One carried wooden milk vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled with herbs and salads. Resting her elbow on the mule that carried the milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in its prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child was weary, and it seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing, half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in awaking her. She opened her baby-blue eyes, and stared up with astonishment and confusion.
"Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you," he said. "I"m dying with hunger, and the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than ever."
She bestirred herself, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant milk was held out to him; and by the time he set the cup down she had brought bread from a bag which hung by the side of the mule, and shyly and mutely insisted on his taking it, even though he told her he had nothing to pay her with; and just as he was leaning down to kiss her he was harshly interrupted by Monna Ghita, Tessa"s mother, who had come upon them un.o.bserved.
The handsome presence of the stranger and his charm of manner were of no avail with Monna Ghita; her noisy rating of him drew Bratti and the barber, Nello, to the spot, and with these he was glad to make good his escape, having waived a furtive adieu to the pretty Tessa.
It was not until after Bratti, having business at home, had handed the young stranger over to Nello, and in the barber"s shop he had been shaved and trimmed, and made to look presentable, that t.i.to Melema became more confidential, and explained that he was a Greek; that he was returning from adventures abroad, had suffered shipwreck, and found himself in Florence with nothing saved from the disaster but some few rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.
"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes; and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller"s son; and that may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got quarrelsome and turned red."
"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"
Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."
_II.--"More than a Man"s Ransom"_
He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello introduced t.i.to Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock, whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with Florentine. The family pa.s.sions lived on in Bardo under altered conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of ma.n.u.scripts, who ate sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice, and at last from necessity; who sat among his books and ma.n.u.scripts, and saw them only by the light of those far-off younger days which still shone in his memory.
And among his books and antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a s.p.a.cious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily companion and a.s.sistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age, and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered the priesthood, and the pa.s.sion of Bardo"s resentment had flamed into fierce hatred towards this recreant son of his, and none dared so much as to name him within his hearing.
Maso, the old serving-man ushered in the two visitors he had announced a few minutes previously, and Nello introduced t.i.to to Bardo and his daughter as a scholar of considerable learning.
Romola"s astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus, for the cunning barber had said nothing of the Greeks age or appearance, and among her father"s scholarly visitors she had hardly ever seen any but gray-headed men.
Nevertheless, she returned t.i.to"s bow with the same pale, proud face as ever; but as he approached the snow melted, and when he ventured to look towards her again a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. t.i.to"s glance, on the other hand, as he looked at this tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen, as she stood at the reading-desk with one hand on the back of her father"s chair, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome.
"Messere, I give you welcome," said Bardo with some condescension; "misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed Florentine."
He proceeded to question t.i.to as to what part of Greece he came from, learned that he was a young man of unusual scholastic attainments, and that he had a father who was himself a scholar.
"At least," said t.i.to, "a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan, but,"
he added, after another slight pause, "he is lost to me--was lost on a voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos."
Bardo forbore to speak further on so painful a topic; he discoursed freely upon his own studies, his past hopes, and the one great ambition that remained to him--that his library and his magnificent collection of treasures should not be dissipated on his death, but should become the property of the public, and be honourably housed in Florence for all time, with his name over the door.
In his eagerness he made pa.s.sing reference to his son, of how Romola had been filling his place to the best of her power, and plainly hinted--and t.i.to was not slow to profit by the opportunity--that if he could have the young Greek scholar to work with him instead of her, he might yet look to fulfill some of the notable designs he had abandoned when his blindness came upon him.
"But," he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, "we are departing from what I believe is your most important business. Nello informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of."
"I have one or two intagli of much beauty," said t.i.to. "But they are now in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has a strong and safe place for such things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred ducats."
"Ah, then, they are fine intagli!" said Bardo. "Five hundred ducats! Ah, more than a man"s ransom!"
t.i.to gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long, dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo"s blind face, as if his words--a mere phrase of common parlance at a time when men were often being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment--had some special meaning for him.
But Bardo had used the words in all innocence, and went on to talk of superst.i.tions that attached to certain gems, and to undertake that he would use his influence with the Secretary of the Republic in t.i.to"s behalf. Both Romola and her father were attracted by the charm and freshness and apparent simplicity of the young man; but just as he was making ready to depart they were interrupted by the entrance of Bernardo del Nero, one of the chief citizens of Florence, Bardo"s oldest friend, and Romola"s G.o.dfather; and Bernardo felt an instant, instinctive distrust of the handsome, ingratiating stranger, and did not hesitate to say so after t.i.to had left them.
"Remember, Bardo," he said at length, "thou hast a rare gem of thy own; take care no one gets it who is not like to pay a worthy price. That pretty Greek has a sleekness about him that seems marvelously fitted for slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
_III.--The Man who was Wronged_
It was undeniable that t.i.to"s coming had been the dawn of a new life for both father and daughter, and he grew to care for Romola supremely--to wish to have her for his beautiful and loving wife.
