"A FIGURE FROM A WORLD GONE BY"
The Count was left to himself in the bare, untidy-looking parlor, and for a minute or two he was content to sit quite still and recover himself after the unaccustomed exertion of speech. He needed all his strength for what lay before him, but, by degrees, his restlessness grew. He rose from his chair and paced up and down in increasing excitement--his misgivings were growing fainter--he worked himself up into the firm belief that the day for which he had waited so long was at hand.
"They dare not deny me!" he cried, lifting his hands high above his head until they almost touched the smoke-begrimed ceiling; "it is my due, my just reward!"
He was so absorbed that he did not hear the noises outside--the shuffling of feet, and, after a while, a brief suppressed t.i.ttering.
Signor Bartlezzi, who had entered the room quietly, had to speak twice before he was conscious of his presence.
"They are in the room behind, Signor Count, and I have informed them of your presence," he announced.
The Count drew himself up, and stopped suddenly short in his restless walk.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Lead the way! I follow."
Together they pa.s.sed into the narrow pa.s.sage, and the Professor threw open the door of another room. The Count entered.
The Professor had done what he could in the short time at his disposal.
Pens and ink had been placed upon the deal table, and the chairs had been ranged along it instead of around the fire. The tobacco jar and pipes were there, however, and some suspicious-looking jugs; and the hasty current of fresh air, caused by the withdrawal of a sheet of brown paper from the upper window frame, was altogether powerless to cope with the close beer-house smell which hung about the place.
The company consisted of four men. The chair at the head of the table had been left vacant for the Professor. On the right sat Andrew Martello, an anglicized Italian, and a vendor of ice cream; on the left was Pietro Muratti, the proprietor of an itinerant musical instrument.
These were the only two, besides the Professor, who had any pretense to Italian blood. The other two were a French barber and a Jew p.a.w.nbroker.
The light was purposely dim, and the Count"s eyes were bad. Besides, his long confinement, and the great though suppressed excitement under which he was laboring, had to a certain extent confused his judgment. He saw a mean room, and four men only, when he had dreamed of a chamber in some great house and an important a.s.semblage; but, disappointing though this was, it did not seem fatal to his hopes. Let but these four men be faithful to their oaths, and he, who had served their cause so well, could demand as a right the boon he craved. He strove earnestly to read their faces, but the light was bad and his eyes were dim. He must wait.
Their voices would show him what manner of men they were. After all, why should he doubt for a moment? Men who had remained faithful to a dying and deserted cause, must needs be men of strength and honorable men. The very fewness of their numbers proved it, else why should they too not have fallen away. He would banish all doubt. He would speak when his time came with all confidence.
The Professor introduced him with all solemnity, casting an appealing glance at each in turn, as though begging them to accept this matter seriously. There was just a slender thread of hope still, and he did not intend to abandon it.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have the honor to present to you the Count Leonardo di Marioni, a martyr, as you all know, to our cause. Count Marioni was, only last week, released from an imprisonment which has lasted for five-and-twenty years."
They all looked at him curiously--a little compa.s.sionately, but none of them were quite sure how to acknowledge the salutation. The Jew alone stood up and made a shuffling little bow; the others remained silent except the little French barber, who murmured something about pleasure and acquaintance, which the Professor promptly frowned down. The Count, who had remained standing, advanced to the bottom of the table, and, laying his trembling hands upon it, spoke:
"Gentlemen and Brothers of the Order of the White Hyacinth," he said solemnly, "I am glad to meet you."
The Frenchman and the Italian Muratti exchanged expressive winks. The vendor of ice cream growled across the table for the bird"s-eye, and commenced leisurely filling his pipe, while the Jew ventured upon a feeble "hear, hear."
"My name is doubtless known to you," the Count continued, "and the story of my life, which, I am proud to remember, is closely interwoven with the history of your Order. Your faces, alas! are strange to me. My old comrades, whom, I had hoped to meet, and whose sympathy I had counted on, are no more. I feel somewhat as though I had stepped out of the shadows of a bygone life, and everything is a little strange to me. I have grown unaccustomed even to speech itself. You must pardon me if I do not make myself understood with ease. The past seems very, very far away."
By this time all the pipes were lit, and the mugs were filled. The smoke hung round the little a.s.sembly in a faint cloud, and the atmosphere was growing dense. The Count looked a little puzzled, but he only hesitated for a moment. He remembered that he was in England, and the habits of foreigners were not easy to grow accustomed to. It was a small matter, although he wished that the odor of the tobacco had not been quite so rank. When he resumed speaking, however, it was forgotten in a moment.
"I must ask you to bear with me in a certain confession which I am about to make," he continued. "I am not here to-night to inquire or in any way to concern myself in the political prospects of our Order. Alas! that the time should come when I should find myself calmly acknowledging that my country"s sorrows were mine no longer. But, comrades, I must claim from you your generous consideration. Five-and-twenty years is a long time. I have lost my touch of history. My memory--I must confess it--my memory itself is weak. I do not doubt that, small though your numbers be, you are n.o.bly carrying on the work in which I, too, once bore a part. I do not doubt but that you are laboring still in the glorious cause of liberty. But I am with you no longer; my work on earth for others, such as it has been, is accomplished. I do not come to aid or to join you. Alas! that I should say it, I, Leonardo di Marioni, whose life was once so closely bound up with your prosperity as the breath of a man is to his body. But it is so. I am stranded upon the wreck of my past, and I can only call upon you with a far-distant voice for my own salvation."
There was a distinct air of relief. The vendor of ice cream spat upon the floor, and, in response to a frown from the Professor, at once covered it with his foot. The Professor drew his hand thoughtfully down his chin. They were approaching the _crux_ of the whole matter.
