The Gadfly

The Gadfly

Chapter VI

HEARING the cell-door unlocked, the Gadfly turned away his eyes with languid indifference. He supposed that it was only the Governor, coming to worry him with another interrogation. Several soldiers mounted the narrow stair, their carbines clanking against the wall; then a deferential voice said: “It is rather steep here, Your Eminence.”

He started convulsively, and then shrank down, catching his breath under the stinging pressure of the straps.

Montanelli came in with the sergeant and three guards.

“If Your Eminence will kindly wait a moment,” the sergeant began nervously, “one of my men will bring a chair. He has just gone to fetch it. Your Eminence will excuse us—if we had been expecting you, we should have been prepared.”

“There is no need for any preparation. Will you kindly leave us alone, sergeant; and wait at the foot of the stairs with your men?”

“Yes, Your Eminence. Here is the chair; shall I put it beside him?”

The Gadfly was lying with closed eyes; but he felt that Montanelli was looking at him.

“I think he is asleep, Your Eminence,” the sergeant was beginning, but the Gadfly opened his eyes.

“No,” he said.

As the soldiers were leaving the cell they were stopped by a sudden exclamation from Montanelli; and, turning back, saw that he was bending down to examine the straps.

“Who has been doing this?” he asked. The sergeant fumbled with his cap.

“It was by the Governor’s express orders, Your Eminence.”

“I had no idea of this, Signor Rivarez,” Montanelli said in a voice of great distress.

“I told Your Eminence,” the Gadfly answered, with his hard smile, “that I n-n-never expected to be patted on the head.”

“Sergeant, how long has this been going on?”

“Since he tried to escape, Your Eminence.”

“That is, nearly a week? Bring a knife and cut these off at once.”

“May it please Your Eminence, the doctor wanted to take them off, but Colonel Ferrari wouldn’t allow it.”

“Bring a knife at once.” Montanelli had not raised his voice, but the soldiers could see that he was white with anger. The sergeant took a clasp-knife from his pocket, and bent down to cut the arm-strap. He was not a skilful-fingered man; and he jerked the strap tighter with an awkward movement, so that the Gadfly winced and bit his lip in spite of all his self-control. Montanelli came forward at once.

“You don’t know how to do it; give me the knife.”

“Ah-h-h!” The Gadfly stretched out his arms with a long, rapturous sigh as the strap fell off. The next instant Montanelli had cut the other one, which bound his ankles.

“Take off the irons, too, sergeant; and then come here. I want to speak to you.”

He stood by the window, looking on, till the sergeant threw down the fetters and approached him.

“Now,” he said, “tell me everything that has been happening.”

The sergeant, nothing loath, related all that he knew of the Gadfly’s illness, of the “disciplinary measures,” and of the doctor’s unsuccessful attempt to interfere.

“But I think, Your Eminence,” he added, “that the colonel wanted the straps kept on as a means of getting evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“Yes, Your Eminence; the day before yesterday I heard him offer to have them taken off if he”—with a glance at the Gadfly—“would answer a question he had asked.”

Montanelli clenched his hand on the window-sill, and the soldiers glanced at one another: they had never seen the gentle Cardinal angry before. As for the Gadfly, he had forgotten their existence; he had forgotten everything except the physical sensation of freedom. He was cramped in every limb; and now stretched, and turned, and twisted about in a positive ecstasy of relief.

“You can go now, sergeant,” the Cardinal said. “You need not feel anxious about having committed a breach of discipline; it was your duty to tell me when I asked you. See that no one disturbs us. I will come out when I am ready.”

When the door had closed behind the soldiers, he leaned on the window-sill and looked for a while at the sinking sun, so as to leave the Gadfly a little more breathing time.

“I have heard,” he said presently, leaving the window, and sitting down beside the pallet, “that you wish to speak to me alone. If you feel well enough to tell me what you wanted to say, I am at your service.”

He spoke very coldly, with a stiff, imperious manner that was not natural to him. Until the straps were off, the Gadfly was to him simply a grievously wronged and tortured human being; but now he recalled their last interview, and the deadly insult with which it had closed. The Gadfly looked up, resting his head lazily on one arm. He possessed the gift of slipping into graceful attitudes; and when his face was in shadow no one would have guessed through what deep waters he had been passing. But, as he looked up, the clear evening light showed how haggard and colourless he was, and how plainly the trace of the last few days was stamped on him. Montanelli’s anger died away.

“I am afraid you have been terribly ill,” he said. “I am sincerely sorry that I did not know of all this. I would have put a stop to it before.”

The Gadfly shrugged his shoulders. “All’s fair in war,” he said coolly. “Your Eminence objects to straps theoretically, from the Christian standpoint; but it is hardly fair to expect the colonel to see that. He, no doubt, would prefer not to try them on his own skin—which is j-j-just my case. But that is a matter of p-p-personal convenience. At this moment I am undermost—w-w-what would you have? It is very kind of Your Eminence, though, to call here; but perhaps that was done from the C-c-christian standpoint, too. Visiting prisoners—ah, yes! I forgot. 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the l-least of these'—it’s not very complimentary, but one of the least is duly grateful.”

“Signor Rivarez,” the Cardinal interrupted, “I have come here on your account—not on my own. If you had not been 'undermost,' as you call it, I should never have spoken to you again after what you said to me last week; but you have the double privilege of a prisoner and a sick man, and I could not refuse to come. Have you anything to say to me, now I am here; or have you sent for me merely to amuse yourself by insulting an old man?”

