Chapter 17

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_ CHAPTER XVII.

"Why liest thou so on the green earth?
'Tis not the hour of slumber:--why so pale?"
CAIN.

Notwithstanding his apparent decision, the Duke of Sant' Agata was completely at a loss in what manner to direct his future movements. That he had been duped by one or more of the agents to whom he had been compelled to confide his necessary preparations for the flight he had meditated several days, was too certain to admit of his deceiving himself with the hopes that some unaccountable mistake was the cause of his loss. He saw at once that the Senate was master of the person of his bride, and he too well knew its power and its utter disregard of human obligations when any paramount interest of the state was to be consulted, to doubt for an instant its willingness to use its advantage in any manner that was most likely to contribute to its own views. By the premature death of her uncle, Donna Violetta had become the heiress of vast estates in the dominions of the church, and a compliance with that jealous and arbitrary law of Venice, which commanded all of its nobles to dispose of any foreign possessions they might acquire, was only suspended on account of her sex, and, as has already been seen, with the hope of disposing of her hand in a manner that would prove more profitable to the Republic. With this object still before them, and with the means of accomplishing it in their own hands, the bridegroom well knew that his marriage would not only be denied, but he feared the witnesses of the ceremony would be so disposed of, as to give little reason ever to expect embarrassment from their testimony. For himself, personally, he felt less apprehension, though he foresaw that he had furnished his opponents with an argument that was likely to defer to an indefinite period, if it did not entirely defeat, his claims to the disputed succession. But he had already made up his mind to this result, though it is probable that his passion for Violetta had not entirely blinded him to the fact, that her Roman signories would be no unequal offset for the loss. He believed that he might possibly return to his palace with impunity, so far as any personal injury was concerned; for the great consideration he enjoyed in his native land, and the high interest he possessed at the court of Rome, were sufficient pledges that no open violence would be done him. The chief reason why his claim had been kept in suspense, was the wish to profit by his near connexion with the favorite cardinal; and though he had never been able entirely to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of the council in this respect, he thought it probable that the power of the Vatican would not be spared, to save him from any very imminent personal hazard. Still he had given the state of Venice plausible reasons for severity; and liberty, just at that moment, was of so much importance, that he dreaded falling into the hands of the officials, as one of the greatest misfortunes which could momentarily overtake him. He so well knew the crooked policy of those with whom he had to deal, that he believed he might be arrested solely that the government could make an especial merit of his future release, under circumstances of so seeming gravity. His order to Gino, therefore, had been to pull down the principal passage towards the port.

Before the gondola, which sprang at each united effort of its crew, like some bounding animal, entered among the shipping, its master had time to recover his self-possession, and to form some hasty plans for the future. Making a signal for the crew to cease rowing, he came from beneath the canopy. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, boats were plying on the water within the town, and the song was still audible on the canals. But among the mariners a general stillness prevailed, such as befitted their toil during the day, and their ordinary habits.

"Call the first idle gondolier of thy acquaintance hither, Gino," said Don Camillo, with assumed calmness; "I would question him."

In less than a minute he was gratified.

"Hast seen any strongly manned gondola plying, of late, in this part of the canal?" demanded Don Camillo, of the man they had stopped.

"None, but this of your own, Signore; which is the fastest of all that passed beneath the Rialto in this day's regatta."

"How knowest thou, friend, aught of the speed of my boat?"

"Signore, I have pulled an oar on the canals of Venice six-and-twenty years, and I do not remember to have seen a gondola move more swiftly on them than did this very boat but a few minutes ago, when it dashed among the feluccas, further down in the port, as if it were again running for the oar. Corpo di Bacco! There are rich wines in the palaces of the nobles, that men can give such life to wood!"

"Whither did we steer?" eagerly asked Don Camillo.

"Blessed San Teodoro! I do not wonder, eccellenza, that you ask that question, for though it is but a moment since, here I see you lying as motionless on the water as a floating weed!"

"Friend, here is silver--addio."