He took her place as Bardo"s a.s.sistant, and served him with an easy efficiency that had been beyond her; and she, happier in her father"s happiness, had given her love to t.i.to even before he ventured to offer her his own. He was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides convincing fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune, he wore that fortune so unpretentiously that no one seemed to be offended by it.
And that was not the whole of t.i.to"s good fortune, for he had sold his jewels, and was master of full five hundred gold florins. Yet the moment when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature had known.
"A man"s ransom!" Who was it that had said five hundred florins was more than a man"s ransom? If, now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot coast far away, a man somewhat stricken in years--a man not without high thoughts, and with the most pa.s.sionate heart--a man who long years ago had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, and had reared him tenderly, if that man were now, under this summer sun, toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing water? If he were saying to himself, "t.i.to will find me. He had but to carry our gems to Venice; he will have raised money, and will never rest till he finds me out?" If that were certain, could he--t.i.to--see the price of the gems lying before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned by soft airs of love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his sake?" No, surely not _if it were certain_. But the galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel; that was known by the report of the companion galley which had escaped; and there had been resistance and probable bloodshed, a man had been seen falling overboard.
He quieted his conscience with such reasonings as these, and when definite tidings reached him that his father was still a prisoner, he contrived to keep the knowledge to himself, and still did nothing. The death of the exhausted, emaciated monk who had brought these tidings freed him of one fear; but this monk was Romola"s brother, Dino, and obeying his summons she had been in secret to see him as he lay dying.
"Romola," her brother began to speak, "in the deep night, as I lay awake, I saw my father"s room, and I saw you ... And at the _leggio_ where I used to stand stood a man whose face I could not see. I saw him move and take thee, Romola, by the hand, and then I saw thee take my father by the hand, and you all three went down the stone steps into the streets, the man, whose face was a blank to me, leading the way. And you stood at the altar of Santa Croce, and the priest who married you had the face of death; and the graves opened and the dead in their shrouds followed you like a bridal train. And it seemed to me that at last you came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees or herbage; but instead of water I saw written parchment unrolling itself everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze and marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint, and fell to the ground; and the man loosed thy hand and departed; and as he went I could see his face, and it was the face of the Great Tempter....
Thrice have I had that vision, Romola. I believe it is a revelation meant for thee--to warn thee against marriage as a temptation of the enemy...."
The words died away.
"Frate," said the dying voice. "Give her----"
"The crucifix," said the voice of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was standing in the shadows behind her.
"Dino!" said Romola, with a low but piercing cry.
"Take the crucifix, my daughter," said Fra Girolamo, after a few minutes. "His eyes behold it no more."
But, heedless of the distrust and opposition of Messer Bernardo del Nero, and with this vision of Dino"s menacing his highest hope, t.i.to went gaily on his triumphant way.
Also he had renewed acquaintance with the little Tessa. He came upon her in the thronged streets during carnival time, and seeing her, a timorous, tearful little _contadin_, terrified by the burlesque threats of a boisterous conjurer, took her under his protection.
Thereafter, he met her again at intervals, finding her naive love and humble adoration and obedience very pleasant; and, meeting her once at a peasant"s fair, he jestingly yielded to the burlesque solicitations of a mountebank in a white mitre, paid a small fee, and went through an absurd ceremony of mock-marriage with her.
Tessa herself believed the marriage to be real enough, and he would not mar her delight by undeceiving her. Later, since she was wretched at home with her scolding mother and a brutal step-father, and there were dangers in allowing her to go on waylaying him in streets when too long a period elapsed between his visits to her, he quietly took her away and established her in a small house on the outskirts of the city, with the deaf, discreet old Monna Lisa as her servant and companion.
Neither this nor the darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for Romola was a higher and deeper pa.s.sion than anything he felt for the child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother"s warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him made the task easy.
For a while after their marriage she was ideally happy; she was not even separated from her father, for t.i.to came to live with them, and was to Bardo, in his scholastic labours, all that he had wished his own son to be. Then came the first cloud.
On November 17, 1494, more than eighteen months after the marriage of t.i.to and Romola, the King of France marched his army into Florence on his way to take possession of Naples and impose peace on the warring little states into which Italy was divided. There were those in Florence who were prepared to welcome the invaders, but the majority, the common people in particular, resented their coming.
With the soldiery came three wretched prisoners; they were led in ropes by their captors, and with blows from knotted cords were stimulated to beg. Two, as they pa.s.sed, held out their hands, crying piteously, "For the love of G.o.d and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom!"
But the third remained obstinately silent. He was old, white-haired, emaciated, with a thick-set figure that seemed to express energy in spite of age; yet there was something fitful in his eyes.