There was no answer. The Gadfly had turned away, and was lying with one hand across his eyes.

“I am—very sorry to trouble you,” he said at last, huskily; “but could I have a little water?”

There was a jug of water standing by the window, and Montanelli rose and fetched it. As he slipped his arm round the Gadfly to lift him, he suddenly felt the damp, cold fingers close over his wrist like a vice.

“Give me your hand—quick—just a moment,” the Gadfly whispered. “Oh, what difference does it make to you? Only one minute!”

He sank down, hiding his face on Montanelli’s arm, and quivering from head to foot.

“Drink a little water,” Montanelli said after a moment. The Gadfly obeyed silently; then lay back on the pallet with closed eyes. He himself could have given no explanation of what had happened to him when Montanelli’s hand had touched his cheek; he only knew that in all his life there had been nothing more terrible.

Montanelli drew his chair closer to the pallet and sat down. The Gadfly was lying quite motionless, like a corpse, and his face was livid and drawn. After a long silence, he opened his eyes, and fixed their haunting, spectral gaze on the Cardinal.

“Thank you,” he said. “I—am sorry. I think—you asked me something?”

“You are not fit to talk. If there is anything you want to say to me, I will try to come again to-morrow.”

“Please don’t go, Your Eminence—indeed, there is nothing the matter with me. I—I have been a little upset these few days; it was half of it malingering, though—the colonel will tell you so if you ask him.”

“I prefer to form my own conclusions,” Montanelli answered quietly.

“S-so does the colonel. And occasionally, do you know, they are rather witty. You w-w-wouldn’t think it to look at him; but s-s-sometimes he gets hold of an or-r-riginal idea. On Friday night, for instance—I think it was Friday, but I got a l-little mixed as to time towards the end—anyhow, I asked for a d-dose of opium—I remember that quite distinctly; and he came in here and said I m-might h-h-have it if I would tell him who un-l-l-locked the gate. I remember his saying: 'If it’s real, you’ll consent; if you don’t, I shall look upon it as a p-proof that you are shamming.' It n-n-never oc-c-curred to me before how comic that is; it’s one of the f-f-funniest things—”

He burst into a sudden fit of harsh, discordant laughter; then, turning sharply on the silent Cardinal, went on, more and more hurriedly, and stammering so that the words were hardly intelligible:

“You d-d-don’t see that it’s f-f-funny? Of c-course not; you r-religious people n-n-never have any s-sense of humour—you t-take everything t-t-tragically. F-for instance, that night in the Cath-thedral—how solemn you were! By the way—w-what a path-thetic figure I must have c-cut as the pilgrim! I d-don’t believe you e-even see anything c-c-comic in the b-business you have c-come about this evening.”

Montanelli rose.

“I came to hear what you have to say; but I think you are too much excited to say it to-night. The doctor had better give you a sedative, and we will talk to-morrow, when you have had a night’s sleep.”

“S-sleep? Oh, I shall s-sleep well enough, Your Eminence, when you g-give your c-consent to the colonel’s plan—an ounce of l-lead is a s-splendid sedative.”

“I don’t understand you,” Montanelli said, turning to him with a startled look.

The Gadfly burst out laughing again.

“Your Eminence, Your Eminence, t-t-truth is the c-chief of the Christian virtues! D-d-do you th-th-think I d-d-don’t know how hard the Governor has been trying to g-get your consent to a court-martial? You had b-better by half g-give it, Your Eminence; it’s only w-what all your b-brother prelates would do in your place. 'Cosi fan tutti;' and then you would be doing s-such a lot of good, and so l-little harm! Really, it’s n-not worth all the sleepless nights you have been spending over it!”

“Please stop laughing a minute,” Montanelli interrupted, “and tell me how you heard all this. Who has been talking to you about it?”

“H-hasn’t the colonel e-e-ever told you I am a d-d-devil—not a man? No? He has t-told me so often enough! Well, I am devil enough to f-find out a little bit what p-people are thinking about. Your E-eminence is thinking that I’m a conf-founded nuisance, and you wish s-somebody else had to settle what’s to be done with me, without disturbing your s-sensitive conscience. That’s a p-pretty fair guess, isn’t it?”

“Listen to me,” the Cardinal said, sitting down again beside him, with a very grave face. “However you found out all this, it is quite true. Colonel Ferrari fears another rescue attempt on the part of your friends, and wishes to forestall it in—the way you speak of. You see, I am quite frank with you.”

“Your E-eminence was always f-f-famous for truthfulness,” the Gadfly put in bitterly.

“You know, of course,” Montanelli went on, “that legally I have no jurisdiction in temporal matters; I am a bishop, not a legate. But I have a good deal of influence in this district; and the colonel will not, I think, venture to take so extreme a course unless he can get, at least, my tacit consent to it. Up till now I have unconditionally opposed the scheme; and he has been trying very hard to conquer my objection by assuring me that there is great danger of an armed attempt on Thursday when the crowd collects for the procession—an attempt which probably would end in bloodshed. Do you follow me?”

The Gadfly was staring absently out of the window. He looked round and answered in a weary voice:

“Yes, I am listening.”

