you wrong or in any way
given you cause for such a feeling."
Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the bandaged hand to his throat.
"I must refer Your Eminence to Shakspere," he said with a little laugh.
"It's as with the man who can't endure a harmless, necessary cat. My
antipathy is a priest. The sight of the cassock makes my t-t-teeth ache."
"Oh, if it is only that----" Montanelli dismissed the subject with an
indifferent gesture.
"Still," he added, "abuse is one thing and perversion of fact is
another. When you stated, in answer to my sermon, that I knew the identity
of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake,--I do not accuse you of wilful
falsehood,--and stated what was untrue. I am to this day quite ignorant of
his name."
The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an intelligent robin, looked
at him for a moment gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and burst into
a peal of laughter.
"S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent, Arcadian people--and
you never guessed! You n-never saw the cloven hoof?"
Montanelli stood up. "Am I to understand, Signor Rivarez, that you
wrote both sides of the controversy yourself?"
"It was a shame, I know," the Gadfly answered, looking up with wide,
innocent blue eyes. "And you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if it
had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh, it w-w-was so funny!"
Montanelli bit his lip and sat down again. He had realized from the
first that the Gadfly was trying to make him lose his temper, and had
resolved to keep it whatever happened; but he was beginning to find excuses
for the Governor's exasperation. A man who had been spending two hours a day
for the last three weeks in interrogating the Gadfly might be pardoned an
occasional swear-word.
"We will drop that subject," he said quietly. "What I wanted to see you
for particularly is this: My position here as Cardinal gives me some voice,
if I choose to claim my privilege, in the question of what is to be done
with you. The only use to which I should ever put such a privilege would be
to interfere in case of any violence to you which was not necessary to
prevent you from doing violence to others. I sent for you, therefore, partly
in order to ask whether you have anything to complain of,--I will see about
the irons; but perhaps there is something else,--and partly because I felt
it right, before giving my opinion, to see for myself what sort of man you
are."
"I have nothing to complain of, Your Eminence. 'A la guerre comme a la
guerre.' I am not a schoolboy, to expect any government to pat me on the
head for s-s-smuggling firearms onto its territory. It's only natural that
they should hit as hard as they can. As for what sort of man I am, you have
had a romantic confession of my sins once. Is not that enough; or w-w-would
you like me to begin again?"
"I don't understand you," Montanelli said coldly, taking up a pencil
and twisting it between his fingers.
"Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego, the pilgrim?" He
suddenly changed his voice and began to speak as Diego: "I am a miserable
sinner------"
The pencil snapped in Montanelli's hand. "That is too much!" he said.
The Gadfly leaned his head back with a soft little laugh, and sat
watching while the Cardinal paced silently up and down the room.
"Signor Rivarez," said Montanelli, stopping at last in front of him,
"you have done a thing to me that a man who was born of a woman should
hesitate to do to his worst enemy. You have stolen in upon my private grief
and have made for yourself a mock and a jest out of the sorrow of a
fellow-man. I once more beg you to tell me: Have I ever done you wrong? And
if not, why have you played this heartless trick on me?"
The Gadfly, leaning back against the chair-cushions, looked up with his
subtle, chilling, inscrutable smile
"It am-m-mused me, Your Eminence; you took it all so much to heart, and
it rem-m-minded me-- a little bit--of a variety show----"
Montanelli, white to the very lips, turned away and rang the bell.
"You can take back the prisoner," he said when the guards came in.
After they had gone he sat down at the table, still trembling with
unaccustomed indignation, and took up a pile of reports which had been sent
in to him by the parish priests of his diocese.
Presently he pushed them away, and, leaning on the table, hid his face
in both hands. The Gadfly seemed to have left some terrible shadow of
himself, some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt the room; and
Montanelli sat trembling and cowering, not daring to look up lest he should
see the phantom presence that he knew was not there. The spectre hardly
amounted to a hallucination. It was a mere fancy of overwrought nerves; but
he was seized with an unutterable dread of its shadowy presence--of the
wounded hand, the smiling, cruel mouth, the mysterious eyes, like deep sea
water----
He shook off the fancy and settled to his work. All day long he had
scarcely a free moment, and the thing did not trouble him; but going into
his bedroom late at night, he stopped on the threshold with a sudden shock
of fear. What if he should see it in a dream? He recovered himself
immediately and knelt down before the crucifix to pray.
