Vendetta Part 7

'Ti salute, Rosignuolo, Nel tuo duolo, il saluto!

Sei l'amante delta rosa Che morendo si fa sposa!'"

Her rich voice rippled out on the air, rivaling the songs of the nightingales themselves. She broke off with a little laugh--

"Poor Fabio! there was always a false note somewhere when he sung.

Come, Guido!"

And they paced on quietly, as though their consciences were clean--as though no just retribution dogged their steps--as though no shadow of a terrible vengeance loomed in the heaven of their pilfered happiness! I watched them steadily as they disappeared in the distance--I stretched my head eagerly out from between the dark boughs and gazed after their retreating figures till the last glimmer of my wife's white robe had vanished behind the thick foliage. They were gone--they would return no more that night.

I sprung out from my hiding-place. I stood on the spot where they had stood. I tried to bring home to myself the actual truth of what I had witnessed. My brain whirled--circles of light swam giddily before me in the air--the moon looked blood-red. The solid earth seemed unsteady beneath my feet--almost I doubted whether I was indeed alive, or whether I was not rather the wretched ghost of my past self, doomed to return from the grave to look helplessly upon the loss and ruin of all the fair, once precious things of by-gone days. The splendid universe around me seemed no more upheld by the hand of G.o.d--no more a majestic marvel; it was to me but an inflated bubble of emptiness--a mere ball for devils to kick and spurn through s.p.a.ce! Of what avail these twinkling stars--these stately leaf-laden trees--these cups of fragrance we know as flowers--this round wonder of the eyes called Nature? of what avail was G.o.d Himself, I widely mused, since even He could not keep one woman true? She whom I loved--she as delicate of form, as angel-like in face as the child-bride of Christ, St.

Agnes--she, even she was--what? A thing lower than the beasts, a thing as vile as the vilest wretch in female form that sells herself for a gold piece--a thing--great Heaven!--for all men to despise and make light of--for the finger of Scorn to point out--for the foul hissing tongue of Scandal to mock at! This creature was my wife--the mother of my child--she had cast mud on her soul by her own free will and choice--she had selected evil as her good--she had crowned herself with shame willingly, nay--joyfully; she had preferred it to honor. What should be done? I tortured myself occasionally with this question. I stared blankly on the ground--would some demon spring from it and give me the answer I sought? What should be done with HER--with HIM, my treacherous friend, my smiling betrayer? Suddenly my eyes lighted on the fallen rose-leaves--those that had dropped when Guido's embrace had crushed the flower she wore. There they lay on the path, curled softly at the edges like little crimson sh.e.l.ls. I stooped and picked them up--I placed them all in the hollow of my hand and looked at them. They had a sweet odor--almost I kissed them--nay, nay, I could not--they had too recently lain on the breast of an embodied Lie! Yes; she was that, a Lie, a living, lovely, but accursed Lie! "Go and kill her" Stay!

where had I heard that? Painfully I considered, and at last remembered--and then I thought moodily that the starved and miserable rag-picker was more of a man than I. He had taken his revenge at once; while I, like a fool, had let occasion slip. Yes, but not forever!

There were different ways of vengeance; one must decide the best, the keenest way--and, above all, the way that shall inflict the longest, the cruelest agony upon those by whom honor is wronged. True--it would be sweet to slay sin in the act of sinning, but then--must a Romani brand himself as a murderer in the sight of men? Not so; there were other means--other roads, leading to the same end if the tired brain could only plan them out. Slowly I dragged my aching limbs to the fallen trunk of a tree and sat down, still holding the dying rose-leaves in my clinched palm. There was a surging noise in my ears--my mouth tasted of blood, my lips were parched and burning as with fever. "A white-haired fisherman." That was me! The king had said so. Mechanically I looked down at the clothes I wore--the former property of a suicide. "He was a fool," the vender of them had said, "he killed himself."

