CAMILLA.

'Thou kept'st me like a gem, to shine,

Careless that I of blood am made;

No longer be the end delay'd.

'Tis time to prove I have a heart—

Forth from these walls of mine depart!

The ghosts within them are disturb'd

Go forth, and let thy wrath be curb'd,

For I am strong: Camillo's truth

Has arm'd the visions of our youth.

Our union by the Head Supreme

Is blest: our severance was the dream.

We who have drunk of blood and tears,

Knew nothing of a mortal's fears.

Life is as Death until the strife

In our just cause makes Death as Life.'

ORSO

''Tis madness?'

LEONARDO.

'Is it madness?'

CAMILLA.

'Men!

'Tis Reason, but beyond your ken.

There lives a light that none can view

Whose thoughts are brutish:—seen by few,

The few have therefore light divine

Their visions are God's legions!—sign,

I give you; for we stand alone,

And you are frozen to the bone.

Your palsied hands refuse their swords.

A sharper edge is in my words,

A deadlier wound is in my cry.

Yea, tho' you slay us, do we die?

In forcing us to bear the worst,

You made of us Immortals first.

Away! and trouble not my sight.'

Chorus of Cavaliers: RUDOLFO, ROMUALDO, ARNOLDO, and others.

'She moves us with an angel's might.

What if his host outnumber ours!

'Tis heaven that gives victorious powers.'

[They draw their steel. ORSO, simulating gratitude for their

devotion to him, addresses them as to pacify their friendly ardour.]

MICHIELLA to LEONARDO (supplicating).

'Ever my friend I shall I appeal

In vain to see thy flashing steel?'

LEONARDO (finally resolved).

'Traitress! pray, rather, it may rest,

Or its first home will be thy breast.'

Chorus of Bridal Company.

'The flowers from bright Aurora's head

We pluck'd to strew a happy bed,

Shall they be dipp'd in blood ere night?

Woe to the nuptials! woe the sight!'

Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and the others, advance toward Camillo.

Michiella calls to them encouragingly that it were well for the deed to

be done by their hands. They bid Camillo to direct their lifted swords

upon his enemies. Leonardo joins them. Count Orso, after a burst of

upbraidings, accepts Camillo's offer of peace, and gives his bond to quit

the castle. Michiella, gazing savagely at Camilla, entreats her for an

utterance of her triumphant scorn. She assures Camilla that she knows

her feelings accurately.

'Now you think that I am overwhelmed; that I shall have a restless night,

and lie, after all my crying's over, with my hair spread out on my

pillow, on either side my face, like green moss of a withered waterfall:

you think you will bestow a little serpent of a gift from my stolen

treasures to comfort me. You will comfort me with a lock of Camillo's

hair, that I may have it on my breast to-night, and dream, and wail, and

writhe, and curse the air I breathe, and clasp the abominable emptiness

like a thousand Camillos. Speak!'

The dagger is seen gleaming up Michiella's wrist; she steps on in a bony

triangle, faced for mischief: a savage Hunnish woman, with the hair of a

Goddess—the figure of a cat taking to its forepaws. Close upon Camilla

she towers in her whole height, and crying thrice, swift as the assassin

trebles his blow, 'Speak,' to Camilla, who is fronting her mildly, she

raises her arm, and the stilet flashes into Camilla's bosom.

'Die then, and outrage me no more.'

Camilla staggers to her husband. Camillo receives her falling.

Michiella, seized by Leonardo, presents a stiffened shape of vengeance

with fierce white eyes and dagger aloft. There are many shouts, and

there is silence.

CAMILLA, supported by CAMILLO.

'If this is death, it is not hard to bear.

Your handkerchief drinks up my blood so fast

It seems to love it. Threads of my own hair

Are woven in it. 'Tis the one I cast

That midnight from my window, when you stood

Alone, and heaven seemed to love you so!

I did not think to wet it with my blood

When next I tossed it to my love below.'

CAMILLO (cherishing her).

'Camilla, pity! say you will not die.

Your voice is like a soul lost in the sky.'

CAMILLA.

'I know not if my soul has flown; I know

My body is a weight I cannot raise:

My voice between them issues, and

I go Upon a journey of uncounted days.

Forgetfulness is like a closing sea;

But you are very bright above me still.

My life I give as it was given to me

I enter on a darkness wide and chill.'

CAMILLO.

'O noble heart! a million fires consume

The hateful hand that sends you to your doom.'

CAMILLA.

'There is an end to joy: there is no end

To striving; therefore ever let us strive

In purity that shall the toil befriend,

And keep our poor mortality alive.

I hang upon the boundaries like light

Along the hills when downward goes the day

I feel the silent creeping up of night.

For you, my husband, lies a flaming way.'

CAMILLO.

'I lose your eyes: I lose your voice: 'tis faint.

Ah, Christ! see the fallen eyelids of a saint.'

CAMILLA.

'Our life is but a little holding, lent

To do a mighty labour: we are one

With heaven and the stars when it is spent

To serve God's aim: else die we with the sun.'

She sinks. Camillo droops his head above her.

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene. It was more like a

cathedral service than an operatic pageant. Agostino had done his best

to put the heart of the creed of his Chief into these last verses.

Rocco's music floated them in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been

careful to articulate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full

meaning should be taken.

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, followed by

one harmless verse of Camilla's adieux to them, and to her husband and

life, concluded the opera.

'Let her stop at that—it's enough!—and she shall be untouched,' said

General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles.

'I have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent song is

coming.'

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in flagrant disobedience

to orders. Rebuking his nephew with a frown, he commanded the lieutenant

to make his way round to the stage and see that the curtain was dropped

according to the printed book.

'Off, mon Dieu! off!' Pericles speeded him; adding in English, 'Shall she

taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.'

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation: the keynote being despair:

ordinary libretto verses.

Camilla's eyes unclose. She struggles to be lifted, and, raised on

Camillo's arm, she sings as if with the last pulsation of her voice,

softly resonant in its rich contralto. She pardons Michiella. She tells

Count Orso that when he has extinguished his appetite for dominion, he

will enjoy an unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours.

Repeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel by her

daughter's grave—not mournfully, but in beatitude—she utters her adieu

to all.

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in Vittoria's ear. She

looked up and beheld the downward curl of the curtain. There was

confusion at the wings: Croats were visible to the audience. Carlo

Ammiani and Luciano Romara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble

youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, and caught the

curtain descending. The whole house had risen insurgent with cries of

'Vittoria.' The curtain-ropes were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo,

Luciano, and their fellows held the curtain aloft at arm's length at each

side of her. She was seen, and she sang, and the house listened.

