of the round cave. You must have two good horses and a cart. I shall be waiting inside the cave— And then I can dig, sir, and—”
“That will do, I only want a grass-cutter. Have you ever been out before?”
“Once, sir. Mind, you must come well-armed; we may meet a flying squadron. Don’t go by the wood-path; you’re safer on the other side. If you meet a spy, don’t stop to argue with him; fire at once— I should be very glad of work, sir.”
“Yes, I dare say, but I want an experienced grass-cutter. No, I haven’t got any coppers to-day.”
A very ragged beggar had slouched up to them, with a doleful, monotonous whine.
“Have pity on a poor blind man, in the name of the Blessed Virgin— Get out of this place at once; there’s a flying squadron coming along—Most Holy Queen of Heaven, Maiden undefiled—It’s you they’re after, Rivarez; they’ll be here in two minutes— And so may the saints reward you— You’ll have to make a dash for it; there are spies at all the corners. It’s no use trying to slip away without being seen.”
Marcone slipped the reins into the Gadfly’s hand.
“Make haste! Ride out to the bridge and let the horse go; you can hide in the ravine. We’re all armed; we can keep them back for ten minutes.”
“No. I won’t have you fellows taken. Stand together, all of you, and fire after me in order. Move up towards our horses; there they are, tethered by the palace steps; and have your knives ready. We retreat fighting, and when I throw my cap down, cut the halters and jump every man on the nearest horse. We may all reach the wood that way.”
They had spoken in so quiet an undertone that even the nearest bystanders had not supposed their conversation to refer to anything more dangerous than grass-cutting. Marcone, leading his own mare by the bridle, walked towards the tethered horses, the Gadfly slouching along beside him, and the beggar following them with an outstretched hand and a persistent whine. Michele came up whistling; the beggar had warned him in passing, and he quietly handed on the news to three countrymen who were eating raw onions under a tree. They immediately rose and followed him; and before anyone’s notice had been attracted to them, the whole seven were standing together by the steps of the palace, each man with one hand on the hidden pistol, and the tethered horses within easy reach.
“Don’t betray yourselves till I move,” the Gadfly said softly and clearly. “They may not recognize us. When I fire, then begin in order. Don’t fire at the men; lame their horses—then they can’t follow us. Three of you fire, while the other three reload. If anyone comes between you and our horses, kill him. I take the roan. When I throw down my cap, each man for himself; don’t stop for anything.”
“Here they come,” said Michele; and the Gadfly turned round, with an air of naive and stupid wonder, as the people suddenly broke off in their bargaining.
Fifteen armed men rode slowly into the marketplace. They had great difficulty to get past the throng of people at all, and, but for the spies at the corners of the square, all the seven conspirators could have slipped quietly away while the attention of the crowd was fixed upon the soldiers. Michele moved a little closer to the Gadfly.
“Couldn’t we get away now?”
“No; we’re surrounded with spies, and one of them has recognized me. He has just sent a man to tell the captain where I am. Our only chance is to lame their horses.”
“Which is the spy?”
“The first man I fire at. Are you all ready? They have made a lane to us; they are going to come with a rush.”
“Out of the way there!” shouted the captain. “In the name of His Holiness!”
The crowd had drawn back, startled and wondering; and the soldiers made a quick dash towards the little group standing by the palace steps. The Gadfly drew a pistol from his blouse and fired, not at the advancing troops, but at the spy, who was approaching the horses, and who fell back with a broken collar-bone. Immediately after the report, six more shots were fired in quick succession, as the conspirators moved steadily closer to the tethered horses.
One of the cavalry horses stumbled and plunged; another fell to the ground with a fearful cry. Then, through the shrieking of the panic-stricken people, came the loud, imperious voice of the officer in command, who had risen in the stirrups and was holding a sword above his head.
“This way, men!”
He swayed in the saddle and sank back; the Gadfly had fired again with his deadly aim. A little stream of blood was trickling down the captain’s uniform; but he steadied himself with a violent effort, and, clutching at his horse’s mane, cried out fiercely:
“Kill that lame devil if you can’t take him alive! It’s Rivarez!”
