"I grant that, sir," said I. "It is your business, now that the crown—with what small profit may go with it—lies under your hand, to grasp it for Genoa. But as a soldier and a brave man, you understand that now you must grasp it by force. God knows in what hope, if in any, the Princess here tracked out your plot; but at least she can compel you—I can compel you—we two, weak as we are, can compel you—to use force. The honour of a race—and that a royal one—shall at least not pass to you on the mere signature of that coward sitting there." I swung round upon the Prince. "You may give up trying to hide those papers, sir, since every one in this room knows what compact you were in the act of signing."

The Princess stepped forward. "All this," she said to me in a low, hard voice, "I could have done without help of you." Her tone promised that she would never forgive, but she looked only at her brother. "Camillo," she said, standing before him, "this Englishman has said only what I came to say. It is not my fault that he is here and has guessed. When I was sure, I hid my knowledge even from Marc'antonio and Stephanu; and he—he shall die for having overheard. The Genoese will see to that, and the Commandant, as he is a gentleman, will write in his report that he took the crown from us, having caught us at unawares. . . . I cannot shoot you, my brother. Even you would not ask this of me—of me that have served you, and that serve you now in the end. . . . See, I make no reproaches. . . . We were badly brought up, we two, and when you were young and helpless, vile men took hold on you and taught you to be capable of—of this thing. But we are Colonne, we two, and can end as Colonne." She dipped a hand within the bosom of her bodice and drew out a phial. "Dear, I will drink after you. It will not be hard; no, believe me, it will not be so very hard—a moment, a pang perhaps, and everything will yet be saved. O brother, what is a pang, a moment, that you can weigh it against a lifetime of dishonour!"

The Prince sprang up cursing.

"Dishonour? And who are you that talk to me of dishonour?—you that come straying here out of the night with your cicisbeo at your heels? You, with the dew on you and your dress bedraggled, arrive straight from companioning in the woods and prate to me of shame—of the blood of the Colonne!" He smote a hand on the table and spat forth a string of vile names upon her, mixed with curses; abominable words before which she drew back cowering, yet less (I think) from the lash of them than from shock and horror of his incredible baseness. Passion twisted his mouth; his tongue stammered with the gush of his abuse; but he was lying, and knew that he was lying, for his eyes would meet neither hers nor mine. Only after drawing breath did he for a moment look straight at her, and then it was to demand; "And who, pray, has driven me to this? What has made Corsica so bitter to me that in weariness I am here to resign it? You, my sister—you, and what is known of you. . . . Why can I do nothing with the patriots? Why were there no recruits? Why, when I negotiated, did the Paolists listen as to a child and smile politely and show me their doors? Again, because of you, O my sister!—because there is not a household in Corsica but has heard whisperings of you, and of Brussels, and of the house in Brussels where you were sought and found. Blood of the Colonne!—and now the blood of the Colonne takes an English lover to warm it! Blood of—"

With one hand I caught him by the throat, with the other by the girdle, and flung him clean across the table into the corner, oversetting the lantern, but not extinguishing the light, for the Commandant caught it up deftly. As he set it back on the table I heard him grunt, and—it seemed to me—with approval.

"I will allow no shooting, sir," said he, quickly, yet with easy authority, noting my hand go down to my gun-stock.

"You misunderstand me," I answered, and indeed I was but shifting its balance on my bandolier, which had slipped awry in the struggle. "There are reasons why I cannot kill this man. But you will give me leave to answer just two of his slanders upon this lady. It is false that I came here to-night by her invitation or in her company, as it is God's truth that for many months until we met in this room and in your presence she has not set eyes on me. She could not have known even that I lived since the hour when her brother there—yes, Princess, your brother there—left me broken and maimed at the far end of the island. For the rest, he utters slanders to which I have no clue save that I know them to be slanders. But at a venture, if you would know how they grew and who nurtured them, I think the priest yonder can tell you."

The Commandant waved a hand politely. "You have spoken well, sir. Believe me, on this point no more is necessary. I have no doubt— there can be no doubt—that the Prince lies under a misapprehension. Nevertheless, there are circumstances which lay me under obligation to him." He paused. "And you will admit that you have placed the lady—thoughtlessly no doubt—in a false position."

"Well and good, sir," I replied. "If, in your opinion as a man of honour, the error demands a victim, by all means call in your soldiers and settle me. I stipulate only that you escort the lady back to her people with honour, under a flag of truce; and I protest only, as she has protested, that this traitor has no warrant to sell you his country's rights."

The Prince had picked himself up, and stood sulkily, still in his corner. I suppose that he was going to answer this denunciation, when the priest's voice broke in, smooth and unctuous.

"Pardon me, messeri, but there occurs to me a more excellent way. This Englishman has brought dishonour on one of the Colonne: therefore it is most necessary that he should die. But before dying let him make the only reparation—and marry her."

I turned on him, staring: and in the flicker of his eyes as he lifted them for one instant towards his master, I read the whole devilish cunning of the plot. They might securely let her go, as an Englishman's widow. The fact had merely to be proclaimed and the islanders would have none of her. I am glad to remember that—my brain keeping clear, albeit my pulse, already fast enough, leapt hotly and quickened its speed—I had presence of mind to admire the suggestion coolly, impersonally, and quite as though it affected me no jot.

The Commandant bent his brows. Behind them—as it seemed to me—I could read his thought working.

"If you, sir, have no objection," he said slowly, looking up and addressing me with grave politeness, "I see much to be said for the reverend father's proposal."

He turned to the Prince, who—cur that he was—directed his spiteful glee upon his sister.

"It appears, O Camilla, that in our race to save each other's honour I am to be winner. Nay, you may wear your approaching widowhood with dignity, and boast in time to come that your husband once bore the crown of Corsica."

"Prince Camillo," said the Commandant, quietly, "I am here to-night in the strict service of my Republic, to do my best for her: but I warn you that if you a second time address your sister in that tone I shall reserve the right to remember it later as a plain Genoese gentleman. Sir," he faced about and addressed me again, "am I to understand that you accept?"

I looked at the Princess. She met my look proudly, with eyes set in a face pale as death. I could not for the life of me read whether they forbade me or implored. They seemed to forbid, protest . . . and yet (the bliss of it!) for one half instant they had also seemed to implore. Thank God at least they did not scorn!

"Princess," I said, "these men propose to do me an infinite honour— an honour far above my deserving—and to kill me while my heart yet beats with the pride of it. Yet say to me now if I must renounce it, and I will die bearing you no grudge. Take thought, not of me, but of yourself only, and sign to me if I must renounce."

Still she eyed me, pale and unblinking. Her bosom panted, and for a moment she half-raised her hand; but dropped it again.

"I think, sir," said I, facing around on the Commandant, I think by this time the day must be breaking. Will you kindly open the shutters? Also you would oblige me further—set it down to an Englishman's whim—by forming up your men outside; and we will have a soldier's wedding."

"Willingly, cavalier." The Commandant stepped to the shutter and unbarred it, letting in daylight with the cool morning breeze—a greenish-grey daylight, falling across the glade without as softly as ever through cathedral aisles, and a breeze that was wine to the taste as it breathed through the exhausted air of the cottage—a sacramental dawn, and somewhere deep in the arcades of the tree-boles a solitary bird singing!

The Commandant leaned forth and blew his whistle. The bird's song ceased, and was followed by the tramp of men. My brain worked so clearly, I could almost count their footsteps. I saw them, across the Commandant's shoulder, as they filed past the corner of the window and, having formed into platoon, grounded arms, the butts of their muskets thudding softly on the turf—a score of men in blue-and-white uniforms, spick and span in the clear morning light.

I counted them and drew a long breath. "Master priest," said I, and held out my hand to the Princess, "in your Church, I believe, matrimony is a sacrament. If you are ready, I am ready."

His loose lip twitched as he stepped forward. . . . When he paused in his muttering I lifted the Princess's cold hand and drew a seal from my pocket—a heavy seal with a ring attached, which I fitted on her finger; and so I held her hand, letting drop on it by degrees the weight of the heavy seal.

From the first she had offered no resistance, made no protest. I pressed the seal into the palm of her hand, not telling her that it was her own father's great seal of Corsica. But I folded her fingers back on it, reverently touched the one encircled by the ring, and said I—

"It is the best I can give;" and a little later, "It is all I brought in my pockets but this handkerchief. Take that, too; lead me out; and bandage my eyes, my wife."

She took my arm obediently and we stepped out by the doorway, bridegroom and bride, in face of the soldiery. A sergeant saluted and came forward for the Commandant's orders.

"A moment, sir," said I, and, laying two fingers on the Commandant's arm, I nodded towards the bole of a stout pine-tree across the clearing. "Will that distance suit you?"

He nodded in reply and as I swung on my heel touched my arm in his turn.

"You will do me the honour, sir, to shake hands?"

"Most willingly, sir." I shook hands with him, casting, as I did so, a glance over my shoulder at the Prince and Father Domenico, who hung back in the doorway—two men afraid. "Come," said I to the Princess, and, as she seemed to hesitate, "Come, my wife," I commanded, and walked to the pine-tree, she following. I held out the handkerchief. She took it, still obediently, and as she took it I clasped her hand and lifted it to my lips.

"Nay," said I, challenging, "what was it you told your brother? A moment? A pang? What are they to weigh against a lifetime of dishonour?"

I saw her blench: yet even while she bandaged me at my bidding, I did not arrive at understanding the folly—the cruel folly of that speech. Nay, even when, having bandaged me, she stepped away and left me, I considered not nor surmised what second meaning might be read in it.