The gondolier swept slowly onwards, singing a strain in honor of his bark, while the boat of Don Camillo darted ahead. Mystic, felucca, xebec, brigantine, and three-masted ship, were apparently floating past them, as they shot through the maze of shipping, when Gino bent forward and drew the attention of his master to a large gondola, which was pulling with a lazy oar towards them, from the direction of the Lido. Both boats were in a wide avenue in the midst of the vessels, the usual track of those who went to sea, and there was no object whatever between them. By changing the course of his own boat, Don Camillo soon found himself within an oar's length of the other. He saw, at a glance, it was the treacherous gondola by which he had been duped.

"Draw, men, and follow!" shouted the desperate Neapolitan, preparing to leap into the midst of his enemies.

"You draw against St. Mark!" cried a warning voice from beneath the canopy. "The chances are unequal, Signore; for the smallest signal would bring twenty galleys to our succor."

Don Camillo might have disregarded this menace, had he not perceived that it caused the half-drawn rapiers of his followers to return to their scabbards.

"Robber!" he answered, "restore her whom you have spirited away."

"Signore, you young nobles are often pleased to play your extravagances with the servants of the Republic. Here are none but the gondoliers and myself." A movement of the boat permitted Don Camillo to look into the covered part, and he saw that the other uttered no more than the truth. Convinced of the uselessness of further parley, knowing the value of every moment, and believing he was on a track which might still lead to success, the young Neapolitan signed to his people to go on. The boats parted in silence, that of Don Camillo proceeding in the direction from which the other had just come.

In a short time the gondola of Don Camillo was in an open part of the Giudecca, and entirely beyond the tiers of the shipping. It was so late that the moon had begun to fall, and its light was cast obliquely on the bay, throwing the eastern sides of the buildings and the other objects into shadow. A dozen different vessels were seen, aided by the land-breeze, steering towards the entrance of the port. The rays of the moon fell upon the broad surface of those sides of their canvas which were nearest to the town, and they resembled so many spotless clouds, sweeping the water and floating seaward.

"They are sending my wife to Dalmatia!" cried Don Camillo, like a man on whom the truth began to dawn.

"Signore mio!" exclaimed the astonished Gino.

"I tell thee, sirrah, that this accursed Senate hath plotted against my happiness, and having robbed me of thy mistress, hath employed one of the many feluccas that I see, to transport her to some of its strongholds on the eastern coast of the Adriatic."

"Blessed Maria! Signor Duca, and my honored master; they say that the very images of stone in Venice have ears, and that the horses of bronze will kick, if an evil word is spoken against those up above."

"Is it not enough, varlet, to draw curses from the meek Job, to rob him of a wife? Hast thou no feeling for thy mistres?'

"I did not dream, eccellenza, that you were so happy as to have the one, or that I was so honored as to have the other."

"Thou remindest me of my folly, good Gino. In aiding me on this occasion, thou wilt have thy own fortune in view, as thy efforts, like those of thy fellows, will be made in behalf of the lady to whom I have just plighted a husband's vows."

"San Theodoro help us all, and hint what is to be done! The lady is most happy, Signor Don Camillo, and if I only knew by what name to mention her she should never be forgotten in any prayer that so humble a sinner might dare to offer."

"Thou hast not forgotten the beautiful lady I drew from the Giudecca?"

"Corpo di Bacco! Your eceellenza floated like a swan, and swam faster than a gull. Forgotten! Signore, no,--I think of it every time I hear a plash in the canals, and every time I think of it I curse the Ancona-man in my heart. St. Theodore forgive me if it be unlike a Christian to do so. But, though we all tell marvels of what our Lord did in the Giudecca, the dip of its waters is not the marriage ceremony, nor can we speak with much certainty of beauty that was seen to so great disadvantage."

"Thou art right, Gino. But that lady, the illustrious Donna Violetta Tiepolo, the daughter and heiress of a famed senator, is now thy mistress. It remains for us to establish her in the Castle of Sant' Agata, where I shall defy Venice and its agents."

Gino bowed his head in submission, though he cast a look behind to make sure that none of those agents, whom his master set so openly at defiance, were within ear-shot.

