"I will go to-morrow, then," replied Moratti, and she looked away from him.
It was a moment of temptation. Almost did a rush of words come to the captain"s lips. He felt as if he must take her in his arms and tell her that he loved her as man never loved woman. It was an effort; but he was getting stronger in will daily, and he crushed down the feeling.
"It is getting chill for you," he said; "we had better go in."
"Tell me," she answered, not heeding his remark, "tell me exactly where you are going?"
"I do not know--perhaps to join Piccolomini in Bohemia--perhaps to join Alva in the Low Countries--wherever a soldier"s sword has work to do."
"And you will come back?"
"Perhaps."
"A great man, with a _condotta_ of a thousand lances--and forget Pieve."
"As G.o.d is my witness--never--but it is chill, Madonna--come in."
When they came in, Bernabo of Pieve was not alone, for standing close to the old man, his back to the fire, and rubbing his hands softly together, was the tall, gaunt figure of the Cavaliere Michele di Lippo.
"A sudden visit, dear cousin," he said, greeting Felicita, and turning his steel-grey eyes, with a look of cold inquiry in them, on Moratti.
"The Captain Guido Moratti--my cousin, the Cavaliere di Lippo."
"Of Castel Lippo, on the Greve," put in di Lippo. "I am charmed to make the acquaintance of the Captain Moratti. Do you stay long in Pieve, captain?"
"I leave to-morrow." Moratti spoke shortly. His blood was boiling, as he looked on the gloomy figure of the cavaliere, who watched him furtively from under his eyelids, the shadow of a sneer on his face.
He was almost sick with shame when he thought how he was in di Lippo"s hands, how a word from him could brand him with ignominy beyond repair. Some courage, however, came back to him with the thought that, after all, he held cards as well, as for his own sake, di Lippo would probably remain quiet.
"So soon!" said di Lippo with a curious stress on the word soon, and then added, "That is bad news."
"I have far to go, signore," replied Moratti coldly, and the conversation then changed. It was late when they retired; and as the captain bent over Felicita"s hand, he held it for a moment in his own broad palm, and said: "It is good-bye, lady, for I go before the dawn to-morrow."
She made no answer; but, with a sudden movement, detached a bunch of winter violets she wore at her neck, and thrusting them in Moratti"s hand, turned and fled. The Count was half asleep, and did not notice the pa.s.sage; but di Lippo said with his icy sneer: "Excellent--you work like an artist, Moratti."
"I do not understand you;" and turning on his heel, the captain strode off to his room.
An hour or so later, he was seated in a low chair, thinking. His valise lay packed, and all was ready for his early start. He still held the violets in his hand, but his face was dark with boding thoughts. He dreaded going and leaving Felicita to the designs of di Lippo. There would be other means found by di Lippo to carry out his design; and with a groan, the captain rose and began to pace the room.
He was on the cross with anxiety. If he went without giving warning of di Lippo"s plans, he would still be a sharer in the murder--and the murder of Felicita, for a hair of whose head he was prepared to risk his soul. If, on the other hand, he spoke, he would be lost forever in her eyes. Although it was winter, the room seemed to choke him, and he suddenly flung open the door and, descending the dim stairway, went out into the balcony. It was bright with moonlight, and the night was clear as crystal. He leaned over the battlements and racked his mind as to his course of action. At last he resolved. He would take the risk, and speak out, warn Bernabo of Pieve at all hazards, and would do so at once. He turned hastily, and then stopped, for before him in the moonlight stood the Cavaliere Michele di Lippo.
"I sought you in your chamber, captain," he said in his biting voice, "and not finding you, came here----"
"And how did you know I would be here?"
"Lovers like the moonlight, and you can see the light from her window in Ligo"s Tower," said di Lippo, and added sharply: "So you are playing false, Moratti."
The captain made no answer; there was a singing in his ears, and a sudden and terrible thought was working. His hand was on the hilt of his dagger, a spring, a blow, and di Lippo would be gone. And no one would know. But the cavaliere went on, unheeding his silence.