But he lay awake the whole night through.
PART III: CHAPTER IV.
MONTANELLI'S anger did not make him neglectful of his promise. He
protested so emphatically against the manner in which the Gadfly had been
chained that the unfortunate Governor, who by now was at his wit's end,
knocked off all the fetters in the recklessness of despair. "How am I to
know," he grumbled to the adjutant, "what His Eminence will object to next?
If he calls a simple pair of handcuffs 'cruelty,' he'll be exclaiming
against the window-bars presently, or wanting me to feed Rivarez on oysters
and truffles. In my young days malefactors were malefactors and were treated
accordingly, and nobody thought a traitor any better than a thief. But it's
the fashion to be seditious nowadays; and His Eminence seems inclined to
encourage all the scoundrels in the country."
"I don't see what business he has got to interfere at all," the
adjutant remarked. "He is not a Legate and has no authority in civil and
military affairs. By law------"
"What is the use of talking about law? You can't expect anyone to
respect laws after the Holy Father has opened the prisons and turned the
whole crew of Liberal scamps loose on us! It's a positive infatuation! Of
course Monsignor Montanelli will give himself airs; he was quiet enough
under His Holiness the late Pope, but he's cock of the walk now. He has
jumped into favour all at once and can do as he pleases. How am I to oppose
him? He may have secret authorization from the Vatican, for all I know.
Everything's topsy-turvy now; you can't tell from day to day what may happen
next. In the good old times one knew what to be at, but nowadays------"
The Governor shook his head ruefully. A world in which Cardinals
troubled themselves over trifles of prison discipline and talked about the
"rights" of political offenders was a world that was growing too complex for
him.
The Gadfly, for his part, had returned to the fortress in a state of
nervous excitement bordering on hysteria. The meeting with Montanelli had
strained his endurance almost to breaking-point; and his final brutality
about the variety show had been uttered in sheer desperation, merely to cut
short an interview which, in another five minutes, would have ended in
tears.
Called up for interrogation in the afternoon of the same day, he did
nothing but go into convulsions of laughter at every question put to him;
and when the Governor, worried out of all patience, lost his temper and
began to swear, he only laughed more immoderately than ever. The unlucky
Governor fumed and stormed and threatened his refractory prisoner with
impossible punishments; but finally came, as James Burton had come long ago,
to the conclusion that it was mere waste of breath and temper to argue with
a person in so unreasonable a state of mind.
The Gadfly was once more taken back to his cell; and there lay down
upon the pallet, in the mood of black and hopeless depression which always
succeeded to his boisterous fits. He lay till evening without moving,
without even thinking; he had passed, after the vehement emotion of the
morning, into a strange, half-apathetic state, in which his own misery was
hardly more to him than a dull and mechanical weight, pressing on some
wooden thing that had forgotten to be a soul. In truth, it was of little
consequence how all ended; the one thing that mattered to any sentient being
was to be spared unbearable pain, and whether the relief came from altered
conditions or from the deadening of the power to feel, was a question of no
moment. Perhaps he would succeed in escaping; perhaps they would kill him;
in any case he should never see the Padre again, and it was all vanity and
vexation of spirit.
One of the warders brought in supper, and the Gadfly looked up with
heavy-eyed indifference.
"What time is it?"
"Six o'clock. Your supper, sir."
He looked with disgust at the stale, foul-smelling, half-cold mess, and
turned his head away. He was feeling bodily ill as well as depressed; and
the sight of the food sickened him.
"You will be ill if you don't eat," said the soldier hurriedly. "Take a
bit of bread, anyway; it'll do you good."
The man spoke with a curious earnestness of tone, lifting a piece of
sodden bread from the plate and putting it down again. All the conspirator
awoke in the Gadfly; he had guessed at once that there was something hidden
in the bread.
"You can leave it; I'll eat a bit by and by," he said carelessly. The
door was open, and he knew that the sergeant on the stairs could hear every
word spoken between them.