“Perhaps you are really not well enough to stand this conversation to-night. Shall I come back in the morning? It is a very serious matter, and I want your whole attention.”

“I would rather get it over now,” the Gadfly answered in the same tone. “I follow everything you say.”

“Now, if it be true,” Montanelli went on, “that there is any real danger of riots and bloodshed on account of you, I am taking upon myself a tremendous responsibility in opposing the colonel; and I believe there is at least some truth in what he says. On the other hand, I am inclined to think that his judgment is warped, to a certain extent, by his personal animosity against you, and that he probably exaggerates the danger. That seems to me the more likely since I have seen this shameful brutality.” He glanced at the straps and chains lying on the floor, and went on:

“If I consent, I kill you; if I refuse, I run the risk of killing innocent persons. I have considered the matter earnestly, and have sought with all my heart for a way out of this dreadful alternative. And now at last I have made up my mind.”

“To kill me and s-save the innocent persons, of course—the only decision a Christian man could possibly come to. 'If thy r-right hand offend thee,' etc. I have n-not the honour to be the right hand of Your Eminence, and I have offended you; the c-c-conclusion is plain. Couldn’t you tell me that without so much preamble?”

The Gadfly spoke with languid indifference and contempt, like a man weary of the whole subject.

“Well?” he added after a little pause. “Was that the decision, Your Eminence?”

“No.”

The Gadfly shifted his position, putting both hands behind his head, and looked at Montanelli with half-shut eyes. The Cardinal, with his head sunk down as in deep thought, was softly beating one hand on the arm of his chair. Ah, that old, familiar gesture!

“I have decided,” he said, raising his head at last, “to do, I suppose, an utterly unprecedented thing. When I heard that you had asked to see me, I resolved to come here and tell you everything, as I have done, and to place the matter in your own hands.”

“In—my hands?”

“Signor Rivarez, I have not come to you as cardinal, or as bishop, or as judge; I have come to you as one man to another. I do not ask you to tell me whether you know of any such scheme as the colonel apprehends. I understand quite well that, if you do, it is your secret and you will not tell it. But I do ask you to put yourself in my place. I am old, and, no doubt, have not much longer to live. I would go down to my grave without blood on my hands.”

“Is there none on them as yet, Your Eminence?”

Montanelli grew a shade paler, but went on quietly:

“All my life I have opposed repressive measures and cruelty wherever I have met with them. I have always disapproved of capital punishment in all its forms; I have protested earnestly and repeatedly against the military commissions in the last reign, and have been out of favour on account of doing so. Up till now such influence and power as I have possessed have always been employed on the side of mercy. I ask you to believe me, at least, that I am speaking the truth. Now, I am placed in this dilemma. By refusing, I am exposing the town to the danger of riots and all their consequences; and this to save the life of a man who blasphemes against my religion, who has slandered and wronged and insulted me personally (though that is comparatively a trifle), and who, as I firmly believe, will put that life to a bad use when it is given to him. But—it is to save a man’s life.”

He paused a moment, and went on again:

“Signor Rivarez, everything that I know of your career seems to me bad and mischievous; and I have long believed you to be reckless and violent and unscrupulous. To some extent I hold that opinion of you still. But during this last fortnight you have shown me that you are a brave man and that you can be faithful to your friends. You have made the soldiers love and admire you, too; and not every man could have done that. I think that perhaps I have misjudged you, and that there is in you something better than what you show outside. To that better self in you I appeal, and solemnly entreat you, on your conscience, to tell me truthfully—in my place, what would you do?”

A long silence followed; then the Gadfly looked up.

“At least, I would decide my own actions for myself, and take the consequences of them. I would not come sneaking to other people, in the cowardly Christian way, asking them to solve my problems for me!”

The onslaught was so sudden, and its extraordinary vehemence and passion were in such startling contrast to the languid affectation of a moment before, that it was as though he had thrown off a mask.

“We atheists,” he went on fiercely, “understand that if a man has a thing to bear, he must bear it as best he can; and if he sinks under it—why, so much the worse for him. But a Christian comes whining to his God, or his saints; or, if they won’t help him, to his enemies—he can always find a back to shift his burdens on to. Isn’t there a rule to go by in your Bible, or your Missal, or any of your canting theology books, that you must come to me to tell you what to do? Heavens and earth, man! Haven’t I enough as it is, without your laying your responsibilities on my shoulders? Go back to your Jesus; he exacted the uttermost farthing, and you’d better do the same. After all, you’ll only be killing an atheist—a man who boggles over 'shibboleth'; and that’s no great crime, surely!”

He broke off, panting for breath, and then burst out again:

“And YOU to talk of cruelty! Why, that p-p-pudding-headed ass couldn’t hurt me as much as you do if he tried for a year; he hasn’t got the brains. All he can think of is to pull a strap tight, and when he can’t get it any tighter he’s at the end of his resources. Any fool can do that! But you— 'Sign your own death sentence, please; I’m too tender-hearted to do it myself.' Oh! it would take a Christian to hit on that—a gentle, compassionate Christian, that turns pale at the sight of a strap pulled too tight! I might have known when you came in, like an angel of mercy—so shocked at the colonel’s 'barbarity'—that the real thing was going to begin! Why do you look at me that way? Consent, man, of course, and go home to your dinner; the thing’s not worth all this fuss. Tell your colonel he can have me shot, or hanged, or whatever comes handiest—roasted alive, if it’s any amusement to him—and be done with it!”