“Another pistol, quick!” the Gadfly called to his men; “and go!”
He flung down his cap. It was only just in time, for the swords of the now infuriated soldiers were flashing close in front of him.
“Put down your weapons, all of you!”
Cardinal Montanelli had stepped suddenly between the combatants; and one of the soldiers cried out in a voice sharp with terror:
“Your Eminence! My God, you’ll be murdered!”
Montanelli only moved a step nearer, and faced the Gadfly’s pistol.
Five of the conspirators were already on horseback and dashing up the hilly street. Marcone sprang on to the back of his mare. In the moment of riding away, he glanced back to see whether his leader was in need of help. The roan was close at hand, and in another instant all would have been safe; but as the figure in the scarlet cassock stepped forward, the Gadfly suddenly wavered and the hand with the pistol sank down. The instant decided everything. Immediately he was surrounded and flung violently to the ground, and the weapon was dashed out of his hand by a blow from the flat of a soldier’s sword. Marcone struck his mare’s flank with the stirrup; the hoofs of the cavalry horses were thundering up the hill behind him; and it would have been worse than useless to stay and be taken too. Turning in the saddle as he galloped away, to fire a last shot in the teeth of the nearest pursuer, he saw the Gadfly, with blood on his face, trampled under the feet of horses and soldiers and spies; and heard the savage curses of the captors, the yells of triumph and rage.
Montanelli did not notice what had happened; he had moved away from the steps, and was trying to calm the terrified people. Presently, as he stooped over the wounded spy, a startled movement of the crowd made him look up. The soldiers were crossing the square, dragging their prisoner after them by the rope with which his hands were tied. His face was livid with pain and exhaustion, and he panted fearfully for breath; but he looked round at the Cardinal, smiling with white lips, and whispered:
“I c-cong-gratulate your Eminence.”
*****
Five days later Martini reached Forli. He had received from Gemma by post a bundle of printed circulars, the signal agreed upon in case of his being needed in any special emergency; and, remembering the conversation on the terrace, he guessed the truth at once. All through the journey he kept repeating to himself that there was no reason for supposing anything to have happened to the Gadfly, and that it was absurd to attach any importance to the childish superstitions of so nervous and fanciful a person; but the more he reasoned with himself against the idea, the more firmly did it take possession of his mind.
“I have guessed what it is: Rivarez is taken, of course?” he said, as he came into Gemma’s room.
“He was arrested last Thursday, at Brisighella. He defended himself desperately and wounded the captain of the squadron and a spy.”
“Armed resistance; that’s bad!”
“It makes no difference; he was too deeply compromised already for a pistol-shot more or less to affect his position much.”
“What do you think they are going to do with him?”
She grew a shade paler even than before.
“I think,” she said; “that we must not wait to find out what they mean to do.”
“You think we shall be able to effect a rescue?”
“We MUST.”
He turned away and began to whistle, with his hands behind his back. Gemma let him think undisturbed. She was sitting still, leaning her head against the back of the chair, and looking out into vague distance with a fixed and tragic absorption. When her face wore that expression, it had a look of Durer’s “Melancolia.”
“Have you seen him?” Martini asked, stopping for a moment in his tramp.
“No; he was to have met me here the next morning.”
“Yes, I remember. Where is he?”
“In the fortress; very strictly guarded, and, they say, in chains.”
He made a gesture of indifference.
“Oh, that’s no matter; a good file will get rid of any number of chains. If only he isn’t wounded—”
“He seems to have been slightly hurt, but exactly how much we don’t know. I think you had better hear the account of it from Michele himself; he was present at the arrest.”
“How does he come not to have been taken too? Did he run away and leave Rivarez in the lurch?”
“It’s not his fault; he fought as long as anybody did, and followed the directions given him to the letter. For that matter, so did they all. The only person who seems to have forgotten, or somehow made a mistake at the last minute, is Rivarez himself. There’s something inexplicable about it altogether. Wait a moment; I will call Michele.”
She went out of the room, and presently came back with Michele and a broad-shouldered mountaineer.
