Vestigia. Vol. II.

'I thought you might have something to say to me, Sora Lucia. But if not I will ask you to let me wish you good-bye now. I have not seen my mother yet: and I am going away – I am going to Rome to-morrow.'

'Ah, Rome is a fine city,' said Sora Lucia briskly. Then she bent her head over her work again and added: 'I, too, have business in Rome. I have a cousin there, my own flesh and blood cousin, who has a shop for beads and rosaries and objects of devotion in the Borgo. Not more than a stone's throw from the house of the Holy Father, as one might say. I may be going up to Rome myself one of these days. It seems as if Leghorn wasn't good enough to stay in any more. The whole world's travelling.'

'Dunque, I'll say good-bye without troubling you further, Sora Lucia.'

'Oh, you'll not go without a greeting to the nonna first. She's wonderfully pleased when people remember to say good-bye to her,' said Lucia hastily, putting down her irons with a clatter.

She went to the inner door and opened it.

'Beppi. Run to the grandmother, child, and say that Dino de' Rossi is here and waiting to make her his saluti. – And tell Italia that I want her. Say that I want her; do you understand? These children have not so much head as a pin between 'em all,' she said hastily, coming back to her work with almost a blush upon her thin pale cheek.

Dino looked at her with great agitation. 'Does Italia know – Sora Lucia, if Italia should not wish to see me – '

'She's not here to see you. She paying me a visit,' said the little dressmaker sharply. 'And not the worst tongue in Leghorn could blame the girl for coming here. It would be a fine thing, indeed, if I had to give up all my friends to please you, Sor Dino! I —Santa pazienza!'

The door opened again and Italia came in, leading by the hand a very old woman, who steadied herself at the door, and dropped Dino a series of small tremulous curtsies.

'I don't remember who the Signore may be, Lucia; but you know who he is. I'm a very old woman now, sir; very old. I don't rightly remember how many years 'tis now that I've been living; but I worked for forty year at the marble works, I did; forty year picking over the rags to pack the marble.'

'There, nonna, come and sit in your own chair by the fire; that's what you like best,' said Lucia, glancing half guiltily at Italia.

The girl did not notice her. She had silently given her hand to Dino as she came in. They stood so for an instant without speaking; then she slowly lifted up her dark eyes. There was no young smile in them now, and her dear pale face had grown rigid and strained. She looked as if all the gladness had been killed within her. Only her voice had not changed; its full clear ring sounded like a mockery now after meeting that look of infinite misery in her eyes.

'I wanted to say good-bye, Dino.'

'Yes.'

'And I wanted to ask you, when you go to Rome, could not little Palmira go with you? Will you take her, Dino? Please take her.'

'Palmira? take that child? But, dear Italia, indeed it would be quite impossible!'

He was surprised into speaking very abruptly.

'Would it? I did not know. But I wish you would,' Italia murmured, looking down at her hands. She added hurriedly, and hardly moving her lips: 'If any one were watching your movements; if they suspected you of anything; it would be safer to have the child.'

'But, dear, I could not take her. It is impossible. Why, for one thing, I have no money. What could I do with the child in Rome?' Dino urged, still speaking with the vehemence of surprise.

She shrank away a little. 'I did not know. I think it could be managed.'

'Italia, Italia, I want to ask you about this work; you always know the right thing to advise one,' said Lucia in a hasty voice, looking up from her ironing.

But when Italia came to her she said nothing, only pushing back the girl's heavy hair, and giving her a little pat on the cheek. 'There, go away, go away, child. You are interrupting me. Go and talk to the nonna.'

The old woman was watching the fire, her eyes following its flickering motion like the eyes of a young child. She said in a quavering voice as Italia laid her hand on her shoulder, 'My knitting, Maria; have you brought me my knitting?'

'Grannie always calls Italia Maria,' observed the small Beppi in an explanatory manner to Dino. 'She says Maria do this, Maria do that, and all the while she's speaking to Italia.'

'It was my mother's name,' said Lucia, nodding her head. 'She's dead these twenty years, the saints have her soul! but the nonna doesn't remember.'

