Little Novels of Italy Part 11

"Benissimo."

He helped his late enemy up; they kissed each other, then sat together on the gra.s.s--admirable friends.

"So you didn't kill the Jew?" Castracane began. "I knew it! But what did you do to run away?"

"Ah, you mustn't ask. Indeed, I can't tell you. It was rather bad."

Castracane looked keenly at his new friend. "Was it a girl?" he said.

Silvestro blushed. "Yes, it was a girl."

"Ah, ah! Then I say no more. I like girls myself. But they get you into trouble quicker than anything. You would rather not tell me any more--quite sure?"

"No, I can't indeed. Let's talk of something else. How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"I'm not sixteen yet. Is Castracane your real name?"

Castracane looked pleased.

"I'm glad you asked. No; they call me that among ourselves, because of a little knack I have; but my name is Pilade."

"That's a very nice name," said Silvestro.

"I believe you--it's a splendid name. There's no better. It's the name of a Roman--Emperor of Rome and Sultan of Padua he was--who killed a giant called Oreste, having first caused him to become a Christian."

"But why did he kill him when he had made a Christian of him?" asked Silvestro, greatly interested; "or why did he make him a Christian, if he was going to kill him?"

"Pouf! What questions!" cried Castracane. "He made him a Christian because he was a good Catholic himself, and killed him for being a giant, of course. Or take it this way. If he hadn't been a Christian, how could he have made a good death? He couldn't, naturally. So the Emperor christened him first and killed him afterwards--ecco! It's always done like that, they tell me."

"I see it now," said Silvestro; "it was very fine. I like your name of Pilade best. I shall always call you that, if you will let me."

"Call me what you like," says Pilade. "Let's go and wake the others. I'm as hungry as the devil with all this talking."

The result of this was that Silvestro became Pilade's foot-boy, his slave. The lout was in clover; nothing could have suited him so well. No more goats to herd in the heat of the day--Silvestro would do it; no share of foraging for him; no more milk to carry into the valley; no more fires to make up; nor strays to follow; nor kids to carry to new pastures--Silvestro would do it. The luxurious rascal lay out the daylight stretched on his back with his hat over his eyes; he woke only for his meals. He would not be at the pains even to swathe his own legs or strap his own sandals. Silvestro, bathed in sweat, his fair skin burnt and blistered, his delicate hands and smooth legs scratched by brambles, his slender neck bowed beneath the weights he carried on shoulders stretched to cracking point--Silvestro worked from dawn to dusk, rejoicing in the thankless office. Thankless it was, since Master Pilade took no sort of notice; yet Silvestro gave thanks. Pilade allowed the other to stoop to his shoe-ties, to wind the swathes about his st.u.r.dy calves, to carry his very cloak and staff, while he slouched along with hands deep in breeches pockets, and his hat pulled down to his nose. Silvestro would proudly have carried him, too, had that been possible. Most unmanly of Silvestro, all this; but the rogue he petted was too snug to consider it. At the falling-in of night, having his belly full of meat and drink (which Silvestro had prepared and served him with), he might, if the mood took him, pull out his reed pipe.

"Silvestro," he might say, "you have been useful to-day; perhaps I'll play you something."

And the beautiful Silvestro (tanned counterpart of the Glorious Ippolita) would hang upon the melancholy noise, and observe with adoring interest every twitch and distension of the fat-cheeked hero; and at the end sigh his content, saying--

"Ah, thank you, Pilade; you have been very kind to me."

"The truth is," Pilade would allow, "I am a good-natured devil if you take me the right way. I'll tell you what, Silvestro; you have pleased me to-day. You may sleep at my feet if you like: it will keep them warm, to begin with, and you'll be near me, don't you see?"

"Thank you, thank you, dear Pilade," cried the enraptured Silvestro.

The world is a very odd one, and it is most true that the man who is for taming hearts should pursue, ostensibly, any other calling. Not that Pilade had that in view. He only sought to be comfortable, good lad.

VIII

RESURRECTION OF THE JEW

This idyllic state of things might have lasted no one knows how long, with Ippolita-Silvestro finding joy in unreasonable service, and Pilade both ease and reason. Where either partner was so admirably suited it might have been interesting to see what would have happened: whether Ippolita would have betrayed herself or Pilade found her out. She was over head and ears in love, but he was vastly well served; and there is nothing like content for drugging the wits.

