Suddenly a flash of bright light darted through the dim confusion as a dark lantern was opened, and the glare fell full on the face and figure of Don Alberto Altieri, who stood hatless, sword in hand, facing an adversary who was quite invisible to the couple at the window. The instant the light was seen, the others of the two parties ceased fighting and retired in opposite directions.
‘Sir,’ said a voice which Stradella and Ortensia instantly recognised as Trombin’s, ‘I see that you are at least as young as you are noble, if not more so, and I shall therefore not press my acquaintance upon you so far as to take your life. But I shall tell you plainly, sir, that I am a fencing-master by my profession, and if you do not immediately dissolve into air, or, to put it better, melt away with all your company, I will lard you, in the space of thirty seconds, with fifteen flesh wounds in fifteen different parts of your body, not one of which shall be dangerous, but which, being taken in what I may call the aggregate, shall keep you in your bed for a month, sir. And moreover, sir, as you do not seem inclined to lower your guard and go away, there is one!’
The long rapier flashed in the light of the lantern, and instantly Don Alberto’s sword fell from his hand. Trombin had run him neatly through the right forearm, completely disabling him at the first thrust.
The Bravo at once stooped, picked up the weapon and politely offered him the hilt, but he could not take it with his right hand, and grasping the blade itself with his left, he just managed to get it into the sheath.
‘At least,’ he cried, furious with humiliation and pain, ‘that gentleman with the lantern there, who employs you, will answer to me for this in broad daylight, when my wound is healed.’
‘With pleasure, sir,’ answered the voice of Gambardella. ‘But as one gentleman to another, I warn you that I am also a fencing-master.’
The instant Don Alberto was wounded his musicians had taken to flight, and he had now no choice but to follow them, which he did with as much dignity as he could command, considering that he was hatless, wounded, and altogether very badly worsted, for he had understood that he had fallen in with Bravi, probably employed by a rival. As soon as it was evident that he was going away, the lantern was shut and the street was dark again, Trombin’s musicians tuned their instruments, and in two or three minutes the triumphal march rang out again, louder and higher than ever.
In the dimness above Stradella and Ortensia looked at each other, though they could hardly see one another’s faces.
‘Your two admirers mean business!’ said the musician with some amusement. ‘Trombin will seem less ridiculous the next time you see him staring at you!’
‘How can you laugh!’ asked Ortensia gravely, for she had never before seen men face each other with drawn swords.
She had always been taught that duelling was as wicked as it was dangerous, and her uncle Pignaver had shared that orthodox opinion; nevertheless, though she would not willingly have acknowledged it to her confessor, she was glad that Trombin had driven the lady-killer from the field, and she only wished that Stradella might have done it himself. As for the Bravi’s serenade, she did not resent it at all, nor did her husband; it was a friendly entertainment, and nothing more, on the part of the two wealthy Venetian gentlemen to whom the young couple already owed an immense debt of gratitude. When the chorus was ended, Stradella clapped his hands.
‘Bravo!’ cried Ortensia, and the word sounded clearly in the momentary silence.
‘At your ladyship’s service!’ answered Trombin in a laughing tone, for the jest she unconsciously made in using the single word seemed to him full of humour.
Gambardella’s dark lantern sent its searching ray up to the window at that moment, and showed the heads of the two young people close together, for the shutters were now wide open; an instant later the light went out and the music began again. It was a madrigal this time, airy and changing, and sung by four men, one of whom had a beautiful male contralto, which is a rarity even in Italy. Stradella recognised it instantly, for he had often sung at the Lateran and knew the man.
‘They are of the choir of Saint John’s,’ he whispered to Ortensia.
There was rivalry between the Lateran and the Vatican in the matter of music then, as there has been in our own day, and it was no wonder that the musicians themselves had joined in the fray when Don Alberto drew on Trombin and Gambardella.
The serenade continued, and the two Bravi enjoyed it quite as much as Ortensia herself; but it was not likely that Don Alberto would be satisfied to go quietly to bed after being wounded under the very walls of his father’s palace by a professional cut-throat who had been doubtless hired to protect a rival serenader. There was a guardhouse of the watch not far away, at the foot of the Capitol Hill, and thither he hastened, after twisting his silk scarf round his forearm as tightly as he could to staunch the blood.
In less than a quarter of an hour he came back with a corporal’s guard of the night-watchmen, armed with clumsy broadswords, but each carrying a serviceable iron-shod cudgel of cornel-wood which, according to old Roman rhyme, breaks bones so easily that the blows do not even hurt: ‘Corniale, rompe le ossa e non fa male.’ The corporal himself carried an elaborately wrought lantern of iron and glass, ornamented with the papal tiara and crossed keys.
Now the Bravi did not know Alberto Altieri by sight, and they had treated him as if he were of no more account than several hundred other young noblemen, sure that he would have his scratch dressed and go quietly to bed like a sensible fellow who has had the worst of it. Therefore when the watch came in sight suddenly, from behind the corner of the palace that juts out sharply towards San Stefano, the serenaders did not connect the appearance of the patrol with their late adversary, who had disappeared in the opposite direction; on the contrary, they went on singing and playing, well aware that night-watchmen never interfered with such innocent diversions, but would generally stop on their round to enjoy the music. Even now, when they came straight towards the musicians, the latter only made way quietly, supposing that they wished to pass. It was not till Gambardella recognised Don Alberto’s face by the light of the corporal’s lantern that he understood, and drew his rapier just in time to save himself from being arrested.