The Gadfly was hardly recognizable; he was beside himself with rage and desperation, panting and quivering, his eyes glittering with green reflections like the eyes of an angry cat.

Montanelli had risen, and was looking down at him silently. He did not understand the drift of the frenzied reproaches, but he understood out of what extremity they were uttered; and, understanding that, forgave all past insults.

“Hush!” he said. “I did not want to hurt you so. Indeed, I never meant to shift my burden on to you, who have too much already. I have never consciously done that to any living creature—”

“It’s a lie!” the Gadfly cried out with blazing eyes. “And the bishopric?”

“The—bishopric?”

“Ah! you’ve forgotten that? It’s so easy to forget! 'If you wish it, Arthur, I will say I cannot go. I was to decide your life for you—I, at nineteen! If it weren’t so hideous, it would be funny.”

“Stop!” Montanelli put up both hands to his head with a desperate cry. He let them fall again, and walked slowly away to the window. There he sat down on the sill, resting one arm on the bars, and pressing his forehead against it. The Gadfly lay and watched him, trembling.

Presently Montanelli rose and came back, with lips as pale as ashes.

“I am very sorry,” he said, struggling piteously to keep up his usual quiet manner, “but I must go home. I—am not quite well.”

He was shivering as if with ague. All the Gadfly’s fury broke down.

“Padre, can’t you see—”

Montanelli shrank away, and stood still.

“Only not that!” he whispered at last. “My God, anything but that! If I am going mad—”

The Gadfly raised himself on one arm, and took the shaking hands in his.

“Padre, will you never understand that I am not really drowned?”

The hands grew suddenly cold and stiff. For a moment everything was dead with silence, and then Montanelli knelt down and hid his face on the Gadfly’s breast.

*****

When he raised his head the sun had set, and the red glow was dying in the west. They had forgotten time and place, and life and death; they had forgotten, even, that they were enemies.

“Arthur,” Montanelli whispered, “are you real? Have you come back to me from the dead?”

“From the dead—” the Gadfly repeated, shivering. He was lying with his head on Montanelli’s arm, as a sick child might lie in its mother’s embrace.

“You have come back—you have come back at last!”

The Gadfly sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said; “and you have to fight me, or to kill me.”

“Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now? We have been like two children lost in the dark, mistaking one another for phantoms. Now we have found each other, and have come out into the light. My poor boy, how changed you are—how changed you are! You look as if all the ocean of the world’s misery had passed over your head—you that used to be so full of the joy of life! Arthur, is it really you? I have dreamed so often that you had come back to me; and then have waked and seen the outer darkness staring in upon an empty place. How can I know I shall not wake again and find it all a dream? Give me something tangible—tell me how it all happened.”

“It happened simply enough. I hid on a goods vessel, as stowaway, and got out to South America.”

“And there?”

“There I—lived, if you like to call it so, till—oh, I have seen something else besides theological seminaries since you used to teach me philosophy! You say you have dreamed of me—yes, and much! You say you have dreamed of me—yes, and I of you—”

He broke off, shuddering.

“Once,” he began again abruptly, “I was working at a mine in Ecuador—”

“Not as a miner?”

“No, as a miner’s fag—odd-jobbing with the coolies. We had a barrack to sleep in at the pit’s mouth; and one night—I had been ill, the same as lately, and carrying stones in the blazing sun—I must have got light-headed, for I saw you come in at the door-way. You were holding a crucifix like that one on the wall. You were praying, and brushed past me without turning. I cried out to you to help me—to give me poison or a knife—something to put an end to it all before I went mad. And you—ah—!”

He drew one hand across his eyes. Montanelli was still clasping the other.

“I saw in your face that you had heard, but you never looked round; you went on with your prayers. When you had finished, and kissed the crucifix, you glanced round and whispered: 'I am very sorry for you, Arthur; but I daren’t show it; He would be angry.' And I looked at Him, and the wooden image was laughing.

“Then, when I came to my senses, and saw the barrack and the coolies with their leprosy, I understood. I saw that you care more to curry favour with that devilish God of yours than to save me from any hell. And I have remembered that. I forgot just now when you touched me; I—have been ill, and I used to love you once. But there can be nothing between us but war, and war, and war. What do you want to hold my hand for? Can’t you see that while you believe in your Jesus we can’t be anything but enemies?”

Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.

“Arthur, how can I help believing in Him? If I have kept my faith through all these frightful years, how can I ever doubt Him any more, now that He has given you back to me? Remember, I thought I had killed you.”

“You have that still to do.”

“Arthur!” It was a cry of actual terror; but the Gadfly went on, unheeding:

“Let us be honest, whatever we do, and not shilly-shally. You and I stand on two sides of a pit, and it’s hopeless trying to join hands across it. If you have decided that you can’t, or won’t, give up that thing”—he glanced again at the crucifix on the wall—“you must consent to what the colonel—”

“Consent! My God—consent—Arthur, but I love you!”

The Gadfly’s face contracted fearfully.

“Which do you love best, me or that thing?”

Montanelli slowly rose. The very soul in him withered with dread, and he seemed to shrivel up bodily, and to grow feeble, and old, and wilted, like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had awaked out of his dream, and the outer darkness was staring in upon an empty place.