The Italians present, one and all, rose up reverently and murmured the

refrain. Many of the aristocracy would, doubtless, have preferred that

this public declaration of the plain enigma should not have rung forth to

carry them on the popular current; and some might have sympathized with

the insane grin which distorted the features of Antonio-Pericles, when he

beheld illusion wantonly destroyed, and the opera reduced to be a mere

vehicle for a fulmination of politics. But the general enthusiasm was

too tremendous to permit of individual protestations. To sit, when the

nation was standing, was to be a German. Nor, indeed, was there an

Italian in the house who would willingly have consented to see Vittoria

silenced, now that she had chosen to defy the Tedeschi from the boards of

La Scala. The fascination of her voice extended even over the German

division of the audience. They, with the Italians, said: 'Hear her!

hear her!' The curtain was agitated at the wings, but in the centre it

was kept above Vittoria's head by the uplifted arms of the twelve young

men:—

'I cannot count the years,

That you will drink, like me,

The cup of blood and tears,

Ere she to you appears:—

Italia, Italia shall be free!'

So the great name was out, and its enemies had heard it.

'You dedicate your lives

To her, and you will be

The food on which she thrives,

Till her great day arrives

Italia, Italia shall be free!

'She asks you but for faith!

Your faith in her takes she

As draughts of heaven's breath,

Amid defeat and death:—

Italia, Italia shall be free!'

The prima donna was not acting exhaustion when sinking lower in Montini's

arms. Her bosom rose and sank quickly, and she gave the terminating

verse:—

'I enter the black boat

Upon the wide grey sea,

Where all her set suns float;

Thence hear my voice remote

Italia, Italia shall be free!'

The curtain dropped.

CHAPTER XXII

WILFRID COMES FORWARD

An order for the immediate arrest of Vittoria was brought round to the

stage at the fall of the curtain by Captain Weisspriess, and delivered by

him on the stage to the officer commanding, a pothered lieutenant of

Croats, whose first proceeding was dictated by the military instinct to

get his men in line, and who was utterly devoid of any subsequent idea.

The thunder of the house on the other side of the curtain was enough to

disconcert a youngster such as he was; nor have the subalterns of Croat

regiments a very signal reputation for efficiency in the Austrian

Service. Vittoria stood among her supporters apart; pale, and 'only very

thirsty,' as she told the enthusiastic youths who pressed near her, and

implored her to have no fear. Carlo was on her right hand; Luciano on

her left. They kept her from going off to her room. Montini was

despatched to fetch her maid Giacinta with cloak and hood for her

mistress. The young lieutenant of Croats drew his sword, but hesitated.

Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and Major de Pyrmont were at one wing, between the

Italian gentlemen and the soldiery. The operatic company had fallen into

the background, or stood crowding the side places of exit. Vittoria's

name was being shouted with that angry, sea-like, horrid monotony of

iteration which is more suggestive of menacing impatience and the

positive will of the people, than varied, sharp, imperative calls.

The people had got the lion in their throats. One shriek from her would

bring them, like a torrent, on the boards, as the officers well knew; and

every second's delay in executing the orders of the General added to the

difficulty of their position. The lieutenant of Croats strode up to

Weisspriess and Wilfrid, who were discussing a plan of action vehemently;

while, amid hubbub and argument, De Pyrmont studied Vittoria's features

through his opera-glass, with an admirable simple languor.

Wilfrid turned back to him, and De Pyrmont, without altering the level of

his glass, said, 'She's as cool as a lemon-ice. That girl will be a

mother of heroes. To have volcanic fire and the mastery of her nerves at

the same time, is something prodigious. She is magnificent. Take a peep

at her. I suspect that the rascal at her right is seizing his occasion

to plant a trifle or so in her memory—the animal! It's just the moment,

and he knows it.'

De Pyrmont looked at Wilfrid's face.

'Have I hit you anywhere accidentally?' he asked, for the face had grown

dead-white.

'Be my friend, for heaven's sake!' was the choking answer. 'Save her!

Get her away ! She is an old acquaintance of mine—of mine, in England.

Do; or I shall have to break my sword.'

'You know her? and you don't go over to her?' said De Pyrmont.

'I—yes, she knows me.'

'Then, why not present yourself?'

'Get her away. Talk Weisspriess down. He is for seizing her at all

hazards. It 's madness to provoke a conflict. Just listen to the house!

I may be broken, but save her I will. De Pyrmont, on my honour, I will

stand by you for ever if you will help me to get her away.'

'To suggest my need in the hour of your own is not a bad notion,' said

the cool Frenchman. 'What plan have you?'

Wilfrid struck his forehead miserably.

'Stop Lieutenant Zettlisch. Don't let him go up to her. Don't—'

De Pyrmont beheld in astonishment that a speechlessness such as affects

condemned wretches in the supreme last minutes of existence had come upon

the Englishman.

'I'm afraid yours is a bad case,' he said; 'and the worst of it is, it's

just the case women have no compassion for. Here comes a parlementaire

from the opposite camp. Let's hear him.'

It was Luciano Romara. He stood before them to request that the curtain

should be raised. The officers debated together, and deemed it prudent

to yield consent.

Luciano stipulated further that the soldiers were to be withdrawn.

'On one wing, or on both wings?' said Captain Weisspriess, twinkling eyes

oblique.

'Out of the house,' said Luciano.

The officers laughed.

'You must confess,' said De Pyrmont, affably, 'that though the drum does

issue command to the horse, it scarcely thinks of doing so after a rent

in the skin has shown its emptiness. Can you suppose that we are likely

to run when we see you empty-handed? These things are matters of

calculation.'

'It is for you to calculate correctly,' said Luciano.

As he spoke, a first surge of the exasperated house broke upon the stage

and smote the curtain, which burst into white zigzags, as it were a

breast stricken with panic.

Giacinta came running in to her mistress, and cloaked and hooded her

hurriedly.

Enamoured; impassioned, Ammiani murmured in Vittoria's ear:

'My own soul!'

She replied: 'My lover!'

So their first love-speech was interchanged with Italian simplicity, and

made a divine circle about them in the storm.

Luciano returned to his party to inform them that they held the key of

the emergency.

'Stick fast,' he said. 'None of you move. Whoever takes the first step

takes the false step; I see that.'

'We have no arms, Luciano.'