“This is Marco,” she said. “You have heard of him; he is one of the smugglers. He has just got here, and perhaps will be able to tell us more. Michele, this is Cesare Martini, that I spoke to you about. Will you tell him what happened, as far as you saw it?”
Michele gave a short account of the skirmish with the squadron.
“I can’t understand how it happened,” he concluded. “Not one of us would have left him if we had thought he would be taken; but his directions were quite precise, and it never occurred to us, when he threw down his cap, that he would wait to let them surround him. He was close beside the roan—I saw him cut the tether—and I handed him a loaded pistol myself before I mounted. The only thing I can suppose is that he missed his footing,—being lame,—in trying to mount. But even then, he could have fired.”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Marcone interposed. “He didn’t attempt to mount. I was the last one to go, because my mare shied at the firing; and I looked round to see whether he was safe. He would have got off clear if it hadn’t been for the Cardinal.”
“Ah!” Gemma exclaimed softly; and Martini repeated in amazement: “The Cardinal?”
“Yes; he threw himself in front of the pistol—confound him! I suppose Rivarez must have been startled, for he dropped his pistol-hand and put the other one up like this”—laying the back of his left wrist across his eyes—“and of course they all rushed on him.”
“I can’t make that out,” said Michele. “It’s not like Rivarez to lose his head at a crisis.”
“Probably he lowered his pistol for fear of killing an unarmed man,” Martini put in. Michele shrugged his shoulders.
“Unarmed men shouldn’t poke their noses into the middle of a fight. War is war. If Rivarez had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of letting himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there’d be one honest man the more and one priest the less.”
He turned away, biting his moustache. His anger was very near to breaking down in tears.
“Anyway,” said Martini, “the thing’s done, and there’s no use wasting time in discussing how it happened. The question now is how we’re to arrange an escape for him. I suppose you’re all willing to risk it?”
Michele did not even condescend to answer the superfluous question, and the smuggler only remarked with a little laugh: “I’d shoot my own brother, if he weren’t willing.”
“Very well, then— First thing; have you got a plan of the fortress?”
Gemma unlocked a drawer and took out several sheets of paper.
“I have made out all the plans. Here is the ground floor of the fortress; here are the upper and lower stories of the towers, and here the plan of the ramparts. These are the roads leading to the valley, and here are the paths and hiding-places in the mountains, and the underground passages.”
“Do you know which of the towers he is in?”
“The east one, in the round room with the grated window. I have marked it on the plan.”
“How did you get your information?”
“From a man nicknamed 'The Cricket,' a soldier of the guard. He is cousin to one of our men—Gino.”
“You have been quick about it.”
“There’s no time to lose. Gino went into Brisighella at once; and some of the plans we already had. That list of hiding-places was made by Rivarez himself; you can see by the handwriting.”
“What sort of men are the soldiers of the guard?”
“That we have not been able to find out yet; the Cricket has only just come to the place, and knows nothing about the other men.”
“We must find out from Gino what the Cricket himself is like. Is anything known of the government’s intentions? Is Rivarez likely to be tried in Brisighella or taken in to Ravenna?”
“That we don’t know. Ravenna, of course, is the chief town of the Legation and by law cases of importance can be tried only there, in the Tribunal of First Instance. But law doesn’t count for much in the Four Legations; it depends on the personal fancy of anybody who happens to be in power.”
“They won’t take him in to Ravenna,” Michele interposed.
“What makes you think so?”
“I am sure of it. Colonel Ferrari, the military Governor at Brisighella, is uncle to the officer that Rivarez wounded; he’s a vindictive sort of brute and won’t give up a chance to spite an enemy.”
“You think he will try to keep Rivarez here?”
“I think he will try to get him hanged.”
Martini glanced quickly at Gemma. She was very pale, but her face had not changed at the words. Evidently the idea was no new one to her.
“He can hardly do that without some formality,” she said quietly; “but he might possibly get up a court-martial on some pretext or other, and justify himself afterwards by saying that the peace of the town required it.”
“But what about the Cardinal? Would he consent to things of that kind?”
“He has no jurisdiction in military affairs.”
“No, but he has great influence. Surely the Governor would not venture on such a step without his consent?”