“Arthur, have just a little mercy on me—”

“How much had you for me when your lies drove me out to be slave to the blacks on the sugar-plantations? You shudder at that—ah, these tender-hearted saints! This is the man after God’s own heart—the man that repents of his sin and lives. No one dies but his son. You say you love me,—your love has cost me dear enough! Do you think I can blot out everything, and turn back into Arthur at a few soft words—I, that have been dish-washer in filthy half-caste brothels and stable-boy to Creole farmers that were worse brutes than their own cattle? I, that have been zany in cap and bells for a strolling variety show—drudge and Jack-of-all-trades to the matadors in the bull-fighting ring; I, that have been slave to every black beast who cared to set his foot on my neck; I, that have been starved and spat upon and trampled under foot; I, that have begged for mouldy scraps and been refused because the dogs had the first right? Oh, what is the use of all this! How can I TELL you what you have brought on me? And now—you love me! How much do you love me? Enough to give up your God for me? Oh, what has He done for you, this everlasting Jesus,—what has He suffered for you, that you should love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced hands He is so dear to you? Look at mine! Look here, and here, and here—”

He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.

“Padre, this God of yours is an impostor, His wounds are sham wounds, His pain is all a farce! It is I that have the right to your heart! Padre, there is no torture you have not put me to; if you could only know what my life has been! And yet I would not die! I have endured it all, and have possessed my soul in patience, because I would come back and fight this God of yours. I have held this purpose as a shield against my heart, and it has saved me from madness, and from the second death. And now, when I come back, I find Him still in my place—this sham victim that was crucified for six hours, forsooth, and rose again from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified for five years, and I, too, have risen from the dead. What are you going to do with me? What are you going to do with me?”

He broke down. Montanelli sat like some stone image, or like a dead man set upright. At first, under the fiery torrent of the Gadfly’s despair, he had quivered a little, with the automatic shrinking of the flesh, as under the lash of a whip; but now he was quite still. After a long silence he looked up and spoke, lifelessly, patiently:

“Arthur, will you explain to me more clearly? You confuse and terrify me so, I can’t understand. What is it you demand of me?”

The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.

“I demand nothing. Who shall compel love? You are free to choose between us two the one who is most dear to you. If you love Him best, choose Him.”

“I can’t understand,” Montanelli repeated wearily. “What is there I can choose? I cannot undo the past.”

“You have to choose between us. If you love me, take that cross off your neck and come away with me. My friends are arranging another attempt, and with your help they could manage it easily. Then, when we are safe over the frontier, acknowledge me publicly. But if you don’t love me enough for that,—if this wooden idol is more to you than I,—then go to the colonel and tell him you consent. And if you go, then go at once, and spare me the misery of seeing you. I have enough without that.”

Montanelli looked up, trembling faintly. He was beginning to understand.

“I will communicate with your friends, of course. But—to go with you—it is impossible—I am a priest.”

“And I accept no favours from priests. I will have no more compromises, Padre; I have had enough of them, and of their consequences. You must give up your priesthood, or you must give up me.”

“How can I give you up? Arthur, how can I give you up?”

“Then give up Him. You have to choose between us. Would you offer me a share of your love—half for me, half for your fiend of a God? I will not take His leavings. If you are His, you are not mine.”

“Would you have me tear my heart in two? Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to drive me mad?”

The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.

“You have to choose between us,” he repeated once more.

Montanelli drew from his breast a little case containing a bit of soiled and crumpled paper.

“Look!” he said.

“I believed in you, as I believed in God. God is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie.”

The Gadfly laughed and handed it back. “How d-d-delightfully young one is at nineteen! To take a hammer and smash things seems so easy. It’s that now—only it’s I that am under the hammer. As for you, there are plenty of other people you can fool with lies—and they won’t even find you out.”

“As you will,” Montanelli said. “Perhaps in your place I should be as merciless as you—God knows. I can’t do what you ask, Arthur; but I will do what I can. I will arrange your escape, and when you are safe I will have an accident in the mountains, or take the wrong sleeping-draught by mistake—whatever you like to choose. Will that content you? It is all I can do. It is a great sin; but I think He will forgive me. He is more merciful—”

The Gadfly flung out both hands with a sharp cry.

“Oh, that is too much! That is too much! What have I done that you should think of me that way? What right have you— As if I wanted to be revenged on you! Can’t you see that I only want to save you? Will you never understand that I love you?”

He caught hold of Montanelli’s hands and covered them with burning kisses and tears.

“Padre, come away with us! What have you to do with this dead world of priests and idols? They are full of the dust of bygone ages; they are rotten; they are pestilent and foul! Come out of this plague-stricken Church—come away with us into the light! Padre, it is we that are life and youth; it is we that are the everlasting springtime; it is we that are the future! Padre, the dawn is close upon us—will you miss your part in the sunrise? Wake up, and let us forget the horrible nightmares,—wake up, and we will begin our life again! Padre, I have always loved you—always, even when you killed me—will you kill me again?”

Montanelli tore his hands away. “Oh, God have mercy on me!” he cried out. “YOU HAVE YOUR MOTHER’S EYES!”

A strange silence, long and deep and sudden, fell upon them both. In the gray twilight they looked at each other, and their hearts stood still with fear.

“Have you anything more to say?” Montanelli whispered. “Any—hope to give me?”