Italia was kneeling before the purblind old dame, picking up the dropped stitches in a coarse woollen stocking. 'Now it will do nicely, dear nonna,' she said in her clear grave voice; and the grandmother laid her trembling hand upon the girl's thick hair and stroked it; 'You were always a good child, Maria; always. Now Lucia there she never married, an' there's many a thing she doesn't understand, – many a thing, – many a thing.'

'Italia, will you fetch me the body of this dress? I left it in the other room on the table,' said Lucia suddenly. She waited till the girl had passed through the open door, then she hurriedly turned and looked at Dino: 'Go – go and help her find it!'

He went straight up to the girl and caught both her hands in his.

'My dear, my love, if there was anything I could do or say to comfort you. I would give my life – my life! to undo the harm that I have done to you, Italia.'

'Oh no,' she said hastily, and disengaged her hands and bent her head over Lucia's work. 'Dino.'

'Yes, dear.

'I wanted to ask you. There is just one thing.' She bent her face until it nearly touched the table. 'They tell me so, and I cannot contradict it,' she murmured; her sweet lips contracted and grew pale.

'What is it, dear? Tell me. Tell me, Italia.'

'Ah, there is no other woman whom you care for, then, at Rome?' Her voice was scarcely audible, and she turned her head from side to side without looking at him.

'Italia!'

He caught hold of her hands again, and forced her to meet his glance. 'Upon my honour – no! There is no other woman for me in all the world but you. And I love you, Italia, – I love you, I love you,' Dino said.

She bent her head a little. 'I did not know.' Then, still without looking at him, 'Now – I shall not be so unhappy, my Dino.'

Sora Lucia came as far as the doorway and looked in. 'You have found the bodice, Italia? Well, well, there is no hurry for it, none at all.'

'I'm coming, Lucia – directly.'

She clasped both her hands together, and held them out mutely.

'Italia,' he said, seizing them, 'I must ask you this. Is it true about Maso? would your father make you marry him? For God's sake tell me!'

'I can't grieve my father,' she said faintly; 'he has only me. But – Dino' – her eyes seemed to pierce his very heart as she looked at him – 'oh, my poor Dino!' she said. And she stooped and gathered up the scattered pieces of work from the table, and left him standing there alone in the room.

He could never remember what happened after then until he found himself out in the street, walking towards home through the still spring twilight.

But the next day, just as the Roman train was starting, a woman dressed very neatly in black, and holding a child by the hand, came running along the platform, looking in at the windows of the third-class carriages. It was Sora Lucia with little Palmira; they had scarcely time to secure their seats in Dino's compartment before the train started.

'You may well be surprised to see us; you may well look astonished, Sor Dino,' the little dressmaker began nervously, as the engine puffed out of the station.

'But, oh, Dino, Dino, it was Italia's plan!' broke in little Palmira, clapping her hands ecstatically. 'And she asked mother to let me go with Lucia, only mother wouldn't tell you because it was to be a secret. And Italia said that Lucia would have to go and see her cousin, and you would take me to look at the wolf, Dino. Dino, will you take me to look at the wolf?'

'What does this mean?' the young man demanded rather impatiently, fixing his eyes on Lucia, who only tossed her head, affecting to be absorbed in examining the fastening of the window.

'And, Dino, Italia sold her ring in a shop, her beautiful new gold ring that the Signor Marchese gave her on her birthday. She sold it to get the money to send us, because Lucia had to go and see her cousins, who have a shop in the Borgo,' continued little Palmira in an awe-struck voice. She had never seen Dino look so strangely; his face was quite white, and he did not seem at all pleased to see them. The prospect of feeding the wolf grew fainter at every minute, and Palmira's small pale cheeks began to flush ominously.

'There, there, little one. Don't cry. There's a good little girl,' said Dino hastily, and patting her kindly on the head.

He lowered his voice and turned to Lucia. 'Was this Italia's own idea? Did no one suggest it to her?' he asked anxiously.

'Nay, if you want to know so many things about Italia, Sor Dino, 'tis a pity you could not stay in Leghorn long enough to ask her the questions yourself. But you prefer leaving the people who care for you to dry their own eyes and look after their own concerns. Well, well, it's the way of the world apparently. And you take your own responsibility. After all, one's actions belong to oneself; you can't have other people's babies,' said Sora Lucia dryly. And she continued to look out of the carriage window till they were well on their way to Rome.

CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRING OF THE SHOT

Valdez seemed very much struck by the news of little Palmira's arrival. The child had gone to spend the night with Lucia at the house of her cousin. 'But you can call for her there in the morning, my Dino. Ay; call for her and take her with you by all means. So Italia sent her after you? Ah! it needs a woman to think of a thing like that. Ay; take the child; 'tis the one surest way of diverting any suspicion. And I'll be near you, lad, at the time; I'll look after her; I'll look after her.'

The old man had placed both food and wine upon the table in the small lodging which he had secured for himself and De Rossi, but Dino did not even make a pretence of eating.

'You'll be fit for nothing to-morrow, lad,' Valdez remonstrated, looking at him rather anxiously.

'I want nothing – nothing,' said Dino with passionate impatience, turning his back upon him and beginning to pace up and down the narrow room.

'Nay, have your own way, lad; have your own way.'

Dino went and stood by the window, looking out at the small, dimly-lighted street. A slight shower of rain was falling; he stood there for a long time idly watching the reflections of the gas-lamp opposite upon the glistening stones.

'Valdez,' he said abruptly, 'where do you suppose I shall be at this time to-morrow?' But he went on without giving him time to answer. 'It's an odd thing – that feeling that one has done with one's youth. I've had an experience that has made everything different to me. I could not go back now; no more than a man could go back to being a child. Perhaps I wasn't worth much before. I never thought of that. But I think I might be of some use if I were to live now, Valdez.'

'Ay, my lad. You've made a great difference to me as it is,' the old man answered tenderly.

Presently he, too, rose from his chair and went and stood beside the window.

'There was one thing I had to tell you; I nearly forgot it. I've been to see the head men of the committee since I came up here, and I've settled one thing for you, – after to-morrow your name gets struck off the books. I've done one or two things for them in my time,' Valdez said slowly, 'and they owed me something. I never asked them for anything before. And I made myself responsible for you in this matter, lad; I answered for you at Leghorn.' He laid his hand on Dino's shoulder. 'It was I who brought you into this thing at the beginning. And I made a mistake. You're not fit for it. But you've never reproached me with what it costs you, my lad; never once.'

Dino looked at him vaguely, as if he scarcely understood what was said.

'I'm not afraid, if that is what you mean,' he said simply. 'I never was afraid for myself. It is only leaving the others that I mind – Italia, and the mother, and old Drea. You don't know how good they have been to me, Valdez. I don't know why. It seems now as if I had never done anything for it. But I'm not frightened. You need not think I'd play you false at the last.'

'No, lad; no.'

'I offered once to give it all up – to throw everything over – for Italia. She would not let me. But you don't know how I hurt her, Valdez. And I can never make it up to her now.'

'Ah! she has a brave heart, that girl,' said Valdez in his deepest voice. 'A brave true heart. And courage and passion, Dino, you can't go beyond that, – courage and passion, they're the immortal facts of life. Where they pass the world marks the spot.'

He shifted his grasp a little, and let his hand rest upon the young man's arm, 'Come to bed, boy. Give over thinking. You are tired out, my Dino; you need sleep,' he said, speaking with a strange new gentleness. As for himself, he never went to bed at all. Through the long dreary hours of the night he sat patiently waiting in the darkened room for the sun to rise upon a new day.

Dino had thrown himself down upon the hard couch at the end of the room. He slept heavily, the sleep of young exhaustion. Once, towards daybreak, he started up suddenly with an exclamation of alarm.

'Valdez! I thought it was morning, Valdez.'

'Nay, lad; I'll call you when the time comes; go to sleep.'

'What sort of a night is it now?'

The old democrat rose stiffly from his chair; he felt cramped and sore from the long night's watching. He pushed aside the scanty curtain. 'The rain has stopped. It'll be a fine day to-morrow.'

'So much the better,' Dino said. 'I should like the sun to shine.' His head dropped again upon his hard pillow. The candle had burnt itself out in its socket. There was no sound in the room but the heavy breathing of the weary sleeper and the ticking of Valdez's watch, which lay before him on the table. He sat there, counting the hours.