When the door was locked on him again, and he had satisfied himself
that no one was watching at the spy-hole, he took up the piece of bread and
carefully crumbled it away. In the middle was the thing he had expected, a
bundle of small files. It was wrapped in a bit of paper, on which a few
words were written. He smoothed the paper out carefully and carried it to
what little light there was. The writing was crowded into so narrow a space,
and on such thin paper, that it was very difficult to read.
"The door is unlocked, and there is no moon. Get the filing done as
fast as possible, and come by the passage between two and three. We are
quite ready and may not have another chance."
He crushed the paper feverishly in his hand. All the preparations were
ready, then, and he had only to file the window bars; how lucky it was that
the chains were off! He need not stop about filing them. How many bars were
there? Two, four; and each must be filed in two places: eight. Oh, he could
manage that in the course of the night if he made haste---- How had Gemma
and Martini contrived to get everything ready so quickly--disguises,
passports, hiding-places? They must have worked like cart-horses to do
it---- And it was her plan that had been adopted after all. He laughed a
little to himself at his own foolishness; as if it mattered whether the plan
was hers or not, once it was a good one! And yet he could not help being
glad that it was she who had struck on the idea of his utilizing the
subterranean passage, instead of letting himself down by a rope-ladder, as
the smugglers had at first suggested. Hers was the more complex and
difficult plan, but did not involve, as the other did, a risk to the life of
the sentinel on duty outside the east wall. Therefore, when the two schemes
had been laid before him, he had unhesitatingly chosen Gemma's.
The arrangement was that the friendly guard who went by the nickname of
"The Cricket" should seize the first opportunity of unlocking, without the
knowledge of his fellows, the iron gate leading from the courtyard into the
subterranean passage underneath the ramparts, and should then replace the
key on its nail in the guard-room. The Gadfly, on receiving information of
this, was to file through the bars of his window, tear his shirt into strips
and plait them into a rope, by means of which he could let himself down on
to the broad east wall of the courtyard. Along this wall he was to creep on
hands and knees while the sentinel was looking in the opposite direction,
lying flat upon the masonry whenever the man turned towards him. At the
southeast corner was a half-ruined turret. It was upheld, to some extent, by
a thick growth of ivy; but great masses of crumbling stone had fallen inward
and lay in the courtyard, heaped against the wall. From this turret he was
to climb down by the ivy and the heaps of stone into the courtyard; and,
softly opening the unlocked gate, to make his way along the passage to a
subterranean tunnel communicating with it. Centuries ago this tunnel had
formed a secret corridor between the fortress and a tower on the
neighbouring hill; now it was quite disused and blocked in many places by
the falling in of the rocks. No one but the smugglers knew of a certain
carefully-hidden hole in the mountain-side which they had bored through to
the tunnel; no one suspected that stores of forbidden merchandise were often
kept, for weeks together, under the very ramparts of the fortress itself,
while the customs-officers were vainly searching the houses of the sullen,
wrathful-eyed mountaineers. At this hole the Gadfly was to creep out on to
the hillside, and make his way in the dark to a lonely spot where Martini
and a smuggler would be waiting for him. The one great difficulty was that
opportunities to unlock the gate after the evening patrol did not occur
every night, and the descent from the window could not be made in very clear
weather without too great a risk of being observed by the sentinel. Now that
there was really a fair chance of success, it must not be missed.
He sat down and began to eat some of the bread. It at least did not
disgust him like the rest of the prison food, and he must eat something to
keep up his strength.
He had better lie down a bit, too, and try to get a little sleep; it
would not be safe to begin filing before ten o'clock, and he would have a
hard night's work.
And so, after all, the Padre had been thinking of letting him escape!
That was like the Padre. But he, for his part, would never consent to it.
Anything rather than that! If he escaped, it should be his own doing and
that of his comrades; he would have no favours from priests.
How hot it was! Surely it must be going to thunder; the air was so
close and oppressive. He moved restlessly on the pallet and put the bandaged
right hand behind his head for a pillow; then drew it away again. How it
burned and throbbed! And all the old wounds were beginning to ache, with a
dull, faint persistence. What was the matter with them? Oh, absurd! It was
only the thundery weather. He would go to sleep and get a little rest before
beginning his filing.