Things, however, fell out otherwise. The Jew, to begin with, fell out of the grave to which he had been hastily recommended, and most insecurely at that. He made himself felt in a variety of ways, was discovered by the gardener in the Via di Vanzo, and stuck into a gutter in the Via Man di Ferro. He was discovered again by some one who had either less to do among Christians or more among Jews than the generality in Padua; and this time he was carried to the Guard House. Being reported (reporting himself, indeed) to the watch, he was reported on to the Capitano, by him to the Prefect. The Prefect put the Sub-Prefect, who had met him before, upon the look-out.

"The Most Serene Republic," said that authority, "cannot have unburied Jews adrift in the city without finding out why the cemetery does not hold them and why the gutter does. Inquire, Alessandro mio, inquire!

There was a wound in the man's ribs big enough for a nest of rats."

Alessandro bowed, but raised his fine eyebrows. He was at that hour most happily unhappy over the late disappearance of his Glorious Lady. The peerless beauty of Padua, the incomparable Ippolita, was gone. His business was to devise dirges, monodies, laments, _descortz_ in the Provencal manner; to cry "Heigho!" and "Well-a-day!" not "Ban!" or "Out, haro!" To have these high frenzies, these straining states of the soul, disturbed by the unclaimed remains of a resolving Jew, was a cruel test.

Yet, he reflected within himself, if his piercing love survived this inquiry, it was founded on rock. And, indeed, Alessandro believed that his heart was slowly turning to stone. He felt a curious chill there when he got up in the morning, a dead weight, a ma.s.s to lift with every choked beat. Perhaps the Jew would end what Ippolita had begun. If so, well. But, ah, Ippolita, Ippolita bella, Ippolita crudel! Ah, ohime!

Habit set him to work. He instructed his officers, he visited the gates, questioned, took notes, inspected the gutter in the Via Man di Ferro, even inspected the Jew. He went to the Via della Gatta, to the fatal staircase; he bullied two or three landlords of two or three low taverns; went to the stews, to the Ghetto; talked very loud, flourished his sword, drove his men this way and that--in fine, did everything that becomes a young official of spirit. The result of his labours was that the Jew got posthumous fame out of all proportion to his merits.

The city fairly hummed with him; n.o.body talked of anything but the dead Jew.

The goatherds, coming in by the Porta San Zuan a day later, were shrewdly scrutinised by the Guard. They were numbered off, their names taken; they were pulled about and fl.u.s.tered, asked questions, contradicted before they had time to answer, and then called prevaricators because they said nothing; they were, in fact, brought to that state of breathless hurry in which a boy will say anything you choose. This, as everybody knows, is the only way of getting at the truth.

"There were more of you fellows the other night," said the Corporal of the Guard. "Where are the rest of you? Come now, out with it; no lies here!"

Petruccio, who had some sense, shammed to have none; but Andrea, less happy, was a real fool. At this invitation he looked wise.

"Castracane is not here--true, but it wasn't Castracane," he muttered, and found his neck in a vice.

"Who was it then, son of a pig? Who was it?"

"Mercy, mercy, my lord! I will tell the truth!" he whined as he twisted.

"Gesu morto! Tell anything else and I cut thy liver out, hound!" swore the man who held him.

"Ah, Dio! I will! I will! It was Silvestro who killed the Jew!"

"You shall come with me to the Signor Sotto-Prefetto," said his holder.

"There's a ducat for me in this affair." The poor little company were driven into the gatehouse and there pent; but Andrea went off between two archers to be examined at greater length by Messer Alessandro, and to give blubbering confirmation of the fact. All the unfortunate particulars wrung out of Silvestro on his first night of Monte Ortone--the stab under the ribs, the Jew's beard, his black blood, etc., etc.--were now screwed out of Andrea and went to prove his story.

"By the twenty-four ears of the Twelve Apostles," swore the Corporal, "we've got him at last, Messere."

The Sub-Prefect felt that he must act upon this news. So much insistence had been laid upon the affair by his chief, he dared not send his lieutenant: he must go himself. This is what comes of neglecting new-killed Jews! he might have thought. He little knew what was to come of it.

Two mounted men, Andrea with a rope round his neck, himself very splendidly booted and cuira.s.sed, made up a sufficient cavalcade to fetch home one snivelling goatherd. It was four by the time they were off, seven before they were at Abano, eight when they reached the foot of Monte Ortone and faced the deep chestnut woods in which that precipice dips his flanks. But though it was getting dusk there were eyes sharp enough on the top of the mountain to watch for what sharp ears had heard--a most unaccustomed sound in those leafy solitudes--trotting horses and jingling steel. Castracane from the summit saw it all; and what is more, guessed at once what Andrea in a halter meant.