'We have the people behind us.'

There was a fiercer tempest in the body of the house, and, on a sudden,

silence. Men who had invaded the stage joined the Italian guard

surrounding Vittoria, telling that the lights had been extinguished; and

then came the muffled uproar of universal confusion. Some were for

handing her down into the orchestra, and getting her out through the

general vomitorium, but Carlo and Luciano held her firmly by them. The

theatre was a rageing darkness; and there was barely a light on the

stage. 'Santa Maria!' cried Giacinta, 'how dreadful that steel does look

in the dark! I wish our sweet boys would cry louder.' Her mistress,

almost laughing, bade her keep close, and be still. 'Oh! this must be

like being at sea,' the poor creature whined, stopping her ears and

shutting her eyes. Vittoria was in a thick gathering of her defenders;

she could just hear that a parley was going on between Luciano and the

Austrians. Luciano made his way back to her. 'Quick!' he said; 'nothing

cows a mob like darkness. One of these officers tells me he knows you,

and gives his word of honour—he's an Englishman—to conduct you out:

come.'

Vittoria placed her hands in Carlo's one instant. Luciano cleared a

space for them. She heard a low English voice.

'You do not recognize me? There is no time to lose. You had another

name once, and I have had the honour to call you by it.'

'Are you an Austrian?' she exclaimed, and Carlo felt that she was

shrinking back.

'I am the Wilfrid Pole whom you knew. You are entrusted to my charge;

I have sworn to conduct you to the doors in safety, whatever it may cost

me.'

Vittoria looked at him mournfully. Her eyes filled with tears. 'The

night is spoiled for me!' she murmured.

'Emilia!'

'That is not my name.'

'I know you by no other. Have mercy on me. I would do anything in the

world to serve you.'

Major de Pyrmont came up to him and touched his arm. He said briefly:

'We shall have a collision, to a certainty, unless the people hear from

one of her set that she is out of the house.'

Wilfrid requested her to confide her hand to him.

'My hand is engaged,' she said.

Bowing ceremoniously, Wilfrid passed on, and Vittoria, with Carlo and

Luciano and her maid Giacinta, followed between files of bayonets through

the dusky passages, and downstairs into the night air.

Vittoria spoke in Carlo's ear: 'I have been unkind to him. I had a great

affection for him in England.'

'Thank him; thank him,' said Carlo.

She quitted her lover's side and went up to Wilfrid with a shyly extended

hand. A carriage was drawn up by the kerbstone; the doors of it were

open. She had barely made a word intelligible; when Major de Pyrmont

pointed to some officers approaching. 'Get her out of the way while

there's time,' he said in French to Luciano. 'This is her carriage.

Swiftly, gentlemen, or she's lost.'

Giacinta read his meaning by signs, and caught her mistress by the

sleeve, using force. She and Major de Pyrmont placed Vittoria,

bewildered, in the carriage; De Pyrmont shut the door, and signalled to

the coachman. Vittoria thrust her head out for a last look at her lover,

and beheld him with the arms of dark-clothed men upon him. La Scala was

pouring forth its occupants in struggling roaring shoals from every door.

Her outcry returned to her deadened in the rapid rolling of the carriage

across the lighted Piazza. Giacinta had to hold her down with all her

might. Great clamour was for one moment heard by them, and then a

rushing voicelessness. Giacinta screamed to the coachman till she was

exhausted. Vittoria sank shuddering on the lap of her maid, hiding her

face that she might plunge out of recollection.

The lightnings shot across her brain, but wrote no legible thing; the

scenes of the opera lost their outlines as in a white heat of fire. She

tried to weep, and vainly asked her heart for tears, that this dry

dreadful blind misery of mere sensation might be washed out of her, and

leave her mind clear to grapple with evil; and then, as the lurid breaks

come in a storm-driven night sky, she had the picture of her lover in the

hands of enemies, and of Wilfrid in the white uniform; the torment of her

living passion, the mockery of her passion by-gone. Recollection, when

it came back, overwhelmed her; she swayed from recollection to oblivion,

and was like a caged wild thing. Giacinta had to be as a mother with

her. The poor trembling girl, who had begun to perceive that the

carriage was bearing them to some unknown destination, tore open the

bands of her corset and drew her mistress's head against the full warmth

of her bosom, rocked her, and moaned over her, mixing comfort and

lamentation in one offering, and so contrived to draw the tears out from

her, a storm of tears; not fitfully hysterical, but tears that poured a

black veil over the eyeballs, and fell steadily streaming. Once subdued

by the weakness, Vittoria's nature melted; she shook piteously with

weeping; she remembered Laura's words, and thought of what she had done,

in terror and remorse, and tried to ask if the people would be fighting

now, but could not. Laura seemed to stand before her like a Fury

stretching her finger at the dear brave men whom she had hurled upon the

bayonets and the guns. It was an unendurable anguish. Giacinta was

compelled to let her cry, and had to reflect upon their present situation

unaided. They had passed the city gates. Voices on the coachman's box

had given German pass-words. She would have screamed then had not the

carriage seemed to her a sanctuary from such creatures as foreign

soldiers, whitecoats; so she cowered on. They were in the starry open

country, on the high-road between the vine-hung mulberry trees. She held

the precious head of her mistress, praying the Saints that strength

would soon come to her to talk of their plight, or chatter a little

comfortingly at least; and but for the singular sweetness which it

shot thrilling to her woman's heart, she would have been fretted when

Vittoria, after one long-drawn wavering sob, turned her lips to the bared

warm breast, and put a little kiss upon it, and slept.

CHAPTER XXIII

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT

Vittoria slept on like an outworn child, while Giacinta nodded over her,

and started, and wondered what embowelled mountain they might be passing

through, so cold was the air and thick the darkness; and wondered more at

the old face of dawn, which appeared to know nothing of her agitation.

But morning was better than night, and she ceased counting over her sins

forward and backward; adding comments on them, excusing some and

admitting the turpitude of others, with 'Oh! I was naughty, padre mio!

I was naughty—she huddled them all into one of memory's spare sacks, and

tied the neck of it, that they should keep safe for her father-confessor.

At such times, after a tumult of the blood, women have tender delight in

one another's beauty. Giacinta doted on the marble cheek, upturned on

her lap, with the black unbound locks slipping across it; the braid of

the coronal of hair loosening; the chance flitting movement of the pearly

little dimple that lay at the edge of the bow of the joined lips, like

the cradling hollow of a dream. At whiles it would twitch; yet the dear

eyelids continued sealed.