Eight bars, and all so thick and strong! How many more were there left
to file? Surely not many. He must have been filing for hours,-- interminable
hours--yes, of course, that was what made his arm ache---- And how it ached;
right through to the very bone! But it could hardly be the filing that made
his side ache so; and the throbbing, burning pain in the lame leg--was that
from filing?
He started up. No, he had not been asleep; he had been dreaming with
open eyes--dreaming of filing, and it was all still to do. There stood the
window-bars, untouched, strong and firm as ever. And there was ten striking
from the clock-tower in the distance. He must get to work.
He looked through the spy-hole, and, seeing that no one was watching,
took one of the files from his breast.
. . . . .
No, there was nothing the matter with him-- nothing! It was all
imagination. The pain in his side was indigestion, or a chill, or some such
thing; not much wonder, after three weeks of this insufferable prison food
and air. As for the aching and throbbing all over, it was partly nervous
trouble and partly want of exercise. Yes, that was it, no doubt; want of
exercise. How absurd not to have thought of that before!
He would sit down a little bit, though, and let it pass before he got
to work. It would be sure to go over in a minute or two.
To sit still was worse than all. When he sat still he was at its mercy,
and his face grew gray with fear. No, he must get up and set to work, and
shake it off. It should depend upon his will to feel or not to feel; and he
would not feel, he would force it back.
He stood up again and spoke to himself, aloud and distinctly:
"I am not ill; I have no time to be ill. I have those bars to file, and
I am not going to be ill."
Then he began to file.
A quarter-past ten--half-past ten--a quarter to eleven---- He filed and
filed, and every grating scrape of the iron was as though someone were
filing on his body and brain. "I wonder which will be filed through first,"
he said to himself with a little laugh; "I or the bars?" And he set his
teeth and went on filing.
Half-past eleven. He was still filing, though the hand was stiff and
swollen and would hardly grasp the tool. No, he dared not stop to rest; if
he once put the horrible thing down he should never have the courage to
begin again.
The sentinel moved outside the door, and the butt end of his carbine
scratched against the lintel. The Gadfly stopped and looked round, the file
still in his lifted hand. Was he discovered?
A little round pellet had been shot through the spy-hole and was lying
on the floor. He laid down the file and stooped to pick up the round thing.
It was a bit of rolled paper.
. . . . .
It was a long way to go down and down, with the black waves rushing
about him--how they roared----!
Ah, yes! He was only stooping down to pick up the paper. He was a bit
giddy; many people are when they stoop. There was nothing the matter with
him--nothing.
He picked it up, carried it to the light, and unfolded it steadily.
"Come to-night, whatever happens; the Cricket will be transferred
to-morrow to another service. This is our only chance."
He destroyed the paper as he had done the former one, picked up his
file again, and went back to work, dogged and mute and desperate.
One o'clock. He had been working for three hours now, and six of the
eight bars were filed. Two more, and then, to climb------
He began to recall the former occasions when these terrible attacks had
come on. The last had been the one at New Year; and he shuddered as he
remembered those five nights. But that time it had not come on so suddenly;
he had never known it so sudden.
He dropped the file and flung out both hands blindly, praying, in his
utter desperation, for the first time since he had been an atheist; praying
to anything--to nothing--to everything.
"Not to-night! Oh, let me be ill to-morrow! I will bear anything
to-morrow--only not to-night!"
He stood still for a moment, with both hands up to his temples; then he
took up the file once more, and once more went back to his work.
Half-past one. He had begun on the last bar. His shirt-sleeve was
bitten to rags; there was blood on his lips and a red mist before his eyes,
and the sweat poured from his forehead as he filed, and filed, and filed----
. . . . .
After sunrise Montanelli fell asleep. He was utterly worn out with the
restless misery of the night and slept for a little while quietly; then he
began to dream.
At first he dreamed vaguely, confusedly; broken fragments of images and
fancies followed each other, fleeting and incoherent, but all filled with
the same dim sense of struggle and pain, the same shadow of indefinable
dread. Presently he began to dream of sleeplessness; the old, frightful,
familiar dream that had been a terror to him for years. And even as he
dreamed he recognized that he had been through it all before.