Yes, there was no doubt of it--he was a fool. I would not follow his example, or at least not yet. I had something to do first--something that must be done if I could only see my way clear to it. Yes--if I could only see my way and follow it straightly, resolutely, remorselessly! My thoughts were confused, like the thoughts of a fever-stricken man in delirium--the scent of the rose-leaves I held sickened me strangely--yet I would not throw them from me; no, I would keep them to remind me of the embraces I had witnessed! I felt for my purse! I found and opened it, and placed the withering red petals carefully within it. As I slipped it again in my pocket I remembered the two leathern pouches I carried--the one filled with gold, the other with the jewels I had intended for--HER. My adventures in the vault recurred to me; I smiled as I recollected the dire struggle I had made for life and liberty. Life and liberty!--of what use were they to me now, save for one thing--revenge? I was not wanted; I was not expected back to refill my former place on earth--the large fortune I had possessed was now my wife's by the decree of my own last will and testament, which she would have no difficulty in proving. But still, wealth was mine--the hidden stores of the brigands were sufficient to make any man more than rich for the term of his natural life. As I considered this, a sort of dull pleasure throbbed in my veins. Money!

Anything could be done for money--gold would purchase even vengeance.

But what sort of vengeance? Such a one as I sought must be unique--refined, relentless, and complete. I pondered deeply. The evening wind blew freshly up from the sea; the leaves of the swaying trees whispered mysteriously together; the nightingales warbled on with untired sweetness; and the moon, like the round s.h.i.+eld of an angel warrior, shone brightly against the dense blue background of the sky.

Heedless of the pa.s.sing of hours, I sat still, lost in a bewildered reverie. "There was always a false note somewhere when he sung!" So she had said, laughing that little laugh of hers as cold and sharp as the clash of steel. True, true; by all the majesty of Heaven, most true!

There was indeed a false note--jarring, not so much the voice as the music of life itself. There is stuff in all of us that will weave, as we desire it, into a web of stately or simple harmony; but let the meteor-like brilliancy of a woman's smile--a woman's touch--a woman's LIE--intermingle itself with the strain, and lo! the false note is struck, discord declares itself, and G.o.d Himself, the great Composer, can do nothing in this life to restore the old calm tune of peaceful, unspoiled days! So I have found; so all of you must find, long before you and sorrow grow old together.

"A white-haired fisherman!"

The words of the king repeated themselves over and over again in my tortured brain. Yes--I was greatly changed, I looked worn and old--no one would recognize me for my former self. All at once, with this thought, an idea occurred to me--a plan of vengeance, so bold, so new, and withal so terrible, that I started from my seat as though stung by an adder. I paced up and down restlessly, with this lurid light of fearful revenge pouring in on every nook and cranny of my darkened mind. From whence had come this daring scheme? What devil, or rather what angel of retribution, had whispered it to my soul? Dimly I wondered--but amid all my wonder I began practically to arrange the details of my plot. I calculated every small circ.u.mstance that was likely to occur in the process of carrying it out. My stupefied senses became aroused from the lethargy of despair, and stood up like soldiers on the alert armed to the teeth. Past love, pity, pardon, patience--pooh! what were all these resources of the world's weakness to ME? What was it to me that the bleeding Christ forgave His enemies in death? He never loved a woman! Strength and resolution returned to me. Let common sailors and rag-pickers resort to murder and suicide as fit outlets for their unreasoning brute wrath when wronged; but as for me, why should I blot my family scutcheon with a merely vulgar crime?