“He’ll never get that,” Marcone interrupted. “Montanelli was always against the military commissions, and everything of the kind. So long as they keep him in Brisighella nothing serious can happen; the Cardinal will always take the part of any prisoner. What I am afraid of is their taking him to Ravenna. Once there, he’s lost.”
“We shouldn’t let him get there,” said Michele. “We could manage a rescue on the road; but to get him out of the fortress here is another matter.”
“I think,” said Gemma; “that it would be quite useless to wait for the chance of his being transferred to Ravenna. We must make the attempt at Brisighella, and we have no time to lose. Cesare, you and I had better go over the plan of the fortress together, and see whether we can think out anything. I have an idea in my head, but I can’t get over one point.”
“Come, Marcone,” said Michele, rising; “we will leave them to think out their scheme. I have to go across to Fognano this afternoon, and I want you to come with me. Vincenzo hasn’t sent those cartridges, and they ought to have been here yesterday.”
When the two men had gone, Martini went up to Gemma and silently held out his hand. She let her fingers lie in his for a moment.
“You were always a good friend, Cesare,” she said at last; “and a very present help in trouble. And now let us discuss plans.”
Chapter III
“AND I once more most earnestly assure Your Eminence that your refusal is endangering the peace of the town.”
The Governor tried to preserve the respectful tone due to a high dignitary of the Church; but there was audible irritation in his voice. His liver was out of order, his wife was running up heavy bills, and his temper had been sorely tried during the last three weeks. A sullen, disaffected populace, whose dangerous mood grew daily more apparent; a district honeycombed with plots and bristling with hidden weapons; an inefficient garrison, of whose loyalty he was more than doubtful, and a Cardinal whom he had pathetically described to his adjutant as the “incarnation of immaculate pig-headedness,” had already reduced him to the verge of desperation. Now he was saddled with the Gadfly, an animated quintessence of the spirit of mischief.
Having begun by disabling both the Governor’s favourite nephew and his most valuable spy, the “crooked Spanish devil” had followed up his exploits in the market-place by suborning the guards, browbeating the interrogating officers, and “turning the prison into a bear-garden.” He had now been three weeks in the fortress, and the authorities of Brisighella were heartily sick of their bargain. They had subjected him to interrogation upon interrogation; and after employing, to obtain admissions from him, every device of threat, persuasion, and stratagem which their ingenuity could suggest, remained just as wise as on the day of his capture. They had begun to realize that it would perhaps have been better to send him into Ravenna at once. It was, however, too late to rectify the mistake. The Governor, when sending in to the Legate his report of the arrest, had begged, as a special favour, permission to superintend personally the investigation of this case; and, his request having been graciously acceded to, he could not now withdraw without a humiliating confession that he was overmatched.
The idea of settling the difficulty by a courtmartial had, as Gemma and Michele had foreseen, presented itself to him as the only satisfactory solution; and Cardinal Montanelli’s stubborn refusal to countenance this was the last drop which made the cup of his vexations overflow.
“I think,” he said, “that if Your Eminence knew what I and my assistants have put up with from this man you would feel differently about the matter. I fully understand and respect the conscientious objection to irregularities in judicial proceedings; but this is an exceptional case and calls for exceptional measures.”
“There is no case,” Montanelli answered, “which calls for injustice; and to condemn a civilian by the judgment of a secret military tribunal is both unjust and illegal.”
“The case amounts to this, Your Eminence: The prisoner is manifestly guilty of several capital crimes. He joined the infamous attempt of Savigno, and the military commission nominated by Monsignor Spinola would certainly have had him shot or sent to the galleys then, had he not succeeded in escaping to Tuscany. Since that time he has never ceased plotting. He is known to be an influential member of one of the most pestilent secret societies in the country. He is gravely suspected of having consented to, if not inspired, the assassination of no less than three confidential police agents. He has been caught—one might almost say—in the act of smuggling firearms into the Legation. He has offered armed resistance to authority and seriously wounded two officials in the discharge of their duty, and he is now a standing menace to the peace and order of the town. Surely, in such a case, a court-martial is justifiable.”
“Whatever the man has done,” Montanelli replied, “he has the right to be judged according to law.”