He was wandering about in a great empty place, trying to find some
quiet spot where he could lie down and sleep. Everywhere there were people,
walking up and down; talking, laughing, shouting; praying, ringing bells,
and clashing metal instruments together. Sometimes he would get away to a
little distance from the noise, and would lie down, now on the grass, now on
a wooden bench, now on some slab of stone. He would shut his eyes and cover
them with both hands to keep out the light; and would say to himself: "Now I
will get to sleep." Then the crowds would come sweeping up to him, shouting,
yelling, calling him by name, begging him: "Wake up! Wake up, quick; we want
you!"
Again: he was in a great palace, full of gorgeous rooms, with beds and
couches and low soft lounges. It was night, and he said to himself: "Here,
at last, I shall find a quiet place to sleep." But when he chose a dark room
and lay down, someone came in with a lamp, flashing the merciless light into
his eyes, and said: "Get up; you are wanted."
He rose and wandered on, staggering and stumbling like a creature
wounded to death; and heard the clocks strike one, and knew that half the
night was gone already--the precious night that was so short. Two, three,
four, five--by six o'clock the whole town would wake up and there would be
no more silence.
He went into another room and would have lain down on a bed, but
someone started up from the pillows, crying out: "This bed is mine!" and he
shrank away with despair in his heart.
Hour after hour struck, and still he wandered on and on, from room to
room, from house to house, from corridor to corridor. The horrible gray dawn
was creeping near and nearer; the clocks were striking five; the night was
gone and he had found no rest. Oh, misery! Another day --another day!
He was in a long, subterranean corridor, a low, vaulted passage that
seemed to have no end. It was lighted with glaring lamps and chandeliers;
and through its grated roof came the sounds of dancing and laughter and
merry music. Up there, in the world of the live people overhead, there was
some festival, no doubt. Oh, for a place to hide and sleep; some little
place, were it even a grave! And as he spoke he stumbled over an open grave.
An open grave, smelling of death and rottenness---- Ah, what matter, so he
could but sleep!
"This grave is mine!" It was Gladys; and she raised her head and stared
at him over the rotting shroud. Then he knelt down and stretched out his
arms to her.
"Gladys! Gladys! Have a little pity on me; let me creep into this
narrow space and sleep. I do not ask you for your love; I will not touch
you, will not speak to you; only let me lie down beside you and sleep! Oh,
love, it is so long since I have slept! I cannot bear another day. The light
glares in upon my soul; the noise is beating my brain to dust. Gladys, let
me come in here and sleep!"
And he would have drawn her shroud across his eyes. But she shrank
away, screaming:
"It is sacrilege; you are a priest!"
On and on he wandered, and came out upon the sea-shore, on the barren
rocks where the fierce light struck down, and the water moaned its low,
perpetual wail of unrest. "Ah!" he said; "the sea will be more merciful; it,
too, is wearied unto death and cannot sleep."
Then Arthur rose up from the deep, and cried aloud:
"This sea is mine!"
. . . . .
"Your Eminence! Your Eminence!"
Montanelli awoke with a start. His servant was knocking at the door. He
rose mechanically and opened it, and the man saw how wild and scared he
looked.
"Your Eminence--are you ill?"
He drew both hands across his forehead.
"No; I was asleep, and you startled me."
"I am very sorry; I thought I had heard you moving early this morning,
and I supposed------"
"Is it late now?"
"It is nine o'clock, and the Governor has called. He says he has very
important business, and knowing Your Eminence to be an early riser------"
"Is he downstairs? I will come presently."
He dressed and went downstairs.
"I am afraid this is an unceremonious way to call upon Your Eminence,"
the Governor began.
"I hope there is nothing the matter?"
"There is very much the matter. Rivarez has all but succeeded in
escaping."
"Well, so long as he has not quite succeeded there is no harm done. How
was it?"
"He was found in the courtyard, right against the little iron gate.
When the patrol came in to inspect the courtyard at three o'clock this
morning one of the men stumbled over something on the ground; and when they
brought the light up they found Rivarez lying across the path unconscious.