Looking at shut eyelids when you love the eyes beneath, is more or less a

teazing mystery that draws down your mouth to kiss them. Their lashes

seem to answer you in some way with infantine provocation; and fine

eyelashes upon a face bent sideways, suggest a kind of internal smiling.

Giacinta looked till she could bear it no longer; she kissed the cheek,

and crooned over it, gladdened by a sense of jealous possession when she

thought of the adored thing her mistress had been overnight. One of her

hugs awoke Vittoria, who said, 'Shut my window, mother,' and slept again

fast. Giacinta saw that they were nearer to the mountains. Mountain-

shadows were thrown out, and long lank shadows of cypresses that climbed

up reddish-yellow undulations, told of the sun coming. The sun threw a

blaze of light into the carriage. He shone like a good friend, and

helped Giacinta think, as she had already been disposed to imagine, that

the machinery by which they had been caught out of Milan was amicable

magic after all, and not to be screamed at. The sound medicine of sleep

and sunlight was restoring livelier colour to her mistress. Giacinta

hushed her now, but Vittoria's eyes opened, and settled on her, full of

repose.

'What are you thinking about?' she asked.

'Signorina, my own, I was thinking whether those people I see on the

hill-sides are as fond of coffee as I am.'

Vittoria sat up and tumbled questions out headlong, pressing her eyes and

gathering her senses; she shook with a few convulsions, but shed no

tears. It was rather the discomfort of their position than any vestige

of alarm which prompted Giacinta to project her head and interrogate the

coachman and chasseur. She drew back, saying, 'Holy Virgin! they are

Germans. We are to stop in half-an-hour.' With that she put her hands

to use in arranging and smoothing Vittoria's hair and dress—the dress of

Camilla—of which triumphant heroine Vittoria felt herself an odd little

ghost now. She changed her seat that she might look back on Milan. A

letter was spied fastened with a pin to one of the cushions. She opened

it, and read in pencil writing:

'Go quietly. You have done all that you could do for good or for ill.

The carriage will take you to a safe place, where you will soon see your

friends and hear the news. Wait till you reach Meran. You will see a

friend from England. Avoid the lion's jaw a second time. Here you

compromise everybody. Submit, or your friends will take you for a mad

girl. Be satisfied. It is an Austrian who rescues you. Think yourself

no longer appointed to put match to powder. Drown yourself if a second

frenzy comes. I feel I could still love your body if the obstinate soul

were out of it. You know who it is that writes. I might sign

"Michiella" to this: I have a sympathy with her anger at the provoking

Camilla. Addio! From La Scala.'

The lines read as if Laura were uttering them. Wrapping her cloak across

the silken opera garb, Vittoria leaned back passively until the carriage

stopped at a village inn, where Giacinta made speedy arrangements to

satisfy as far as possible her mistress's queer predilection for bathing

her whole person daily in cold water. The household service of the inn

recovered from the effort to assist her sufficiently to produce hot

coffee and sweet bread, and new green-streaked stracchino, the cheese of

the district, which was the morning meal of the fugitives. Giacinta, who

had never been so thirsty in her life, became intemperately refreshed,

and was seized by the fatal desire to do something: to do what she could

not tell; but chancing to see that her mistress had silken slippers on

her feet, she protested loudly that stouter foot-gear should be obtained

for her, and ran out to circulate inquiries concerning a shoemaker who

might have a pair of country overshoes for sale. She returned to say

that the coachman and his comrade, the German chasseur, were drinking and

watering their horses, and were not going to start until after a rest of

two hours, and that she proposed to walk to a small Bergamasc town within

a couple of miles of the village, where the shoes could be obtained, and

perhaps a stuff to replace the silken dress. Receiving consent, Giacinta

whispered, 'A man outside wishes to speak to you, signorina. Don't be

frightened. He pounced on me at the end of the village, and had as

little breath to speak as a boy in love. He was behind us all last night

on the carriage. He mentioned you by name. He is quite commonly

dressed, but he's a gallant gentleman, and exactly like our Signor Carlo.

My dearest lady, he'll be company for you while I am absent. May I

beckon him to come into the room?'

Vittoria supposed at once that this was a smoothing of the way for the

entrance of her lover and her joy. She stood up, letting all her

strength go that he might the more justly take her and cherish her. But

it was not Carlo who entered. So dead fell her broken hope that her face

was repellent with the effort she made to support herself. He said, 'I

address the Signorina Vittoria. I am a relative of Countess Ammiani. My

name is Angelo Guidascarpi. Last night I was evading the sbirri in this

disguise by the private door of La Scala, from which I expected Carlo to

come forth. I saw him seized in mistake for me. I jumped up on the

empty box-seat behind your carriage. Before we entered the village I let

myself down. If I am seen and recognized, I am lost, and great evil will

befall Countess Ammiani and her son; but if they are unable to confront

Carlo and me, my escape ensures his safety!

'What can I do?' said Vittoria.

He replied, 'Shall I answer you by telling you what I have done?'

'You need not, signore!

'Enough that I want to keep a sword fresh for my country. I am at your

mercy, signorina; and I am without anxiety. I heard the chasseur saying

at the door of La Scala that he had the night-pass for the city gates and

orders for the Tyrol. Once in Tyrol I leap into Switzerland. I should

have remained in Milan, but nothing will be done there yet, and quiet

cities are not homes for me.'

Vittoria began to admit the existence of his likeness to her lover,

though it seemed to her a guilty weakness that she should see it.

'Will nothing be done in Milan?' was her first eager question.

'Nothing, signorina, or I should be there, and safe!'

'What, signore, do you require me to help you in?'

'Say that I am your servant.'

'And take you with me?'

'Such is my petition.'

'Is the case very urgent?'

'Hardly more, as regards myself, than a sword lost to Italy if I am

discovered. But, signorina, from what Countess Ammiani has told me,

I believe that you will some day be my relative likewise. Therefore I

appeal not only to a charitable lady, but to one of my own family.'

Vittoria reddened. 'All that I can do I will do.'

Angelo had to assure her that Carlo's release was certain the moment his

identity was established. She breathed gladly, saying, 'I wonder at it

all very much. I do not know where they are carrying me, but I think I

am in friendly hands. I owe you a duty. You will permit me to call you

Beppo till our journey ends.'