“No. My life is of no use to me except to fight priests. I am not a man; I am a knife. If you let me live, you sanction knives.”

Montanelli turned to the crucifix. “God! Listen to this—”

His voice died away into the empty stillness without response. Only the mocking devil awoke again in the Gadfly.

“'C-c-call him louder; perchance he s-s-sleepeth'—”

Montanelli started up as if he had been struck. For a moment he stood looking straight before him;—then he sat down on the edge of the pallet, covered his face with both hands, and burst into tears. A long shudder passed through the Gadfly, and the damp cold broke out on his body. He knew what the tears meant.

He drew the blanket over his head that he might not hear. It was enough that he had to die—he who was so vividly, magnificently alive. But he could not shut out the sound; it rang in his ears, it beat in his brain, it throbbed in all his pulses. And still Montanelli sobbed and sobbed, and the tears dripped down between his fingers.

He left off sobbing at last, and dried his eyes with his handkerchief, like a child that has been crying. As he stood up the handkerchief slipped from his knee and fell to the floor.

“There is no use in talking any more,” he said. “You understand?”

“I understand,” the Gadfly answered, with dull submission. “It’s not your fault. Your God is hungry, and must be fed.”

Montanelli turned towards him. The grave that was to be dug was not more still than they were. Silent, they looked into each other’s eyes, as two lovers, torn apart, might gaze across the barrier they cannot pass.

It was the Gadfly whose eyes sank first. He shrank down, hiding his face; and Montanelli understood that the gesture meant “Go!” He turned, and went out of the cell. A moment later the Gadfly started up.

“Oh, I can’t bear it! Padre, come back! Come back!”

The door was shut. He looked around him slowly, with a wide, still gaze, and understood that all was over. The Galilean had conquered.

All night long the grass waved softly in the courtyard below—the grass that was so soon to wither, uprooted by the spade; and all night long the Gadfly lay alone in the darkness, and sobbed.

Chapter VII

THE court-martial was held on Tuesday morning. It was a very short and simple affair; a mere formality, occupying barely twenty minutes. There was, indeed, nothing to spend much time over; no defence was allowed, and the only witnesses were the wounded spy and officer and a few soldiers. The sentence was drawn up beforehand; Montanelli had sent in the desired informal consent; and the judges (Colonel Ferrari, the local major of dragoons, and two officers of the Swiss guards) had little to do. The indictment was read aloud, the witnesses gave their evidence, and the signatures were affixed to the sentence, which was then read to the condemned man with befitting solemnity. He listened in silence; and when asked, according to the usual form, whether he had anything to say, merely waved the question aside with an impatient movement of his hand. Hidden on his breast was the handkerchief which Montanelli had let fall. It had been kissed and wept over all night, as though it were a living thing. Now he looked wan and spiritless, and the traces of tears were still about his eyelids; but the words: “to be shot,” did not seem to affect him much. When they were uttered, the pupils of his eyes dilated, but that was all.

“Take him back to his cell,” the Governor said, when all the formalities were over; and the sergeant, who was evidently near to breaking down, touched the motionless figure on the shoulder. The Gadfly looked round him with a little start.

“Ah, yes!” he said. “I forgot.”

There was something almost like pity in the Governor’s face. He was not a cruel man by nature, and was secretly a little ashamed of the part he had been playing during the last month. Now that his main point was gained he was willing to make every little concession in his power.

“You needn’t put the irons on again,” he said, glancing at the bruised and swollen wrists. “And he can stay in his own cell. The condemned cell is wretchedly dark and gloomy,” he added, turning to his nephew; “and really the thing’s a mere formality.”

He coughed and shifted his feet in evident embarrassment; then called back the sergeant, who was leaving the room with his prisoner.

“Wait, sergeant; I want to speak to him.”

The Gadfly did not move, and the Governor’s voice seemed to fall on unresponsive ears.

“If you have any message you would like conveyed to your friends or relatives— You have relatives, I suppose?”

There was no answer.

“Well, think it over and tell me, or the priest. I will see it is not neglected. You had better give your messages to the priest; he shall come at once, and stay the night with you. If there is any other wish—”

The Gadfly looked up.

“Tell the priest I would rather be alone. I have no friends and no messages.”

“But you will want to confess.”

“I am an atheist. I want nothing but to be left in peace.”

He said it in a dull, quiet voice, without defiance or irritation; and turned slowly away. At the door he stopped again.

“I forgot, colonel; there is a favour I wanted to ask. Don’t let them tie me or bandage my eyes to-morrow, please. I will stand quite still.”

*****

At sunrise on Wednesday morning they brought him out into the courtyard. His lameness was more than usually apparent, and he walked with evident difficulty and pain, leaning heavily on the sergeant’s arm; but all the weary submission had gone out of his face. The spectral terrors that had crushed him down in the empty silence, the visions and dreams of the world of shadows, were gone with the night which gave them birth; and once the sun was shining and his enemies were present to rouse the fighting spirit in him, he was not afraid.

The six carabineers who had been told off for the execution were drawn up in line against the ivied wall; the same crannied and crumbling wall down which he had climbed on the night of his unlucky attempt. They could hardly refrain from weeping as they stood together, each man with his carbine in his hand. It seemed to them a horror beyond imagination that they should be called out to kill the Gadfly. He and his stinging repartees, his perpetual laughter, his bright, infectious courage, had come into their dull and dreary lives like a wandering sunbeam; and that he should die, and at their hands, was to them as the darkening of the clear lamps of heaven.