They raised an alarm at once and called me up; and when I went to examine
his cell I found all the window-bars filed through and a rope made of torn
body-linen hanging from one of them. He had let himself down and climbed
along the wall. The iron gate, which leads into the subterranean tunnels,
was found to be unlocked. That looks as if the guards had been suborned."
"But how did he come to be lying across the path? Did he fall from the
rampart and hurt himself?"
"That is what I thought at first. Your Eminence; but the prison surgeon
can't find any trace of a fall. The soldier who was on duty yesterday says
that Rivarez looked very ill last night when he brought in the supper, and
did not eat anything. But that must be nonsense; a sick man couldn't file
those bars through and climb along that roof. It's not in reason."
"Does he give any account of himself?"
"He is unconscious, Your Eminence."
"Still?"
"He just half comes to himself from time to time and moans, and then
goes off again."
"That is very strange. What does the doctor think?"
"He doesn't know what to think. There is no trace of heart-disease that
he can find to account for the thing; but whatever is the matter with him,
it is something that must have come on suddenly, just when he had nearly
managed to escape. For my part, I believe he was struck down by the direct
intervention of a merciful Providence."
Montanelli frowned slightly.
"What are you going to do with him?" he asked.
"That is a question I shall settle in a very few days. In the meantime
I have had a good lesson. That is what comes of taking off the irons--with
all due respect to Your Eminence."
"I hope," Montanelli interrupted, "that you will at least not replace
the fetters while he is ill. A man in the condition you describe can hardly
make any more attempts to escape."
"I shall take good care he doesn't," the Governor muttered to himself
as he went out. "His Eminence can go hang with his sentimental scruples for
all I care. Rivarez is chained pretty tight now, and is going to stop so,
ill or not."
. . . . .
"But how can it have happened? To faint away at the last moment, when
everything was ready; when he was at the very gate! It's like some hideous
joke."
"I tell you," Martini answered, "the only thing I can think of is that
one of these attacks must have come on, and that he must have struggled
against it as long as his strength lasted and have fainted from sheer
exhaustion when he got down into the courtyard."
Marcone knocked the ashes savagely from his pipe.
"Well. anyhow, that's the end of it; we can't do anything for him now,
poor fellow."
"Poor fellow!" Martini echoed, under his breath. He was beginning to
realise that to him, too, the world would look empty and dismal without the
Gadfly.
"What does she think?" the smuggler asked, glancing towards the other
end of the room, where Gemma sat alone, her hands lying idly in her lap, her
eyes looking straight before her into blank nothingness.
"I have not asked her; she has not spoken since I brought her the news.
We had best not disturb her just yet."
She did not appear to be conscious of their presence, but they both
spoke with lowered voices, as though they were looking at a corpse. After a
dreary little pause, Marcone rose and put away his pipe.
"I will come back this evening," he said; but Martini stopped him with
a gesture.
"Don't go yet; I want to speak to you." He dropped his voice still
lower and continued in almost a whisper:
"Do you believe there is really no hope?"
"I don't see what hope there can be now. We can't attempt it again.
Even if he were well enough to manage his part of the thing, we couldn't do
our share. The sentinels are all being changed, on suspicion. The Cricket
won't get another chance, you may be sure."
"Don't you think," Martini asked suddenly; "that, when he recovers,
something might be done by calling off the sentinels?"
"Calling off the sentinels? What do you mean?"
"Well, it has occurred to me that if I were to get in the Governor's
way when the procession passes close by the fortress on Corpus Domini day
and fire in his face, all the sentinels would come rushing to get hold of
me, and some of you fellows could perhaps help Rivarez out in the confusion.
It really hardly amounts to a plan; it only came into my head."
"I doubt whether it could be managed," Marcone answered with a very
grave face. "Certainly it would want a lot of thinking out for anything to
come of it. But"--he stopped and looked at Martini--"if it should be
possible-- would you do it?"
Martini was a reserved man at ordinary times; but this was not an
ordinary time. He looked straight into the smuggler's face.
"Would I do it?" he repeated. "Look at her!"