"You are playing false, Moratti. You are playing for your own hand with my hundred crowns. You think your ship has come home. Fool! Did you imagine I would allow this? But I still give you a chance. Either do my business to-night--the way is open--or to-morrow you are laid by the heels as a thief and a bravo. What will your Felicita----"
"Dog--speak her name again, and you die!" Moratti struck him across the face with his open palm, and Michele di Lippo reeled back a pace, his face as white as snow. It was only a pace, however, for he recovered himself at once, and sprung at Moratti like a wild-cat. The two closed. They spoke no word, and nothing could be heard but their laboured breath as they gripped together. Their daggers were in their hands; but each man knew this, and had grasped the wrist of the other.
Moratti was more powerful; but his illness had weakened him, and the long lean figure of Michele di Lippo was as strong as a wire rope.
Under the quiet moon and the winter stars, they fought, until at last di Lippo was driven to the edge of the parapet, and in the moonlight he saw the meaning in Moratti"s set face. With a superhuman effort, he wrenched his hand free, and the next moment his dagger had sunk to the hilt in the captain"s side, and Moratti"s grasp loosened, but only for an instant. He was mortally wounded, he knew. He was going to die; but it would not be alone. He pressed di Lippo to his breast. He lifted him from his feet, and forced him through an embrasure which yawned behind. Here, on its brink, the two figures swayed for an instant, and then the balcony was empty, and from the deep of the precipice two hundred feet below, there travelled upwards the sullen echo of a dull crash, and all was quiet again.
When the stars were paling, the long howl of a wolf rang out into the stillness. It reached Felicita in Count Ligo"s Tower, and filled her with a nameless terror. "Guard him, dear saints," she prayed; "shield him from peril, and hold him safe."
THE TREASURE OF s.h.a.gUL
It was past two o"clock, and Aladin, the elephant-driver, had gathered together his usual audience under the shade of the mango tree near the elephant-shed. Aladin was a noted story-teller; he had a long memory, and an exhaustless fund of anecdote. It was ten years since he had come from Nepaul with Moula Piari, the big she-elephant, and for ten years he had delighted the inhabitants of the ca.n.a.l-settlement at Dadupur with his tales. It was his practice to tell one story daily, never more than one; and his time for this relaxation was an hour or so after the midday meal, when he would sit on a pile of _sal_ logs, under the mango tree, and his small audience, collecting round him in a semi-circle, would wait patiently until the oracle spoke. No one ever attempted to ask him to begin. Once Bullen, the water-carrier, the son of Bishen, after waiting in impatient expectation through ten long minutes of solemn silence, had suggested that it was time for Aladin to commence. At this the old man rose in wrath, and asking the water-carrier if he was his slave, smote him over the ear, and stalked off to the elephant-shed. For three days there was no story-telling, and Bullen, the son of Bishen, had a hard time of it with his fellows.
Finally matters were adjusted; both Aladin and Bullen were persuaded by Gunga Din, the tall Burkundaz guard, to forget the past, and affairs went on in the old way. That was three years ago, but the lesson had not been forgotten. So although it happened on this April afternoon, that all the elephant-driver"s old cronies were there,--Gunga Dino the Burkundaz, Dulaloo the white-haired Sikh messenger who had been orderly to Napier of Magdala, Piroo Ditta the telegraph-clerk, and Gobind Ram the ca.n.a.l-accountant, with a half-score others--yet not one of them ventured to disturb the silence of Aladin, as he sat, gravely stroking his beard, on the ant-eaten _sal_ logs which had mouldered there for so many years. They were the remains of a wrecked raft that had come down in a July flood, and having been rescued from the water, were stacked under the mango tree for the owner to claim. No owner ever came, but they had served as food for the white ants, and as a bench for Aladin, for many a year.