Shall I confess the truth? I was too consciously playing a part and making a handsome exit. After all, had I not some little excuse? . . . Here was I, young, lusty, healthful, with a man's career before me, and across it, trenched at my feet, the grave. A saying of Billy Priske's comes into my mind—a word spoken, years after, upon a poor fisherman of Constantine parish whose widow, as by will directed, spent half his savings on a tombstone of carved granite. "A man," said Billy, "must cut a dash once in his lifetime, though the chance don't come till he's dead." . . . Looking back across these years I can smile at the boy I was and forgive his poor brave flourish. But his speech was thoughtless: the woman (ah! but he knows her better now) was withdrawn with its wound in her heart: and between them Death was stepping forward to make the misunderstanding final.

I remember setting my shoulder-blades firmly against the bole of the tree. A kind of indignation sustained me; a scorn to be cut off thus, a scorn especially for the two cowards by the doorway. They were talking with the Commandant. Their voices sounded across the interval between me and the firing-party. Why were they wasting time? . . .

I could not distinguish their words, save that twice I heard the Prince curse viciously. The hound (I told myself, shutting my teeth) might have restrained his tongue for a few moments.

The voices ceased. In a long pause I heard the insects humming in the grasses at my feet. Would the moment never come?

It came at last. A flash of light winked above the edge of my bandage, and close upon it broke the roar and rattle of the volley . . . Death? I put out my hands and groped for it. Where was Death?

Nay, perhaps this was Death? If so, what fools were men to fear it! The hum of the insects had given place to silence—absolute silence. If bullet had touched me, I had felt no pang at all. I was standing, yes, surely I was standing . . . Slowly it broke on me that I was unhurt, that they had fired wide, prolonging their sport with me; and I tore away the bandage, crying out upon them to finish their cruelty.

At a little distance sat the Princess watching me, her gun across her knees. Beyond her and beyond the cottage, by the edge of the wood the firing-party had fallen into rank and were marching off among the pine-stems, the Prince and Father Domenico with them. I stared stupidly after the disappearing uniforms, and put out a hand as if to brush away the smoke which yet floated across the clearing. The Commandant, turning to follow his men, at the same moment lifted his hand in salute. So he, too, passed out of sight.

I turned to the Princess. She arose slowly and came to me.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WOOING OF PRINCESS CAMILLA.

"Take heed of loving me, At least remember I forbade it thee; . . . If thou love me, take heed of loving me." DONNE, The Prohibition.

"You have conquered."

She had halted, a pace or two from me, with downcast eyes. She said it very slowly, and I stared at her and answered with an unmeaning laugh.

"Forgive me, Princess. I—I fancy my poor wits have been shaken and need a little time to recover. At any rate, I do not understand you."

"You have conquered," she repeated in a low voice that dragged upon the words. Then, after a pause,—"You remember, once, promising me that at the last I should come and place my neck under your foot . . ." She glanced up at me and dropped her eyes again. "Yes, I see that you remember. Eccu—I am here."

"I remember, Princess: but even yet I do not understand. Why, and for what, should you beseech me?"

"In the first place for death. I am your wife . . ." She broke off with a shiver. "There is something in the name, messere—is there not?—that should move you to kindness, as a sportsman takes his game not unkindly to break its neck. That is all I ask of you—"

"Princess!"

She lifted a hand. "—except that you will let me say what I have to say. You shall think hard thoughts of me, and I am going to make them harder; but for your own sake you shall put away vile ones-if you can."

I stared at her stupidly dizzied a little with the words I am your wife, humming in my brain. Or say that I am naturally not quick-witted, and I will plead that for once my dullness did me no discredit.

At all events it saved me for the moment: for while I stared at her, utterly at a loss, a crackle of twigs warned us, and we turned together as, by the pathway leading from the high-road, the bushes parted and the face of Marc'antonio peered through upon the clearing.

"Salutation, O Princess!" said he gravely, and stepped out of cover attended by Stephanu, who likewise saluted.

The Princess drew herself up imperiously. "I thought, O Stephanu, that I had made plain my orders, that you two were neither to follow nor to watch me?"

"Nevertheless," Marc'antonio made answer, "when one misses a comrade and hears, at a little distance, the firing of a volley . . . not to mention that some one has been burning gunpowder hereabouts," he wound up, sniffing the air with an expression that absurdly reminded me of our Vicar, at home, tasting wine.

"I warn you, O Marc'antonio," said the Princess, "to be wise and ask no more questions."

"I have asked none, O Princess," he answered again, still very gravely, and after a glance at me turned to Stephanu. "But it runs in my head, comrade, that the time has come to consider other things than wisdom."

"For example?" I challenged him sharply.

"For example, cavalier, that I cannot reconcile this smell with any Corsican gunpowder."

"And you are right," said I. "Nay, Princess, you have sworn not long since to obey me, and I choose that they shall know. That salvo, sirs, was fired, five minutes ago, by the Genoese."

"A 'salvo' did you say, cavalier?"

"For our wedding, Marc'antonio." I took the Princess's hand—which neither yielded nor resisted—and lifting it a little way, released it to fall again limply. So for a while there was silence between us four.

"Marc'antonio," said I, "and you, Stephanu—it is I now who speak for the Princess and decide for her; and I decide that you, who have served her faithfully, deserve to be told all the truth. It is truth, then, that we are married. The priest who married us was Fra Domenico, and with assent of his master the Prince Camillo. I can give you, moreover, the name of the chief witness: he is a certain Signor or General Andrea Fornari, and commands the Genoese garrison in Nonza."

"Princess!" Marc'antonio implored her.

"It is true," said she. "This gentleman has done me much honour, having heard what my brother chose to say."

"But I do not comprehend!" The honest fellow cast a wild look around the clearing. "Ah, yes-the volley! They have taken the Prince, and shot him . . . But his body—they would not take his body—and you standing here and allowing it—"

"My friends," I interrupted, "they have certainly taken his body, and his soul too, for that matter; and I doubt if you can overtake either on this side of Nonza. But with him you will find the crown of Corsica, and the priest who helped him to sell it. I tell you this, who are clansmen of the Colonne. Your mistress, who discovered the plot and was here to hinder it, will confirm me."

Their eyes questioned her; not for long. In the droop of her bowed head was confirmation.

"And therefore," I went on, "you two can have no better business than to help me convey the Princess northward and bring her to her mother, whom in this futile following after a wretched boy you have all so strangely forgotten. By God!" said I, "there is but one man in Corsica who has hunted, this while, on a true scent and held to it; and he is an Englishman, solitary and faithful at this moment upon Cape Corso!"

"Your pardon, cavalier," answered Marc'antonio after a slow pause. "What you say is just, in part, and I am not denying it. But so we saw not our duty, since the Queen Emilia bade us follow her son. With him we have hunted (as you tell us) too long and upon a false scent. Be it so: but, since this has befallen, we must follow on the chase a little farther. For you, you have now the right to protect our well-beloved; not only to the end of Cape Corso, but to the end of the world. But for us, who are two men used to obey, the Princess your wife must suffer us to disobey her now for the first time. The road to the Cape, avoiding Nonza, is rough and steep and must be travelled afoot; yet I think you twain can accomplish it. At the Cape, if God will, we will meet you and stand again at your service. But we travel by another road—the road which does not avoid Nonza."

He glanced at Stephanu, who nodded.

"Farewell then, O Princess; and if this be the end of our service, forgive what in the past has been done amiss. Farewell, O cavalier, and be happy to protect her in perils wherein we were powerless."

The Princess stretched out both hands.

"Nay, mistress," said Marc'antonio, with another glance at Stephanu; "but first cross them, that there be no telling the right from the left: for we are two jealous men."

She crossed them obediently, and the two took each a hand and kissed it.

Now all this while I could see that she was struggling for speech, and as they released her hands she found it.

"But wherefore must you go by Nonza, O Marc'antonio? And how many will you take with you?"

Marc'antonio put the first question aside. "We go alone, Princess. You may call it a reconnaissance, on which the fewer taken the better."

"You will not kill him! Nay, then, O Marc'antonio, at least—at least you will not hurt him!"

"We hope, Princess, that there will be no need," he answered seriously, and, saluting once more, turned on his heel. Stephanu also saluted and turned, and the pair, falling into step, went from us across the clearing.

I watched them till their forms disappeared in the undergrowth, and turned to my bride.

"And now, Princess, I believe you have something to say to me. Shall it be here? I will not suggest the cottage, which is overfull maybe of unpleasant reminders; but here is a tree-trunk, if you will be seated."

"That shall be as my lord chooses."

I laughed. "Your lord chooses, then, that you take a seat. It seems (I take your word for it) that there must be hard thoughts between us. Well, a straight quarrel is soonest ended, they say: let us have them out and get them over."

"Ah, you hurt! Is it necessary that you hurt so?" Her eyes no less than her voice sobered me at once, shuddering together as though my laugh had driven home a sword and it grated on the bone. I remembered that she always winced at laughter, but this evident anguish puzzled me.

"God knows," said I, "how I am hurting you. But pardon me. Speak what you have to speak; and I will be patient while I learn."

"'A lifetime of dishonour,' you said, and yet you laugh . . . A lifetime of dishonour, and you were blithe to be shot and escape it; yet now you laugh. Ah, I cannot understand!"

"Princess!" I protested, although not even now did I grasp what meaning she had misread into my words.

"But you said rightly. It is a lifetime of dishonour you have suffered them to put on you: and I—I have taken more than life from you, cavalier—yet I cannot grieve for you while you laugh. O sir, do not take from me my last help, which is to honour you!"

"Listen to me, Princess," said I, stepping close and standing over her. "What do you suppose that I meant by using those words? They were your own words, remember."

"That is better. It will help us both if we are frank—only do not treat me as a child. You heard what my brother said. Yes, and doubtless you have heard other things to my shame? Answer me."

"If your brother chose to utter slanders—"

"Yes, yes; it was easy to catch him by the throat. That is how one man treats another who calls a woman vile in her presence. It does not mean that he disbelieves, and therefore it is worthless; but a gallant man will act so, almost without a second thought, and because it is dans les formes." She paused. "I learned that phrase in Brussels, cavalier."

I made no answer.

"In Brussels, cavalier," she repeated, "where it was often in the mouths of very vile persons. You have heard, perhaps, that we—that my brother and I—lived our childhood in Brussels?"

I bent my head, without answering; but still she persisted.

"I was brought to Corsica from Brussels, cavalier. Marc'antonio and Stephanu fetched us thence, being guided by that priest who is now my brother's confessor."

"I have been told so, Princess. Marc'antonio told me."

"Did he also tell you where he found me?"

"No, Princess."

"Did he tell you that, being fetched hither, I was offered by my brother in marriage to a young Count Odo of the Rocca Serra, and that the poor boy slew himself with his own gun?"

I stuffed my hands deep in my pockets, and said I, standing over her—

"All this has been told me, Princess, though not the precise reason for it: and since you desire me to be frank I will tell you that I have given some thought to that dead lad—that rival of mine (if you will permit the word) whom I never knew. The mystery of his death is a mystery to me still; but in all my blind guesses this somehow remained clear to me, that he had loved you, Princess; and this (again I ask your leave to say it), because I could understand it so well, forbade me to think unkindly of him."

"He loved his honour better, sir." Her face had flushed darkly.

"I am sorry, then, if I must suffer by comparison."

"No, no," she protested. "Oh, why will you twist my words and force me to seem ungrateful? He died rather than have me to wife: you took me on the terms that within a few minutes you must die. For both of you the remedy was at hand, only you chose to save me before taking it. On my knees, sir, I could thank you for that. The crueller were they that, when you stood up claiming your right to die, they broke the bargain and cheated you."

"Princess," I said, after musing a moment, "if my surviving seemed to you so pitiable, there was another way." I pointed to her musket.

"Yes, cavalier, and I will confess to you that when, having fired wide, they turned to go and the cheat was evident, twice before you pulled the bandage away I had lifted my gun. But I could not fire it, cavalier. To make me your executioner! Me, your wife—and while you thought so vilely of me!"

"Faith," said I grimly, "it was asking too much, even for a Genoese! Yet again I think you overrate their little trick, since, after all"—I touched my own gunstock—"there remains a third way—the way chosen by young Odo of Rocca Serra."

She put out a hand. "Sir, that way you need not take—if you will be patient and hear me!"

"Lady," said I, "you may hastily despise me; but I am neither going to take that way, nor to be patient, nor to hear you. But I am, as you invited me, going to be very frank and confess to you, risking your contempt, that I am extremely thankful the Genoese did not shoot me, a while ago. Indeed, I do not remember in all my life to have felt so glad, as I feel just now, to be alive. Give me your gun, if you please."

"I do not understand."

"No, you do not understand. . . . Your gun, please . . . nay, you can lay it on the turf between us. The phial, too, that you offered your brother. . . . Thank you. And now, my wife, let us talk of your country and mine; two islands which appear to differ more than I had guessed. In Corsica it would seem that, let a vile thing be spoken against a woman, it suffices. Belief in it does not count: it suffices that a shadow has touched her, and rather than share that shadow, men will kill themselves—so tender a plant is their honour. Now, in England, O Princess, men are perhaps even more irrational. They, no more than your Corsicans, listen to the evidence and ask themselves, 'Is this good evidence or bad? Do I believe it or disbelieve?' They begin father back, Princess—Shall I tell you how? They look in the face of their beloved, and they say, 'Slander this, not as you wish for belief, but only as you dare; for here my faith is fixed beforehand.'

"And therefore, O Princess," I went on, after a pause in which we eyed one another slowly, "therefore, I disbelieve any slander concerning you; not merely because your brother's confessor was its author—though that, to any rational man, should be enough—but because I have looked in your face. Therefore also I, your husband, forbid you to speak what would dishonour us both."

"But, cavalier—if—if it were true?"

"True?"—I let out a harsh laugh. "Take up that phial. Hold it in your hand, so. Now look me in the face and drink—if you dare! Look me in the face, read how I trust you, and so, if you can say the lie to me say it—and drink!"

She lifted the phial steadily, almost to her lips, keeping her eyes on mine—but of a sudden faltered and let it fall upon the turf: where I, whose heart had all but stood still, crushed my heel upon it savagely.

"I cannot. You have conquered," she gasped.

"Conquered?" I swore a bitter oath. "O Princess, think you this is the way I promised to conquer you? Take up your gun again and follow me. . . . Eh? You do not ask where I lead?"

"It is enough that I follow you, my husband," she said humbly.

"It is something, indeed; but before God it is not enough, nor half enough. I see now that 'enough' may never come: almost I doubt if I, who swore to you it should come, and since have desired it madly, desire it any longer; and until it comes you are still the winner. 'Enough' shall be said, Princess—for my price rises—not when (as I promised) you come to me without choosing to be loved or hated, only beseeching your master, but when you shall come to me having made your choice. . . . But so far, so good," said I, cheerfully, changing my tone. "You do not ask where I lead. I am leading you, if I can to Cape Corso, to my father; and by his help, if it shall serve, to your mother."

"I thank you, cavalier," she said, still in her restrained voice. "You are a good man; and for that reason I am sorry you will not hearken to me."

"The mountains are before us," said I, shouldering my gun. "Listen, Princess: let us be good comrades, us two. Let us forget what lies at the end of the journey—the convent for you, may be, and for me at least the parting. My life has been spared to-day, and I tell you frankly that I am glad of the respite. For you, the mountains hold no slanders, and shall hold no evil. Put your hand in mine on the compact, and we will both step it bravely. Forget that you were ever a Princess or I a promised king of this Corsica! O beloved, travel this land, which can never be yours or mine, and let it be ours only for a while as we journey."

I turned and led the way up the path between the bushes: and she followed my stride almost at a run. On the bare mountain-spur above the high-road she overtook and fell into pace with me: and so, skirting Nonza, we breasted the long slope of the range.



CHAPTER XXV.

MY WEDDING DAY.

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine hath budded and the tender grape appear.— The Song of Songs.

Ahead of us, high on our right, rose the mountain ridges, scarp upon scarp, to the snowy peak of Monte Stella; low on our left lay Nonza, and beyond it a sea blue as a sapphire, scarcely rippled, void save for one white sail far away on the south-west horizon—not the Gauntlet; for, distant though she was, I could make out the shape of her canvas, and it was square cut.

Nonza itself lay in the shadow of the shore with the early light shimmering upon its citadel and upper works—a fortress to all appearance asleep: but the Genoese pickets would be awake and guarding the northward road for at least a league beyond, and to avoid them we must cross the high mountain spurs, using where we could their patches of forest and our best speed where these left the ridges bare.

The way was hard—harder by far than I had deemed possible—and kept us too busy for talk. Our silence was not otherwise constrained at all. Passion fell away from us as we climbed; fell away with its strife, its confusion, its distempered memories of the night now past; and was left with the vapours of the coast where the malaria brooded. Through the upper, clearer atmosphere we walked as gods on the roof of the world, saw with clear eyes, knew with mind and spirit untroubled by self-sickness. We were silent, having fallen into an accord which made all speech idle. Arduous as the road soon became, and, while unknown to both of us, more arduous to me because of my inexperience, we chose without hesitating, almost without consulting. Each difficulty brought decision, and with decision, its own help. Now it was I who steadied her leap across a chasm; now came her turn to underprop my foothold till I clambered to a ledge whence I could reach down a hand and drag her up to me. As a rule I may call myself a blundering climber, my build being too heavy; but I made no mistake that day.

In the course of a three hours' scramble she spoke to me (as I remember) once only, and then as a comrade, in quiet approval of my mountaineering. We had come to a crag over which—with no word said—I had lowered her by help of my bandolier. She had waited at the foot while I followed her down without assistance, traversing on the way an outward-sloping ledge of smooth rock which overhung a precipice and a sheer fall of at least three hundred feet. The ledge had nowhere a notch in it to grip the boot-sole, and was moreover slippery with the green ooze of a mountain spring. It has haunted my dreams since then; I would not essay it again for my weight in money; but I crossed it that day, so to speak, with my hands in my pockets.

The most curious (you might call it the most uncanny) part of the whole adventure, was that from time to time we came out of these breathless scrambles plump upon a patch of cultivated ground and a hill-farm with its steading; the explanation being that these farms stand each at the head of its own ravine, and, inaccessible one to another, have communication with the world only by the tracks which lead down their ravines. Here, three thousand feet and more above the sea—upon which we looked down between cliff and woodland as through a funnel, and upon the roofs and whitewashed walls of fishing-villages on the edge of the blue—lived slow, sedate folks, who called their dogs off us and stared upon us as portents and gave us goat's-milk and bread, refusing the coins we proffered. The inhabitants of this Cape (I have since learned) are a race apart in Corsica; slow, peaceable, without politics and almost (as we should say) without patriotism. We came to them as gods from the heights, and they received and sped us as gods. They were too slow of speech to question us, or even to express their astonishment.

There was one farm with a stream plunging past it, and, by the house wall, a locked mill-wheel (God knows what it had ever ground), and by the door below it a woman, seated on a flight of steps, with her bosom half-covered and a sucking-child laid asleep in her lap. She blinked in the sunshine as we came across the yard to her, and said she—

"Salutation, O strangers, and pardon that I cannot rise: but the little one is sick of a fever and I fear to stir him, for he makes as if he would sleep. Nor is there any one else to entertain you, since my husband has gone down to the marina to fetch the wise woman who lives there."

The Princess stepped close and stood over her. "O paesana," said she, "do you and your man live here alone, so far up the mountain?"

"There is the bambino," said the mother, simply. "He is my first— and a boy, by the gift of the Holy Virgin. Already he takes notice, and soon he will be learning to talk: but since we both talk to him and about him, you may say that already there are three of us, and anon the good Lord may send us others. It is hard work, O bella donna, on such a farm as ours, and doubly hard on my husband now for these months that I have been able to help him but little. But with a good man and his child—if God spare the child—I shall want no happiness."

"Give me the child," said the Princess, taking a seat on the stone slab beside her. "He shall not hurt with me while you fetch us a draught of milk."

The woman stared at her and at me, fearfully at first, then with a strange look in her eyes, between awe and disbelief and a growing hope.

"Even when you came," she said hoarsely after a while, "I was praying for an angel to help my child. . . . O blind, O hard of faith that I am! And when I lifted my eyes and saw you, I bethought me not that none walk this mountain by the path you have come, nor has this land any like you twain for beauty and stature. . . . O lady—whether from heaven or earth—you will not take my child but to cure it? He is my only one."

"Give him to me."

The woman laid her child in the Princess's arms and ran into the house, throwing one look of terror back at us from the doorstep. The Princess sat motionless, gazing down on the closed lids, frowning, deep in thoughts I could not follow.

"You will not," said I, "leave this good foolish soul in her error?"

"I have heard," she answered quietly, without lifting her eyes, "that a royal touch has virtue to heal sometimes—and there was a time when you claimed to be King of Corsica. Nay, forgive me," she took herself up quickly, "there is bitterness yet left in me, but that speech shall be the last of it. . . . O husband, O my friend, I was thinking that this child will grow into a man; and of what his mother said, that there is such a thing as a good man: and I am trying to believe her. . . . Eccu! he sleeps, poor mite! Listen to his breathing."

The farm-wife came out with a full bowl of milk. Her hands shook and spilled some as she handed it to me, so eager were they to hold her infant again. Taking it and feeling the damp sweat as she passed a hand over its brow, she broke forth into blessings.

We told her of her mistake: but I doubt if she heard.

"I have dwelt here these three years," she persisted, "and none ever walked the mountain by the path you have come." She watched us as I held the bowl for the Princess to drink, and asked quaintly, "But is there truly no marrying in heaven? I have thought upon that many times, and always it puzzles me."

We said farewell to her, and took her blessings with us as she watched us across the head of the ravine. Then followed another half-hour of silence and sharp climbing: but the worst was over, and by-and-by the range tailed off into a chain of lessening hills over which in the purple distance rose a solitary sharp cone with a ruinous castle upon it, which (said the Princess) was Seneca's Tower at the head of the Vale of Luri.

We were now beyond the danger of the Genoese, and therefore turned aside to the left and descended the slopes to the high-road, along which we made good speed until, having passed the tower and the mouth of the gorge which leads up to it from the westward, we came, almost at nightfall, within sight of Pino by the sea.

Here I proposed that I should go forward to the village and find a night's lodging for her, pointing out that, the night being warm and dry, I could make my couch comfortably enough in one of the citron orchards that here lined the road on the landward side. To this at first she assented—it seemed to me, even eagerly. But I had scarcely taken forty paces up the road before I heard her voice calling me back, and back I went obediently.

"O husband," she said, "the dusk has fallen, and now in the dusk I can say a word I have been longing all day to be free of. Nay"—she put out a hand—"you must not forbid me. You must not even delay me now."

"What is it, that I should forbid you?"

"It is—about Brussels."

I dropped my hand impatiently and was turning away, but she touched my arm and the touch pleaded with me to face her.

"I have a right. . . . Yes, it was good of you to refuse it; but you cannot go on refusing, because—see you—your goodness makes my right the stronger. This morning I could have told you, but you refused me. All this day I have known that refusal unjust."

"All this day? Then—pardon, Princess—but why should I hear you now, at this moment?"

"The daylight is past," she said. "You can listen now and not see my face."

On the hedge of the ditch beside the high-road lay a rough fragment of granite, a stone cracked and discarded, once the base of an olive-mill. She found a seat upon it and motioned to me to come close, and I stood close, staring down on her while she stared down at her feet, grey with dust almost as the road itself.

"We were children, Camillo and I," she said at length, "in keep of an ill woman we called Maman Trebuchet, and in a house near the entrance of a court leading off the Rue de la Madeleine and close beside the Market. How we had come there we never inquired. . . . I suppose all children take such things as they find them. The house was of five storys, all let out in tenements, and we inhabited two rooms on the fourth floor to the left as you went up the staircase. . . . Some of the men quarrelled with their wives and beat them. There was always a noise of quarrelling in the house: but outside, before the front door, the men who were not beating their women would sit for hours together and smoke and spit and tell one another stories against the Church and against women. The pavement where they sat and the street before it were strewn always with rotting odds and ends of vegetables, for almost every one in that quarter earned his living by the Market, and Maman Trebuchet among the rest. She divided her time between walking the streets with a basket and drinking the profits away in the cabarets, and in the intervals she cursed and beat us. We lived for the most part on the refuse she brought home at night— on so much of her stock as had found no purchaser—and we played about the gutters and alleys of the Market. So far as I remember we were neither very happy nor yet very miserable. We knew that we were brother and sister, and that Maman Trebuchet was not our real mother. Beyond this we were not inquisitive, but took life as we found it.

"Nevertheless, I know now that we were not altogether lost, but that eyes in Brussels were watching us; though how far they were friendly I cannot tell you. I think sometimes that the agents of the Genoese, who had hidden us there, must have been playing their own game as well as their masters'. There was, for example, a dark man who often visited the Market: he called himself a lay-brother, and seemed to be busy with religious work among the poor of the quarter. We knew him as Maitre Antoine at first, and so he was generally called: but he told us that his real name was Antonio—or Antoniu, as he spoke it—and that he came from Italy. He took a great fancy to us and obtained leave of Maman Trebuchet to teach us the Scriptures: but what he really taught us was to speak with him in Italian. We did not know at the time that, though he called it Tuscan, he was all the while teaching us our own Corsican. Nor, I believe, did our guardian know this; but one day, finding out by chance that we knew Italian (for we had begun to talk it together, that she might not understand what we said) and discovering how we had picked it up, she flew into a dreadful rage, lay in wait next day to catch Maitre Antoine as he came up the stairs, and fell upon him with such fury that the poor man fled out of the house and we never saw him again.

"After this—I believe about a year later—there came a day when she bought a new cap and shawl for herself and new clothes for us, and, having seen that we were thoroughly washed, took us up the hill to a fine street near the palace, and to a hotel which was almost the grandest house in the street. We entered, and were led into the presence of a very noble-looking gentleman in a long yellow dressing-gown, who blessed us and gave us a kiss apiece, and some gold money, and afterwards poured out wine for Maman Trebuchet and thanked her for taking such good care of us."

"That was your father, Princess."

"I have often thought so. But I remember nothing of his face except that he had tears in his eyes when we said good-bye to him; at which I wondered a great deal, for I had never seen a man crying. When we were outside again in the street Maman Trebuchet took the gold away from us. I think she too must have received money: for from that day she neglected her marketing and drank more heavily than before. About a month later she was dead.

"On the day of the funeral there came to our house a man dressed like a gentleman—yet I believe rather that he must have been some kind of courier or valet. He spoke to us very kindly, and said that we had friends, who had sent him to us; that when we grew up we should not want for money; but that just now it was most important we should be put to school and made fit for our proper position in life. We must make up our minds to be separated, he said—and at this we both wept—but we should see one another often. For Camillo he had found lodgings with an excellent tutor, in whose care, after a year's study, he was to travel abroad and see the world: while for me he had chosen a home with some discreet ladies who would attend to my schooling."

"The house was in the Rue de Luxembourg—a corner house, where the street is joined by a lane running from the Place du Parvis. He led me to it that same evening, and Camillo came too, to make sure that I was comfortable. It was a strange house and full of ladies, the most of them young and all very handsomely dressed. But for their dresses I could almost have fancied it some kind of convent. At all events, they received me kindly, and many of them wept when they saw my parting with Camillo."

Here the Princess paused, and sat silent for so long that I bent forward in the dusk to read her face. She drew away, shivering, and put up both hands as if to cover it.

"Well, Princess?"

"That house, Cavalier! . . . that horrible house! . . . Ah, remember that I was a child, scarcely twelve years old—I had heard vile words among the market folk, but they were words and meant nothing to me: and now I saw things which I did not understand and—and I became used to them before ever guessing that these were the things those vile words had meant. The women were pretty, you see . . . and merry, and kind to me at first. Before God I never dreamed that I was looking on harm—not at first—but afterwards, when it was too late. The people who had put me there ceased to send money, and being a strong child and willing to work, at first I was put to make the women their chocolate, and carry it up to them of a morning, and so, little by little, I came to be their house-drudge. I had lost all news of Camillo. For hours I have hunted through the streets of Brussels, if by chance I might get sight of him . . . but he was lost. And I—O Cavalier, have pity on me!"

"Wife," said I, standing before her, "why have you told me this? Did I not say to you that I have seen your face and believe, and no story shall shake my belief? . . . Nay, then, I am glad—yes, glad. Dear enough, God knows, you would have been to me had I met you, a child among these hills and ignorant of evil as a child. How much dearer you, who have trodden the hot plough-shares and come to me through the fires! . . . See now, I could kneel to you, O queen, for shame at the little I have deserved."

But she put out a hand to check me. "O friend," she said sadly, "will you never understand? For the great faith you pay me I shall go thankfully all my days: but the faith that should answer it I cannot give you. . . . Ah, there lies the cruelty! You are able to trust, and I can never trust in return. You can believe, but I cannot believe. I have seen all men so vile that the root of faith is withered in me. . . . Sir, believe, that though everything that makes me will to thank you must make me seem the more ungrateful, yet I honour you too much to give you less than an equal faith. I am your slave, if you command. But if you ask what only can honour us two as man and wife, you lose all, and I am for ever degraded."

I stepped back a pace. "O Princess," I said slowly, "I shall never claim your faith until you bring it to me. . . . And now, let all this rest for a while. Take up your story again and tell me the story to the end."

So in the darkness, seated there upon the millstone with her gun across her knees, she told me all the story, very quietly:—How at the last she had been found in the house in Brussels by Marc'antonio and Stephanu and fetched home to the island; how she had found there her brother Camillo in charge of Fra Domenico, his tutor and confessor; with what kindness the priest had received her, how he had confessed her and assured her that the book of those horrible years was closed; and how, nevertheless, the story had crept out, poisoning the people's loyalty and her brother's chances.

I heard her to the end, or almost to the end: for while she drew near to conclude, and while I stood grinding my teeth upon the certainty that the whole plot—from the kidnapping to the spreading of the slanders—had been Master Domenico's work, and his only, the air thudded with a distant dull concussion: whereat she broke off, lifting her head to listen.

"It is the sound of guns," said I, listening too, while half a dozen similar concussions followed. "Heavy artillery, too, and from the southward."

"Nay; but what light is yonder, to the north?"

She pointed into the night behind me, and I turned to see a faint glow spreading along the northern horizon, and mounting, and reddening as it mounted, until the black hills between us and Cape Corso stood up against it in sharp outline.

"O wife," said I, "since you must be weary, sleep for a while, and I will keep watch: but wake soon, for yonder is something worth your seeing."

"Whose work is it, think you?"

"The work," said I, "of a man who would set the whole world on fire, and only for love."



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE FLAME AND THE ALTAR.

"And when he saw the statly towre Shining baith clere and bricht, Whilk stood abune the jawing wave, Built on a rock of height,

"'Says, Row the boat, my mariners, And bring me to the land, For yonder I see my love's castle Close by the saut sea strand." Rough Royal.

"As 'twixt two equal armies Fate Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls—which to advance our state Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me:

"And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lay; All day the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day." DONNE, The Ecstasie.

She rose from the stone, but swayed a little, finding her feet. The dim light, as she turned her face to it, showed me that she was weary almost to fainting. She had come to a pass where the more haste would certainly make the worse speed.

"It is not spirit you lack, but sleep," said I; and she confessed that it was so. An hour's rest would recover her, she said, and obediently lay down where I found a couch for her on a bank of sweet-smelling heath above the road. I too wanted rest, and settled myself down with my back against a citron tree, some twenty paces distant.

Chaucer says somewhere (and it is true), that women take less sleep and take it more lightly than men. It seemed to me that I had scarcely closed my eyes before I opened them again at a touch on my shoulder. The night was yet dark around us, save for the glow to the northward, and at first I would hardly believe when the Princess told me that I had been sleeping near upon three hours. Then it occurred to me that for a long while the sky overhead had been shaking and repeating the boom of cannon.

"There is firing to the south of us," she said; "and heavier firing than where the light is. It comes from Nonza or thereabouts."

"Then it is no affair of ours, even if we could reach it. But the flame yonder will lead us to my father."

So we took the white glimmering high-road again and stepped out briskly, refreshed by sleep and the cool night air that went with us, blowing softly across the ridges on our right. We found a track that skirted the village of Pino, leading us wide among orchards of citron and olive, and had scarcely regained the road before the guns to the south ceased firing. Also the red glow, though it still suffused the north, began to fade as we neared it and climbed the last of steep hills that run out to the extremity of the cape. There, upon the summit, we came to a stand and caught our breath.

The sea lay at our feet, and down across its black floor to the base of the cliff on which we stood there ran a broad ribbon of light. It shone from a rock less than half a league distant: and on that rock stood a castle which was a furnace—its walls black as the bars of a grate, its windows aglow with contained fire. For the moment it seemed that this fire filled the whole pile of masonry: but presently, while we stood and stared, a sudden flame, shooting high from the walls, lit up the front of a tall tower above them, with a line of battlements at its base and on the battlements a range of roofs yet intact. As though a slide had been opened and as rapidly shut again, this vision of tower, roofs, battlements, gleamed for a second and vanished as the flame sank and a cloud of smoke and sparks rolled up in its place and drifted heavily to leeward.

With a light touch on the Princess's arm I bade her follow me, and we raced together down the slope. At the foot of it we plunged into a grove of olives and through it, as through a screen, into the street of a little marina—two dozen fisher-huts, huddled close above the foreshore, and tenantless; for their inhabitants were gathered all on the beach and staring at the blaze.

I have said that the folk at Cape Corso are a race apart: and surely there never was a stranger crowd than that in which, two minutes later, we found ourselves mingling unchallenged. They accepted us, may be, as a minor miracle of the night. They gazed at us curiously there in the light of the conflagration, and from us away to the burning island, and talked together in whispers, in a patois of which I caught but one word in three. They asked us no questions. Their voices filled the beach with a kind of subdued murmuring, all alike gentle and patiently explanatory.

"It is the island of Giraglia," said one to me. "Yes, yes; this will be the work of the patriots—a brave feat too, there's no denying."

I pointed to a line of fishing-boats moored in the shoal water a short furlong off the shore.

"If you own one," said I, "give me leave to hire her from you, and name your price."

"Perche, perche?"

"I wish to sail her to the island."

"O galant'uomo, but why should any one desire to sail to the island to-night of all nights, seeing that to-night they have set it on fire?"

I stared at his simplicity. "You are not patriots, it seems, at this end of the Cape?"

He shook his head gravely. "The Genoese on the island are our customers, and buy our fish. Why should men quarrel?"

"If it come to commerce, then, will you sell me your boat? The price of her should be worth many a day's barter of fish."

He shook his head again, but called his neighbours to him, men and women, and they began to discuss my offer, all muttering together, their voices mingling confusedly as in a dream.

By-and-by the man turned to me. "The price is thirty-five livres, signore, on deposit, for which you may choose any boat you will. We are peaceable folk and care not to meddle; but the half shall be refunded if you bring her back safe and sound."

"Fetch me a shore-boat, then," said I, while they counted my money, having fetched a lantern for the purpose.

But it appeared that shore-boat there was none. I learned later that my father and Captain Pomery, acting on his behalf, had hired all the shore-boats at these marinas (of which there are three hard by the extremity of the Cape) for use in the night attack upon the island.

"Hold you my gun, then, Princess," said I, "while I swim out to the nearest:" and wading out till the dark water reached to my breast, I chose out my boat, swam to her—it was but a few strokes—clambered on board, caught up a sweep, and worked her back to the beach. The Princess, holding our two guns high, waded out to me, and I lifted her on board.

We heard the voices of the villagers murmuring behind us while I hoisted the little sail and drew the sheet home. The night-breeze, fluking among the gullies, filled the sail at once, fell light again and left it flapping, then drew a steady breath aft, and the voices were lost in the hiss of water under the boat's stern.

But not until we had passed the extreme point of land did we find the true breeze, which there headed us lightly, blowing (as nearly as I can guess) from N.N.E., yet allowed us a fair course, so that by hauling the sheet close I could point well to windward of the fiery reflection on the water and fetch the island on a single tack. It was here, as we ran out of the loom of the land, that the waning moon lifted her rim over the hills astern; and it was here, as we cleared the point, that her rays, traversing the misty sea between us and Elba, touched the grey-white canvas of a vessel jeeling along (as we say at the fishing in Cornwall) and holding herself to windward for a straight run down upon the island—a vessel which at first glance I recognized for the Gauntlet.

Plainly she was standing-by, waiting; plainly then her crew—or those of them engaged for the assault—were detained yet upon the island; whence (to make matters surer) there sounded, as our boat ran up to it, a few loose dropping shots and a single cry—a cry that travelled across to us down the lane of light directing us to the quay. The blaze had died down; the upper keep, now overhanging us, stood black and unlit against a sky almost as black; but on a stairway at the base of it torches were moving and the flame of them shone on the slippery steps of a quay to which I guided the boat. There, jamming the helm down with a thrust of the foot, I ran forward and lowered sail.

We carried more way than I had reckoned for, and—the Princess having no science to help me—this brought us crashing in among a press of boats huddled in the black shadow alongside the quay-steps with such force as almost to stave in the upper timbers of a couple and sink them where they lay. No voice challenged us. I wondered at this as I gripped at the dark dew-drenched canvas to haul it inboard, and while I wondered, a strong light shone down upon us from the quay's edge.

A man stood there, holding a torch high over his head and shading his eyes as he peered down at the boat—a tall man in a Trappist habit girt high on his naked legs almost to the knees.

"My father?" I demanded. "Where is my father?"

He made no answer, but signed to us to make our landing, and waited for us, still holding the torch high while I helped the Princess from one boat to another and so to the slippery steps.

"My father?" I demanded again.

He turned and led us along the quay to a stairway cut in the living rock. At the foot of it he lowered his torch for a moment that we might see and step aside. Two bodies lay there—two of his brethren, stretched side by side and disposedly, with arms crossed on their breasts, ready for burial. High on the stairway, where it entered the base of a battlemented wall under an arch of heavy stonework, a solitary monk was drawing water from a well and sluicing the steps. The water ran past our feet, and in the dawn (now paling about us) I saw its colour. . . .

The burnt building—it had been the Genoese barracks—stood high on the right of the stairway. Its roof had fallen in upon the flames raging through its wooden floors, so that what had been but an hour ago a blazing furnace was now a shell of masonry out of which a cloud of smoke rolled lazily, to hang about the upper walls of the fortress. Through its window-spaces, void and fire-smirched, as now and again the reek lifted, I saw the pale upper-sky with half a dozen charred ends of roof-timber sharply defined against it—a black and broken grid; and while yet I stared upward another pair of monks crossed the platform above the archway. They carried a body between them—the body of a man in the Genoese uniform—and were bearing it towards a bastion on the western side, that overhung the sea. There the battlements hid them from me; but by-and-by I heard a splash. . . .

By this time we were mounting the stairway. We passed under the arch—where a door, shattered and wrenched from its upper hinge, lay askew against the wall—and climbed to the platform. From this another flight of steps (but these were of worked granite) led straight as a ladder to a smaller platform at the foot of the keep; and high upon these stood my uncle Gervase directing half a score of monks to right an overturned cannon.

His back was toward me, but he turned as I hailed him by name— turned, and I saw that he carried one arm in a sling. He came down the steps to welcome me, but slowly and with a very grave face.

"My father—where is he?"

"He is alive, lad." My uncle took my hand and pressed it. "That is to say, I left him alive. But come and see—" He paused—my uncle was ever shy in the presence of women—and with his sound hand lifted his hat to the Princess. "The signorina, if she will forgive a stranger for suggesting it—she may be spared some pain if—"

"She seeks her mother, sir," said I, cutting him short; "and her mother is the Queen Emilia."

"Your servant, signorina." My uncle bowed again and with a reassuring smile. "And I am happy to tell you that, so far at least, our expedition has succeeded. Your mother lives, signorina—or, should I say, Princess? Yes, yes, Princess, to be sure—But come, the both of you, and be prepared for gladness or sorrow, as may betide."

He ran up the steps and we followed him, across the platform to a low doorway in the base of the keep, through this, and up a winding staircase of spirals, so steep and so many that the head swam. Open lancet windows—one at each complete round of the stair— admitted the morning breeze, and through them, as I clung to the newel and climbed dizzily, I had glimpses of the sea twinkling far below. I counted these windows up to ten or a dozen, but had lost my reckoning for minutes before we emerged, at my uncle's heels, upon a semi-circular landing, and in face of an iron-studded door, the hasp of which he rattled gently. A voice answered from within bidding him open, and very softly he thrust the door wide.

The room into which we looked was of fair size and circular in shape. Three windows lit it, and between us and the nearest knelt Dom Basilio, busy with a web of linen which he was tearing into bandages. His was the voice that had commanded us to enter; and passing in, I was aware that the room had two other occupants; for behind the door stood a truckle bed, and along the bed lay my father, pale as death and swathed in bandages; and by the foot of the bed, on a stool, with a spinning-wheel beside her, sat a woman.

It needed no second look to tell me her name. Mean cell though it was that held her, and mean her seat, the worn face could belong to no one meaner than a Queen. A spool of thread had rolled from her hand, across the floor; yet her hands upon her lap were shaped as though they still held it. As she sat now, rigid, with her eyes on the bed, she must have been sitting for minutes. So, while Dom Basilio snipped and rent at his bandages, she gazed at my father on the bed, and my father gazed back into her eyes, drinking the love in them; and the faces of both seemed to shine with a solemn awe.

I think we must have been standing there on the threshold, we three, for close upon a minute before my father turned his eyes towards me— so far beyond this life was he travelling, and so far had the sound of our entrance to follow and overtake his dying senses.

"Prosper! . . ."

"My father!"

He lifted a hand weakly toward the bandages wrapping his breast. "These—these are of her spinning, lad. This is her bed they have laid me on. . . . Who is it stands there behind your shoulder?"

"It is the Princess, father. You remember the Princess Camilla? Yes, madam"—I turned to the Queen—"it is your daughter I bring— your daughter, and, with your blessing, my wife."

The Queen, though her daughter knelt, did not offer to embrace her, but lifted two feeble hands over the bowed head as though to bless, while over her hands her gaze still rested on my father.

"We have had brave work, lad," he panted. "I am sorry you come late for it—but you were bound on your own business, eh?" He turned with a ghost of his old smile. "Nay, child, and you did right; I am not blaming you—The young to the young, and let the dead bury the dead! Kiss me, lad, if you can find room between these plaguey bandages. Your pardon, Dom Basilio: you have done your best, and, if I seem ungrateful, let me make amends and thank you for giving me this last, best hour. . . . Indeed, Dom Basilio, I am a dead man, but your bandages are tying my soul here for a while, where it would stay. Gervase"—he reached out a hand to my uncle, who was past hiding his tears—"Gervase—brother—there needs no talk, no thanks, between you and me. . . ."

I drew back and, touching Dom Basilio by the shoulder, led him to the window. "He has no single wound that in itself would be fatal," the Trappist whispered; "but a twenty that together have bled him to death. He hacked his way up this stair through half a score of Genoese; at the door here, there was none left to hinder him, and we, having found and followed with the keys, climbed over bodies to find him stretched before it."

"Emilia!" It was my father's voice lifted in triumph; and the Queen rose at the sound of it, trembling, and stood by the bed. "Emilia! Ah, love—ah, Queen, bend lower!—the love we loved—there, over the Taravo—it was not lost. . . . It meets in our children—and we—and we—"

The Queen bent.

"O great one—and we in Heaven!" I raised the Princess and led her to the window fronting the dawn. We looked not toward the pillow where their lips met; but into the dawn, and from the dawn into each other's eyes.



CHAPTER XXVII.

MY MISTRESS RE-ENLISTS ME.

"If all the world were this enchanted isle, I might forget that every man was vile, And look on thee, and even love, awhile." The Voyage of Sir Scudamor.

We had turned from the bed, that no eyes but the Queen's might witness my father's passing. Her arm had slipped beneath his head, to support it, and I listened dreading to hear her announce the end. But yet his great spirit struggled against release, unwilling to exchange its bliss even for bliss celestial; and presently I heard his voice speaking my name.

"Prosper," he said; but his eyes looked upward into the Queen's, and his voice, as it grew firmer, seemed to interpret a vision not of earth. "Learn of me that love, though it delight in youth, yet forsakes not the old; nay, though through life its servant follow and never overtake. Even such service I have paid it, yet behold I have my reward!

"To you, dear lad, it shall be kinder; yet only on condition that you trust it.

"You will need to trust it, for it will change. Lose no faith in the beam when, breaking from your lady's eyes, it fires you not as before. It widens, lad; it is not slackening; it is passing, enlarging into a diviner light.

"By that light you shall see all men, women, children—yes, and all living things—akin with you and deserving your help. It is the light of God upon earth, and its warmth is God's charity, though He kindle it first as a selfish spark between a youth and a maid.

"Trust it, then, most of all when it frightens you, its first passion fading. For then, sickening of what is transient, it dies to put on permanence; as the creature dies—as I am dying, Prosper—into the greatness of the Creator.

"Take comfort and courage, then. For though the narrow beam falls no longer from heaven, you and she will remember the spot where it surprised you, unsealing your eyes. Let the place, the hour, be sacred, and you the witnesses sacred one to another. So He that made you ministers shall keep your garlands from fading.

"O Lord of Love, high and heavenly King! who, making the hands of boy and girl to tremble, dost of their thoughtless impulse build up states, establish societies, and people the world, accept these children!

"O Master, who payest not by time, take the thanks of thy servant! O Captain, receive my sword! O hands!"—my father raised his stiffly towards the crucifix which Dom Basilio uplifted, standing a little behind the Queen. "O wounded hands—nay, they are shaped like thine, Emilia—reach and resume my soul! _In manus tuas, Domine—in manus— in manus tuas. . . ."

"It is over," said Dom Basilio, slowly, after a long silence.

I saw the Queen lower the grey head back against its pillow, and turned to the window, where the Princess gazed out over the sea. For a minute—maybe for longer—I stood beside her following her gaze; then, as she lifted a hand and pointed, I was aware of two ships on the south-west horizon, the both under full sail and standing towards the castle.

"Last night," said I, and paused, wondering if indeed so short a while had passed; "theirs were the guns, off Nonza."

She nodded, meeting my eyes for an instant only, and averting hers again to the horizon. To my dismay they were dark and troubled.

"Not now—not now!" she murmured hurriedly, almost fiercely, as I would have touched her hand. Again her eyes crossed mine, and I read that love no longer looked forth from them, but a gloomy doubt in its place.

From the next window my Uncle Gervase had spied the ships, and now drew Dom Basilio's attention to them. The two discussed them for a minute. "Were they Corsican vessels, or Genoese?" Dom Basilio plucked me by the arm, to know my opinion. I told him of the firing we had heard off Nonza.

"In my belief," said I, "they are Corsicans that have drawn off from the bombardment, though why I cannot divine, unless it be in curiosity to discover why Giraglia was a-burning last night."

"If, on the other hand they be Genoese," answered my uncle, shaking his head, "this is a serious matter for us. The Gauntlet has but five men aboard, and will be culled like a peach."

"Had she fifty, she could not keep up a fight against two gunboats— as gunboats they appear to be," said I. "You will make a better defence of it from the island here, with the few cannon you have not dismounted."

"In that case I had best take boat, tell Captain Pomery to drop his anchor, leaving the ketch to her fate, and fetch him ashore to help us."

"Do so," said I. "Yet I trust 'tis a false alarm; for that these are Corsicans I'll lay odds."

"It may even be," suggested Dom Basilio, "that the two are enemies, the one in chase of the other."

"No," I decided, scanning them; "for they have the look of being sister ships. And, see you, the leader has rounded the point and caught sight of the Gauntlet. Mark how she is carrying her headsheets over to windward, to let her consort overtake her."

"The lad's right!" exclaimed my uncle. "Well, God send they be not Genoese! but I must pull out to the ketch and make sure. You, Prosper, can help Dom Basilio meanwhile to muster his men and right as many cannon as time allows."

He stepped to the door, tip-toeing softly, and we followed him—with a glance, as we went, at the figure bending over the bed. The Queen did not heed us.

From the upper terrace at the foot of the tower the Princess and I watched my uncle as, with two stalwart Trappists to row him, he pushed out and steered for the Gauntlet. We saw him run his boat alongside and climb aboard. Five slow minutes passed, and it became apparent that Captain Pomery had views of his own about abandoning the ship, for the Gauntlet neither dropped anchor nor took in canvas, but held on her tack, letting the boat drop astern on a tow-rope.

Just then Dom Basilio sent up half a dozen stout monks to me from the base of the rock; and for the next few minutes I was kept busy with them on the eastern bastion, refixing a gun which had been thrown off its carriage in the assault, until, casting another glance seaward, I saw to my amazement that the ketch had run up her British colours to her mizzen.

But happily Captain Pomery's defiance was thrown away. A minute later the leading gunboat ran up a small bundle on her main signal halliards, and shook out the green flag of Corsica.

"You can let the gun lie," said I to my monks. "These are friends."

"They are my countrymen," said the Princess at my elbow. "That they are friends is less certain."

"At any rate, they are lowering a boat," said I; "and see, my uncle is jumping into his, to intercept them."

The Corsicans, manning their boat, pulled straight for the island; but at half a mile's distance or less, being hailed by my uncle, lay on their oars and waited while he bore down on them. I saw him lift his hat to a man seated in the stern-sheets, who stood up and saluted politely in response. The two boats drew close alongside, while their commanders conversed, and after a couple of minutes resumed their way abreast and drew to the landing-quay, where Dom Basilio stood awaiting them.

"By his stature and bearing," said I, conning him through a glass which one of the monks passed to me, "this must be the General himself."

"Paoli?" queried the Princess.

I nodded.

"Shall we go down the rock to meet him?"

"It is Paoli's place to mount to us," said she proudly.

We waited therefore while my uncle led him up to us. But Pascal Paoli was too great a man to trouble about his dignity; and for courtesies, he contented himself with omitting none.

"Salutation, O Princess!" He halted within a few steps of the head of the stairway, and lifted his hat.

"Salutation, O General!"

"And to you, Cavalier!" He included me in his bow, "Pouf!" he panted, looking about him; "the ascent is a sharp one, under the best conditions. And you carried it in the darkness, against odds?" He turned upon my uncle. "You English are a great race."

"Excuse me, General," said my uncle, indicating Dom Basilio and the monks: "the credit belongs rather to my friends here."

"I had the pleasure to meet Sir John Constantine, a while ago, outside our new town of Isola Rossa, where he did me a signal service. You are his son, sir?"

I bowed.

"I condole with you, since I come too late to thank him—on behalf of Corsica, Princess—for a yet more brilliant service. An assault such as your party made last night requires brave men; but even more, it requires a brave leader and a genius even to conceive it. Let me say, sirs, that we heard your fire and saw Giraglia blazing, as far south as Nonza, where we were conducting a far meaner enterprise; and came north in wonder where Corsica had found such friends."

"Say rather, sir, where my mother had found them," interposed the Princess, coldly. "Is this curiosity of yours all your business?"

The General met her look frankly. If annoyed, he hid his annoyance.

"O Princess," answered he, "I will own that Corsica has left the Queen, your mother, overlong here in captivity. For reasons of state it was decided to work northward from point to point, clearing the Genoese as we went. We did not reckon that, before we reached Giraglia, an Englishman of genius would step in to anticipate us. Our hopes, Princess, fell short of an event so happy. But I can say that every Corsican is glad, and would wish to be such a hero."

"Did you, then, clear the Genoese from Nonza?" I put in hastily, noting the curl of my mistress's lips.

"Sir, there were no Genoese to clear. We bombarded it idly, only to learn that the Commandant Fornari had abandoned it some hours before; that he and his men had escaped northward in long boats, rowing close under the land."

I glanced at the Princess, and saw her mouth whiten. "Excuse me," I said. "Do you tell me that the whole garrison of Nonza had escaped?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Paoli, too, glanced at the Princess; but for an instant only. "We landed after the fortress had fired one single gun at us, which we silenced. Beside it we found two men standing at bay; its only defenders; and they, strange to tell, were Corsicans. I have brought them with me on my own ship."

"You need not tell me their names," said I.

"My brother?" the Princess gasped. "Where is my brother?"

The General lowered his eyes. "I regret to tell you, Princess, that your brother has fallen into our enemies' hands. They have carried him north, to Genoa, and with him the Priest who was his confessor. This I learned from your two heroes, who had entered Nonza with no other purpose than to rescue him, but had arrived too late. They shall be brought ashore, that you may question them.

"But what is this?" said a voice from the turret-door behind us. "My son Camillo a prisoner, and in Genoa!"

We turned all, to see the Queen standing there, on the threshold. The Princess, suddenly pallid, shot a look at Paoli—a look which at once defied and implored him.

"It is true, dear mother," said she, steadying her voice.

"God help us all!" The Queen clasped her hands. "The Genoese have no pity."

"Let your Majesty be reassured," said Paoli, slowly, "The Genoese, to be sure, have no pity; yet I can almost promise they will not proceed to extremities with your son. An enemy, madam, may have good reasons for negotiating; and although the Genoese Government would be delighted to break me on the wheel, yet, on some points, I can compel them to bargain with me."

He lifted his eyes. Mine were fixed on the Princess's, and I saw them thank him for the falsehood.

"Come, dear mother," she said, taking the Queen's hand. "Though Camillo be in Genoa he can be reached."

"My poor boy was ever too rash."

"He can be reached," the Princess repeated—but I saw her wince— "and he shall be reached. General, I pray you to send these two men to me. And now, mother, let one sorrow be enough for a time. There is woman's work to be done upstairs; take me with you that I may help."

I did not understand these last words, but was left puzzling over them as the two passed through the turret-door and mounted the stairway. Nor did I remember the custom of the country until, ten minutes later, I heard their voices lifted together in the upper chamber intoning a lament over my father's body.

My father—so my uncle told me—had left express orders that he should be buried at sea. Throughout the long afternoon, with short pauses, the voices wailed overhead, while we worked to set the fortress in order for the garrison which Paoli sent (despatching his second gunboat) to fetch from Isola Rossa; until, an hour before sunset, two monks came down the stairway with the corpse, and bore it to the quay, where Billy Priske waited with one of the Gauntlet's boats. Paoli and my uncle had taken their places in the stern-sheets, and Dom Basilio and I, having lifted the body on board and covered it with the Gauntlet's flag, ourselves stepped into the bows, where I took an oar and helped Billy to pull some twenty furlongs off the shore. Dom Basilio recited the funeral service; and there, watched by his comrades from the quay, we let sink my father into six fathoms, to sleep at the foot of the great rock which had been his altar.

As I landed and climbed the path again, I caught sight of Camilla, standing by the parapet of the east bastion, in converse with Marc'antonio and Stephanu. She had braided her hair, and done away with all traces of mourning, At the turret door her mother met me, equally neat and composed.

"I have been waiting for you," said the Queen. "Come, O son, for I want your advice."

She led me up past the second window of the turret, lifted the latch of an iron-studded door in the opposite wall, and, pushing it open, motioned me to enter.

"But what is this?" said I, gazing around upon two camp beds, spread with white coverlets, and a dressing-table with a jugful of lilac-coloured stocks, such as grew in the crannies of the keep and the rock-ledges under the platform.

"I had no mother," said she, "to prepare my bride-chamber, and rough is the best I can prepare for my child. But it is done with my blessing."

"Madame—" said I, flushing hotly, and paused at the sound of a footstep on the stair.

It was the Princess who came; and in an angry haste. She kissed her mother, thrust her gently from the room, and so, closing the door, stood with her back against it.

"You knew of this?" she demanded.

"Before God, I did not," I answered.

"It is folly." She glanced around the room. "You will admit that it is folly," she insisted.

I bowed my head. "It is folly, if you choose to call it so."

"I have been wanting to tell you . . . I believe you to be a good man. Oh yes, the fault is with me! This morning—you remember what your father said? Well, I listened, and the truth was made clear to me, that I cannot give you the like of such love—or the like of any such as a woman ought to give, who—who—"

"Say no more," said I, as gently as might be. "I understand."

"Ah, that is kind of you!" She caught at the admission eagerly. "It is not that I doubted; I see now that some men are not vile. But until I can feel it, what use is being convinced?" She paused, "Moreover, to-night I go on a journey."

"And I, too," said I, meeting her eyes firmly. "To Genoa, is it not?"

"You guessed it? . . . But you have no right—" she faltered.

I laughed. "But excuse me, my wife, I have all the right in the world. At what hour will Marc'antonio be ready with the boat?"



CHAPTER XXVIII.

GENOA.

"Gobbo. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to Master Jew's?

"Launcelot. Turn up on the right hand at the next turning, but at the very next turning of all, on your left: marry at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house.

"Gobbo. By God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit." The Merchant of Venice.

At eleven o'clock that night we four—the Princess, Marc'antonio, Stephanu, and I—hoisted sail and stood away from the north shore of Giraglia, carrying a fair wind with us. Our boat had been very cunningly chosen for us by Marc'antonio out of the small flotilla which my father had hired at Cape Corso for the assault. She was undecked, measured some eighteen feet over-all, and carried a fair-sized lateen sail; but her great merit for our purpose, lay in her looks. The inhabitants of Cape Corso (as the reader knows) have neither the patriotism nor the prejudices of their fellow-islanders; and this (however her owner had come by her) was a boat of Genoese build. So Marc'antonio had assured me; and my own observation confirmed it next day, as we neared the coast off Porto Fino.

We had laid this course of set purpose, intending to work up to the great harbour coastwise from the southward and enter it boldly, passing ourselves off for a crew from Porto Fino with a catch of fish for market. The others had discarded all that was Corsican in their dress, and the Princess had ransacked the quarters of the late garrison on Giraglia to rig us out in odds and ends of Genoese costume. For the rest we trusted to fortune; but an hour before starting I had sought out my Uncle Gervase and made him privy to the plot. He protested, to be sure; but acquiesced in the end with a wry face when I told him that the Princess and I were determined.

This understood, at once my excellent and most practical uncle turned to business. Within ten minutes it was agreed between us that the Gauntlet should sail back with General Paoli and anchor under the batteries of Isola Rossa to await our return. She was to wait there one month exactly. If within that time we did not return, he was to conclude either that our enterprise had come to grief or that we had re-shaped our designs and without respect to the Gauntlet's movements. In any event, at the end of one calendar month he might count himself free to weigh anchor for England. We next discussed the Queen. My uncle opined, but could not say with certainty, that the General had it in mind to offer her protection and an honourable retirement on her own estates above the Taravo. I bade him tell her that, if she could wean herself from Corsica to follow her daughter, our house of Constantine would be proud to lodge her—I hoped, for the remainder of her days—for certain, until she should tire of it and us.

The rest (I say) we left to chance, which at first served us smoothly. The breeze, though it continued fair, fell light soon after daybreak, and noon was well past before we sighted the Ligurian coast. We dowsed sail and pulled towards it leisurably, waiting for the hour when the fishing-boats should put out from Porto Fino: which they did towards sunset, running out by ones and two's before the breeze which then began to draw off the land, and making a pretty moving picture against the evening glow. When night had fallen we hoisted our lateen again and worked up towards them.

These fishermen (as I reasoned, from our own Cornish practice) would shoot their nets soon after nightfall and before the moon's rising— to haul them, perhaps, two hours later, and await the approach of morning for their second cast. Towards midnight, then, we sailed boldly up to the outermost boat and spoke her through Marc'antonio, who (fas est ab hoste doceri) had in old campaigns picked up enough of the Genoese patois to mimic it very passably. He announced us as sent by certain Genoese fishmongers—a new and enterprising firm whose name he invented on the spur of the moment—to trade for the first catch of fish and carry them early to market, where their freshness would command good prices. The fishermen, at first suspicious, gave way at sight of the Genoese money in his hand, and accepted an offer which not only saved them a journey but (as we calculated) put from three to four extra livres in their pockets. Within twenty minutes they had transferred two thousand fish to our boat, and we sailed off into the darkness, ostensibly to trade with the others. Doubtless they wished us good night for a set of fools.

We did not trouble their fellows. Two thousand fish, artfully spread to look like thrice the number, ought to pass us under the eyes of all Genoa: so for Genoa we headed forthwith, hauling up on the starboard tack and heeling to our gunwale under the breeze which freshened and blew steadily off the shore.

Sunrise found us almost abreast of the harbour: and the clocks from the city churches were striking seven as we rounded up under the great mole on the eastern side of the entrance and floated into the calm basin within. I confess that my heart sank as Genoa opened in panorama before us, spreading in a vast semicircle with its dockyards and warehouses, its palaces, its roofs climbing in terrace after terrace to the villas and flower-gardens on the heights: nor was this sense of our impudence lessened by reflecting that, once within the mole, we had not a notion to which of the quays a fishing-boat ought to steer to avoid suspicion. But here, again, fortune helped us. To the right, at the extreme inner corner of the mole, I espied half a dozen boats, not unlike our own, huddled close under a stone stairway; and I had no sooner thrust down the helm than a man, catching sight of us, came running along the mole to barter.

Marc'antonio's conduct of the ensuing bargain was nothing short of masterly. The stranger—a fishmonger's runner—turned as he met us and trotted alongside, shaping his hands like a trumpet and bawling down his price. Marc'antonio, affecting a slight deafness, signalled to him to bawl louder, hunched his shoulders, shook his head vehemently, held up ten fingers, then eight, then (after a long and passionate protest from above) eight again. By this time two other traffickers had joined the contest, and with scarcely a word on his side Marc'antonio kept them going, as a juggler plays with three balls. Not until our boat's nose grated alongside the landing was the bargain concluded, and the first runner, a bag of silver in his fist, almost tumbled upon us down the slippery stairs in his hurry to clinch it.

I stepped ashore and held out a hand to the Princess who, in her character of paesana, very properly ignored it. Luckily the courtesy escaped notice. Stephanu was making fast the boat; the runner counting his coins into Marc'antonio's hand.

The Princess and I mounted the stairs and, after a pretence to loiter and await our comrades, strolled off towards the city around the circuit of the quay. We passed the great warehouses of the Porto Franco, staring up at them, but impassively, in true country fashion, and a little beyond them came to the entrance of a street which—for it was strewn with cabbage leaves and other refuse—we judged to lead to the vegetable market.

"Let us turn aside here," said the Princess. "I was brought up in a cabbage-market, remember; and the smell may help to put me at my ease."

Now along the quays we had met and passed but a few idlers, the hour being early for business; but in the market, when we reached it, we found a throng—citizens and citizens' wives and housekeepers, all armed with baskets and chaffering around the stalls. The crowd daunted me at first; but finding it too intent to heed us, I drew breath and was observing it at leisure when my eyes fell on the back of a man who, bending over a stall on my right, held forth a cabbage in one hand while with the other—so far as the basket on his arm allowed—he gesticulated violently, cheapening the price against an equally voluble saleswoman.

Good heavens! That back—that voice—surely I knew them!

The man turned, holding the cabbage aloft and calling gods, mortals, and especially the population of Genoa, to witness. It was Mr. Pett!—and, catching sight of me, he stared wildly, almost dropping the vegetable.

"Angels and ministers—" here, at a quick sign of warning from me, he checked himself sharply. "O anima profetica, il mio zio! . . . Devil a doubt but it sounds better in Shakespeare's mother-English," he added, as I hurried him aside; and then—for he still grasped the cabbage, and the stallwoman was shouting after him for a thief. "You'll excuse me, signora. Two soldi, I think you said? It is an infamy. What? Your cabbage has a good heart? Ah, but has it ever loved? Has it ever leapt in transport, recognizing a long-lost friend? Importunate woman, take your fee, basely extracted from me in a moment of weakness. O, heel of Achilles! O, locks of Samson! Go to, Delilah, and henceforth for this may a murrain light on thy cucumbers!

"Though, strictly speaking," said Mr. Fett, as I drew him away and down the street leading to the quay, "I believe murrain to be a disease peculiar to cattle. Well, my friend, and how goes it with you? For me"—here he tapped his basket, in which the cabbage crowned a pile of green-stuff—"I am reduced to buying my salads." He wheeled about, following my glance, and saluted the Princess, who had followed and overtaken us.

"Man," said I, "you shall tell us your story as soon as ever you have helped us to a safe lodging. But here are we—and there, coming towards us along the quay, are two comrades—four Corsicans in all, whose lives, if the Genoese detect us, are not worth five minutes' purchase."

"Then, excuse me," said Mr. Fett, becoming serious of a sudden, "but isn't it a damned foolish business that brings you?"

"It may be," I answered. "But the point is, Can you help us?"

"To a lodging? Why, certainly, as luck has it, I can take you straight—no, not straight exactly, but the devil of a way round—to one where you can lie as snug as fleas in a blanket. Oh—er—but excuse me—" He checked himself and stood rubbing his chin, with a dubious glance at the Princess.

"Indeed, sir," she put in, smoothing down at her peasant-skirt, "I think you first found me lodging upon a bare rock, and even in this new dress it hardly becomes me to be more fastidious."

"I was thinking less of the lodgings, Princess, than of the company: though, to be sure, the girls are very good-hearted, and Donna Julia, our prima amorosa, makes a most discreet duenna, off the boards. There is Badcock too—il signore Badcocchio: give Badcock a hint, and he will diffuse a most permeating respectability. For the young ladies who dwell at the entrance of the court, over the archway, I won't answer. My acquaintance with them has not passed beyond an interchange of winks: but we might send Badcock to expostulate with them."

"You are not dealing with a child, sir," said the Princess, with a look at me and a somewhat heightened colour. "Be assured that I shall have eyes only for what I choose to see."

Mr. Fett bowed. "As for the lodgings, I can guarantee them. They lie on the edge of a small Jew quarter—not the main ghetto— and within a stone's-throw of the alleged birthplace of Columbus; if that be a recommendation. Actually they are rated in the weavers' quarter, the burgh of San Stefano, between the old and new walls, a little on the left of the main street as you go up from Sant' Andrea towards Porticello, by the second turning beyond the Olive Gate."

"I thank you," I interrupted, "but at a reasonable pace we might arrive there before you have done giving us the direction."

"My loquacity, sir, did you understand it," said Mr. Fett, with an air of fine reproach, "springs less from the desire to instruct than from the ebullience of my feelings at so happy a rencounter."

"Well, that's very handsomely said," I acknowledged. "Oh, sir, I have a deal to tell, and to hear! But we will talk anon. Meanwhile"—he touched my arm as he led the way, and I fell into step beside him—"permit me to note a change in the lady since I last had the pleasure of meeting her—a distinct lessening of hauteur—a touch of (shall I say?) womanliness. Would it be too much to ask if you are running away with her?"

"It would," said I. "As a matter of fact she is in Genoa to seek her brother, the Prince Camillo."

"Nevertheless," he insisted, and with an impertinence I could not rebuke (for fear of drawing the attention of the passers-by, who were numerous)—"nevertheless I divine that you have much either to tell me or conceal."

He, at any rate, was not reticent. On our way he informed me that his companions in the lodgings were a troupe of strolling players among whom he held the important role of capo comico. We reached the house after threading our way through a couple of tortuous alleys leading off a street which called itself the Via Servi, and under an archway with a window from which a girl blew Mr. Fett an unabashed kiss across a box of geraniums. The master of it, a Messer' Nicola (by surname Fazio) had rooms for us and to spare. To him Mr. Fett handed the market-basket, after extracting from it an enormous melon, and bade him escort the Princess upstairs and give her choice of the cleanest apartments at his disposal. He then led us to the main living-room where, from a corner-cupboard, he produced glasses, plates, spoons, a bowl of sugar, and a flask of white wine. The flask he pushed towards Marc'antonio and Stephanu: the melon he divided with his clasp-knife.