There was no need for further explanations; in saying that he had said
all. Marcone turned and looked across the room.
She had not moved since their conversation began. There was no doubt,
no fear, even no grief in her face; there was nothing in it but the shadow
of death. The smuggler's eyes filled with tears as he looked at her.
"Make haste, Michele!" he said, throwing open the verandah door and
looking out. "Aren't you nearly done, you two? There are a hundred and fifty
things to do!"
Michele, followed by Gino, came in from the verandah.
"I am ready now," he said. "I only want to ask the signora----"
He was moving towards her when Martini caught him by the arm.
"Don't disturb her; she's better alone."
"Let her be!" Marcone added. "We shan't do any good by meddling. God
knows, it's hard enough on all of us; but it's worse for her, poor soul!"
PART III: CHAPTER V.
FOR a week the Gadfly lay in a fearful state. The attack was a violent
one, and the Governor, rendered brutal by fear and perplexity, had not only
chained him hand and foot, but had insisted on his being bound to his pallet
with leather straps, drawn so tight that he could not move without their
cutting into the flesh. He endured everything with his dogged, bitter
stoicism till the end of the sixth day. Then his pride broke down, and he
piteously entreated the prison doctor for a dose of opium. The doctor was
quite willing to give it; but the Governor, hearing of the request, sharply
forbade "any such foolery."
"How do you know what he wants it for?" he said. "It's just as likely
as not that he's shamming all the time and wants to drug the sentinel, or
some such devilry. Rivarez is cunning enough for anything."
"My giving him a dose would hardly help him to drug the sentinel,"
replied the doctor, unable to suppress a smile. "And as for shamming--
there's not much fear of that. He is as likely as not to die."
"Anyway, I won't have it given. If a man wants to be tenderly treated,
he should behave accordingly. He has thoroughly deserved a little sharp
discipline. Perhaps it will be a lesson to him not to play tricks with the
window-bars again."
"The law does not admit of torture, though," the doctor ventured to
say; "and this is coming perilously near it."
"The law says nothing about opium, I think," said the Governor
snappishly.
"It is for you to decide, of course, colonel; but I hope you will let
the straps be taken off at any rate. They are a needless aggravation of his
misery. There's no fear of his escaping now. He couldn't stand if you let
him go free."
"My good sir, a doctor may make a mistake like other people, I suppose.
I have got him safe strapped now, and he's going to stop so."
"At least, then, have the straps a little loosened. It is downright
barbarity to keep them drawn so tight."
"They will stop exactly as they are; and I will thank you, sir, not to
talk about barbarity to me. If I do a thing, I have a reason for it."
So the seventh night passed without any relief, and the soldier
stationed on guard at the cell door crossed himself, shuddering, over and
over again, as he listened all night long to heart-rending moans. The
Gadfly's endurance was failing him at last.
At six in the morning the sentinel, just before going off duty,
unlocked the door softly and entered the cell. He knew that he was
committing a serious breach of discipline, but could not bear to go away
without offering the consolation of a friendly word.
He found the Gadfly lying still, with closed eyes and parted lips. He
stood silent for a moment; then stooped down and asked:
"Can I do anything for you, sir? I have only a minute."
The Gadfly opened his eyes. "Let me alone!" he moaned. "Let me
alone----"
He was asleep almost before the soldier had slipped back to his post.
Ten days afterwards the Governor called again at the palace, but found
that the Cardinal had gone to visit a sick man at Pieve d'Ottavo, and was
not expected home till the afternoon. That evening, just as he was sitting
down to dinner, his servant came in to announce:
"His Eminence would like to speak to you."
The Governor, with a hasty glance into the looking glass, to make sure
that his uniform was in order, put on his most dignified air, and went into
the reception room, where Montanelli was sitting, beating his hand gently on
the arm of the chair and looking out of the window with an anxious line
between his brows.
"I heard that you called to-day," he said, cutting short the Governor's
polite speeches with a slightly imperious manner which he never adopted in
speaking to the country folk. "It was probably on the business about which I
have been wishing to speak to you."
"It was about Rivarez, Your Eminence."
"So I supposed. I have been thinking the matter over these last few
days. But before we go into that, I should like to hear whether you have
anything new to tell me."