‘The two Bravi faced the watch side by side’ToList
‘Run, while we hold the street!’ he yelled to the musicians, who did not wait for a second invitation, but fled like sheep down the Via del Gesù.
Trombin’s blade was out almost as soon as his companion’s, and the two Bravi faced the watch side by side. Their hats were drawn well over their eyes, and they had clapped on the little black masks most people carried then, so that they were in no fear of being recognised. The corporal, who seemed to be a determined fellow, swung his stick like a sabre, to bring it down on Gambardella’s head, but it found only the empty air in its path, and at the same time the officer’s left hand was so sharply pricked that he dropped the big lantern, which rolled on its side and went out. Meanwhile Trombin had parried the blow his nearest adversary had struck at him, and in return had instantly disabled him by running him through the right forearm, precisely as he had done by Don Alberto.
A moment later Gambardella opened his dark lantern, and held it in his left, so that he and Trombin became almost invisible to their adversaries and had them at a great disadvantage. Furious, the corporal struck another wild blow with his staff, but Gambardella dodged it even more easily than before, being behind the lantern that dazzled the other; and as the iron-shod stick hit the ground after missing its aim, the officer felt the Bravo’s blade run through the muscles of his upper arm, like a stream of icy water, followed instantly by burning heat. With a hearty curse he backed out of the way of another thrust and bade his men draw their broadswords and finish the matter.
But this was more easily said than done. The half-dozen men obeyed, indeed, so far as drawing and brandishing their clumsy weapons was concerned, but the street was narrow, the lantern dazzled them, and the two long rapiers w
ith their needle points and solid blades pointed out at them in the circle of light, ready to run in under the awkward broadsword guard with deadly effect.
The corporal swore till Cucurullo, who was looking out of another upper window, expected to see him struck by lightning, and all the people who were now at the windows of the low houses opposite the palace crossed themselves devoutly; but it was of no use, as long as those two gleaming points kept making little circles slowly in the light. There was not a man in the corporal’s guard who would have gone within an arm’s length of them.
Seeing that they already had the best of it, the Bravi began to advance by regular short steps, moving the right foot forward first and then the left, as if they were on the fencing ground, their rapiers steadily in guard; and the watchmen fell back, fearing to face them. But that was not enough; for though the two might drive the little band in that way from street to street, if they but lowered their points a moment their adversaries would spring in upon them, even at some risk.
‘We are mild-tempered men,’ said Trombin at last, ‘but we are both fencing-masters, and it will not be prudent to irritate us, or, as I may say, to drive us to extremities. You had better go your way quietly and let us go ours.’
‘If you do not,’ said Gambardella, who was excessively bored, ‘we will skewer every mother’s son of you in five minutes, by the holy marrow-bones of Beelzebub!’
This singular invocation arrested the attention and disturbed the equanimity of the watchmen; they could stand being sworn at by every saint in the calendar, by every article of the Nicene Creed, and, generally, by everything sacred of which their corporal had ever heard, but they did not like men who invoked relics of such horrible import as those which Gambardella had named. Nor were their fears misplaced, for as they hesitated for two or three seconds before turning to run, the Bravo made a spring like a wild cat, struck the corporal violently on the nose with the iron guard of his rapier, jumped back one step, and then, lunging an almost incredible distance as the corporal staggered against the wall, ran the man behind him through the fleshy part of the shoulder. On his side, Trombin advanced too, pretended to lunge and then suddenly struck the man before him such a stinging blow with the flat of his rapier that the fellow howled and fled, whereupon Trombin encouraged his speed by prodding him sharply in the rear. In a moment the confusion was complete, and the watchmen were tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape. Then the lantern was suddenly shut, and the two Bravi faced about and ran like deer in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER XV
DON ALBERTO DID not care to tell how he had been wounded, and kept the matter between himself, his doctor, and his own man, giving out that he had been thrown from his horse and had broken one of the bones of his forearm, a story which quite accounted for his wearing his arm in a sling when he appeared after keeping his room during five days. It was natural, too, that Stradella and Ortensia, who had recognised him by the light of the lantern, should say nothing about the matter, and the Bravi did not know who the young man was; so there was a possibility that the whole affair might remain a secret.
Trombin, however, was anxious to discover the name of the adversary he had wounded, and Gambardella was not unwilling to help him, though he considered him quite mad where Ortensia was concerned.
‘You have no imagination,’ Trombin objected, in answer to this charge. ‘Can you not understand the peculiar charm of being in love with a lady of whom I have agreed to make an angel at the first convenient opportunity, and whom I have further promised to deliver safe, sound, and alive to her uncle in Venice?’
‘I wish you joy of your puzzles,’ answered Gambardella discontentedly.