Nay, the vengeance of a Romani must be taken with a.s.sured calmness and easy deliberation--no haste, no plebeian fury, no effeminate fuss, no excitement. I walked up and down slowly, meditating on every point of the bitter drama in which I had resolved to enact the chief part, from the rise to the fall of the black curtain. The mists cleared from my brain--I breathed more easily--my nerves steadied themselves by degrees--the prospect of what I purposed doing satisfied me and calmed the fever in my blood. I became perfectly cool and collected. I indulged in no more futile regrets for the past--why should I mourn the loss of a love I never possessed? It was not as if they had waited till my supposed sudden death--no! within three months of my marriage they had fooled me; for three whole years they had indulged in their criminal amour, while I, blind dreamer, had suspected nothing. NOW I knew the extent of my injury; I was a man bitterly wronged, vilely duped. Justice, reason, and self-respect demanded that I should punish to the utmost the miserable tricksters who had played me false. The pa.s.sionate tenderness I had felt for my wife was gone--I plucked it from my heart as I would have torn a thorn from my flesh--I flung it from me with disgust as I had flung away the unseen reptile that had fastened on my neck in the vault. The deep warm friends.h.i.+p of years I had felt for Guido Ferrari froze to its very foundations--and in its place there rose up, not hate, but pitiless, immeasurable contempt. A stern disdain of myself also awoke in me, as I remembered the unreasoning joy with which, I had hastened--as I thought--home, full of eager antic.i.p.ation and Romeo-like ardor. An idiot leaping merrily to his death over a mountain chasm was not more fool than I! But the dream was over--the delusion of my life was pa.s.sed. I was strong to avenge--I would be swift to accomplish. So, darkly musing for an hour or more, I decided on the course I had to pursue, and to make the decision final I drew from my breast the crucifix that the dead monk Cipriano had laid with me in my coffin, and kissing it, I raised it aloft, and swore by that sacred symbol never to relent, never to relax, never to rest, till I had brought my vow of just vengeance to its utmost fulfillment. The stars, calm witnesses of my oath, eyed me earnestly from their judgment thrones in the quiet sky--there was a brief pause in the singing of the nightingales, as though they too listened--the wind sighed plaintively, and scattered a shower of jasmine blossoms like snow at my feet. Even so, I thought, fall the last leaves of my white days--days of pleasure, days of sweet illusion, days of dear remembrance; even so let them wither and perish utterly forever! For from henceforth my life must be something other than a mere garland of flowers--it must be a chain of finely tempered steel, hard, cold, and unbreakable--formed into links strong enough to wind round and round two false lives and imprison them so closely as to leave no means of escape. This was what must be done--and I resolved to do it. With a firm, quiet step I turned to leave the avenue. I opened the little private wicket, and pa.s.sed into the dusty road. A clanging noise caused me to look up as I went by the princ.i.p.al entrance of the Villa Romani. A man servant--my own man-servant by the by--was barring the great gates for the night. I listened as he slid the bolts into their places, and turned the key. I remembered that those gates had been thoroughly fastened before, when I came up the road from Naples--why then had they been opened since? To let out a visitor? Of course! I smiled grimly at my wife's cunning! She evidently knew what she was about. Appearances must be kept up--the Signor Ferrari must be decorously shown out by a servant at the chief entrance of the house. Naturally!--all very unsuspicious--looking and quite in keeping with the proprieties! Guido had just left her then? I walked steadily, without hurrying my pace, down the hill toward the city, and on the way I overtook him. He was strolling lazily along, smoking as usual, and he held a spray of stephanotis in his hand--well I knew who had given it to him! I pa.s.sed him--he glanced up carelessly, his handsome face clearly visible in the bright moonlight--but there was nothing about a common fisherman to attract his attention--his look only rested upon me for a second and was withdrawn immediately. An insane desire possessed me to turn upon him--to spring at his throat--to wrestle with him and throw him in the dust at my feet--to spit at him and trample upon him--but I repressed those fierce and dangerous emotions. I had a better game to play--I had an exquisite torture in store for him, compared to which a hand-to-hand fight was mere vulgar fooling. Vengeance ought to ripen slowly in the strong heat of intense wrath, till of itself it falls--hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed before its time it is like unmellowed fruit, sour and ungrateful to the palate. So I let my dear friend--my wife's consoler--saunter on his heedless way without interference--I pa.s.sed, leaving him to indulge in amorous musings to his false heart's content. I entered Naples, and found a night's lodging at one of the usual resorts for men of my supposed craft, and, strange to say, I slept soundly and dreamlessly. Recent illness, fatigue, fear, and sorrow, all aided to throw me like an exhausted child upon the quiet bosom of slumber, but perhaps the most powerfully soothing opiate to my brain was the consciousness I had of a practical plan of retribution--more terrible perhaps than any human creature had yet devised, so far as I knew. Unchristian you call me? I tell you again, Christ never loved a woman! Had He done so, He would have left us some special code of justice.

CHAPTER IX.

I rose very early the next morning--I was more than ever strengthened in my resolutions of the past night--my projects were entirely formed, and nothing remained now but for me to carry them out. Un.o.bserved of any one I took my way again to the vault. I carried with me a small lantern, a hammer, and some strong nails. Arrived at the cemetery I looked carefully everywhere about me, lest some stray mourner or curious stranger might possibly be in the neighborhood. Not a soul was in sight. Making use of the secret pa.s.sage, I soon found myself on the scene of my recent terrors and sufferings, all of which seemed now so slight in comparison with, the mental torture of my present condition.