“The ordinary course of law involves delay, Your Eminence, and in this case every moment is precious. Besides everything else, I am in constant terror of his escaping.”
“If there is any danger of that, it rests with you to guard him more closely.”
“I do my best, Your Eminence, but I am dependent upon the prison staff, and the man seems to have bewitched them all. I have changed the guard four times within three weeks; I have punished the soldiers till I am tired of it, and nothing is of any use. I can’t prevent their carrying letters backwards and forwards. The fools are in love with him as if he were a woman.”
“That is very curious. There must be something remarkable about him.”
“There’s a remarkable amount of devilry—I beg pardon, Your Eminence, but really this man is enough to try the patience of a saint. It’s hardly credible, but I have to conduct all the interrogations myself, for the regular officer cannot stand it any longer.”
“How is that?”
“It’s difficult to explain. Your Eminence, but you would understand if you had once heard the way he goes on. One might think the interrogating officer were the criminal and he the judge.”
“But what is there so terrible that he can do? He can refuse to answer your questions, of course; but he has no weapon except silence.”
“And a tongue like a razor. We are all mortal, Your Eminence, and most of us have made mistakes in our time that we don’t want published on the house-tops. That’s only human nature, and it’s hard on a man to have his little slips of twenty years ago raked up and thrown in his teeth—”
“Has Rivarez brought up some personal secret of the interrogating officer?”
“Well, really—the poor fellow got into debt when he was a cavalry officer, and borrowed a little sum from the regimental funds—”
“Stole public money that had been intrusted to him, in fact?”
“Of course it was very wrong, Your Eminence; but his friends paid it back at once, and the affair was hushed up,—he comes of a good family,—and ever since then he has been irreproachable. How Rivarez found out about it I can’t conceive; but the first thing he did at interrogation was to bring up this old scandal—before the subaltern, too! And with as innocent a face as if he were saying his prayers! Of course the story’s all over the Legation by now. If Your Eminence would only be present at one of the interrogations, I am sure you would realize— He needn’t know anything about it. You might overhear him from—”
Montanelli turned round and looked at the Governor with an expression which his face did not often wear.
“I am a minister of religion,” he said; “not a police-spy; and eavesdropping forms no part of my professional duties.”
“I—I didn’t mean to give offence—”
“I think we shall not get any good out of discussing this question further. If you will send the prisoner here, I will have a talk with him.”
“I venture very respectfully to advise Your Eminence not to attempt it. The man is perfectly incorrigible. It would be both safer and wiser to overstep the letter of the law for this once, and get rid of him before he does any more mischief. It is with great diffidence that I venture to press the point after what Your Eminence has said; but after all I am responsible to Monsignor the Legate for the order of the town—”
“And I,” Montanelli interrupted, “am responsible to God and His Holiness that there shall be no underhand dealing in my diocese. Since you press me in the matter, colonel, I take my stand upon my privilege as Cardinal. I will not allow a secret court-martial in this town in peace-time. I will receive the prisoner here, and alone, at ten to-morrow morning.”
“As Your Eminence pleases,” the Governor replied with sulky respectfulness; and went away, grumbling to himself: “They’re about a pair, as far as obstinacy goes.”
He told no one of the approaching interview till it was actually time to knock off the prisoner’s chains and start for the palace. It was quite enough, as he remarked to his wounded nephew, to have this Most Eminent son of Balaam’s ass laying down the law, without running any risk of the soldiers plotting with Rivarez and his friends to effect an escape on the way.
When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the room where Montanelli was writing at a table covered with papers, a sudden recollection came over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he had sat turning over manuscript sermons in a study much like this. The shutters had been closed, as they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller’s voice outside had called: “Fragola! Fragola!”
He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes and set his mouth in a smile.
Montanelli looked up from his papers.
“You can wait in the hall,” he said to the guards.
“May it please Your Eminence,” began the sergeant, in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness, “the colonel thinks that this prisoner is dangerous and that it would be better—”
A sudden flash came into Montanelli’s eyes.
“You can wait in the hall,” he repeated quietly; and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses with a frightened face, left the room with his men.
