The Finger of Fate: A Romance. Reid Mayne
road presented him with a landscape; every peasant would have made a picture. He resisted these allurements with the thought, that these landscapes, so near to the city, might all have been sketched before; while the peasants could be caught at any time, in the streets of Rome itself, and there painted in all their picturesqueness.
On towards some shaggy hills he saw looming out in the distance; and on went he, until near the close of the day he found himself toiling up a steep ravine, whose every turn gave him a tableau worthy of being transferred to canvas, framed, and conspicuously suspended against the walls of the Royal Academy.
After a slight repast drawn from his wallet, and a smoke from his meerschaum pipe, he set about painting a scene, he had at length selected. He fought against the fatigue of his journey, for the sake of catching a magnificent mellow sunset that had welcomed his approach to the place. He had no need to add to the “composition” of his picture. Rocks, trees, cliffs, torrents foaming over them, points of chiaro and oscuro, abruptly contrasted – all were under his eye. If there was aught wanting to give life to the landscape, it was only a few figures – animal or human – and these he could fill in according to his fancy.
“Ah,” he reflected aloud, “just the scene for a band of brigands. I’d give something to have a half-dozen of them in the foreground. I could then make a picture of these fantastic Turpins drawn from real life – a thing, I take it, which has never been done before. That would be something to hang up in the Royal Academy – something worth wasting colour and canvas on. I’d give – ”
“How much?” answered a voice that seemed to issue out of the rocks behind him. “How much would you give, Master Painter, for that you speak o’? If you bid high enough, I dare say I mout find the means o’ accommodatin’ you.”
Along with the voice came the footsteps of a man – not in soft, stealthy tread, as of one approaching unawares, but with a quick thump, as the man himself dropped down from a rock above upon the little platform where the artist had planted his sticks. The latter looked up, at first in surprise, then rather in pleased admiration. He was thinking only of his art, and before him stood the very model of his imagination – a man clad in a complete suit of plush and coloured velvet, breeched, bandaged, and belted, with a plumed hat upon his head, and a short carbine across his arms – in costume and caparison the beau-ideal of a brigand. Two things alone hindered him from appearing the true heroic type of stage representation, such as we are accustomed to see in “Mazzaroni” and the “Devil’s Brother.” There was a broad Saxon face, and a tongue unmistakably from the shire of Somerset. Both were so marked, that but for the velveteen knee-breeches, the waist-belt, the elaborately buttoned vest, and the plumed hat upon his head, Henry Harding might have thought himself at home, and in the presence of a man he had met before.
Ere the young artist had sufficiently recovered from his surprise to respond to the unexpected salutation, the picturesque stranger continued —
“Want to paint brigands, do ye? Well, there’s a chance for ye now. The band’s close by. Jess wait a bit; I’ll call ’em down. Hey, there, captin!” he cried, changing his English to Italian, “ye may come on. It’s only one o’ them poor devils o’ daubers from the city. He wants to take our likenesses. I s’pose you’ve no objection to his doin’ it?”
Before the painter could make response, or remove his paraphernalia out of the way, the ledge he had selected for his “point of view” was crowded with figures – one and all of them so picturesquely attired, that had they stood in the Corso, or elsewhere within police protection, he would have been only too delighted to have painted them with the most Pre-Raphaelitish detail. As it was, all thoughts of art were chased out of his mind. He saw that he was encircled by banditti!
To attempt to retreat was out of the question. They were above, below, on all sides of him. Even had he been swifter than any of the gang, their carbines were slung handy en bandoulière; and a volley from these would certainly have checked his flight. There was no alternative but to resign himself to his fate – which was now to be made a captive.
Chapter Sixteen
Empty Pockets
If he who had surprised the painter at his task did not present the exact classic type of the stage bandit, there was one upon the ground who did. This man stood a little in advance of the others with that easy air that betokened authority. There was no mistaking his position. He was the chief. His dress did not differ, in cut or fashion, so materially from that of his followers; it was only more costly in the material. Where their breeches were velveteen, his was of the finest silk velvet. Besides, there was a glitter about his arms and a sparkle on the clasp which held the plume in his Calabrian hat that bespoke real jewellery. His face, moreover, was not of the common cast; it was of the true Roman type, the nose and chin of exceeding prominence, with a broad oval jaw-bone indicative of determination. He might have been deemed handsome but for an expression of ferocity – animal, almost brutal – that gleamed and sparkled in his coal-black eyes. If not handsome, he was sufficiently striking, and Henry Harding might have fancied himself confronted by the renowned Fra Diavolo. Had he stepped from behind the proscenium of the scenic stage, or come bounding from a “back flat,” the Transpontine spectators would have hailed him as the hero they had come to the theatre to see.
For some seconds there was silence. The first spokesman had slunk into the rear of the band; and all stood waiting for the chief to commence speech or action. The latter stood looking at the young artist, scanning him from head to foot. The scrutiny seemed to give him no great pleasure. There was not much booty to be expected in the pockets of such a threadbare coat; and a grin passed over his dark features as he pronounced, in a contemptuous tone, the word —
“Artista?”
“Si, Signore,” replied the artist, with as much sang froid as if he had been answering an ordinary question. “At your service, if you wish to sit or stand for your portrait.”
“Portrait? Bah! What care I for your chalks and ochres, signor painter? Better if you’d been a pedlar with a good fat pack. That’s the sort of toys for such as we. You’re from the cittada? What’s brought you up here?”
“My legs,” replied the young Englishman, thinking that a bold front might be best under the circumstances.
“Cospetto! I can tell that without asking. Such boots as yours don’t look much like the stirrup. But come, declare yourself. What have you got in your pockets; a scudi or two, I suppose. How much, signore?”
“Three scudi.”
“Hand them over.”
“Here they are – you are welcome to them.”
The brigand took the three coins, with as much nonchalance as if he had been receiving them in liquidation for some service rendered.
“This all?” he asked, again surveying the artist from head to foot.
“All I have got upon me.”
“But you have more in the cittada?”
“A little more.”
“How much?”
“About four score scudi.”
“Corpo di Bacco! a good sum; where is it lying?”
“At my lodgings.”
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