Under the great fig-tree in the courtyard, his grave was waiting for him. It had been dug in the night by unwilling hands; and tears had fallen on the spade. As he passed he looked down, smiling, at the black pit and the withering grass beside it; and drew a long breath, to smell the scent of the freshly turned earth.

Near the tree the sergeant stopped short, and the Gadfly looked round with his brightest smile.

“Shall I stand here, sergeant?”

The man nodded silently; there was a lump in his throat, and he could not have spoken to save his life. The Governor, his nephew, the lieutenant of carabineers who was to command, a doctor and a priest were already in the courtyard, and came forward with grave faces, half abashed under the radiant defiance of the Gadfly’s laughing eyes.

“G-good morning, gentlemen! Ah, and his reverence is up so early, too! How do you do, captain? This is a pleasanter occasion for you than our former meeting, isn’t it? I see your arm is still in a sling; that’s because I bungled my work. These good fellows will do theirs better—won’t you, lads?”

He glanced round at the gloomy faces of the carabineers.

“There’ll be no need of slings this time, any way. There, there, you needn’t look so doleful over it! Put your heels together and show how straight you can shoot. Before long there’ll be more work cut out for you than you’ll know how to get through, and there’s nothing like practice beforehand.”

“My son,” the priest interrupted, coming forward, while the others drew back to leave them alone together; “in a few minutes you must enter into the presence of your Maker. Have you no other use but this for these last moments that are left you for repentance? Think, I entreat you, how dreadful a thing it is to die without absolution, with all your sins upon your head. When you stand before your Judge it will be too late to repent. Will you approach His awful throne with a jest upon your lips?”

“A jest, your reverence? It is your side that needs that little homily, I think. When our turn comes we shall use field-guns instead of half a dozen second-hand carbines, and then you’ll see how much we’re in jest.”

“YOU will use field-guns! Oh, unhappy man! Have you still not realized on what frightful brink you stand?”

The Gadfly glanced back over his shoulder at the open grave.

“And s-s-so your reverence thinks that, when you have put me down there, you will have done with me? Perhaps you will lay a stone on the top to pre-v-vent a r-resurrection 'after three days'? No fear, your reverence! I shan’t poach on the monopoly in cheap theatricals; I shall lie as still as a m-mouse, just where you put me. And all the same, WE shall use field-guns.”

“Oh, merciful God,” the priest cried out; “forgive this wretched man!”

“Amen!” murmured the lieutenant of carabineers, in a deep bass growl, while the colonel and his nephew crossed themselves devoutly.

As there was evidently no hope of further insistence producing any effect, the priest gave up the fruitless attempt and moved aside, shaking his head and murmuring a prayer. The short and simple preparations were made without more delay, and the Gadfly placed himself in the required position, only turning his head to glance up for a moment at the red and yellow splendour of the sunrise. He had repeated the request that his eyes might not be bandaged, and his defiant face had wrung from the colonel a reluctant consent. They had both forgotten what they were inflicting on the soldiers.

He stood and faced them, smiling, and the carbines shook in their hands.

“I am quite ready,” he said.

The lieutenant stepped forward, trembling a little with excitement. He had never given the word of command for an execution before.

“Ready—present—fire!”

The Gadfly staggered a little and recovered his balance. One unsteady shot had grazed his cheek, and a little blood fell on to the white cravat. Another ball had struck him above the knee. When the smoke cleared away the soldiers looked and saw him smiling still and wiping the blood from his cheek with the mutilated hand.

“A bad shot, men!” he said; and his voice cut in, clear and articulate, upon the dazed stupor of the wretched soldiers. “Have another try.”

A general groan and shudder passed through the row of carabineers. Each man had aimed aside, with a secret hope that the death-shot would come from his neighbour’s hand, not his; and there the Gadfly stood and smiled at them; they had only turned the execution into a butchery, and the whole ghastly business was to do again. They were seized with sudden terror, and, lowering their carbines, listened hopelessly to the furious curses and reproaches of the officers, staring in dull horror at the man whom they had killed and who somehow was not dead.

The Governor shook his fist in their faces, savagely shouting to them to stand in position, to present arms, to make haste and get the thing over. He had become as thoroughly demoralized as they were, and dared not look at the terrible figure that stood, and stood, and would not fall. When the Gadfly spoke to him he started and shuddered at the sound of the mocking voice.

“You have brought out the awkward squad this morning, colonel! Let me see if I can manage them better. Now, men! Hold your tool higher there, you to the left. Bless your heart, man, it’s a carbine you’ve got in your hand, not a frying-pan! Are you all straight? Now then! Ready—present—”

“Fire!” the colonel interrupted, starting forward. It was intolerable that this man should give the command for his own death.

There was another confused, disorganized volley, and the line broke up into a knot of shivering figures, staring before them with wild eyes. One of the soldiers had not even discharged his carbine; he had flung it away, and crouched down, moaning under his breath: “I can’t—I can’t!”

The smoke cleared slowly away, floating up into the glimmer of the early sunlight; and they saw that the Gadfly had fallen; and saw, too, that he was still not dead. For the first moment soldiers and officials stood as if they had been turned to stone, and watched the ghastly thing that writhed and struggled on the ground; then both doctor and colonel rushed forward with a cry, for he had dragged himself up on one knee and was still facing the soldiers, and still laughing.