“Sit down, please,” said the Cardinal, when the door was shut. The Gadfly obeyed in silence.
“Signor Rivarez,” Montanelli began after a pause, “I wish to ask you a few questions, and shall be very much obliged to you if you will answer them.”
The Gadfly smiled. “My ch-ch-chief occupation at p-p-present is to be asked questions.”
“And—not to answer them? So I have heard; but these questions are put by officials who are investigating your case and whose duty is to use your answers as evidence.”
“And th-those of Your Eminence?” There was a covert insult in the tone more than in the words, and the Cardinal understood it at once; but his face did not lose its grave sweetness of expression.
“Mine,” he said, “whether you answer them or not, will remain between you and me. If they should trench upon your political secrets, of course you will not answer. Otherwise, though we are complete strangers to each other, I hope that you will do so, as a personal favour to me.”
“I am ent-t-tirely at the service of Your Eminence.” He said it with a little bow, and a face that would have taken the heart to ask favours out of the daughters of the horse-leech.
“First, then, you are said to have been smuggling firearms into this district. What are they wanted for?”
“T-t-to k-k-kill rats with.”
“That is a terrible answer. Are all your fellow-men rats in your eyes if they cannot think as you do?”
“S-s-some of them.”
Montanelli leaned back in his chair and looked at him in silence for a little while.
“What is that on your hand?” he asked suddenly.
The Gadfly glanced at his left hand. “Old m-m-marks from the teeth of some of the rats.”
“Excuse me; I was speaking of the other hand. That is a fresh hurt.”
The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut and grazed. The Gadfly held it up. The wrist was swollen, and across it ran a deep and long black bruise.
“It is a m-m-mere trifle, as you see,” he said. “When I was arrested the other day,—thanks to Your Eminence,”—he made another little bow,—“one of the soldiers stamped on it.”
Montanelli took the wrist and examined it closely. “How does it come to be in such a state now, after three weeks?” he asked. “It is all inflamed.”
“Possibly the p-p-pressure of the iron has not done it much good.”
The Cardinal looked up with a frown.
“Have they been putting irons on a fresh wound?”
“N-n-naturally, Your Eminence; that is what fresh wounds are for. Old wounds are not much use. They will only ache; you c-c-can’t make them burn properly.”
Montanelli looked at him again in the same close, scrutinizing way; then rose and opened a drawer full of surgical appliances.
“Give me the hand,” he said.
The Gadfly, with a face as hard as beaten iron, held out the hand, and Montanelli, after bathing the injured place, gently bandaged it. Evidently he was accustomed to such work.
“I will speak about the irons,” he said. “And now I want to ask you another question: What do you propose to do?”
“Th-th-that is very simply answered, Your Eminence. To escape if I can, and if I can’t, to die.”
“Why 'to die'?”
“Because if the Governor doesn’t succeed in getting me shot, I shall be sent to the galleys, and for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have not got the health to live through it.”
Montanelli rested his arm on the table and pondered silently. The Gadfly did not disturb him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes, lazily enjoying the delicious physical sensation of relief from the chains.
“Supposing,” Montanelli began again, “that you were to succeed in escaping; what should you do with your life?”
“I have already told Your Eminence; I should k-k-kill rats.”
“You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I were to let you escape from here now,—supposing I had the power to do so,—you would use your freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead of preventing them?”
The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the wall. “'Not peace, but a sword';—at l-least I should be in good company. For my own part, though, I prefer pistols.”
“Signor Rivarez,” said the Cardinal with unruffled composure, “I have not insulted you as yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends. May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or do you wish me to suppose that an atheist cannot be a gentleman?”
“Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places courtesy high among the Christian virtues. I remember your sermon in Florence, on the occasion of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender.”
“That is one of the subjects about which I wished to speak to you. Would you mind explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness you seem to feel against me? If you have simply picked me out as a convenient target, that is another matter. Your methods of political controversy are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics now. But I fancied at the time that there was some personal animosity towards me; and if so, I should be glad to know whether I have ever done you wrong or in any way given you cause for such a feeling.”
Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the bandaged hand to his throat. “I must refer Your Eminence to Shakspere,” he said with a little laugh. “It’s as with the man who can’t endure a harmless, necessary cat. My antipathy is a priest. The sight of the cassock makes my t-t-teeth ache.”
“Oh, if it is only that—” Montanelli dismissed the subject with an indifferent gesture.
“Still,” he added, “abuse is one thing and perversion of fact is another. When you stated, in answer to my sermon, that I knew the identity of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake,—I do not accuse you of wilful falsehood,—and stated what was untrue. I am to this day quite ignorant of his name.”
The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an intelligent robin, looked at him for a moment gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and burst into a peal of laughter.
“S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent, Arcadian people—and you never guessed! You n-never saw the cloven hoof?”
Montanelli stood up. “Am I to understand, Signor Rivarez, that you wrote both sides of the controversy yourself?”
“It was a shame, I know,” the Gadfly answered, looking up with wide, innocent blue eyes. “And you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if it had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh, it w-w-was so funny!”
Montanelli bit his lip and sat down again. He had realized from the first that the Gadfly was trying to make him lose his temper, and had resolved to keep it whatever happened; but he was beginning to find excuses for the Governor’s exasperation. A man who had been spending two hours a day for the last three weeks in interrogating the Gadfly might be pardoned an occasional swear-word.
“We will drop that subject,” he said quietly. “What I wanted to see you for particularly is this: My position here as Cardinal gives me some voice, if I choose to claim my privilege, in the question of what is to be done with you. The only use to which I should ever put such a privilege would be to interfere in case of any violence to you which was not necessary to prevent you from doing violence to others. I sent for you, therefore, partly in order to ask whether you have anything to complain of,—I will see about the irons; but perhaps there is something else,—and partly because I felt it right, before giving my opinion, to see for myself what sort of man you are.”
“I have nothing to complain of, Your Eminence. 'A la guerre comme a la guerre.' I am not a schoolboy, to expect any government to pat me on the head for s-s-smuggling firearms onto its territory. It’s only natural that they should hit as hard as they can. As for what sort of man I am, you have had a romantic confession of my sins once. Is not that enough; or w-w-would you like me to begin again?”
“I don’t understand you,” Montanelli said coldly, taking up a pencil and twisting it between his fingers.
“Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego, the pilgrim?” He suddenly changed his voice and began to speak as Diego: “I am a miserable sinner—”
The pencil snapped in Montanelli’s hand. “That is too much!” he said.
The Gadfly leaned his head back with a soft little laugh, and sat watching while the Cardinal paced silently up and down the room.
“Signor Rivarez,” said Montanelli, stopping at last in front of him, “you have done a thing to me that a man who was born of a woman should hesitate to do to his worst enemy. You have stolen in upon my private grief and have made for yourself a mock and a jest out of the sorrow of a fellow-man. I once more beg you to tell me: Have I ever done you wrong? And if not, why have you played this heartless trick on me?”
The Gadfly, leaning back against the chair-cushions, looked up with his subtle, chilling, inscrutable smile.
“It am-m-mused me, Your Eminence; you took it all so much to heart, and it rem-m-minded me—a little bit—of a variety show—”
Montanelli, white to the very lips, turned away and rang the bell.
“You can take back the prisoner,” he said when the guards came in.
After they had gone he sat down at the table, still trembling with unaccustomed indignation, and took up a pile of reports which had been sent in to him by the parish priests of his diocese.
Presently he pushed them away, and, leaning on the table, hid his face in both hands. The Gadfly seemed to have left some terrible shadow of himself, some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt the room; and Montanelli sat trembling and cowering, not daring to look up lest he should see the phantom presence that he knew was not there. The spectre hardly amounted to a hallucination. It was a mere fancy of overwrought nerves; but he was seized with an unutterable dread of its shadowy presence—of the wounded hand, the smiling, cruel mouth, the mysterious eyes, like deep sea water—
He shook off the fancy and settled to his work. All day long he had scarcely a free moment, and the thing did not trouble him; but going into his bedroom late at night, he stopped on the threshold with a sudden shock of fear. What if he should see it in a dream? He recovered himself immediately and knelt down before the crucifix to pray.
But he lay awake the whole night through.