"Mbe, but he was a great liar, that Theodore? Always when it profited, and sometimes for the pleasure of it."
"Nevertheless, to disinherit his own son!"
Marc"antonio"s shoulders went up to his ears. "He knew well enough what comedy he was playing. Disinherit his own son? We Corsicans, he might be sure, would never permit that: and meanwhile your father"s money bought him out of prison. Ajo, it is simple as milking the she-goat yonder!"
"If you knew my father better, Marc"antonio, you would find it not altogether so simple as you suppose. King Theodore might have told my father that these children lived, and my father would yet have bought his freedom for their sake; yes, and helped him to the last shilling and the last drop of blood to restore them to the Queen their mother."
"Verily, cavalier, I knew your father to be a madman," said Marc"antonio, gravely, after considering my words for awhile.
"But such madness as you speak of, who could take into account?"
"Eh, Marc"antonio? What acquaintance have you with my father, that you should call him mad?"
"I remember him well, cavalier, and his long sojourning with my late master the Count Ugo at his palace of Casalabriva above the Taravo, and the love there was between him and my young mistress that is now the Queen Emilia. Lovers they were for all eyes to see but the old Count"s. Mbe! we all gossiped of it, we servants and clansmen of the Colonne--even I, that kept the goats over Bicchivano, on the road leading up to the palace, and watched the two as they walked together, and was of an age to think of these things. A handsomer couple none could wish to see, and we watched them with good will; for the Englishman touched her hand with a kind of worship as a devout man touches his beads, and they told me that in his own country he owned great estates--greater even than the Count"s.
Indeed, cavalier, had your father thought less of love and more of ambition there is no saying but he might have reached out for the crown, and his love would have come to him afterwards. But, as the saying goes, while Peter stalked the mufro Paul stole the mountain: and again says the proverb, "Bury not your treasure in another"s orchard." Along came this Theodore, and with a few lies took the crown and the jewel with it. So your father went away, and has come again after many years; and at the first I did not recognize him, for time has dealt heavily with us all. But afterwards, and before he spoke his name, I knew him--partly by his great stature, partly by his carriage, and partly, cavalier, by the likeness your youth bears to his as I remember it. So you have the tale."
"And in the telling, Marc"antonio," said I, "it appears that you, who champion his children, bear Theodore"s memory no good will."
"Theodore!" Marc"antonio spat again. "If he were alive here and before me, I would shoot him where he stood."
"For what cause?" I asked, surprised by the shake in his voice.
But Marc"antonio turned to the fire again, and would not answer.
As I remember, some three or four days pa.s.sed before I contrived to draw him into further talk; and, curiously enough, after trying him a dozen times _per ambages_ (as old Mr. Grylls would have said) and in vain, on the point of despair I succeeded with a few straight words.
"Marc"antonio," said I, "I have a notion about King Theodore."
"I am listening, cavalier."
"A suspicion only, and horribly to his discredit."
"It is the likelier to be near the truth."
"Could he--think you--have _sold_ his children to the Genoese?"
Marc"antonio cast a quick glance at me. "I have thought of that," he said quietly. "He was capable of it."
"It would explain why they were allowed to live. A father, however deep his treachery, would make that a part of the bargain."
Marc"antonio nodded.
"I would give something," I went on, "to know how Father Domenico came by the secret. By confession of one of the sisters, you suggest. Well, it may be so. But there might be another way--only take warning that I do not like this Father Domenico--"
"I am listening."
"Is it not possible that he himself contrived the kidnapping--always with King Theodore"s consent?"
"Not possible," decided Marc"antonio, after a moment"s thought.
"No more than you do I like the man: but consider. It was he who sent us to find and bring them back to Corsica. At this moment, when (as I will confess to you) all odds are against it, he holds to their cause; he, a comfortable priest and a loose liver, has taken to the bush and fares hardly for his zeal."
"My good friend," said I, "you reason as though a traitor must needs work always in a straight line and never quarrel with his paymaster; whereas by the very nature of treachery these are two of the unlikeliest things in the world. Now, putting this aside, tell me if you think your Prince Camillo the better for Father Domenico"s company? . . . You do not, I see."
"I will not say that," answered Marc"antonio, slowly. "The Prince has good qualities. He will make a Corsican in time. But, I own to you, he has been ill brought up, and before ever he met with Father Domenico. As yet he thinks only of his own will, like a spoilt child; and of his pleasures, which are not those of a king such as he desires to be."
Said I at a guess, "But the pleasures--eh, Marc"antonio?--such as a forward boy learns on the pavements; of Brussels, for example?"
I thought for the moment he would have knifed me, so fiercely he started back and then craned forward at me, showing his white teeth.
I saw that my luck with him hung on this moment.
"Tell me," I said, facing him and dragging hard on the hurry in my voice, "and remember that I owe no love to this cub. You may be loyal to him as you will, but I am the Princess"s man, I! You heard me promise her. Tell me, why has she no recruits?"
He drew back yet farther, still with his teeth bared. "Am _I_ not her man?" he almost hissed.
"So you tell me," I answered, with a scornful laugh, brazening it out. "You are her man, and Stephanu is her man, and the Prince too, and the Father Domenico, no doubt. Yes, you are all her men, you four: but why can she collect no others?" I paused a moment and, holding up a hand, checked them off contemptuously upon my fingers.
"Four of you! and among you at least one traitor! Stop!" said I, as he made a motion to protest. "You four--you and Stephanu and the Prince and Fra Domenico--know something which it concerns her fame to keep hidden; you four, and no other that I wot of. You are all her men, her champions: and yet this secret leaks out and poisons all minds against the cause. Because of it, Paoli will have no dealing with you. Because of it, though you raise your standard on the mountains, no Corsicans flock to it. Pah!" I went on, my scorn confounding him, "I called you her champion, the other day! Be so good as consider that I spoke derisively. Four pretty champions she has, indeed; of whom one is a traitor, and the other three have not the spirit to track him down and kill him!"
Marc"antonio stood close by me now. To my amazement he was shaking like a man with the ague.
"Cavalier, you do not understand!" he protested hoa.r.s.ely: but his eyes were wistful, as though he hoped for something which yet he dared not hear.
"Eh? I do not understand? Well, now, listen to me. I am her man, too, but in a different fashion. You heard what I swore to her, that day, beside my friend"s body; that whether in hate or love, and be her need what it might, I would help her. Hear me repeat it, lying here with my both legs broken, helpless as a log. Let strength return to me and I will help her yet, and in spite of all her champions."
"In hate or in love, cavalier?" Marc"antonio"s voice shook with his whole body.
"That shall be my secret," answered I. (Yet well I knew what the answer was, and had known it since the moment she had bent over me in the sty, filing at my chain.) "It had better be hate--eh, Marc"antonio?--seeing that for some reason she hates all men, except you, perhaps, and Stephanu, and her brother."
"We do not count, I and Stephanu. Her brother she adores. But the rest of men she hates, cavalier, and with good cause."
"Then it had better be hate?"
"Yes, yes"--and there was appeal in his voice--"it had a thousand times better be hate, could such a miracle happen." He peered into my eyes for a moment, and shook his head. "But it is not hate, cavalier; you do not deceive me. And since it is not--"
"Well?"
"It were better for you--far better--that Giuse had died of the wound you gave him."
"Why, what on earth has Giuse to do with this matter?" I demanded.
Indeed I had all but forgotten Giuse"s existence.
"Only this; that had Giuse died, they would have killed you out of hand in _vendetta_."
"You are an amiable race, you Corsicans!"
"And you came, cavalier, meaning to reign over us! Now, I have taken a liking to you and will give you a warning. Be like your father, and give up all for love."
"Suppose," said I, after a pause, "that for love I choose rather to dare all?"
"Signore"--he stepped back and, raising himself erect, flung out both hands pa.s.sionately--"Take her, if you must take her, away from Corsica! She is innocent, but here they will never understand.