Vittoria. Complete. George Meredith
the alarm. Attend, you others! The night of the Fifteenth comes; it is passing like an ordinary night. At twelve a fire-balloon is seen in the sky. Listen, in the name of saints and devils!”
But even the Chief was observed to show signs of amusement, and the gravity of the rest forsook them altogether at the display of this profound and original conspiratorial notion.
“Excellent! excellent! my Carlo,” said old Agostino, cheerfully. “You have thought. You must have thought, or whence such a conception? But, you really mistake. It is not the garrison whom we desire to put on their guard. By no means. We are not in the Imperial pay. Probably your balloon is to burst in due time, and, wind permitting, disperse printed papers all over the city?”
“What if it is?” cried Carlo fiercely.
“Exactly. I have divined your idea. You have thought, or, to correct the tense, are thinking, which is more hopeful, though it may chance not to seem so meritorious. But, if yours are the ideas of full-blown jackets, bear in mind that our enemies are coated and breeched. It may be creditable to you that your cunning is not the cunning of the serpent; to us it would be more valuable if it were. Continue.”
“Oh! there are a thousand ways.” Carlo controlled himself with a sharp screw of all his muscles. “I simply wish to save the signorina from an annoyance.”
“Very mildly put,” Agostino murmured assentingly.
“In our Journal,” said Carlo, holding out the palm of one hand to dot the forefinger of the other across it, by way of personal illustration—“in our Journal we might arrange for certain letters to recur at distinct intervals in Roman capitals, which might spell out, ‘This Night AT Twelve,’ or ‘At Once.’”
“Quite as ingenious, but on the present occasion erring on the side of intricacy. Aha! you want to increase the sale of your Journal, do you, my boy? The rogue!”
With which, and a light slap over Carlo’s shoulder, Agostino left him.
The aspect of his own futile proposals stared the young man in the face too forcibly for him to nurse the spark of resentment which was struck out in the turmoil of his bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, and remained midway, his chest heaving, and his eyelids shut.
“Signor Carlo, I have not thanked you.” He heard Vittoria speak. “I know that a woman should never attempt to do men’s work. The Chief will tell you that we must all serve now, and all do our best. If we fail, and they put me to great indignity, I promise you that I will not live. I would give this up to be done by anyone else who could do it better. It is in my hands, and my friends must encourage me.”
“Ah, signorina!” the young man sighed bitterly. The knowledge that he had already betrayed himself in the presence of others too far, and the sob in his throat labouring to escape, kept him still.
A warning call from Ugo Corte drew their attention. Close by the chalet where the first climbers of the mountain had refreshed themselves, Beppo was seen struggling to secure the arms of a man in a high-crowned green Swiss hat, who was apparently disposed to give the signorina’s faithful servant some trouble. After gazing a minute at this singular contention, she cried—“It’s the same who follows me everywhere!”
“And you will not believe you are suspected,” murmured Carlo in her ear.
“A spy?” Sana queried, showing keen joy at the prospect of scotching such a reptile on the lonely height. Corte went up to the Chief. They spoke briefly together, making use of notes and tracings on paper. The Chief then said “Adieu” to the signorina. It was explained to the rest by Corte that he had a meeting to attend near Pella about noon, and must be in Fobello before midnight. Thence his way would be to Genoa.
“So, you are resolved to give another trial to our crowned ex-Carbonaro,” said Agostino.
“Without leaving him an initiative this time!” and the Chief embraced the old man. “You know me upon that point. I cannot trust him. I do not. But, if we make such a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into it, is such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my friend! See to that.”
“The king is our instrument!” cried Carlo Ammiani, brightening.
“Yes, if we were particularly well skilled in the use of that kind of instrument,” Agostino muttered.
He stood apart while the Chief said a few words to Carlo, which made the blood play vividly across the visage of the youth. Carlo tried humbly to expostulate once or twice. In the end his head was bowed, and he signified a dumb acquiescence.
“Once more, good-bye.” The Chief addressed the signorina in English.
She replied in the same tongue, “Good-bye,” tremulously; and passion mounting on it, added—“Oh! when shall I see you again?”
“When Rome is purified to be a fit place for such as you.”
In another minute he was hidden on the slope of the mountain lying toward Orta.
CHAPTER V
Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope. But it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free movements. They hung together intertwisted in the characters of specious pacificator and appealing citizen, both breathless.
“There! you want to hand me up neatly; I know your vanity, my Beppo; and you don’t even know my name,” said the prisoner.
“I know your ferret of a face well enough,” said Beppo. “You dog the signorina. Come up, and don’t give trouble.”
“Am I not a sheep? You worry me. Let me go.”
“You’re a wriggling eel.”
“Catch me fast by the tail then, and don’t hold me by the middle.”
“You want frightening, my pretty fellow!”
“If that’s true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in sending you to do it. Stop a moment. You’re blown. I think you gulp down your minestra too hot; you drink beer.”
“You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last.”
“I left Milan for the purpose—don’t you see? Act fairly, my Beppo, and let us go up to the signorina together decently.”
“Ay, ay, my little reptile! You’ll find no Austrians here. Cry out to them to come to you from Baveno. If the Motterone grew just one tree! Saints! one would serve.”
“Why don’t you—fool that you are, my Beppo!—pray to the saints earlier? Trees don’t grow from heaven.”
“You’ll be going there soon, and you’ll know better about it.”
“Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time or other!”
The struggles between them continued sharply during this exchange of intellectual shots; but hearing Ugo Corte’s voice, the prisoner’s confident audacity forsook him, and he drew a long tight face like the mask of an admonitory exclamation addressed to himself from within.
“Stand up straight!” the soldier’s command was uttered.
Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the power to obey or to speak.
Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force of his huge fist he swung him round and stretched him out at arm’s length, all collar and shanks. The man hung like a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured out the tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle, showing that he could have answered one whom he did not fear. The charge brought against him was, that for the last six months he had been untiringly spying on the signorina.
Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told him to walk aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evidently become miserably disconcerted. He walked in trepidation, speechless, and when interrogated on the height his eyes flew across the angry visages with dismal uncertainty. Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not expected to come among them, and forthwith began to excite Giulio and Marco to the worst suspicions, in order to indulge his royal poetic soul