I went straight to the spot where I had left the coffined treasure--I possessed myself of all the rolls of paper money, and disposed them in various small packages about my person and in the lining of my clothes till, as I stood, I was worth many thousand of francs. Then with the help of the tools I had brought, I mended the huge chest in the split places where I had forced it open, and nailed it up fast so that it looked as if it had never been touched. I lost no time over my task, for I was in haste. It was my intention to leave Naples for a fortnight or more, and I purposed taking my departure that very day. Before leaving the vault I glanced at the coffin I myself had occupied. Should I mend that and nail it up as though my body were still inside?

No--better leave it as it was--roughly broken open--it would serve my purpose better so. As soon as I had finished all I had to do, I clambered through the private pa.s.sage, closing it after me with extra care and caution, and then I betook myself directly to the Molo. On making inquiries among the sailors who were gathered there, I heard that a small coasting brig was on the point of leaving for Palermo.

Palermo would suit me as well as any other place; I sought out the captain of the vessel. He was a brown-faced, merry-eyed mariner--he showed his glittering white teeth in the most amiable of smiles when I expressed my desire to take pa.s.sage with him, and consented to the arrangement at once for a sum which I thought extremely moderate, but which I afterward discovered to be about treble his rightful due. But the handsome rogue cheated me with such grace and exquisite courtesy, that I would scarcely have had him act otherwise than he did. I hear a good deal of the "plain blunt honesty" of the English. I dare say there is some truth in it, but for my own part I would rather be cheated by a friendly fellow who gives you a cheery word and a bright look than receive exact value for my money from the "plain blunt" boor who seldom has the common politeness to wish you a good-day.

We got under way at about nine o'clock--the morning was bright, and the air, for Naples, was almost cool. The water rippling against the sides of our little vessel had a gurgling, chatty murmur, as though it were talking vivaciously of all the pleasant things it experienced between the rising and the setting of the sun; of the corals and trailing sea-weed that grew in its blue depths, of the lithe glittering fish that darted hither and thither between its little waves, of the delicate sh.e.l.ls in which dwelt still more delicate inhabitants, fantastic small creatures as fine as filmy lace, that peeped from the white and pink doors of their transparent habitations, and looked as enjoyingly on the s.h.i.+mmering blue-green of their ever-moving element as we look on the vast dome of our sky, bespangled thickly with stars. Of all these things, and many more as strange and sweet, the gossiping water babbled unceasingly; it had even something to say to me concerning woman and woman's love. It told me gleefully how many fair female bodies it had seen sunk in the cold embrace of the conquering sea, bodies, dainty and soft as the sylphs of a poet's dream, yet which, despite their exquisite beauty, had been flung to and fro in cruel sport by the raging billows, and tossed among pebbles for the monsters of the deep to feed upon.

As I sat idly on the vessel's edge and looked down, down into the clear Mediterranean, brilliantly blue as a lake of melted sapphires, I fancied I could see her the Delilah of my life, lying p.r.o.ne on the golden sand, her rich hair floating straightly around her like yellow weed, her hands clinched in the death agony, her laughing lips blue with the piercing chilliness of the was.h.i.+ng tide--powerless to move or smile again. She would look well so, I thought--better to my mind than she looked in the arms of her lover last night. I fell into a train of profound meditation--a touch on my shoulder startled me. I looked up, the captain of the brig stood beside me. He smiled and held out a cigarette.

"The signor will smoke?" he said courteously.

I accepted the little roll of fragrant Havanna half mechanically.

"Why do you call me signor?" I inquired brusquely. "I am a coral-fisher."

The little man shrugged his shoulders and bowed deferentially, yet with the smile still dancing gayly in his eyes and dimpling his olive cheeks.

"Oh, certainly! As the signor pleases--ma--" And he ended with another expressive shrug and bow.

I looked at him fixedly. "What do you mean?" I asked with some sternness.

With that birdlike lightness and swiftness which were part of his manner, the Sicilian skipper bent forward and laid a brown finger on my wrist.

"Scusa, vi prego! But the hands are not those of a fisher of coral."

I glanced down at them. True enough, their smoothness and pliant shape betrayed my disguise--the gay little captain was sharp-witted enough to note the contrast between them and the rough garb I wore, though no one else with whom I had come in contact had been as keen of observation as he. At first I was slightly embarra.s.sed by his remark--but after a moment's pause I met his gaze frankly, and lighting my cigarette I said, carelessly:

"Ebbene! And what then, my friend?"

He made a deprecatory gesture with his hands.