"We regret it deeply, Count," he said solemnly. "In that case the small trifle of money which the London agents of your bank have placed to our credit yearly on your behalf for the cause, and which has regularly been used for the--er--necessary expenses--er----"
The Count stretched out his hand.
"It is nothing," he answered. "Why should you mention it? That and more, too, the Order is welcome to. I doubt not that it has been well used."
"It has!" they cried, with one voice.
"A drop more beer, and a bottle of bran----"
The ice vendor never finished his sentence. A furious kick from the Professor, under the table, reminded him that he was on dangerous grounds, and he desisted, rubbing his leg and growling.
The Count scarcely heeded the interruption. His whole form was shaking with eagerness; his bony, white hands were outstretched toward his four listeners. For five-and-twenty years he had dreamed of this.
"No, my appearance once more before you, comrades, brothers, has no such petty object!" he cried. "I am here to demand my rights as a member of the Order of the White Hyacinth. I am here to remind you of our great principle--vengeance upon traitors! I am here to remind you of your unchanging oaths, and to claim your fulfillment of them, even as Francesco Dellia pleaded, and not in vain, before the council at Rome thirty years ago. We are a society of peace, save alone where traitors are concerned. I point out to you a traitor, and I cry--punishment!"
The Professor knitted his brows, and his hopes suddenly fell. They all exchanged glances.
"Old buffer"s dotty," whispered the Jew to his neighbor, tapping his head significantly.
The musical gentleman nodded.
"Let"s hear what it"s all about, anyhow," muttered the ice-cream vendor, tapping the table.
There was silence at once. They all turned toward the Count, and waited.
He had not been disappointed in their silence. It seemed to him like the prudent reserve of true conspirators. They wished to hear his case, and, as yet, he had only reached the preamble. Good! they should hear it.
"You all know that I was arrested and thrown into prison because I broke what they choose to call my parole--because, after the sentence of banishment had been pa.s.sed upon me, I returned to my native country, and took part once more in the counsels of our Order. But you have yet to learn this, comrades; you have yet to learn that I was betrayed, foully, wilfully--betrayed into the clutches of the Italian police. Before my very eyes papers of our society incriminating me were placed in the hand of our enemy, Signor Villesco, by one who had sworn our oaths in the first degree and worn our flower. At your hands I call for vengeance upon my betrayers--vengeance upon Adrienne di Cartuccio, calling herself Lady St. Maurice, vengeance upon her husband, her family, and all belonging to her. It is the first decree of our Order, which all of you have sworn to, and I stand within my rights. Answer, comrades of the Order of the White Hyacinth! For your sake I have languished five-and-twenty years in a Roman prison. With you it rests to sweeten my death. By your oaths, I charge you, give me vengeance!"
His eyes were flashing, and his features, for the first time, were convulsed with anxiety. What meant this unsympathetic silence, this lack of enthusiasm? He looked from one to another of their stolid, puzzled faces. Where were the outstretched hands, the deep solemn oaths, the cry for lots to be drawn, which he had confidently expected? Their silence was driving him mad. Suddenly the ice-cream vendor spoke.
"What is it you want, gaffer?" he asked, without removing his pipe from his mouth. "Cursed if I can see what you"re driving at, or any of us, for that matter."
"What is it I want?" he cried pa.s.sionately. "The life of my betrayer, or such a mark of my vengeance as will make her rue the day she sent one of your Order to work out his life, a miserable captive, in a prison cell.
Is it not clear what I want? Speak, all of you! Do you grudge me this thing? Do you hesitate?"
The vendor of ice cream const.i.tuted himself the spokesman of the little party. He knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and leisurely refilled it. The little old man at the bottom of the table was shaking with anxiety. The thunderbolt quivered in the air.
"That"s all bally rot, you know, guv"nor," he said calmly. "We ain"t murderers here! This White Hyacinth crew as you"re a-talking of must a been a blood-thirsty lot o" chaps. We ain"t on that track. We meets here just for a drop and a smoke, sociable like, with our friend the Professor, and forms a sort of a club like among hourselves. You"ve come to the wrong shop!"
The man"s words, blunt and unfeeling, answered their purpose well. They left no possibility of doubt or misunderstanding. The Count, after a moment"s wild stare around, tottered, and sank into a chair. All that had seemed strange to him was suddenly clear. His head fell upon his arms, and he crouched there motionless. The hopes of five-and-twenty years were wrecked. The spark which had left him alive had died out! The Order of the White Hyacinth was no more!
There was a distinct and terrible pathos in the scene. Even those rough, coa.r.s.e men, casting uneasy glances at that white, bowed head and crouching figure at the head of the table, and listening to his low moaning, were conscious of a vague pity. They thought of him as of some wandering lunatic who had strayed in upon them; and, indeed, none of them, except the Professor, doubted but that he was mad.
He looked up at last, and the ice-cream vendor, who was not a bad sort at heart, poured out a mugful of the unwholesome-looking beer, and pushed it across the table toward him.
"Here, guv"nor, drink this," he said gruffly; "it"ll do you good. Cheer up, old buck! I should. What"s done can"t be undone, and what"s dead can"t be brought to life again. Make the best of it, I say. You"ve got some of the ready left, I"ll go bail, and you ain"t too old to get a bit out o" life yet--if yer make haste. And about that blood-thirsty talk of yours, about vengeance and such like, you just take my tip and chuck it.
We think more of life here than they does in furrin parts, and hangin"
ain"t a pleasant death. Take my tip, guv"nor, you chuck it!"
The Count pushed the mug away, and rose to his feet. He had not heard a word. There was a terrible buzzing in his head and ears.
"I am a foolish old man, I fear," he said unsteadily. "I ought to have considered. Five-and-twenty-years! Ah, yes, it is a long time ago.
Professor, will you send your servant for a carriage? I will go away."