And at last the dawn broke, chill and gray; the dim light struggling in at the window made a faint glimmer upon the glasses which stood beside the untouched food. To the old man keeping his faithful watch beside the sleeper, this was perhaps the hardest hour of all – till the darkness wore slowly away; the sky turned to a clear stainless blue; and all the city awoke to the radiance of the April day.

Soon the bells began their joyous clash and clamour. It was hardly eight o'clock when the two men stepped out into the street together, but the rejoicing populace was astir already, and hurrying towards the new quarter of the Macao.

Rome was in festa, heavy and splendid Rome. Bright flags fluttered, and many-coloured carpets and rugs were suspended from every available window. All along the Via Nazionale, a double row of gaudily-decked Venetian masts, hung with long wreaths and brilliant flapping banners, marked the course where the royal carriages were to pass. But it was farther on, at the Piazza dell' Indipendenza, that the crowd was already thickest. The cordon of soldiers had been stationed here since early morning. Looking down from any of the neighbouring balconies upon that swarming sea of holiday-makers, it seemed impossible that even the great Piazza could contain more; and yet at every instant the place grew fuller and fuller; a steady stream of people poured in from every side street; peasants from the country in gay festa dress; shepherds from the Campagna in cloaks of matted sheepskin; and strapping black-haired girls with shrill voices and the step of queens, who had come all the way from Trastevere to look on at the spectacle, – there was no end, no cessation to the thickening and the growing excitement of the crowd.

Dino had taken his place very early. It was exactly at the corner of the Piazza, where a street-lamp made a support for his back, and prevented him from being brushed aside by the gathering force and pressure of the multitude. He had found a safe place for Palmira to stand, on the iron ledge which ran around the lamp-post. The child's little pale face rose high above the crowd; she was quiet from very excess of excitement, only from time to time she stooped to touch her brother's shoulder in token of mute content.

Valdez stood only a few paces behind them. He had kept the revolver in his own possession to the last moment. It was arranged that he should pass it to Dino at a preconcerted signal, and as the King came riding past for the second time.

Dino had scarcely spoken all that morning, but otherwise there was no sign of unusual excitement about him. He was deadly pale; at short intervals a faint red flush came and went like a stain upon his colourless cheek. But he answered all little Palmira's questions very patiently. The morning seemed very long to him, that was all. He stood fingering the handkerchief in his pocket with which he was to give Valdez the signal for passing him the weapon.

It was more than twenty-four hours now since he had tasted food, and the long abstinence was beginning to tell upon him; at times his head felt dizzy, and if he closed his eyes the continuous roar and chatter of the crowd sunk – died away far off – like the sound of the surf upon a distant shore. At one moment he let himself go entirely to this curious new sensation of drifting far away; it was barely an instant of actual time, but he recovered himself with a start which ran like ice from head to foot; it was a horrible sensation, like a slow return from the very nothingness of death. He shivered and opened his eyes wide and looked about him. He seemed to have been far far away from it all in that one briefest pause of semi-unconsciousness, yet his eyes opened on the same radiant brightness of the sunshine; a holiday sun shining bravely down on glancing arms and fretting horses; on the dark line of the soldiers pressing back the people, and the many-coloured dresses, the laughing, talking, good-natured faces of the gesticulating crowd.

One of these mounted troopers was just in front of Dino. As the human mass surged forward, urged by some unexplainable impulse of excitement and curiosity, this man's horse began backing and plunging. The young soldier turned around in his saddle, and his quick glance fell upon Palmira's startled face.

'Take care of your little girl there, my friend,' he said to Dino good-humouredly, and forced his horse away from the edge of the pavement.

Dino looked at him without answering. He wondered vaguely if this soldier boy with the friendly blue eyes and the rosy face would be one of the first to fall upon him when he was arrested? And then his thoughts escaped him again – the dimness came over his eyes.

He roused himself with a desperate effort. He began to count the number of windows in the house opposite; then the number of policemen stationed at the street corner; an officer went galloping by; he fixed his eyes upon the glancing uniform until it became a mere spot of brightness in the distance.

Hark!