‘I derive much solace from the pleasures of imagination,’ Trombin observed, following his own train of thought. ‘In me a great romancer has been lost to our age, another Bandello, perhaps a second Boccaccio! An English gentleman of taste once told me that my features resemble those of a dramatist of his country, whose first name was William — I forget the second, which I could not learn to pronounce — but that my cheeks are even rounder than his were, and my mouth smaller. Under other circumstances, who knows but that I might have been the William Something of Italy? My English friend added that the painted bust of the dramatist on his tomb was quite the most hideous object he had ever seen, so I do not tell you the story out of mere vanity, as you might suppose. My misfortune is that I am generally driven by a sort of familiar spirit to do the things I imagine, instead of writing them down.’
‘And pray what do you imagine you are going to do next?’ inquired Gambardella.
‘It has occurred to me that I might carry off the lady myself,’ Trombin answered in a thoughtful tone.
‘And leave me to manage the rest?’
‘You will have no trouble. I shall take the road to Venice, of course, and after a month or two I will hand the lady over to Pignaver, for I dare say she will soon tire of my company. As for you, you will only have to follow her husband, for he will go after his wife as fast as he can, of his own accord, and when you both reach Venice together, I shall be waiting and we will lead him into a trap and give him up to his pretty adorer! The rest will be as I said. She will not be able to keep him a prisoner very long, and when he leaves her house we can settle the business.’
‘And of course you will expect me to help you in carrying the young woman off?’
‘Naturally! Should you feel any scruples about it?’
‘No,’ Gambardella answered, in an indifferent tone, but he changed the subject and went back to the question of the rival serenader’s identity. ‘It might be as well to think of more practical matters,’ he said. ‘The excellent Tommaso has not found out anything about the man you wounded last night, though he has already ascertained exactly where the ex-Queen of Sweden keeps her jewels!’
‘Intelligent creature! He really has a good store of general information! I dare say he will take them some day and leave us without giving notice.’
‘It must be very convenient to be born so low in the world as to be able to steal without disgrace,’ observed Gambardella thoughtfully. ‘I suppose such fellows have no sense of honour.’
‘None whatever,’ said Trombin, with equal gravity. ‘As you say, it must make many things easy when one has no money.’
This conversation had taken place under the great colonnade before Saint Peter’s, late in the afternoon, when the air was pleasantly cool. Bernini’s colonnade was new then, and some of the poorer Romans, dwelling in the desolate regions between the Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore, had not even seen it. It might have been expected that it was to become the resort of loungers, gossips, foreigners, dealers in images and rosaries, barbers, fortune-tellers, and money-changers, as the ancient portico had been that used to form a straight covered way from the Basilica to the Bridge of Sant’ Angelo; but for some inexplicable reason this never happened, and it was always, as it is now, a deserted place.
The Bravi, who were men of taste, according to their times, admired the architecture extremely, and often walked there for half an hour before it was time to hear the Benediction music in the church, which was always good and sometimes magnificent.
This afternoon they were strolling not far from the bronze gate that gives access to the Vatican; a dozen paces or more behind them, within call but out of hearing of their conversation, walked the excellent Tommaso, otherwise known as Grattacacio, the ex-highway robber, about whom they had just been talking. The last words had barely passed Trombin’s lips when they heard the man’s footsteps approaching them rapidly from behind. They stopped to learn what was the matter.
‘A young gentleman on a mule is coming, with several servants,’ Tommaso said quickly. ‘He has his right arm in a sling. Perhaps he is your man.’
The two friends nodded carelessly, but drew their hats a little lower over their eyes as they turned and walked back, skirting the inner side of the colonnade so as to watch the party that was coming straight ac
ross the Piazza in the sun from the direction of Porta Santo Spirito. As soon as they saw the face of the young man who rode the mule they recognised Trombin’s adversary, who wore his broad-brimmed hat far down on the left to screen him from the sun, thus exposing the right side of his face to their view. They went on quietly, as if they had hardly noticed him, and he paid no attention to them. When he and his three servants had almost reached the bronzed gates, the Bravi despatched their man after him to find out his name from the groom who would hold his mule, while they themselves remained where they were, walking slowly up and down, a dozen steps each way.
‘I see a golden opportunity rising in the distance,’ said Trombin. ‘It illuminates my imagination and lights up my understanding.’
‘It will probably dazzle mine, so that I shall see nothing at all,’ observed Gambardella with his usual sourness.
‘Possibly,’ Trombin answered pleasantly. ‘I shall therefore hide my light under a bushel, as it were, and thus spare your mental eyes a shock that might be fatal to them. For my present inspiration is of such a tremendous nature that an ordinary intelligence might be unsettled by it.’
‘Could you not communicate the nature of it in small doses, as it were?’ asked Gambardella, mimicking him a little. ‘One can get accustomed even to poisons in that way, as Mithridates did.’
‘To oblige you, I will attempt it, my friend, but I shall endeavour to lead you to guess the truth yourself by asking questions, instead of presenting it to you in disjointed fragments. Now consider that youth whom I ran through the arm the other night, and answer me. Do you suppose that he was serenading Pina, the serving-woman, or Ortensia her mistress?’
‘What a question! It was Ortensia, of course.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1304