The afternoon was delicious; a soft breeze was blowing, and the leaves of the trees tinkled overhead. Above the m.u.f.fled roar of the ca.n.a.l, pouring through the open sluices, came the clear bell-like notes of a blackbird, who piped joyously to himself from a snag that stood up, jagged and sharp, out of the clear waters of the Some. To the north the Khyarda and Kalessar Duns extended in long lines of yellow, brown, and grey, and above them rose the airy outlines of the lower Himalayas, while higher still, in the absolute blue of the sky, towered the white peaks of the eternal snows. Beeroo, the Sansi, saw the group under the mango tree as he crossed the ca.n.a.l-bridge, and hastened towards it. Beeroo was a member of a criminal tribe, a tribe of nomads who lived by hunting and stealing, who are to be found in every Indian fair as acrobats, jugglers, and fortune-tellers, or tramping painfully through the peninsula with a tame bear or performing monkeys. In short the Sansis are very similar to gipsies, if they are not, indeed, the parent stock from which our own "Egyptians" spring. Beeroo came up to the sitters, but as he was of low caste, or rather of no caste, he took up his position a little apart, leaning on a long knotted bamboo staff, his coal-black eyes glancing keenly around him. "It is Beeroo," said Dulaloo the Sikh, and with this greeting lapsed into silence. Aladin ceased stroking his henna-stained beard, and looked at the new-comer. "Ai, Beeroo! What news?"
"There is a tiger at Hathni Khoond, and I have marked him down. Is the Sahib here?"
"The Sahib sleeps now," replied Aladin; "it is the time for his noontide rest. He will awaken at four o"clock."
"I will see His Honour then," replied Beeroo, "and there will be a hunt to-morrow."
"Is it a big tiger?" asked Bullen, the son of Bishen.
"Aho!" and the Sansi, sliding his hands down the bamboo staff, sank to a sitting posture.
"When was it the Sahib slew his last tiger?" asked Piroo Ditta, the telegraph-clerk.
"Last May, at Mohonagh, near the temple," answered Aladin; "I remember well, for the elephant lost a toenail in fording the river-bed--poor beast!"
"At Mohonagh! That is where the s.h.a.gul Tree is," said Gobind Ram.
"True, brother. Hast heard the tale?"
There was a chorus of "noes," that drowned Gobind Ram"s "yes," and Aladin, taking a long pull at his water-pipe, began:
"When Raja Sham Chand had ruled in Suket for six years, he fell into evil ways, and abandoning the shrine of Mohonagh, where his fathers had worshipped for generations, set up idols to a hundred and fifty G.o.ds. Prem Chand, the high priest of Mohonagh, cast himself at the Raja"s feet, and expostulated with him in vain, for Sham Chand only laughed, saying Mohonagh was old and blind. Then he mocked the priest, and Prem Chand threw dust on his own head, and departed sore at heart.
So Mohonagh was deserted, and the Raja wasted his substance among dancing-girls and the false priests who pandered to him. About this time Sham Chand, being a fool although a king, put his faith in the word of the emperor at Delhi, and came down from the hills to find himself a prisoner. In his despair the Raja called upon each one of his hundred and fifty G.o.ds to save him, promising half his kingdom if his prayers were answered; but there was no reply. At last the Raja bethought him of the neglected Mohonagh, and falling on his knees implored the aid of the G.o.d, making him the same promise of half his kingdom, and vowing that if he were but free, he would put aside his evil ways, return to the faith of his fathers, and destroy the temples of his false G.o.ds. As he prayed he heard a bee buzzing in his cell, and watching it, saw it creep into a hollow between two of the bricks in the wall, and then creep out again, and buzz around the room. Sham Chand put his hand to the bricks and found they were loose. He put them back carefully, and waited till night. Under cover of the dark he set to work once more, and removing brick after brick, found that he could make his pa.s.sage through the wall. This he did and effected his escape. When he came back to Suket he kept his vow, and more than this. Within the walls of the _mandar_ of Mohonagh grows a _s.h.a.gul_, or wild pear tree. On this tree the Raja nailed a hundred and fifty gold mohurs, a coin for each one of the false G.o.ds whose idols he destroyed, and decreed that every one in Suket who had a prayer answered, should affix a coin or a jewel to the tree. That was a hundred years ago, and now the stem of the s.h.a.gul Tree is covered with coins and jewels to the value of _lakhs_. I saw it with my own eyes.
This is not all, for when at Mohonagh I heard that the G.o.d strikes blind any thief who attempts to steal but a leaf from the tree.
_Bus!_--there is no more to tell."
"_Wah_! _Wah!_" exclaimed the listeners, and Beeroo put in, "Lakhs of rupees didst thou say, Mahoutjee?"
"I have said what I have said, O Sansi, and thou hast heard. Hast thou a mind to be struck blind?"