The Governor pulled his moustaches with an embarrassed air.
"The fact is, I came to know whether Your Eminence had anything to tell
me. If you still have an objection to the course I proposed taking, I should
be sincerely glad of your advice in the matter; for, honestly, I don't know
what to do."
"Is there any new difficulty?"
"Only that next Thursday is the 3d of June, --Corpus Domini,--and
somehow or other the matter must be settled before then."
"Thursday is Corpus Domini, certainly; but why must it be settled
especially before then?"
"I am exceedingly sorry, Your Eminence, if I seem to oppose you, but I
can't undertake to be responsible for the peace of the town if Rivarez is
not got rid of before then. All the roughest set in the hills collects here
for that day, as Your Eminence knows, and it is more than probable that they
may attempt to break open the fortress gates and take him out. They won't
succeed; I'll take care of that, if I have to sweep them from the gates with
powder and shot. But we are very likely to have something of that kind
before the day is over. Here in the Romagna there is bad blood in the
people, and when once they get out their knives----"
"I think with a little care we can prevent matters going as far as
knives. I have always found the people of this district easy to get on with,
if they are reasonably treated. Of course, if you once begin to threaten or
coerce a Romagnol he becomes unmanageable. But have you any reason for
supposing a new rescue scheme is intended?"
"I heard, both this morning and yesterday, from confidential agents of
mine, that a great many rumours are circulating all over the district and
that the people are evidently up to some mischief or other. But one can't
find out the details; if one could it would be easier to take precautions.
And for my part, after the fright we had the other day, I prefer to be on
the safe side. With such a cunning fox as Rivarez one can't be too careful."
"The last I heard about Rivarez was that he was too ill to move or
speak. Is he recovering, then?"
"He seems much better now, Your Eminence. He certainly has been very
ill--unless he was shamming all the time."
"Have you any reason for supposing that likely?"
"Well, the doctor seems convinced that it was all genuine; but it's a
very mysterious kind of illness. Any way, he is recovering, and more
intractable than ever."
"What has he done now?"
"There's not much he can do, fortunately," the Governor answered,
smiling as he remembered the straps. "But his behaviour is something
indescribable. Yesterday morning I went into the cell to ask him a few
questions; he is not well enough yet to come to me for interrogation--and
indeed, I thought it best not to run any risk of the people seeing him until
he recovers. Such absurd stories always get about at once."
"So you went there to interrogate him?"
"Yes, Your Eminence. I hoped he would be more amenable to reason now."
Montanelli looked him over deliberately, almost as if he had been
inspecting a new and disagreeable animal. Fortunately, however, the Governor
was fingering his sword-belt, and did not see the look. He went on placidly:
"I have not subjected him to any particular severities, but I have been
obliged to be rather strict with him--especially as it is a military
prison--and I thought that perhaps a little indulgence might have a good
effect. I offered to relax the discipline considerably if he would behave in
a reasonable manner; and how does Your Eminence suppose he answered me? He
lay looking at me a minute, like a wolf in a cage, and then said quite
softly: 'Colonel, I can't get up and strangle you; but my teeth are pretty
good; you had better take your throat a little further off.' He is as savage
as a wild-cat."
"I am not surprised to hear it," Montanelli answered quietly. "But I
came to ask you a question. Do you honestly believe that the presence of
Rivarez in the prison here constitutes a serious danger to the peace of the
district?"
"Most certainly I do, Your Eminence."
"You think that, to prevent the risk of bloodshed, it is absolutely
necessary that he should somehow be got rid of before Corpus Domini?"
"I can only repeat that if he is here on Thursday, I do not expect the
festival to pass over without a fight, and I think it likely to be a serious
one."
"And you think that if he were not here there would be no such danger?"
"In that case, there would either be no disturbance at all, or at most
a little shouting and stone-throwing. If Your Eminence can find some way of
getting rid of him, I will undertake that the peace shall be kept.
Otherwise, I expect most serious trouble. I am convinced that a new rescue
plot is on hand, and Thursday is the day when we may expect the attempt.
Now, if on that very morning they suddenly find that he is