They were attracted to the windows by a noise of a horseman drawing rein

under it, whose imperious shout for the innkeeper betrayed the soldier's

habit of exacting prompt obedience from civilians, though there was no

military character in his attire. The innkeeper and his wife came out to

the summons, and then both made way for the chasseur in attendance on

Vittoria. With this man the cavalier conversed.

'Have you had food?' said Vittoria. 'I have some money that will serve

for both of us three days. Go, and eat and drink. Pay for us both.'

She gave him her purse. He received it with a grave servitorial bow, and

retired.

Soon after the chasseur brought up a message. Herr Johannes requested

that he might have the honour of presenting his homage to her: it was

imperative that he should see her. She nodded. Her first glance at Herr

Johannes assured her of his being one of the officers whom she had seen

on the stage last night, and she prepared to act her part. Herr Johannes

desired her to recall to mind his introduction to her by the Signor

Antonio-Pericles at the house of the maestro Rocco Ricci. 'It is true;

pardon me,' said Vittoria.

He informed her that she had surpassed herself at the opera; so much so

that he and many other Germans had been completely conquered by her.

Hearing, he said, that she was to be pursued, he took horse and galloped

all night on the road toward Schloss Sonnenberg, whither, as it had been

whispered to him, she was flying, in order to counsel her to lie 'perdu'

for a short space, and subsequently to conduct her to the schloss of the

amiable duchess. Vittoria thanked him, but stated humbly that she

preferred to travel alone. He declared that it was impossible: that she

was precious to the world of Art, and must on no account be allowed to

run into peril. Vittoria tried to assert her will; she found it

unstrung. She thought besides that this disguised officer, with the ill-

looking eyes running into one, might easily, since he had heard her, be a

devotee of her voice; and it flattered her yet more to imagine him as a

capture from the enemy—a vanquished subservient Austrian. She had seen

him come on horseback; he had evidently followed her; and he knew what

she now understood must be her destination.

Moreover, Laura had underlined 'it is an Austrian who rescues you.' This

man perchance was the Austrian. His precise manner of speech demanded an

extreme repugnance, if it was to be resisted; Vittoria's reliance upon

her own natural fortitude was much too secure for her to encourage the

physical revulsions which certain hard faces of men create in the hearts

of young women.

'Was all quiet in Milan?' she asked.

'Quiet as a pillow,' he said.

'And will continue to be?'

'Not a doubt of it.'

'Why is there not a doubt of it, signore?'

'You beat us Germans on one field. On the other you have no chance. But

you must lose no time. The Croats are on your track. I have ordered out

the carriage.'

The mention of the Croats struck her fugitive senses with a panic.

'I must wait for my maid,' she said, attempting to deliberate.

'Ha! you have a maid: of course you have! Where is your maid?'

'She ought to have returned by this time. If not, she is on the road.'

'On the road? Good; we will pick up the maid on the road. We have not a

minute to spare. Lady, I am your obsequious servant. Hasten out, I beg

of you. I was taught at my school that minutes are not to be wasted.

Those Croats have been drinking and what not on the way, or they would

have been here before this. You can't rely on Italian innkeepers to

conceal you.'

'Signore, are you a man of honour?'

'Illustrious lady, I am.'

She listened simply to the response without giving heed to the

prodigality of gesture. The necessity for flight now that Milan was

announced as lying quiet, had become her sole thought. Angelo was

standing by the carriage.

'What man is this?' said Herr Johannes, frowning.

'He is my servant,' said Vittoria.

'My dear good lady, you told me your servant was a maid. This will never

do. We can't have him.'

'Excuse me, signore, I never travel without him.'

'Travel! This is not a case of travelling, but running; and when you

run, if you are in earnest about it, you must fling away your baggage and

arms.'

Herr Johannes tossed out his moustache to right and left, and stamped his

foot. He insisted that the man should be left behind.

'Off, sir! back to Milan, or elsewhere,' he cried.

'Beppo, mount on the box,' said Vittoria.

Her command was instantly obeyed. Herr Johannes looked her in the face.

'You are very decided, my dear lady.' He seemed to have lost his own

decision, but handing Vittoria in, he drew a long cigar from his

breastpocket, lit it, and mounted beside the coachman. The chasseur had

disappeared.

Vittoria entreated that a general look-out should be kept for Giacinta.

The road was straight up an ascent, and she had no fear that her maid

would not be seen. Presently there was a view of the violet domes of a

city. 'Is it Bergamo?—is it Brescia?' she longed to ask, thinking of

her Bergamasc and Brescian friends, and of those two places famous for

the bravery of their sons: one being especially dear to her, as the

birthplace of a genius of melody, whose blood was in her veins. 'Did he

look on these mulberry trees?—did he look on these green-grassed

valleys?—did he hear these falling waters?' she asked herself, and

closed her spirit with reverential thoughts of him and with his music.

She saw sadly that they were turning from the city. A little ball of

paper was shot into her lap. She opened it and read: 'An officer of the

cavalry.—Beppo.' She put her hand out of the window to signify that she

was awake to the situation. Her anxiety, however, began to fret. No

sight of Giacinta was to be had in any direction. Her mistress commenced

chiding the absent garrulous creature, and did so until she pitied her,

when she accused herself of cowardice, for she was incapable of calling

out to the coachman to stop. The rapid motion subdued such energy as

remained to her, and she willingly allowed her hurried feelings to rest

on the faces of rocks impending over long ravines, and of perched old

castles and white villas and sub-Alpine herds. She burst from the

fascination as from a dream, but only to fall into it again, reproaching

her weakness, and saying, 'What a thing am I!' When she did make her

voice heard by Herr Johannes and the coachman, she was nervous and

ashamed, and met the equivocating pacification of the reply with an

assent half-way, though she was far from comprehending the consolation

she supposed that it was meant to convey. She put out her hand to

communicate with Beppo. Another ball of pencilled writing answered to

it. She read: 'Keep watch on this Austrian. Your maid is two hours in

the rear. Refuse to be separated from me. My life is at your service.

—Beppo.'

Vittoria made her final effort to get a resolve of some sort; ending it

with a compassionate exclamation over poor Giacinta. The girl could soon

find her way back to Milan. On the other hand, the farther from Milan,

the less the danger to Carlo's relative, in whom she now perceived a

stronger likeness to her lover. She sank back in the carriage and closed

her eyes. Though she smiled at the vanity of forcing sleep in this way,

sleep came. Her healthy frame seized its natural medicine to rebuild her

after the fever of recent days.

She slept till the rocks were purple, and rose-purple mists were in the

valleys. The stopping of the carriage aroused her. They were at the

threshold of a large wayside hostelry, fronting a slope of forest and a

plunging brook. Whitecoats in all attitudes leaned about the door; she

beheld the inner court full of them. Herr Johannes was ready to hand her

to the ground. He said: 'You have nothing to fear. These fellows are on

the march to Cremona. Perhaps it will be better if you are served up in

your chamber. You will be called early in the morning.'

She thanked him, and felt grateful. 'Beppo, look to yourself,' she said,

and ran to her retirement.

'I fancy that 's about all that you are fit for,' Herr Johannes remarked,

with his eyes on the impersonator of Beppo, who bore the scrutiny

carelessly, and after seeing that Vittoria had left nothing on the

carriage-seats, directed his steps to the kitchen, as became his

functions. Herr Johannes beckoned to a Tyrolese maid-servant, of whom

Beppo had asked his way. She gave her name as Katchen.

'Katchen, Katchen, my sweet chuck,' said Herr Johannes, 'here are ten

florins for you, in silver, if you will get me the handkerchief of that

man: you have just stretched your finger out for him.'

According to the common Austrian reckoning of them, Herr Johannes had

adopted the right method for ensuring the devotion of the maidens of

Tyrol. She responded with an amazed gulp of her mouth and a grimace of

acquiescence. Ten florins in silver shortened the migratory term of the

mountain girl by full three months. Herr Johannes asked her the hour

when the officers in command had supper, and deferred his own meal till

that time. Katchen set about earning her money. With any common Beppo

it would have been easy enough—simple barter for a harmless kiss. But

this Beppo appeared inaccessible; he was so courtly and so reserved; nor

is a maiden of Tyrol a particularly skilled seductress. The supper of

the officers was smoking on the table when Herr Johannes presented

himself among them, and very soon the inn was shaken with an uproar of

greeting. Katchen found Beppo listening at the door of the salle. She

clapped her hands upon him to drag him away.

'What right have you to be leaning your head there?' she said, and

threatened to make his proceedings known. Beppo had no jewel to give,

little money to spare. He had just heard Herr Johannes welcomed among

the officers by a name that half paralyzed him. 'You shall have anything

you ask of me if you will find me out in a couple of hours,' he said.

Katchen nodded truce for that period, and saw her home in the Oberinnthal

still nearer—twelve mountain goats and a cow her undisputed property.

She found him out, though he had strayed through the court of the inn,

and down a hanging garden to the borders of a torrent that drenched the

air and sounded awfully in the dark ravine below. He embraced her very

mildly. 'One scream and you go,' he said; she felt the saving hold of

her feet plucked from her, with all the sinking horror, and bit her under

lip, as if keeping in the scream with bare stitches. When he released

her she was perfectly mastered. 'You do play tricks,' she said, and

quaked.

'I play no tricks. Tell me at what hour these soldiers march.'

'At two in the morning.'

'Don't be afraid, silly child: you're safe if you obey me. At what time

has our carriage been ordered?'

'At four.'

'Now swear to do this:—rouse my mistress at a quarter past two: bring

her down to me.'

'Yes, yes,' said Kitchen, eagerly: 'give me your handkerchief, and she

will follow me. I do swear; that I do; by big St. Christopher! who's

painted on the walls of our house at home.'

Beppo handed her sweet silver, which played a lively tune for her

temporarily—vanished cow and goats. Peering at her features in the

starlight, he let her take the handkerchief from his pocket.

'Oh! what have you got in there?' she said.

He laid his finger across her mouth, bidding her return to the house.

'Dear heaven!' Katchen went in murmuring; 'would I have gone out to that

soft-looking young man if I had known he was a devil.'

Angelo Guidascarpi was aware that an officer without responsibility never

sleeps faster than when his brothers-in-arms have to be obedient to the

reveillee. At two in the morning the bugle rang out: many lighted cigars

were flashing among the dark passages of the inn; the whitecoats were

disposed in marching order; hot coffee was hastily swallowed; the last

stragglers from the stables, the outhouses, the court, and the straw beds

under roofs of rock, had gathered to the main body. The march set

forward. A pair of officers sent a shout up to the drowsy windows, 'Good

luck to you, Weisspriess!' Angelo descended from the concealment of the

opposite trees, where he had stationed himself to watch the departure.

The inn was like a sleeper who has turned over. He made Katchen bring

him bread and slices of meat and a flask of wine, which things found a

place in his pockets: and paying for his mistress and himself, he awaited

Vittoria's foot on the stairs. When Vittoria came she asked no

questions, but said to Katchen, 'You may kiss me'; and Kitchen began

crying; she believed that they were lovers daring everything for love.

'You have a clear start of an hour and a half. Leave the high-road then,

and turn left through the forest and ask for Bormio. If you reach Tyrol,

and come to Silz, tell people that you know Katchen Giesslinger, and they

will be kind to you.'

So saying, she let them out into the black-eyed starlight.

CHAPTER XXIV

ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO

Nothing was distinguishable for the flying couple save the high-road

winding under rock and forest, and here and there a coursing water in the

depths of the ravines, that showed like a vein in black marble. They

walked swiftly, keeping brisk ears for sound of hoof or foot behind them.

Angelo promised her that she should rest after the morning light had

come; but she assured him that she could bear fatigue, and her firm

cheerfulness lent his heart vigour. At times they were hooded with the

darkness, which came on them as if, as benighted children fancy, their

faces were about to meet the shaggy breast of the forest. Rising up to

lighter air, they had sight of distant twinklings: it might be city, or

autumn weed, or fires of the woodmen, or beacon fires: they glimmered

like eyelets to the mystery of the vast unseen land. Innumerable brooks

went talking to the night: torrents in seasons of rain, childish voices

now, with endless involutions of a song of three notes and a sort of

unnoted clanging chorus, as if a little one sang and would sing on

through the thumping of a tambourine and bells. Vittoria had these

fancies: Angelo had none. He walked like a hunted man whose life is at

stake.

'If we reach a village soon we may get some conveyance,' he said.

'I would rather walk than drive,' said Vittoria; 'it keeps me from

thinking!

'There is the dawn, signorina!

Vittoria frightened him by taking a seat upon a bench of rock; while it

was still dark about them, she drew off Camilla's silken shoes and

stockings, and stood on bare feet.

'You fancied I was tired,' she said. 'No, I am thrifty; and I want to

save as much of my finery as I can. I can go very well on naked feet.

These shoes are no protection; they would be worn out in half-a-day, and

spoilt for decent wearing in another hour.'

The sight of fair feet upon hard earth troubled Angelo; he excused

himself for calling her out to endure hardship; but she said, 'I trust

you entirely.' She looked up at the first thin wave of colour while

walking.

'You do not know me,' said he.

'You are the Countess Ammiani's nephew.'

'I have, as I had the honour to tell you yesterday, the blood of your

lover in my veins.'

'Do not speak of him now, I pray,' said Vittoria; 'I want my strength!

'Signorina, the man we have left behind us is his enemy;—mine. I would

rather see you dead than alive in his hands. Do you fear death?'

'Sometimes; when I am half awake,' she confessed. 'I dislike thinking of

it.'

He asked her curiously: 'Have you never seen it?'

'Death?' said she, and changed a shudder to a smile; 'I died last night.'

Angelo smiled with her. 'I saw you die!

'It seems a hundred years ago.'

'Or half-a-dozen minutes. The heart counts everything'

'Was I very much liked by the people, Signor Angelo?'

'They love you.'

'I have done them no good.'

'Every possible good. And now, mine is the duty to protect you.'

'And yesterday we were strangers! Signor Angelo, you spoke of sbirri.

There is no rising in Bologna. Why are they after you? You look too

gentle to give them cause.'

'Do I look gentle? But what I carry is no burden. Who that saw you last

night would know you for Camilla? You will hear of my deeds, and judge.

We shall soon have men upon the road; you must be hidden. See, there:

there are our colours in the sky. Austria cannot wipe them out. Since I

was a boy I have always slept in a bed facing East, to keep that truth

before my eyes. Black and yellow drop to the earth: green, white, and

red mount to heaven. If more of my countrymen saw these meanings!—but

they are learning to. My tutor called them Germanisms. If so, I have

stolen a jewel from my enemy.'

Vittoria mentioned the Chief.

'Yes,' said Angelo; 'he has taught us to read God's handwriting. I

revere him. It's odd; I always fancy I hear his voice from a dungeon,

and seeing him looking at one light. He has a fault: he does not

comprehend the feelings of a nobleman. Do you think he has made a

convert of our Carlo in that? Never! High blood is ineradicable.'

'I am not of high blood,' said Vittoria.

'Countess Ammiani overlooks it. And besides, low blood may be elevated

without the intervention of a miracle. You have a noble heart,

signorina. It may be the will of God that you should perpetuate our

race. All of us save Carlo Ammiani seem to be falling.'

Vittoria bent her head, distressed by a broad beam of sunlight. The

country undulating to the plain lay under them, the great Alps above, and

much covert on all sides. They entered a forest pathway, following

chance for safety. The dark leafage and low green roofing tasted sweeter

to their senses than clear air and sky. Dark woods are home to

fugitives, and here there was soft footing, a surrounding gentleness,—

grass, and moss with dead leaves peacefully flat on it. The birds were

not timorous, and when a lizard or a snake slipped away from her feet, it

was amusing to Vittoria and did not hurt her tenderness to see that they

were feared. Threading on beneath the trees, they wound by a valley's

incline, where tumbled stones blocked the course of a green water, and

filled the lonely place with one onward voice. When the sun stood over

the valley they sat beneath a chestnut tree in a semicircle of orange

rock to eat the food which Angelo had procured at the inn. He poured out

wine for her in the hollow of a stone, deep as an egg-shell, whereat she

sipped, smiling at simple contrivances; but no smile crossed the face of

Angelo. He ate and drank to sustain his strength, as a weapon is

sharpened; and having done, he gathered up what was left, and lay at her

feet with his eyes fixed upon an old grey stone. She, too, sat brooding.

The endless babble and noise of the water had hardened the sense of its

being a life in that solitude. The floating of a hawk overhead scarce

had the character of an animated thing. Angelo turned round to look at

her, and looking upward as he lay, his sight was smitten by spots of

blood upon one of her torn white feet, that was but half-nestled in the

folds of her dress. Bending his head down, like a bird beaking at prey,

he kissed the foot passionately. Vittoria's eyelids ran up; a chord

seemed to snap within her ears: she stole the shamed foot into

concealment, and throbbed, but not fearfully, for Angelo's forehead was

on the earth. Clumps of grass, and sharp flint-dust stuck between his

fists, which were thrust out stiff on either side of him. She heard him

groan heavily. When he raised his face, it was white as madness. Her

womanly nature did not shrink from caressing it with a touch of soothing

hands.

She chanced to say, 'I am your sister.'

'No, by God! you are not my sister,' cried the young man. 'She died

without a stain of blood; a lily from head to foot, and went into the

vault so. Our mother will see that. She will kiss the girl in heaven

and see that.' He rose, crying louder: 'Are there echoes here?' But his

voice beat against the rocks undoubted.

She saw that a frenzy had seized him. He looked with eyes drained of

human objects; standing square, with stiff half-dropped arms, and an

intense melody of wretchedness in his voice.

'Rinaldo, Rinaldo!' he shouted: 'Clelia!—no answer from man or ghost.

She is dead. We two said to her die! and she died. Therefore she is

silent, for the dead have not a word. Oh! Milan, Milan! accursed

betraying city! I should have found my work in you if you had kept

faith. Now here am I, talking to the strangled throat of this place, and

can get no answer. Where am I? The world is hollow: the miserable

shell! They lied. Battle and slaughter they promised me, and enemies

like ripe maize for the reaping-hook. I would have had them in thick to

my hands. I would have washed my hands at night, and eaten and drunk and

slept, and sung again to work in the morning. They promised me a sword

and a sea to plunge it in, and our mother Italy to bless me. I would

have toiled: I would have done good in my life. I would have bathed my

soul in our colours. I would have had our flag about my body for a

winding-sheet, and the fighting angels of God to unroll me. Now here am

I, and my own pale mother trying at every turn to get in front of me.

Have her away! It's a ghost, I know. She will be touching the strength

out of me. She is not the mother I love and I serve. Go: cherish your

daughter, you dead woman!'

Angelo reeled. 'A spot of blood has sent me mad,' he said, and caught

for a darkness to cross his sight, and fell and lay flat.

Vittoria looked around her; her courage was needed in that long silence.

She adopted his language: 'Our mother Italy is waiting for us. We must

travel on, and not be weary. Angelo, my friend, lend me your help over

these stones.'

He rose quietly. She laid her elbow on his hand; thus supported she left

a place that seemed to shudder. All the heavy day they walked almost

silently; she not daring to probe his anguish with a question; and he

calm and vacant as the hour following thunder. But, of her safety by his

side she had no longer a doubt. She let him gather weeds and grasses,

and bind them across her feet, and perform friendly services, sure that

nothing earthly could cause such a mental tempest to recur. The

considerate observation which at all seasons belongs to true courage

told her that it was not madness afflicting Angelo.

Near nightfall they came upon a forester's hut, where they were welcomed

by an old man and a little girl, who gave them milk and black bread, and

straw to rest on. Angelo slept in the outer air. When Vittoria awoke

she had the fancy that she had taken one long dive downward in a well;

and on touching the bottom found her head above the surface. While her

surprise was wearing off, she beheld the woodman's little girl at her

feet holding up one end of her cloak, and peeping underneath, overcome by

amazement at the flashing richness of the dress of the heroine Camilla.

Entering into the state of her mind spontaneously, Vittoria sought to

induce the child to kiss her; but quite vainly. The child's reverence

for the dress allowed her only to be within reach of the hem of it, so as

to delight her curiosity. Vittoria smiled when, as she sat up, the child

fell back against the wall; and as she rose to her feet, the child

scampered from the room. 'My poor Camilla! you can charm somebody,

yet,' she said, limping; her visage like a broken water with the pain of

her feet. 'If the bell rings for Camilla now, what sort of an entry will

she make?' Vittoria treated her physical weakness and ailments with this

spirit of humour. 'They may say that Michiella has bewitched you, my

Camilla. I think your voice would sound as if it were dragging its feet

after it just as a stork flies. O my Camilla! don't I wish I could do

the same, and be ungraceful and at ease! A moan is married to every note

of your treble, my Camilla, like December and May. Keep me from

shrieking!'

The pangs shooting from her feet were scarce bearable, but the repression

of them helped her to meet Angelo with a freer mind than, after the

interval of separation, she would have had. The old woodman was cooking

a queer composition of flour and milk sprinkled with salt for them.

Angelo cut a stout cloth to encase each of her feet, and bound them in

it. He was more cheerful than she had ever seen him, and now first spoke

of their destination. His design was to conduct her near to Bormio,

there to engage a couple of men in her service who would accompany her

to Meran, by the Val di Sole, while he crossed the Stelvio alone, and

turning leftward in the Tyrolese valley, tried the passage into

Switzerland.

Bormio, if, when they quitted the forest, a conveyance could be obtained,

was no more than a short day's distance, according to the old woodman's

directions. Vittoria induced the little girl to sit upon her knee, and

sang to her, but greatly unspirited the charm of her dress. The sun was

rising as they bade adieu to the hut.

About mid-day they quitted the shelter of forest trees and stood on

broken ground, without a path to guide them. Vittoria did her best to

laugh at her mishaps in walking, and compared herself to a Capuchin

pilgrim; but she was unused to going bareheaded and shoeless, and though

she held on bravely, the strong beams of the sun and the stony ways

warped her strength. She had to check fancies drawn from Arabian tales,

concerning the help sometimes given by genii of the air and enchanted

birds, that were so incessant and vivid that she found herself sulking at

the loneliness and helplessness of the visible sky, and feared that her

brain was losing its hold of things. Angelo led her to a half-shaded

hollow, where they finished the remainder of yesterday's meat and wine.

She set her eyes upon a gold-green lizard by a stone and slept.

'The quantity of sleep I require is unmeasured,' she said, a minute

afterwards, according to her reckoning of time, and expected to see the

lizard still by the stone. Angelo was near her; the sky was full of

colours, and the earth of shadows.

'Another day gone!' she exclaimed in wonderment, thinking that the days

of human creatures had grown to be as rapid and (save toward the one end)

as meaningless as the gaspings of a fish on dry land. He told her that

he had explored the country as far as he had dared to stray from her. He

had seen no habitation along the heights. The vale was too distant for

strangers to reach it before nightfall. 'We can make a little way on,'

said Vittoria, and the trouble of walking began again. He entreated her

more than once to have no fear. 'What can I fear?' she asked. His voice

sank penitently: 'You can rely on me fully when there is anything to do

for you.'

'I am sure of that,' she replied, knowing his allusion to be to his

frenzy of yesterday. In truth, no woman could have had a gentler

companion.

On the topmost ridge of the heights, looking over an interminable gulf of

darkness they saw the lights of the vale. 'A bird might find his perch

there, but I think there is no chance for us,' said Vittoria. 'The

moment we move forward to them the lights will fly back. It is their way

of behaving.'

Angelo glanced round desperately. Farther on along the ridge his eye

caught sight of a low smouldering fire. When he reached it he had a

great disappointment. A fire in the darkness gives hopes that men will

be at hand. Here there was not any human society. The fire crouched on

its ashes. It was on a little circular eminence of mossed rock; black

sticks, and brushwood, and dry fern, and split logs, pitchy to the touch,

lay about; in the centre of them the fire coiled sullenly among its

ashes, with a long eye like a serpent's.

'Could you sleep here?' said Angelo.

'Anywhere!' Vittoria sighed with droll dolefulness.

'I can promise to keep you warm, signorina.'

'I will not ask for more till to-morrow, my friend.'

She laid herself down sideways, curling up her feet, with her cheek on

the palm of her hand.

Angelo knelt and coaxed the fire, whose appetite, like that which is said

to be ours, was fed by eating, for after the red jaws had taken half-a-

dozen sticks, it sang out for more, and sent up flame leaping after flame

and thick smoke. Vittoria watched the scene through a thin division of

her eyelids; the fire, the black abyss of country, the stars, and the

sentinel figure. She dozed on the edge of sleep, unable to yield herself

to it wholly. She believed that she was dreaming when by-and-by many

voices filled her ears. The fire was sounding like an angry sea, and the

voices were like the shore, more intelligible, but confused in shriller

clamour. She was awakened by Angelo, who knelt on one knee and took her

outlying hand; then she saw that men surrounded them, some of whom were

hurling the lighted logs about, some trampling down the outer rim of

flames. They looked devilish to a first awakening glance. He told her

that the men were friendly; they were good Italians. This had been the

beacon arranged for the night of the Fifteenth, when no run of signals

was seen from Milan; and yesterday afternoon it had been in mockery

partially consumed. 'We have aroused the country, signorina, and brought

these poor fellows out of their beds. They supposed that Milan must be

up and at work. I have explained everything to them.'