“Another miss! Try—again, lads—see—if you can’t—”

He suddenly swayed and fell over sideways on the grass.

“Is he dead?” the colonel asked under his breath; and the doctor, kneeling down, with a hand on the bloody shirt, answered softly:

“I think so—God be praised!”

“God be praised!” the colonel repeated. “At last!”

His nephew was touching him on the arm.

“Uncle! It’s the Cardinal! He’s at the gate and wants to come in.”

“What? He can’t come in—I won’t have it! What are the guards about? Your Eminence—”

The gate had opened and shut, and Montanelli was standing in the courtyard, looking before him with still and awful eyes.

“Your Eminence! I must beg of you—this is not a fit sight for you! The execution is only just over; the body is not yet—”

“I have come to look at him,” Montanelli said. Even at the moment it struck the Governor that his voice and bearing were those of a sleep-walker.

“Oh, my God!” one of the soldiers cried out suddenly; and the Governor glanced hastily back. Surely—

The blood-stained heap on the grass had once more begun to struggle and moan. The doctor flung himself down and lifted the head upon his knee.

“Make haste!” he cried in desperation. “You savages, make haste! Get it over, for God’s sake! There’s no bearing this!”

Great jets of blood poured over his hands, and the convulsions of the figure that he held in his arms shook him, too, from head to foot. As he looked frantically round for help, the priest bent over his shoulder and put a crucifix to the lips of the dying man.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son—”

The Gadfly raised himself against the doctor’s knee, and, with wide-open eyes, looked straight upon the crucifix.

Slowly, amid hushed and frozen stillness, he lifted the broken right hand and pushed away the image. There was a red smear across its face.

“Padre—is your—God—satisfied?”

His head fell back on the doctor’s arm.

*****

“Your Eminence!”

As the Cardinal did not awake from his stupor, Colonel Ferrari repeated, louder:

“Your Eminence!”

Montanelli looked up.

“He is dead.”

“Quite dead, your Eminence. Will you not come away? This is a horrible sight.”

“He is dead,” Montanelli repeated, and looked down again at the face. “I touched him; and he is dead.”

“What does he expect a man to be with half a dozen bullets in him?” the lieutenant whispered contemptuously; and the doctor whispered back. “I think the sight of the blood has upset him.”

The Governor put his hand firmly on Montanelli’s arm.

“Your Eminence—you had better not look at him any longer. Will you allow the chaplain to escort you home?”

“Yes—I will go.”

He turned slowly from the blood-stained spot and walked away, the priest and sergeant following. At the gate he paused and looked back, with a ghostlike, still surprise.

“He is dead.”

*****

A few hours later Marcone went up to a cottage on the hillside to tell Martini that there was no longer any need for him to throw away his life.

All the preparations for a second attempt at rescue were ready, as the plot was much more simple than the former one. It had been arranged that on the following morning, as the Corpus Domini procession passed along the fortress hill, Martini should step forward out of the crowd, draw a pistol from his breast, and fire in the Governor’s face. In the moment of wild confusion which would follow twenty armed men were to make a sudden rush at the gate, break into the tower, and, taking the turnkey with them by force, to enter the prisoner’s cell and carry him bodily away, killing or overpowering everyone who interfered with them. From the gate they were to retire fighting, and cover the retreat of a second band of armed and mounted smugglers, who would carry him off into a safe hiding-place in the hills. The only person in the little group who knew nothing of the plan was Gemma; it had been kept from her at Martini’s special desire. “She will break her heart over it soon enough,” he had said.

As the smuggler came in at the garden gate Martini opened the glass door and stepped out on to the verandah to meet him.

“Any news, Marcone? Ah!”

The smuggler had pushed back his broad-brimmed straw hat.

They sat down together on the verandah. Not a word was spoken on either side. From the instant when Martini had caught sight of the face under the hat-brim he had understood.

“When was it?” he asked after a long pause; and his own voice, in his ears, was as dull and wearisome as everything else.

“This morning, at sunrise. The sergeant told me. He was there and saw it.”

Martini looked down and flicked a stray thread from his coat-sleeve.

Vanity of vanities; this also is vanity. He was to have died to-morrow. And now the land of his heart’s desire had vanished, like the fairyland of golden sunset dreams that fades away when the darkness comes; and he was driven back into the world of every day and every night—the world of Grassini and Galli, of ciphering and pamphleteering, of party squabbles between comrades and dreary intrigues among Austrian spies—of the old revolutionary mill-round that maketh the heart sick. And somewhere down at the bottom of his consciousness there was a great empty place; a place that nothing and no one would fill any more, now that the Gadfly was dead.

Someone was asking him a question, and he raised his head, wondering what could be left that was worth the trouble of talking about.

“What did you say?”

“I was saying that of course you will break the news to her.”

Life, and all the horror of life, came back into Martini’s face.

“How can I tell her?” he cried out. “You might as well ask me to go and stab her. Oh, how can I tell her—how can I!”

He had clasped both hands over his eyes; but, without seeing, he felt the smuggler start beside him, and looked up. Gemma was standing in the doorway.

“Have you heard, Cesare?” she said. “It is all over. They have shot him.”