"Nay, nay, nothing--but only this. The signor must understand he is perfectly safe with me. My tongue is discreet--I talk of things only that concern myself. The signor has good reasons for what he does--of that I am sure. He has suffered; it is enough to look in his face to see that. Ah, Dio if there are so many sorrows in life; there is love,"

he enumerated rapidly on his fingers--"there is revenge--there are quarrels--there is loss of money; any of these will drive a man from place to place at all hours and in all weathers. Yes; it is so, indeed--I know it! The signor has trusted himself in my boat--I desire to a.s.sure him of my best services."

And he raised his red cap with so charming a candor that in my lonely and morose condition I was touched to the heart. Silently I extended my hand--he caught it with an air in which respect, sympathy, and entire friendliness were mingled. And yet he overcharged me for my pa.s.sage, you exclaim! Ay--but he would not have made me the object of impertinent curiosity for twenty times the money! You cannot understand the existence of such conflicting elements in the Italian character?

No--I dare say not. The tendency of the calculating northerner under the same circ.u.mstances would have been to make as much out of me as possible by means of various small and contemptible items, and then to go with broadly honest countenance to the nearest police-station and describe my suspicious appearance and manner, thus exposing me to fresh expense besides personal annoyance. With the rare tact that distinguishes the southern races the captain changed the conversation by a reference to the tobacco we were both enjoying.

"It is good, is it not?" he asked.

"Excellent!" I answered, as indeed it was.

His white teeth glittered in a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It should be of the finest quality--for it is a present from one who will smoke nothing but the choice brands. Ah, Dio! what a fine gentleman spoiled is Carmelo Neri!"

I could not repress a slight start of surprise. What caprice of Fate a.s.sociated me with this famous brigand? I was actually smoking his tobacco, and I owed all my present wealth to his stolen treasures secreted in my family vault!

"You know the man, then?" I inquired with some curiosity.

"Know him? As well as I know myself. Let me see, it is two months--yes--two months to-day since he was with me on board this very vessel. It happened in this way--I was at Gaeta--he came to me and told me the gendarmes were after him. He offered me more gold than I ever had in my life to take him to Termini, from whence he could get to one of his hiding-places in the Montemaggiore. He brought Teresa with him; he found me alone on the brig, my men had gone ash.o.r.e. He said, 'Take us to Termini and I will give you so much; refuse and I will slit your throat.' Ha! ha! ha! That was good. I laughed at him. I put a chair for Teresa on deck, and gave her some big peaches. I said, 'See, my Carmelo! what use is there in threats? You will not kill me, and I shall not betray you. You are a thief, and a bad thief--by all the saints you are--but I dare say you would not be much worse than the hotel-keepers, if you could only keep your hand off your knife.' (For you know, signor, if you once enter a hotel you must pay almost a ransom before you can get out again!) Yes--and I reasoned with Carmelo in this manner: I told him, 'I do not want a large fortune for carrying you and Teresa across to Termini--pay me the just pa.s.sage and we shall part friends, if only for Teresa's sake.' Well, he was surprised. He smiled that dark smile of his, which may mean grat.i.tude or murder. He looked at Teresa. She sprung up from her seat, and let her peaches fall from her lap on the deck. She put her little hands on mine--the tears were in her pretty blue eyes. 'You are a good man,' she said. 'Some woman must love you very much!' Yes--she said that. And she was right.

Our Lady be praised for it!"

And his dark eyes glanced upward with a devout gesture of thanksgiving.

I looked at him with a sort of jealous hunger gnawing at my heart. Here was another self deluded fool--a fond wretch feasting on the unsubstantial food of a pleasant dream--a poor dupe who believed in the truth of woman!

"You are a happy man," I said with a forced smile; "you have a guiding star for your life as well as for your boat--a woman that loves you and is faithful? is it so?"

He answered me directly and simply, raising his cap slightly as he did so.

"Yes, signor--my mother."

I was deeply touched by his naive and unexpected reply--more deeply than I cared to show. A bitter regret stirred in my soul--why, oh, why had my mother died so young! Why had I never known the sacred joy that seemed to vibrate through the frame, and sparkle in the eyes of this common sailor! Why must I be forever alone, with a curse of a woman's lie on my life, weighing me down to the dust and ashes of a desolate despair! Something in my face must have spoken my thoughts, for the captain said, gently:

"The signor has no mother?"

"She died when I was but a child," I answered, briefly.

The Sicilian puffed lightly at his cigarette in silence--the silence of an evident compa.s.sion. To relieve him of his friendly embarra.s.sment, I said: