The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (Ruồi Trâu)

"Take it, my son," he said, "and be at rest,
for the Lord is tender and pitiful. Go to Rome,
and ask the blessing of His minister, the Holy
Father. Peace be with you!"
The Gadfly bent his head to receive the benediction,
and turned slowly away.
"Stop!" said Montanelli.
He was standing with one hand on the chancel rail.
"When you receive the Holy Eucharist in
Rome," he said, "pray for one in deep affliction--
for one on whose soul the hand of the Lord is heavy."
There were almost tears in his voice, and the
Gadfly''s resolution wavered. Another instant and
he would have betrayed himself. Then the
thought of the variety-show came up again, and
he remembered, like Jonah, that he did well to
be angry.
"Who am I, that He should hear my prayers?
A leper and an outcast! If I could bring to His
throne, as Your Eminence can, the offering of a
holy life--of a soul without spot or secret
shame------"
Montanelli turned abruptly away.
"I have only one offering to give," he said; "a
broken heart."
. . . . .
A few days later the Gadfly returned to Florence
in the diligence from Pistoja. He went
straight to Gemma''s lodgings, but she was out.
Leaving a message that he would return in the
morning he went home, sincerely hoping that he
should not again find his study invaded by Zita.
Her jealous reproaches would act on his nerves,
if he were to hear much of them to-night, like the
rasping of a dentist''s file.
"Good-evening, Bianca," he said when the
maid-servant opened the door. "Has Mme. Reni
been here to-day?"
She stared at him blankly
"Mme. Reni? Has she come back, then, sir?"
"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown,
stopping short on the mat.
"She went away quite suddenly, just after you
did, and left all her things behind her. She never
so much as said she was going."
"Just after I did? What, a f-fortnight ago?"
"Yes, sir, the same day; and her things are
lying about higgledy-piggledy. All the neighbours
are talking about it."
He turned away from the door-step without
speaking, and went hastily down the lane to the
house where Zita had been lodging. In her rooms
nothing had been touched; all the presents that
he had given her were in their usual places; there
was no letter or scrap of writing anywhere.
"If you please, sir," said Bianca, putting her
head in at the door, "there''s an old woman----"
He turned round fiercely.
"What do you want here--following me
about?"
"An old woman wishes to see you."
"What does she want? Tell her I c-can''t see
her; I''m busy."
"She has been coming nearly every evening
since you went away, sir, always asking when you
would come back."
"Ask her w-what her business is. No; never
mind; I suppose I must go myself."
The old woman was waiting at his hall door.
She was very poorly dressed, with a face as brown
and wrinkled as a medlar, and a bright-coloured
scarf twisted round her head. As he came in
she rose and looked at him with keen black
eyes.
"You are the lame gentleman," she said, inspecting
him critically from head to foot. "I have
brought you a message from Zita Reni."
He opened the study door, and held it for her
to pass in; then followed her and shut the door,
that Bianca might not hear.
"Sit down, please. N-now, tell me who you
are."
"It''s no business of yours who I am. I have
come to tell you that Zita Reni has gone away
with my son."
"With--your--son?"
"Yes, sir; if you don''t know how to keep your
mistress when you''ve got her, you can''t complain
if other men take her. My son has blood in his
veins, not milk and water; he comes of the
Romany folk."
"Ah, you are a gipsy! Zita has gone back to
her own people, then?"
She looked at him in amazed contempt. Apparently,
these Christians had not even manhood
enough to be angry when they were insulted.
"What sort of stuff are you made of, that she
should stay with you? Our women may lend
themselves to you a bit for a girl''s fancy, or if you
pay them well; but the Romany blood comes back
to the Romany folk."
The Gadfly''s face remained as cold and steady
as before.
"Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or
merely to live with your son?"
The woman burst out laughing.
"Do you think of following her and trying to
win her back? It''s too late, sir; you should have
thought of that before!"
"No; I only want to know the truth, if you will
tell it to me."
She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly
worth while to abuse a person who took it so
meekly.
"The truth, then, is that she met my son in the
road the day you left her, and spoke to him in the
Romany tongue; and when he saw she was one of
our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love
with her bonny face, as OUR men fall in love, and
took her to our camp. She told us all her trouble,
and sat crying and sobbing, poor lassie, till our
hearts were sore for her. We comforted her as
best we could; and at last she took off her fine
clothes and put on the things our lasses wear, and
gave herself to my son, to be his woman and to
have him for her man. He won''t say to her: ''I
don''t love you,'' and: ''I''ve other things to do.''
When a woman is young, she wants a man; and
what sort of man are you, that you can''t even
kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round
your neck?"
"You said," he interrupted, "that you had
brought me a message from her."
"Yes; I stopped behind when the camp went
on, so as to give it. She told me to say that she
has had enough of your folk and their hair-splitting
and their sluggish blood; and that she wants
to get back to her own people and be free. ''Tell
him,'' she said, ''that I am a woman, and that I
loved him; and that is why I would not be his
harlot any longer.'' The lassie was right to come
away. There''s no harm in a girl getting a bit of
money out of her good looks if she can--that''s
what good looks are for; but a Romany lass has
nothing to do with LOVING a man of your race."
The Gadfly stood up.
"Is that all the message?" he said. "Then tell
her, please, that I think she has done right, and
that I hope she will be happy. That is all I have
to say. Good-night!"
He stood perfectly still until the garden gate
closed behind her; then he sat down and covered
his face with both hands.
Another blow on the cheek! Was no rag of
pride to be left him--no shred of self-respect?
Surely he had suffered everything that man can
endure; his very heart had been dragged in the
mud and trampled under the feet of the passers-by;
there was no spot in his soul where someone''s contempt
was not branded in, where someone''s mockery
had not left its iron trace. And now this gipsy
girl, whom he had picked up by the wayside--
even she had the whip in her hand.
Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly
rose to let him in. The dog rushed up to his master
with his usual frantic manifestations of delight,
but soon, understanding that something was
wrong, lay down on the rug beside him, and thrust
a cold nose into the listless hand.
An hour later Gemma came up to the front door.
No one appeared in answer to her knock; Bianca,
finding that the Gadfly did not want any dinner,
had slipped out to visit a neighbour''s cook. She
had left the door open, and a light burning in the
hall. Gemma, after waiting for some time, decided
to enter and try if she could find the Gadfly, as she
wished to speak to him about an important message
which had come from Bailey. She knocked
at the study door, and the Gadfly''s voice answered
from within: "You can go away, Bianca. I don''t
want anything."
She softly opened the door. The room was
quite dark, but the passage lamp threw a long
stream of light across it as she entered, and she saw
the Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his
breast, and the dog asleep at his feet.
"It is I," she said.
He started up. "Gemma,---- Gemma! Oh,
I have wanted you so!"
Before she could speak he was kneeling on the
floor at her feet and hiding his face in the folds of
her dress. His whole body was shaken with a convulsive
tremor that was worse to see than tears.
She stood still. There was nothing she could
do to help him--nothing. This was the bitterest
thing of all. She must stand by and look on passively
--she who would have died to spare him
pain. Could she but dare to stoop and clasp her
arms about him, to hold him close against her
heart and shield him, were it with her own body,
from all further harm or wrong; surely then he
would be Arthur to her again; surely then the day
would break and the shadows flee away.
Ah, no, no! How could he ever forget? Was
it not she who had cast him into hell--she, with
her own right hand?
She had let the moment slip by. He rose
hastily and sat down by the table, covering his
eyes with one hand and biting his lip as if he would
bite it through.
Presently he looked up and said quietly:
"I am afraid I startled you."
She held out both her hands to him. "Dear,"
she said, "are we not friends enough by now for
you to trust me a little bit? What is it?"
"Only a private trouble of my own. I don''t
see why you should be worried over it."
"Listen a moment," she went on, taking his
hand in both of hers to steady its convulsive
trembling. "I have not tried to lay hands on a
thing that is not mine to touch. But now that
you have given me, of your own free will, so much
of your confidence, will you not give me a little
more--as you would do if I were your sister.
Keep the mask on your face, if it is any consolation
to you, but don''t wear a mask on your soul,
for your own sake."
He bent his head lower. "You must be patient
with me," he said. "I am an unsatisfactory sort
of brother to have, I''m afraid; but if you only
knew---- I have been nearly mad this last week.
It has been like South America again. And somehow
the devil gets into me and----" He broke off.
"May I not have my share in your trouble?"
she whispered at last.
His head sank down on her arm. "The hand of
the Lord is heavy."

PART III.
CHAPTER I.
THE next five weeks were spent by Gemma and
the Gadfly in a whirl of excitement and overwork
which left them little time or energy for thinking
about their personal affairs. When the arms had
been safely smuggled into Papal territory there
remained a still more difficult and dangerous task:
that of conveying them unobserved from the secret
stores in the mountain ****rns and ravines to the
various local centres and thence to the separate
villages. The whole district was swarming with
spies; and Domenichino, to whom the Gadfly had
intrusted the ammunition, sent into Florence a
messenger with an urgent appeal for either help
or extra time. The Gadfly had insisted that the
work should be finished by the middle of June;
and what with the difficulty of conveying heavy
transports over bad roads, and the endless hindrances
and delays caused by the necessity of continually
evading observation, Domenichino was
growing desperate. "I am between Scylla and
Charybdis," he wrote. "I dare not work quickly,
for fear of detection, and I must not work slowly
if we are to be ready in time. Either send me
efficient help at once, or let the Venetians know
that we shall not be ready till the first week in
July."
The Gadfly carried the letter to Gemma and,
while she read it, sat frowning at the floor and
stroking the cat''s fur the wrong way.
"This is bad," she said. "We can hardly keep
the Venetians waiting for three weeks."
"Of course we can''t; the thing is absurd.
Domenichino m-might unders-s-stand that. We
must follow the lead of the Venetians, not they
ours."
"I don''t see that Domenichino is to blame; he
has evidently done his best, and he can''t do
impossibilities."
"It''s not in Domenichino that the fault lies; it''s
in the fact of his being one person instead of two.
We ought to have at least one responsible man
to guard the store and another to see the transports
off. He is quite right; he must have efficient help."
"But what help are we going to give him? We
have no one in Florence to send."
"Then I m-must go myself."
She leaned back in her chair and looked at him
with a little frown.
"No, that won''t do; it''s too risky."
"It will have to do if we can''t f-f-find any other
way out of the difficulty."
"Then we must find another way, that''s all.
It''s out of the question for you to go again just
now."
An obstinate line appeared at the corners of his
under lip.
"I d-don''t see that it''s out of the question."
"You will see if you think about the thing
calmly for a minute. It is only five weeks since
you got back; the police are on the scent about
that pilgrim business, and scouring the country
to find a clue. Yes, I know you are clever at disguises;
but remember what a lot of people saw you, both as
Diego and as the countryman; and you can''t disguise
your lameness or the scar on your face."
"There are p-plenty of lame people in the world."
"Yes, but there are not plenty of people in the
Romagna with a lame foot and a sabre-cut across
the cheek and a left arm injured like yours, and
the combination of blue eyes with such dark
colouring."
"The eyes don''t matter; I can alter them with
belladonna."
"You can''t alter the other things. No, it won''t
do. For you to go there just now, with all your
identification-marks, would be to walk into a trap
with your eyes open. You would certainly be
taken."
"But s-s-someone must help Domenichino."
"It will be no help to him to have you caught
at a critical moment like this. Your arrest would
mean the failure of the whole thing."
But the Gadfly was difficult to convince, and
the discussion went on and on without coming
nearer to any settlement. Gemma was beginning
to realize how nearly inexhaustible was the fund
of quiet obstinacy in his character; and, had the
matter not been one about which she felt strongly,
she would probably have yielded for the sake of
peace. This, however, was a case in which she
could not conscientiously give way; the practical
advantage to be gained from the proposed journey
seemed to her not sufficiently important to be
worth the risk, and she could not help suspecting
that his desire to go was prompted less by a conviction
of grave political necessity than by a morbid
craving for the excitement of danger. He had
got into the habit of risking his neck, and his tendency
to run into unnecessary peril seemed to her
a form of intemperance which should be quietly
but steadily resisted. Finding all her arguments
unavailing against his dogged resolve to go his
own way, she fired her last shot.
"Let us be honest about it, anyway," she said;
"and call things by their true names. It is not
Domenichino''s difficulty that makes you so determined
to go. It is your own personal passion for----"
"It''s not true!" he interrupted vehemently.
"He is nothing to me; I don''t care if I never see
him again."
He broke off, seeing in her face that he had
betrayed himself. Their eyes met for an instant,
and dropped; and neither of them uttered the
name that was in both their minds.
"It--it is not Domenichino I want to save," he
stammered at last, with his face half buried in the
cat''s fur; "it is that I--I understand the danger
of the work failing if he has no help."
She passed over the feeble little subterfuge, and
went on as if there had been no interruption:
"It is your passion for running into danger
which makes you want to go there. You have
the same craving for danger when you are worried
that you had for opium when you were ill."
"It was not I that asked for the opium," he said
defiantly; "it was the others who insisted on giving
it to me."
"I dare say. You plume yourself a little on
your stoicism, and to ask for physical relief would
have hurt your pride; but it is rather flattered than
otherwise when you risk your life to relieve the
irritation of your nerves. And yet, after all, the
distinction is a merely conventional one."
He drew the cat''s head back and looked down
into the round, green eyes. "Is it true, Pasht?"
he said. "Are all these unkind things true that
your mistress is s-saying about me? Is it a case
of mea culpa; mea m-maxima culpa? You wise
beast, you never ask for opium, do you? Your
ancestors were gods in Egypt, and no man t-trod
on their tails. I wonder, though, what would become
of your calm superiority to earthly ills if I
were to take this paw of yours and hold it in the
c-candle. Would you ask me for opium then?
Would you? Or perhaps--for death? No,
*****, we have no right to die for our personal
convenience. We may spit and s-swear a bit, if
it consoles us; but we mustn''t pull the paw away."
"Hush!" She took the cat off his knee and
put it down on a footstool. "You and I will
have time for thinking about those things later
on. What we have to think of now is how to get
Domenichino out of his difficulty. What is it,
Katie; a visitor? I am busy."
"Miss Wright has sent you this, ma''am, by
hand."
The packet, which was carefully sealed, contained
a letter, addressed to Miss Wright, but
unopened and with a Papal stamp. Gemma''s
old school friends still lived in Florence, and
her more important letters were often received,
for safety, at their address.
"It is Michele''s mark," she said, glancing
quickly over the letter, which seemed to be about
the summer-terms at a boarding house in the
Apennines, and pointing to two little blots on a
corner of the page. "It is in chemical ink; the
reagent is in the third drawer of the writing-table.
Yes; that is it."
He laid the letter open on the desk and passed
a little brush over its pages. When the real message
stood out on the paper in a brilliant blue line,
he leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing.
"What is it?" she asked hurriedly. He
handed her the paper.
"DOMENICHINO HAS BEEN ARRESTED. COME AT ONCE."
She sat down with the paper in her hand and
stared hopelessly at the Gadfly.
"W-well?" he said at last, with his soft, ironical
drawl; "are you satisfied now that I must go?"
"Yes, I suppose you must," she answered, sighing.
"And I too."
He looked up with a little start. "You too? But----"
"Of course. It will be very awkward, I know,
to be left without anyone here in Florence; but
everything must go to the wall now except the
providing of an extra pair of hands."
"There are plenty of hands to be got there."
"They don''t belong to people whom you can
trust thoroughly, though. You said yourself just
now that there must be two responsible persons
in charge; and if Domenichino couldn''t manage
alone it is evidently impossible for you to do so.
A person as desperately compromised as you are
is very much handicapped, remember, in work of
that kind, and more dependent on help than anyone
else would be. Instead of you and Domenichino,
it must be you and I."
He considered for a moment, frowning.
"Yes, you are quite right," he said; "and the
sooner we go the better. But we must not start
together. If I go off to-night, you can take, say,
the afternoon coach to-morrow."
"Where to?"
"That we must discuss. I think I had b-b-better
go straight in to Faenza. If I start late to-night
and ride to Borgo San Lorenzo I can get
my disguise arranged there and go straight on."
"I don''t see what else we can do," she said, with
an anxious little frown; "but it is very risky, your
going off in such a hurry and trusting to the smugglers
finding you a disguise at Borgo. You ought
to have at least three clear days to double on your
trace before you cross the frontier."
"You needn''t be afraid," he answered, smiling;
"I may get taken further on, but not at the frontier.
Once in the hills I am as safe as here; there''s
not a smuggler in the Apennines that would betray me.
What I am not quite sure about is how you are to get across."
"Oh, that is very simple! I shall take Louisa
Wright''s passport and go for a holiday. No one
knows me in the Romagna, but every spy knows you."
"F-fortunately, so does every smuggler."
She took out her watch.
"Half-past two. We have the afternoon and
evening, then, if you are to start to-night."
"Then the best thing will be for me to go home
and settle everything now, and arrange about
a good horse. I shall ride in to San Lorenzo; it
will be safer."
"But it won''t be safe at all to hire a horse. The
owner will-----"
"I shan''t hire one. I know a man that will lend
me a horse, and that can be trusted. He has done
things for me before. One of the shepherds will
bring it back in a fortnight. I shall be here again
by five or half-past, then; and while I am gone,
I w-want you to go and find Martini and exp-plain
everything to him."
"Martini!" She turned round and looked at
him in astonishment.
"Yes; we must take him into confidence--unless
you can think of anyone else."
"I don''t quite understand what you mean."
"We must have someone here whom we can
trust, in case of any special difficulty; and of all
the set here Martini is the man in whom I have
most confidence. Riccardo would do anything he
could for us, of course; but I think Martini has
a steadier head. Still, you know him better than
I do; it is as you think."
"I have not the slightest doubt as to Martini''s
trustworthiness and efficiency in every respect; and
I think he would probably consent to give us any
help he could. But----"
He understood at once.
"Gemma, what would you feel if you found out
that a comrade in bitter need had not asked you
for help you might have given, for fear of hurting
or distressing you? Would you say there was any
true kindness in that?"
"Very well," she said, after a little pause; "I
will send Katie round at once and ask him to
come; and while she is gone I will go to Louisa
for her passport; she promised to lend it whenever
I want one. What about money? Shall I draw
some out of the bank?"

"No; don''t waste time on that; I can draw
enough from my account to last us for a bit. We
will fall back on yours later on if my balance runs
short. Till half-past five, then; I shall be sure to
find you here, of course?"
"Oh, yes! I shall be back long before then."
Half an hour after the appointed time he returned,
and found Gemma and Martini sitting on
the terrace together. He saw at once that their
conversation had been a distressing one; the traces
of agitation were visible in both of them, and Martini
was unusually silent and glum.
"Have you arranged everything?" she asked,
looking up.
"Yes; and I have brought you some money for
the journey. The horse will be ready for me at
the Ponte Rosso barrier at one in the night."
"Is not that rather late? You ought to get
into San Lorenzo before the people are up in the
morning."
"So I shall; it''s a very fast horse; and I don''t
want to leave here when there''s a chance of anyone
noticing me. I shan''t go home any more;
there''s a spy watching at the door, and he thinks
me in."
"How did you get out without his seeing
you?"
"Out of the kitchen window into the back garden
and over the neighbour''s orchard wall; that''s
what makes me so late; I had to dodge him. I
left the owner of the horse to sit in the study all
the evening with the lamp lighted. When the spy
sees the light in the window and a shadow on the
blind he will be quite satisfied that I am writing
at home this evening."
"Then you will stay here till it is time to go to
the barrier?"
"Yes; I don''t want to be seen in the street any
more to-night. Have a cigar, Martini? I know
Signora Bolla doesn''t mind smoke."
"I shan''t be here to mind; I must go downstairs
and help Katie with the dinner."
When she had gone Martini got up and began
to pace to and fro with his hands behind his back.
The Gadfly sat smoking and looking silently out
at the drizzling rain.
"Rivarez!" Martini began, stopping in front of
him, but keeping his eyes on the ground; "what
sort of thing are you going to drag her into?"
The Gadfly took the cigar from his mouth and
blew away a long trail of smoke.
"She has chosen for herself," he said, "without
compulsion on anyone''s part."
"Yes, yes--I know. But tell me----"
He stopped.
"I will tell you anything I can."
"Well, then--I don''t know much about the
details of these affairs in the hills,--are you going
to take her into any very serious danger?"
"Do you want the truth?"
"Yes."
"Then--yes."
Martini turned away and went on pacing up and
down. Presently he stopped again.
"I want to ask you another question. If you
don''t choose to answer it, you needn''t, of course;
but if you do answer, then answer honestly. Are
you in love with her?"
The Gadfly deliberately knocked the ash from
his cigar and went on smoking in silence.
"That means--that you don''t choose to
answer?"
"No; only that I think I have a right to know
why you ask me that."
"Why? Good God, man, can''t you see why?"
"Ah!" He laid down his cigar and looked
steadily at Martini. "Yes," he said at last,
slowly and softly. "I am in love with her. But
you needn''t think I am going to make love to
her, or worry about it. I am only going
to----"
His voice died away in a strange, faint whisper.
Martini came a step nearer.
"Only going--to----"
"To die."
He was staring straight before him with a cold,
fixed look, as if he were dead already. When he
spoke again his voice was curiously lifeless and even.
"You needn''t worry her about it beforehand,"
he said; "but there''s not the ghost of a chance for
me. It''s dangerous for everyone; that she knows
as well as I do; but the smugglers will do their
best to prevent her getting taken. They are good
fellows, though they are a bit rough. As for me,
the rope is round my neck, and when I cross the
frontier I pull the noose."
"Rivarez, what do you mean? Of course it''s
dangerous, and particularly so for you; I understand
that; but you have often crossed the frontier
before and always been successful."
"Yes, and this time I shall fail."
"But why? How can you know?"
The Gadfly smiled drearily.
"Do you remember the German legend of the
man that died when he met his own Double? No?
It appeared to him at night in a lonely place,
wringing its hands in despair. Well, I met mine
the last time I was in the hills; and when I cross
the frontier again I shan''t come back."
Martini came up to him and put a hand on the
back of his chair.
"Listen, Rivarez; I don''t understand a word
of all this metaphysical stuff, but I do understand
one thing: If you feel about it that way, you are
not in a fit state to go. The surest way to get
taken is to go with a conviction that you will be
taken. You must be ill, or out of sorts somehow,
to get maggots of that kind into your head. Suppose
I go instead of you? I can do any practical
work there is to be done, and you can send a
message to your men, explaining------"
"And let you get killed instead? That would
be very clever."
"Oh, I''m not likely to get killed! They don''t
know me as they do you. And, besides, even if
I did------"
He stopped, and the Gadfly looked up with a
slow, inquiring gaze. Martini''s hand dropped by
his side.
"She very likely wouldn''t miss me as much as
she would you," he said in his most matter-of-fact
voice. "And then, besides, Rivarez, this is public
business, and we have to look at it from the point
of view of utility--the greatest good of the greatest
number. Your ''final value''---isn''t that what
the economists call it?--is higher than mine; I
have brains enough to see that, though I haven''t
any cause to be particularly fond of you. You
are a bigger man than I am; I''m not sure that
you are a better one, but there''s more of you,
and your death would be a greater loss than mine."
From the way he spoke he might have been discussing
the value of shares on the Exchange. The
Gadfly looked up, shivering as if with cold.
"Would you have me wait till my grave opens
of itself to swallow me up?
"If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride----
Look here, Martini, you and I are talking nonsense."
"You are, certainly," said Martini gruffly.
"Yes, and so are you. For Heaven''s sake, don''t
let''s go in for romantic self-sacrifice, like Don
Carlos and Marquis Posa. This is the nineteenth
century; and if it''s my business to die, I have got
to do it."
"And if it''s my business to live, I have got to
do that, I suppose. You''re the lucky one,
Rivarez."
"Yes," the Gadfly assented laconically; "I was
always lucky."
They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and
then began to talk of business details. When
Gemma came up to call them to dinner, neither
of them betrayed in face or manner that their
conversation had been in any way unusual.
After dinner they sat discussing plans and making
necessary arrangements till eleven o''clock, when
Martini rose and took his hat.
"I will go home and fetch that riding-cloak of
mine, Rivarez. I think you will be less recognizable
in it than in your light suit. I want to
reconnoitre a bit, too, and make sure there are no
spies about before we start."
"Are you coming with me to the barrier?"
"Yes; it''s safer to have four eyes than two in
case of anyone following you. I''ll be back by
twelve. Be sure you don''t start without me. I
had better take the key, Gemma, so as not to wake
anyone by ringing."
She raised her eyes to his face as he took the
keys. She understood that he had invented a pretext
in order to leave her alone with the Gadfly.
"You and I will talk to-morrow," she said.
"We shall have time in the morning, when my
packing is finished."
"Oh, yes! Plenty of time. There are two or
three little things I want to ask you about, Rivarez;
but we can talk them over on our way to the
barrier. You had better send Katie to bed,
Gemma; and be as quiet as you can, both of you.
Good-bye till twelve, then."
He went away with a little nod and smile, banging
the door after him to let the neighbours hear
that Signora Bolla''s visitor was gone.
Gemma went out into the kitchen to say good-night
to Katie, and came back with black coffee on a tray.
"Would you like to lie down a bit?" she said.
"You won''t have any sleep the rest of the night."
"Oh, dear no! I shall sleep at San Lorenzo
while the men are getting my disguise ready."
"Then have some coffee. Wait a minute; I
will get you out the biscuits."
As she knelt down at the side-board he suddenly
stooped over her shoulder.
"Whatever have you got there? Chocolate
creams and English toffee! Why, this is l-luxury
for a king!"
She looked up, smiling faintly at his enthusiastic tone.
"Are you fond of sweets? I always keep them
for Cesare; he is a perfect baby over any kind of
lollipops."
"R-r-really? Well, you must get him s-some
more to-morrow and give me these to take with
me. No, let me p-p-put the toffee in my pocket;
it will console me for all the lost joys of life. I
d-do hope they''ll give me a bit of toffee *****ck
the day I''m hanged."
"Oh, do let me find a cardboard box for it, at
least, before you put it in your pocket! You
will be so sticky! Shall I put the chocolates in, too?"
"No, I want to eat them now, with you."
"But I don''t like chocolate, and I want you to
come and sit down like a reasonable human being.
We very likely shan''t have another chance to talk
quietly before one or other of us is killed, and------"
"She d-d-doesn''t like chocolate!" he murmured
under his breath. "Then I must be greedy
all by myself. This is a case of the hangman''s
supper, isn''t it? You are going to humour all my
whims to-night. First of all, I want you to sit
on this easy-chair, and, as you said I might lie
down, I shall lie here and be comfortable."
He threw himself down on the rug at her feet,
leaning his elbow on the chair and looking up into
her face.
"How pale you are!" he said. "That''s because
you take life sadly, and don''t like chocolate----"
"Do be serious for just five minutes! After all,
it is a matter of life and death."
"Not even for two minutes, dear; neither life
nor death is worth it."
He had taken hold of both her hands and was
stroking them with the tips of his fingers.
"Don''t look so grave, Minerva! You''ll make
me cry in a minute, and then you''ll be sorry. I do
wish you''d smile again; you have such a d-delightfully
unexpected smile. There now, don''t scold
me, dear! Let us eat our biscuits together, like
two good children, without quarrelling over them
--for to-morrow we die."
He took a sweet biscuit from the plate and
carefully halved it, breaking the sugar ornament
down the middle with scrupulous exactness.
"This is a kind of sacrament, like what the
goody-goody people have in church. ''Take, eat;
this is my body.'' And we must d-drink the wine
out of the s-s-same glass, you know--yes, that is
right. ''Do this in remembrance----''"
She put down the glass.
"Don''t!" she said, with almost a sob. He
looked up, and took her hands again.
"Hush, then! Let us be quiet for a little bit.
When one of us dies, the other will remember this.
We will forget this loud, insistent world that howls
about our ears; we will go away together, hand in
hand; we will go away into the secret halls of
death, and lie among the poppy-flowers. Hush!
We will be quite still."
He laid his head down against her knee and covered
his face. In the silence she bent over him,
her hand on the black head. So the time slipped
on and on; and they neither moved nor spoke.
"Dear, it is almost twelve," she said at last.
He raised his head.
"We have only a few minutes more; Martini
will be back presently. Perhaps we shall never
see each other again. Have you nothing to say
to me?"
He slowly rose and walked away to the other
side of the room. There was a moment''s silence.
"I have one thing to say," he began in a hardly
audible voice; "one thing--to tell you----"
He stopped and sat down by the window, hiding
his face in both hands.
"You have been a long time deciding to be
merciful," she said softly.
"I have not seen much mercy in my life; and I
thought--at first--you wouldn''t care----"
"You don''t think that now."
She waited a moment for him to speak and then
crossed the room and stood beside him.
"Tell me the truth at last," she whispered.
"Think, if you are killed and I not--I should have
to go through all my life and never know--never
be quite sure----"
He took her hands and clasped them tightly.
"If I am killed---- You see, when I went to
South America---- Ah, Martini!"
He broke away with a violent start and threw
open the door of the room. Martini was rubbing
his boots on the mat.
"Punctual to the m-m-minute, as usual!
You''re an an-n-nimated chronometer, Martini. Is
that the r-r-riding-cloak?"
"Yes; and two or three other things. I have
kept them as dry as I could, but it''s pouring with
rain. You will have a most uncomfortable ride,
I''m afraid."
"Oh, that''s no matter. Is the street clear?"
"Yes; all the spies seem to have gone to bed.
I don''t much wonder either, on such a villainous
night. Is that coffee, Gemma? He ought to
have something hot before he goes out into the
wet, or he will catch cold."
"It is black coffee, and very strong. I will boil
some milk."
She went into the kitchen, passionately clenching
her teeth and hands to keep from breaking
down. When she returned with the milk the Gadfly
had put on the riding-cloak and was fastening
the leather gaiters which Martini had brought.
He drank a cup of coffee, standing, and took up
the broad-brimmed riding hat.
"I think it''s time to start, Martini; we must
make a round before we go to the barrier, in case
of anything. Good-bye, for the present, signora;
I shall meet you at Forli on Friday, then, unless
anything special turns up. Wait a minute; th-this
is the address."
He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and wrote
a few words in pencil.
"I have it already," she said in a dull, quiet
voice.
"H-have you? Well, there it is, anyway.
Come, Martini. Sh-sh-sh! Don''t let the door creak!"
They crept softly downstairs. When the street
door clicked behind them she went back into the
room and mechanically unfolded the paper he had
put into her hand. Underneath the address was
written:
"I will tell you everything there."

CHAPTER II.
IT was market-day in Brisighella, and the country
folk had come in from the villages and hamlets
of the district with their pigs and poultry, their
dairy produce and droves of half-wild mountain
cattle. The market-place was thronged with a
perpetually shifting crowd, laughing, joking, bargaining
for dried figs, cheap cakes, and sunflower
seeds. The brown, bare-footed children sprawled,
face downward, on the pavement in the hot sun,
while their mothers sat under the trees with their
baskets of butter and eggs.
Monsignor Montanelli, coming out to wish the
people "Good-morning," was at once surrounded
by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for
his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet
poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain
slopes. His passion for wild flowers was
affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of
the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise
men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled
his house with weeds and grasses they would have
laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could
afford a few harmless eccentricities.
"Well, Mariuccia," he said, stopping to pat one of
the children on the head; "you have grown since I saw
you last. And how is the grandmother''s rheumatism?"
"She''s been better lately, Your Eminence; but
mother''s bad now."
"I''m sorry to hear that; tell the mother to
come down here some day and see whether Dr.
Giordani can do anything for her. I will find
somewhere to put her up; perhaps the change
will do her good. You are looking better, Luigi;
how are your eyes?"
He passed on, chatting with the mountaineers.
He always remembered the names and ages of
the children, their troubles and those of their
parents; and would stop to inquire, with sympathetic
interest, for the health of the cow that fell
sick at Christmas, or of the rag-doll that was
crushed under a cart-wheel last market-day.
When he returned to the palace the marketing
began. A lame man in a blue shirt, with a shock
of black hair hanging into his eyes and a deep scar
across the left cheek, lounged up to one of the
booths and, in very bad Italian, asked for a drink
of lemonade.
"You''re not from these parts," said the woman
who poured it out, glancing up at him.
"No. I come from Corsica."
"Looking for work?"
"Yes; it will be hay-cutting time soon, and a
gentleman that has a farm near Ravenna came
across to Bastia the other day and told me there''s
plenty of work to be got there."
"I hope you''ll find it so, I''m sure, but times are
bad hereabouts."
"They''re worse in Corsica, mother. I don''t
know what we poor folk are coming to."
"Have you come over alone?"
"No, my mate is with me; there he is, in the
red shirt. Hola, Paolo!"
Michele hearing himself called, came lounging
up with his hands in his pockets. He made a
fairly good Corsican, in spite of the red wig which
he had put on to render himself unrecognizable.
As for the Gadfly, he looked his part to perfection.
They sauntered through the market-place together,
Michele whistling between his teeth, and
the Gadfly trudging along with a bundle over his
shoulder, shuffling his feet on the ground to render
his lameness less observable. They were waiting
for an emissary, to whom important directions
had to be given.
"There''s Marcone, on horseback, at that corner,"
Michele whispered suddenly. The Gadfly, still carrying
his bundle, shuffled towards the horseman.
"Do you happen to be wanting a hay-maker,
sir?" he said, touching his ragged cap and running
one finger along the bridle. It was the signal
agreed upon, and the rider, who from his
appearance might have been a country squire''s
bailiff, dismounted and threw the reins on the
horse''s neck.
"What sort of work can you do, my man?"
The Gadfly fumbled with his cap.
"I can cut grass, sir, and trim hedges"--he
began; and without any break in his voice, went
straight on: "At one in the morning at the
mouth of the round ****. You must have two
good horses and a cart. I shall be waiting inside
the ****---- And then I can dig, sir, and----"
"That will do, I only want a grass-cutter.
Have you ever been out before?"
"Once, sir. Mind, you must come well-armed;
we may meet a flying squadron. Don''t go by the
wood-path; you''re safer on the other side. If
you meet a spy, don''t stop to argue with him; fire
at once---- I should be very glad of work, sir."
"Yes, I dare say, but I want an experienced
grass-cutter. No, I haven''t got any coppers to-day."
A very ragged beggar had slouched up to them,
with a doleful, monotonous whine.
"Have pity on a poor blind man, in the name
of the Blessed Virgin------ Get out of this place at
once; there''s a flying squadron coming along----
Most Holy Queen of Heaven, Maiden undefiled--
It''s you they''re after, Rivarez; they''ll be here in
two minutes---- And so may the saints reward
you---- You''ll have to make a dash for it; there
are spies at all the corners. It''s no use trying to
slip away without being seen."
Marcone slipped the reins into the Gadfly''s hand.
"Make haste! Ride out to the bridge and let
the horse go; you can hide in the ravine. We''re
all armed; we can keep them back for ten minutes."
"No. I won''t have you fellows taken. Stand
together, all of you, and fire after me in order.
Move up towards our horses; there they are, tethered
by the palace steps; and have your knives
ready. We retreat fighting, and when I throw
my cap down, cut the halters and jump every man
on the nearest horse. We may all reach the wood
that way."
They had spoken in so quiet an undertone that
even the nearest bystanders had not supposed
their conversation to refer to anything more dangerous
than grass-cutting. Marcone, leading his
own mare by the bridle, walked towards the
tethered horses, the Gadfly slouching along beside
him, and the beggar following them with an outstretched
hand and a persistent whine. Michele
came up whistling; the beggar had warned him
in passing, and he quietly handed on the news to
three countrymen who were eating raw onions
under a tree. They immediately rose and followed
him; and before anyone''s notice had been
attracted to them, the whole seven were standing
together by the steps of the palace, each man with
one hand on the hidden pistol, and the tethered
horses within easy reach.
"Don''t betray yourselves till I move," the Gadfly
said softly and clearly. "They may not recognize us.
When I fire, then begin in order. Don''t
fire at the men; lame their horses--then they can''t
follow us. Three of you fire, while the other
three reload. If anyone comes between you and
our horses, kill him. I take the roan. When I
throw down my cap, each man for himself; don''t
stop for anything."
"Here they come," said Michele; and the Gadfly
turned round, with an air of naive and stupid
wonder, as the people suddenly broke off in their
bargaining.
Fifteen armed men rode slowly into the marketplace.
They had great difficulty to get past the
throng of people at all, and, but for the spies at
the corners of the square, all the seven conspirators
could have slipped quietly away while the
attention of the crowd was fixed upon the soldiers.
Michele moved a little closer to the Gadfly.
"Couldn''t we get away now?"
"No; we''re surrounded with spies, and one of
them has recognized me. He has just sent a man
to tell the captain where I am. Our only chance
is to lame their horses."
"Which is the spy?"
"The first man I fire at. Are you all ready?
They have made a lane to us; they are going to
come with a rush."
"Out of the way there!" shouted the captain.
"In the name of His Holiness!"
The crowd had drawn back, startled and wondering;
and the soldiers made a quick dash towards
the little group standing by the palace steps.
The Gadfly drew a pistol from his blouse and fired,
not at the advancing troops, but at the spy, who
was approaching the horses, and who fell back
with a broken collar-bone. Immediately after
the report, six more shots were fired in quick succession,
as the conspirators moved steadily closer
to the tethered horses.
One of the cavalry horses stumbled and
plunged; another fell to the ground with a fearful
cry. Then, through the shrieking of the panic-stricken
people, came the loud, imperious voice of
the officer in command, who had risen in the
stirrups and was holding a sword above his head.
"This way, men!"
He swayed in the saddle and sank back; the
Gadfly had fired again with his deadly aim. A
little stream of blood was trickling down the captain''s
uniform; but he steadied himself with a
violent effort, and, clutching at his horse''s mane,
cried out fiercely:
"Kill that lame devil if you can''t take him alive!
It''s Rivarez!"
"Another pistol, quick!" the Gadfly called to
his men; "and go!"
He flung down his cap. It was only just in
time, for the swords of the now infuriated soldiers
were flashing close in front of him.
"Put down your weapons, all of you!"
Cardinal Montanelli had stepped suddenly between
the combatants; and one of the soldiers
cried out in a voice sharp with terror:
"Your Eminence! My God, you''ll be murdered!"
Montanelli only moved a step nearer, and faced
the Gadfly''s pistol.
Five of the conspirators were already on horseback
and dashing up the hilly street. Marcone
sprang on to the back of his mare. In the moment
of riding away, he glanced back to see
whether his leader was in need of help. The roan
was close at hand, and in another instant all would
have been safe; but as the figure in the scarlet
cassock stepped forward, the Gadfly suddenly
wavered and the hand with the pistol sank down.
The instant decided everything. Immediately he
was surrounded and flung violently to the ground,
and the weapon was dashed out of his hand by a
blow from the flat of a soldier''s sword. Marcone
struck his mare''s flank with the stirrup; the hoofs
of the cavalry horses were thundering up the hill
behind him; and it would have been worse than
useless to stay and be taken too. Turning in the
saddle as he galloped away, to fire a last shot in
the teeth of the nearest pursuer, he saw the Gadfly,
with blood on his face, trampled under the feet
of horses and soldiers and spies; and heard the
savage curses of the captors, the yells of triumph
and rage.

Montanelli did not notice what had happened;
he had moved away from the steps, and was trying
to calm the terrified people. Presently, as he
stooped over the wounded spy, a startled movement
of the crowd made him look up. The soldiers were
crossing the square, dragging their
prisoner after them by the rope with which his
hands were tied. His face was livid with pain and
exhaustion, and he panted fearfully for breath;
but he looked round at the Cardinal, smiling with
white lips, and whispered:
"I c-cong-gratulate your Eminence."
. . . . .
Five days later Martini reached Forli. He
had received from Gemma by post a bundle of
printed circulars, the signal agreed upon in case of
his being needed in any special emergency; and,
remembering the conversation on the terrace, he
guessed the truth at once. All through the journey
he kept repeating to himself that there was
no reason for supposing anything to have happened
to the Gadfly, and that it was absurd to
attach any importance to the childish superstitions
of so nervous and fanciful a person; but the
more he reasoned with himself against the idea,
the more firmly did it take possession of his mind.
"I have guessed what it is: Rivarez is taken, of
course?" he said, as he came into Gemma''s room.
"He was arrested last Thursday, at Brisighella.
He defended himself desperately and wounded the
captain of the squadron and a spy."
"Armed resistance; that''s bad!"
"It makes no difference; he was too deeply
compromised already for a pistol-shot more or less
to affect his position much."
"What do you think they are going to do with
him?"
She grew a shade paler even than before.
"I think," she said; "that we must not wait to
find out what they mean to do."
"You think we shall be able to effect a rescue?"
"We MUST."
He turned away and began to whistle, with his
hands behind his back. Gemma let him think
undisturbed. She was sitting still, leaning her
head against the back of the chair, and looking
out into vague distance with a fixed and tragic
absorption. When her face wore that expression,
it had a look of Durer''s "Melancolia."
"Have you seen him?" Martini asked, stopping
for a moment in his tramp.
"No; he was to have met me here the next
morning."
"Yes, I remember. Where is he?"
"In the fortress; very strictly guarded, and,
they say, in chains."
He made a gesture of indifference.
"Oh, that''s no matter; a good file will get rid
of any number of chains. If only he isn''t
wounded----"
"He seems to have been slightly hurt, but
exactly how much we don''t know. I think you
had better hear the account of it from Michele
himself; he was present at the arrest."
"How does he come not to have been taken
too? Did he run away and leave Rivarez in the
lurch?"
"It''s not his fault; he fought as long as anybody
did, and followed the directions given him to
the letter. For that matter, so did they all. The
only person who seems to have forgotten, or
somehow made a mistake at the last minute, is
Rivarez himself. There''s something inexplicable
about it altogether. Wait a moment; I will call
Michele."
She went out of the room, and presently came
back with Michele and a broad-shouldered mountaineer.
"This is Marco," she said. "You have heard
of him; he is one of the smugglers. He has just
got here, and perhaps will be able to tell us more.
Michele, this is Cesare Martini, that I spoke to
you about. Will you tell him what happened, as
far as you saw it?"
Michele gave a short account of the skirmish
with the squadron.
"I can''t understand how it happened," he concluded.
"Not one of us would have left him if
we had thought he would be taken; but his directions
were quite precise, and it never occurred to
us, when he threw down his cap, that he would
wait to let them surround him. He was close beside
the roan--I saw him cut the tether--and I
handed him a loaded pistol myself before I
mounted. The only thing I can suppose is that
he missed his footing,--being lame,--in trying to
mount. But even then, he could have fired."
"No, it wasn''t that," Marcone interposed.
"He didn''t attempt to mount. I was the last one
to go, because my mare shied at the firing; and I
looked round to see whether he was safe. He
would have got off clear if it hadn''t been for the
Cardinal."
"Ah!" Gemma exclaimed softly; and Martini
repeated in amazement: "The Cardinal?"
"Yes; he threw himself in front of the pistol--
confound him! I suppose Rivarez must have
been startled, for he dropped his pistol-hand and
put the other one up like this"--laying the back
of his left wrist across his eyes--"and of course
they all rushed on him."
"I can''t make that out," said Michele. "It''s
not like Rivarez to lose his head at a crisis."
"Probably he lowered his pistol for fear of killing
an unarmed man," Martini put in. Michele
shrugged his shoulders.
"Unarmed men shouldn''t poke their noses into
the middle of a fight. War is war. If Rivarez
had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of letting
himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there''d
be one honest man the more and one priest the less."
He turned away, biting his moustache. His
anger was very near to breaking down in tears.
"Anyway," said Martini, "the thing''s done,
and there''s no use wasting time in discussing how
it happened. The question now is how we''re to
arrange an escape for him. I suppose you''re all
willing to risk it?"
Michele did not even condescend to answer the
superfluous question, and the smuggler only remarked
with a little laugh: "I''d shoot my own brother, if he
weren''t willing."
"Very well, then---- First thing; have you
got a plan of the fortress?"
Gemma unlocked a drawer and took out several
sheets of paper.
"I have made out all the plans. Here is the
ground floor of the fortress; here are the upper
and lower stories of the towers, and here the plan
of the ramparts. These are the roads leading to
the valley, and here are the paths and hiding-places
in the mountains, and the underground passages."
"Do you know which of the towers he is
in?"
"The east one, in the round room with the
grated window. I have marked it on the plan."
"How did you get your information?"
"From a man nicknamed ''The Cricket,'' a soldier
of the guard. He is cousin to one of our men--Gino."
"You have been quick about it."
"There''s no time to lose. Gino went into
Brisighella at once; and some of the plans we
already had. That list of hiding-places was made
by Rivarez himself; you can see by the handwriting."
"What sort of men are the soldiers of the guard?"
"That we have not been able to find out yet;
the Cricket has only just come to the place, and
knows nothing about the other men."
"We must find out from Gino what the Cricket
himself is like. Is anything known of the government''s
intentions? Is Rivarez likely to be tried
in Brisighella or taken in to Ravenna?"
"That we don''t know. Ravenna, of course, is
the chief town of the Legation and by law cases
of importance can be tried only there, in the
Tribunal of First Instance. But law doesn''t count
for much in the Four Legations; it depends on the
personal fancy of anybody who happens to be in power."
"They won''t take him in to Ravenna," Michele interposed.
"What makes you think so?"
"I am sure of it. Colonel Ferrari, the military
Governor at Brisighella, is uncle to the officer that
Rivarez wounded; he''s a vindictive sort of brute
and won''t give up a chance to spite an enemy."
"You think he will try to keep Rivarez here?"
"I think he will try to get him hanged."
Martini glanced quickly at Gemma. She was
very pale, but her face had not changed at the
words. Evidently the idea was no new one to her.
"He can hardly do that without some formality,"
she said quietly; "but he might possibly
get up a court-martial on some pretext or other,
and justify himself afterwards by saying that the
peace of the town required it."
"But what about the Cardinal? Would he
consent to things of that kind?"
"He has no jurisdiction in military affairs."
"No, but he has great influence. Surely the
Governor would not venture on such a step without
his consent?"
"He''ll never get that," Marcone interrupted.
"Montanelli was always against the military
commissions, and everything of the kind. So
long as they keep him in Brisighella nothing
serious can happen; the Cardinal will always take
the part of any prisoner. What I am afraid of is
their taking him to Ravenna. Once there, he''s
lost."
"We shouldn''t let him get there," said Michele.
"We could manage a rescue on the road; but to
get him out of the fortress here is another
matter."
"I think," said Gemma; "that it would be
quite useless to wait for the chance of his being
transferred to Ravenna. We must make the attempt
at Brisighella, and we have no time to lose.
Cesare, you and I had better go over the plan of
the fortress together, and see whether we can
think out anything. I have an idea in my head,
but I can''t get over one point."
"Come, Marcone," said Michele, rising; "we
will leave them to think out their scheme. I have
to go across to Fognano this afternoon, and I
want you to come with me. Vincenzo hasn''t sent
those cartridges, and they ought to have been
here yesterday."
When the two men had gone, Martini went up
to Gemma and silently held out his hand. She let
her fingers lie in his for a moment.
"You were always a good friend, Cesare," she
said at last; "and a very present help in trouble.
And now let us discuss plans."

CHAPTER III.
"AND I once more most earnestly assure Your
Eminence that your refusal is endangering the
peace of the town."
The Governor tried to preserve the respectful
tone due to a high dignitary of the Church; but
there was audible irritation in his voice. His liver
was out of order, his wife was running up heavy
bills, and his temper had been sorely tried during
the last three weeks. A sullen, disaffected populace,
whose dangerous mood grew daily more apparent; a
district honeycombed with plots and bristling with
hidden weapons; an inefficient garrison, of whose
loyalty he was more than doubtful, and a Cardinal
whom he had pathetically described to his adjutant
as the "incarnation of immaculate pig-headedness,"
had already reduced him to the verge of desperation.
Now he was saddled with the Gadfly, an animated
quintessence of the spirit of mischief.
Having begun by disabling both the Governor''s
favourite nephew and his most valuable spy, the
"crooked Spanish devil" had followed up his
exploits in the market-place by suborning the
guards, browbeating the interrogating officers,
and "turning the prison into a bear-garden." He
had now been three weeks in the fortress, and the
authorities of Brisighella were heartily sick of their
bargain. They had subjected him to interrogation
upon interrogation; and after employing, to
obtain admissions from him, every device of threat,
persuasion, and stratagem which their ingenuity
could suggest, remained just as wise as on the day
of his capture. They had begun to realize that
it would perhaps have been better to send him into
Ravenna at once. It was, however, too late to
rectify the mistake. The Governor, when sending
in to the Legate his report of the arrest, had
begged, as a special favour, permission *****perintend
personally the investigation of this case; and,
his request having been graciously acceded to, he
could not now withdraw without a humiliating
confession that he was overmatched.
The idea of settling the difficulty by a courtmartial
had, as Gemma and Michele had foreseen,
presented itself to him as the only satisfactory
solution; and Cardinal Montanelli''s stubborn refusal
to countenance this was the last drop which
made the cup of his vexations overflow.
"I think," he said, "that if Your Eminence knew
what I and my assistants have put up with from
this man you would feel differently about the matter.
I fully understand and respect the conscientious
objection to irregularities in judicial
proceedings; but this is an exceptional case and
calls for exceptional measures."
"There is no case," Montanelli answered,
"which calls for injustice; and to condemn a
civilian by the judgment of a secret military tribunal
is both unjust and illegal."
"The case amounts to this, Your Eminence:
The prisoner is manifestly guilty of several capital
crimes. He joined the infamous attempt of
Savigno, and the military commission nominated
by Monsignor Spinola would certainly have had
him shot or sent to the galleys then, had he not
succeeded in escaping to Tuscany. Since that
time he has never ceased plotting. He is known
to be an influential member of one of the most
pestilent secret societies in the country. He is
gravely suspected of having consented to, if not
inspired, the assassination of no less than three
confidential police agents. He has been caught--
one might almost say--in the act of smuggling
firearms into the Legation. He has offered armed
resistance to authority and seriously wounded two
officials in the discharge of their duty, and he is
now a standing menace to the peace and order of
the town. Surely, in such a case, a court-martial
is justifiable."
"Whatever the man has done," Montanelli replied,
"he has the right to be judged according to law."
"The ordinary course of law involves delay, Your
Eminence, and in this case every moment is precious.
Besides everything else, I am in constant
terror of his escaping."
"If there is any danger of that, it rests with you
to guard him more closely."
"I do my best, Your Eminence, but I am
dependent upon the prison staff, and the man
seems to have bewitched them all. I have
changed the guard four times within three weeks;
I have punished the soldiers till I am tired of it,
and nothing is of any use. I can''t prevent their
carrying letters backwards and forwards. The
fools are in love with him as if he were a woman."
"That is very curious. There must be something
remarkable about him."
"There''s a remarkable amount of devilry--I
beg pardon, Your Eminence, but really this man is
enough to try the patience of a saint. It''s hardly
credible, but I have to conduct all the interrogations
myself, for the regular officer cannot stand
it any longer."
"How is that?"
"It''s difficult to explain. Your Eminence, but
you would understand if you had once heard the
way he goes on. One might think the interrogating
officer were the criminal and he the judge."
"But what is there so terrible that he can do?
He can refuse to answer your questions, of course;
but he has no weapon except silence."
"And a tongue like a razor. We are all mortal,
Your Eminence, and most of us have made mistakes
in our time that we don''t want published
on the house-tops. That''s only human nature,
and it''s hard on a man to have his little slips of
twenty years ago raked up and thrown in his teeth----"
"Has Rivarez brought up some personal secret
of the interrogating officer?"
"Well, really--the poor fellow got into debt
when he was a cavalry officer, and borrowed a little
sum from the regimental funds----"
"Stole public money that had been intrusted to
him, in fact?"
"Of course it was very wrong, Your Eminence;
but his friends paid it back at once, and the affair
was hushed up,--he comes of a good family,--and
ever since then he has been irreproachable. How
Rivarez found out about it I can''t conceive; but
the first thing he did at interrogation was to bring
up this old scandal--before the subaltern, too!
And with as innocent a face as if he were saying
his prayers! Of course the story''s all over the
Legation by now. If Your Eminence would only
be present at one of the interrogations, I am sure
you would realize---- He needn''t know anything
about it. You might overhear him from------"
Montanelli turned round and looked at the Governor
with an expression which his face did not often wear.
"I am a minister of religion," he said; "not a
police-spy; and eavesdropping forms no part of
my professional duties."
"I--I didn''t mean to give offence------"
"I think we shall not get any good out of
discussing this question further. If you will
send the prisoner here, I will have a talk with
him."
"I venture very respectfully to advise Your Eminence
not to attempt it. The man is perfectly
incorrigible. It would be both safer and wiser to
overstep the letter of the law for this once, and get
rid of him before he does any more mischief. It
is with great diffidence that I venture to press the
point after what Your Eminence has said; but after
all I am responsible to Monsignor the Legate for
the order of the town------"
"And I," Montanelli interrupted, "am responsible
to God and His Holiness that there shall
be no underhand dealing in my diocese. Since you
press me in the matter, colonel, I take my stand
upon my privilege as Cardinal. I will not allow a
secret court-martial in this town in peace-time. I
will receive the prisoner here, and alone, at ten
to-morrow morning."
"As Your Eminence pleases," the Governor
replied with sulky respectfulness; and went away,
grumbling to himself: "They''re about a pair, as
far as obstinacy goes."
He told no one of the approaching interview till
it was actually time to knock off the prisoner''s
chains and start for the palace. It was quite
enough, as he remarked to his wounded nephew,
to have this Most Eminent son of Balaam''s ass
laying down the law, without running any risk of
the soldiers plotting with Rivarez and his friends
to effect an escape on the way.
When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the
room where Montanelli was writing at a table
covered with papers, a sudden recollection came
over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he
had sat turning over manuscript sermons in a study
much like this. The shutters had been closed, as
they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller''s
voice outside had called: "Fragola! Fragola!"
He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes
and set his mouth in a smile.
Montanelli looked up from his papers.
"You can wait in the hall," he said to the
guards.
"May it please Your Eminence," began the sergeant,
in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness,
"the colonel thinks that this prisoner is
dangerous and that it would be better------"
A sudden flash came into Montanelli''s eyes.
"You can wait in the hall," he repeated quietly;
and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses
with a frightened face, left the room with his men.
"Sit down, please," said the Cardinal, when the
door was shut. The Gadfly obeyed in silence.
"Signor Rivarez," Montanelli began after a
pause, "I wish to ask you a few questions, and
shall be very much obliged to you if you will
answer them."
The Gadfly smiled. "My ch-ch-chief occupation
at p-p-present is to be asked questions."
"And--not to answer them? So I have heard;
but these questions are put by officials who are
investigating your case and whose duty is to use
your answers as evidence."
"And th-those of Your Eminence?" There
was a covert insult in the tone more than in the
words, and the Cardinal understood it at once; but
his face did not lose its grave sweetness of
expression.
"Mine," he said, "whether you answer them
or not, will remain between you and me. If they
should trench upon your political secrets, of course
you will not answer. Otherwise, though we are
complete strangers to each other, I hope that you
will do so, as a personal favour to me."

"I am ent-t-tirely at the service of Your Eminence."
He said it with a little bow, and a face
that would have taken the heart to ask favours out
of the daughters of the horse-leech.
"First, then, you are said to have been smuggling
firearms into this district. What are they
wanted for?"
"T-t-to k-k-kill rats with."
"That is a terrible answer. Are all your fellow-men
rats in your eyes if they cannot think as you do?"
"S-s-some of them."
Montanelli leaned back in his chair and looked
at him in silence for a little while.
"What is that on your hand?" he asked
suddenly.
The Gadfly glanced at his left hand. "Old
m-m-marks from the teeth of some of the rats."
"Excuse me; I was speaking of the other
hand. That is a fresh hurt."
The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut
and grazed. The Gadfly held it up. The wrist
was swollen, and across it ran a deep and long
black bruise.
"It is a m-m-mere trifle, as you see," he said.
"When I was arrested the other day,--thanks to
Your Eminence,"--he made another little bow,--
"one of the soldiers stamped on it."
Montanelli took the wrist and examined it
closely. "How does it come to be in such a state
now, after three weeks?" he asked. "It is all
inflamed."
"Possibly the p-p-pressure of the iron has not
done it much good."
The Cardinal looked up with a frown.
"Have they been putting irons on a fresh
wound?"
"N-n-naturally, Your Eminence; that is what
fresh wounds are for. Old wounds are not much
use. They will only ache; you c-c-can''t make
them burn properly."
Montanelli looked at him again in the same
close, scrutinizing way; then rose and opened a
drawer full of surgical appliances.
"Give me the hand," he said.
The Gadfly, with a face as hard as beaten iron,
held out the hand, and Montanelli, after bathing
the injured place, gently bandaged it. Evidently
he was accustomed *****ch work.
"I will speak about the irons," he said. "And
now I want to ask you another question: What do
you propose to do?"
"Th-th-that is very simply answered, Your Eminence.
To escape if I can, and if I can''t, to die."
"Why ''to die''?"
"Because if the Governor doesn''t succeed in
getting me shot, I shall be sent to the galleys, and
for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have
not got the health to live through it."
Montanelli rested his arm on the table and
pondered silently. The Gadfly did not disturb
him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes,
lazily enjoying the delicious physical sensation of
relief from the chains.
"Supposing," Montanelli began again, "that
you were *****cceed in escaping; what should you
do with your life?"
"I have already told Your Eminence; I should
k-k-kill rats."
"You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I
were to let you escape from here now,--supposing
I had the power to do so,--you would use your
freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead
of preventing them?"
The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the
wall. "''Not peace, but a sword'';--at l-least I
should be in good company. For my own part,
though, I prefer pistols."
"Signor Rivarez," said the Cardinal with unruffled
composure, "I have not insulted you as
yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends.
May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or
do you wish me *****ppose that an atheist cannot
be a gentleman?"
"Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places
courtesy high among the Christian virtues. I remember
your sermon in Florence, on the occasion
of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender."
"That is one of the subjects about which I
wished to speak to you. Would you mind
explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness
you seem to feel against me? If you have
simply picked me out as a convenient target, that
is another matter. Your methods of political controversy
are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics
now. But I fancied at the time that there was some
personal animosity towards me; and if so, I should be
glad to know whether I have ever done 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.

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 se***ious 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
**** 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 con***ions 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 con***ion 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!"

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
*****ppress 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 not in the
fortress at all, their plan fails of itself, and they
have no occasion to begin fighting. But if we
have to repulse them, and the daggers once get
drawn among such throngs of people, we are
likely to have the place burnt down before nightfall."
"Then why do you not send him in to Ravenna?"
"Heaven knows, Your Eminence, I should be
thankful to do it! But how am I to prevent the
people rescuing him on the way? I have not soldiers
enough to resist an armed attack; and all
these mountaineers have got knives or flint-locks
or some such thing."
"You still persist, then, in wishing for a court-martial,
and in asking my consent to it?"
"Pardon me, Your Eminence; I ask you only
one thing--to help me prevent riots and bloodshed.
I am quite willing to admit that the military
commissions, such as that of Colonel Freddi,
were sometimes unnecessarily severe, and irritated
instead of subduing the people; but I think that
in this case a court-martial would be a wise measure
and in the long run a merciful one. It would
prevent a riot, which in itself would be a terrible
disaster, and which very likely might cause a return
of the military commissions His Holiness has abolished."
The Governor finished his little speech with
much solemnity, and waited for the Cardinal''s
answer. It was a long time coming; and when
it came was startlingly unexpected.
"Colonel Ferrari, do you believe in God?"
"Your Eminence!" the colonel gasped in a
voice full of exclamation-stops.
"Do you believe in God?" Montanelli repeated,
rising and looking down at him with steady,
searching eyes. The colonel rose too.
"Your Eminence, I am a Christian man, and
have never yet been refused absolution."
Montanelli lifted the cross from his breast.
"Then swear on the cross of the Redeemer Who
died for you, that you have been speaking the
truth to me."
The colonel stood still and gazed at it blankly.
He could not quite make up his mind which was
mad, he or the Cardinal.
"You have asked me," Montanelli went on,
"to give my consent to a man''s death. Kiss the
cross, if you dare, and tell me that you believe
there is no other way to prevent greater bloodshed.
And remember that if you tell me a lie you
are imperilling your immortal soul."
After a little pause, the Governor bent down
and put the cross to his lips.
"I believe it," he said.
Montanelli turned slowly away.
"I will give you a definite answer to-morrow.
But first I must see Rivarez and speak to him
alone."
"Your Eminence--if I might suggest--I am
sure you will regret it. For that matter, he sent
me a message yesterday, by the guard, asking to
see Your Eminence; but I took no notice of it,
because----"
"Took no notice!" Montanelli repeated. "A
man in such circumstances sent you a message,
and you took no notice of it?"
"I am sorry if Your Eminence is displeased. I
did not wish to trouble you over a mere impertinence
like that; I know Rivarez well enough by
now to feel sure that he only wanted to insult
you. And, indeed, if you will allow me to say so,
it would be most imprudent to go near him alone;
he is really dangerous--so much so, in fact, that
I have thought it necessary to use some physical
restraint of a mild kind------"
"And you really think there is much danger to
be apprehended from one sick and unarmed man,
who is under physical restraint of a mild kind?"
Montanelli spoke quite gently, but the colonel felt
the sting of his quiet contempt, and flushed under
it resentfully.
"Your Eminence will do as you think best," he
said in his stiffest manner. "I only wished to
spare you the pain of hearing this man''s awful
blasphemies."
"Which do you think the more grievous misfortune
for a Christian man; to hear a blasphemous
word uttered, or to abandon a fellow-creature in
extremity?"
The Governor stood erect and stiff, with his official
face, like a face of wood. He was deeply
offended at Montanelli''s treatment of him, and
showed it by unusual ceremoniousness.
"At what time does Your Eminence wish to
visit the prisoner?" he asked.
"I will go to him at once."
"As Your Eminence pleases. If you will kindly wait a
few moments, I will send someone to prepare him."
The Governor had come down from his official
pedestal in a great hurry. He did not want Montanelli
to see the straps.
"Thank you; I would rather see him as he is,
without preparation. I will go straight up to the
fortress. Good-evening, colonel; you may expect
my answer to-morrow morning."