The gun at the palace. The King was starting from the Quirinal. All the scattered cries and laughs and voices were wielded together into one long quavering roar of satisfaction and excitement.

There – again! and nearer at hand this second gun.

The cheers rise higher, sink deeper. He is coming, the young soldier King, the master of Italy, the popular hero. See! hats are waving, men are shouting, – the infection of enthusiasm catches and runs like fire along the line of eager, expectant faces. Here he comes. The roar lifts, swells, grows louder and louder; the military bands on either side of the piazza break with one accord into the triumphant ringing rhythm of the royal march. They have seen the troops defile before them with scarcely a sign of interest, but now, at sight of that little isolated group of riders with the plumed and glittering helmets, there comes one mad instant of frantic acclamation, when every man in that crowd feels that he too has some part and possession in all the compelling, alluring splendour and success of life.

And just behind the royal cavalier, among the glittering group of aides-de-camp, rode the young Marchese Balbi. He was so near that Dino could scarcely believe their eyes did not actually meet; but if Gasparo recognised him he gave no sign, riding on with a smile upon his happy face, his silver-mounted accoutrements shining bravely in the sun.

And so, for the first time, the doomed King passed by.

Dino scarcely heeded him; at that moment he had forgotten everything unconnected with the sight of that one familiar face. His mother, his old home, – Italia even, – had grown dim and unreal; he forgot them all in the sensation of that quick rush of renewed affection. All the old pride, the old delight, in Gasparo, which had made so great a part of his boyhood, came back upon him with the irresistible claims of reawakened tenderness. He was there to commit a murder; and out of all that crowd he saw only the one face which he knew – and he loved it.

That curious sense of floating away, far away from everything living, fell upon him again. He lost all count of time. He could never tell how long it was before he heard little Palmira cry out in shrill tones of childish excitement:

'I see him, Dino. There he comes again. The King, the King all in gold!'

Dino started, it seemed to him as if he started wide awake. He drew himself up like a soldier standing at attention; his brain was steady; his senses all alert. He watched eagerly, the white plumes were slowly advancing between the two serried ranks of the soldiery. He waited until he could distinguish the King's face distinctly; he saw him lean a little forward and pat his restive horse – .

And then, without turning, he gave Valdez the preconcerted signal.

And even as he raised the handkerchief to his lips he heard, not ten paces off, the sharp ringing report of a shot.

It was all over in an instant – the sound – the plunging of the frightened horses. He saw the white plume of the King pass by unscathed, and Gasparo Balbi, who was riding nearest him, throw up his arms and fall backward, quietly, into the rising cloud of dust.

A great cry broke from the people all about him – it rang in his ears – it sounded far away like the beating of a furious tide upon the distant, distant shore. A blackness, a horrible blackness which he could feel, passed over his face like a cloud. And then he knew nothing more.

*****

Some quarter of an hour later one of the two guardie who were helping to lift his insensible body into a street cab looked compassionately down at Dino's clenched hands and pallid death-like face.

''Tis no wonder the poor giovane fainted,' he said sympathetically, addressing the little crowd about him. ''Tis no wonder he fainted. Perdio! as it so happens I was looking straight at him, – he was not ten paces away from the villain who fired the shot.'

CHAPTER XII.

VESTIGIA NULLA RETRORSUM

One cloudless April morning, some three weeks later, the warm bright sunshine was making a pleasant difference even to the prisoners who were taking their usual hour of exercise between the four high walls of the paved courtyard at the Carcere Nuove. But there was one among them, a middle-aged man with gray hair and a curiously piercing look in his heavy-lidded eyes, who seemed to be expecting something beside the blue sky and the soft air of this balmy morning. And presently that something came.

The other prisoners looked after him rather enviously as he left the court in answer to the turnkey's imperative summons. Apparently he had been sent for to speak to a friend; they grumbled a little between themselves at this sign of the governor's favour.

It was Dino de Rossi who was waiting for Valdez in that small high-walled cell. The two men had not met since the morning of the attempted assassination; they grasped hands and looked into one another's face with an emotion which lay too deep for mere speech.

Presently the older man's mouth relaxed into a faint smile. 'Well, lad. So you have come to see me. You are looking better. They told me you were very ill, and I've been anxious about you,' he said simply.