In the meantime the gondola proceeded, for the dialogue in no manner interrupted the exertions of Gino, still holding the direction of the Lido. As the land-breeze freshened, the different vessels in sight glided away, and by the time Don Camillo reached the barrier of sand which separates the Lagunes from the Adriatic, most of them had glided through the passages, and were now shaping their courses, according to their different destinations, across the open gulf. The young noble had permitted his people to pursue the direction originally taken, in pure indecision. He was certain that his bride was in one of the many barques in sight, but he possessed no clue to lead him towards the right one, nor any sufficient means of pursuit were he even master of that important secret. When he landed, therefore, it was with the simple hope of being able to form some general conjecture as to the portion of the Republic's dominions in which he might search for her he had lost, by observing to what part of the Adriatic the different feluccas held their way. He had determined on immediate pursuit, however, and before he quitted the gondola, he once more turned to his confidential gondolier to give the necessary instructions.

"Thou knowest, Gino," he said, "that there is one born a vassal on my estates, here in the port, with a felucca from the Sorrentine shore?"

"I know the man better than I know my own faults Signore, or even my own virtues."

"Go to him at once, and make sure of his presence. I have imagined a plan to decoy him into the service of his lord; but I would now know the condition of his vessel."

Gino said a few words in commendation of the zeal of his friend Stefano, and in praise of the Bella Sorrentina, as the gondola receded from the shore; and then he dashed his oar into the water, like a man in earnest to execute the commission.

There is a lonely spot on the Lido di Palestrina where Catholic exclusion has decreed that the remains of all who die in Venice, without the pale of the church of Rome, shall moulder into their kindred dust. Though it is not distant from the ordinary landing and the few buildings which line the shore, it is a place that, in itself, is no bad emblem of a hopeless lot. Solitary, exposed equally to the hot airs of the south and the bleak blasts of the Alps, frequently covered with the spray of the Adriatic, and based on barren sands, the utmost that human art, aided by a soil which has been fattened by human remains, can do, has been to create around the modest graves a meagre vegetation, that is in slight contrast to the sterility of most of the bank. This place of interment is without the relief of trees: at the present day it is uninclosed, and in the opinions of those who have set it apart for heretic and Jew, it is unblessed. And yet, though condemned alike to this, the last indignity which man can inflict on his fellow, the two proscribed classes furnish a melancholy proof of the waywardness of human passions and prejudice, by refusing to share in common the scanty pittance of earth which bigotry has allowed for their everlasting repose! While the Protestant sleeps by the side of the Protestant in exclusive obloquy, the children of Israel moulder apart on the same barren heath, sedulous to preserve, even in the grave, the outward distinctions of faith. We shall not endeavor to seek that deeply-seated principle which renders man so callous to the most eloquent and striking appeals to liberality, but rest satisfied with being grateful that we have been born in a land in which the interests of religion are as little as possible sullied by the vicious contamination of those of life; in which Christian humility is not exhibited beneath the purple, nor Jewish adhesion by intolerance; in which man is left to care for the welfare of his own soul, and in which, so far as the human eye can penetrate, God is worshipped for himself.

Don Camillo Monforte landed near the retired graves of the proscribed. As he wished to ascend the low sand-hills, which have been thrown up by the waves and the winds of the gulf on the outer edge of the Lido, it was necessary that he should pass directly across the contemned spot, or make such a circuit as would have been inconvenient. Crossing himself, with a superstition that was interwoven with all his habits and opinions, and loosening his rapier, in order that he might not miss the succor of that good weapon at need, he moved across the heath tenanted by the despised dead, taking care to avoid the mouldering heaps of earth which lay above the bones of heretic or Jew. He had not threaded more than half the graves, however, when a human form arose from the grass, and seemed to walk like one who mused on the moral that the piles at his feet would be apt to excite. Again Don Camillo touched the handle of his rapier; then moving aside, in a manner to give himself an equal advantage from the light of the moon, he drew near the stranger. His footstep was heard, for the other paused, regarded the approaching cavalier, and folding his arms, as it might be in sign of neutrality, awaited his nearer approach.

"Thou hast chosen a melancholy hour for thy walk, Signore," said the young Neapolitan; "and a still more melancholy scene. I hope I do not intrude on an Israelite, or a Lutheran, who mourns for his friend?"

"Don Camillo Monforte, I am, like yourself, a Christian."

"Ha! Thou knowest me--'tis Battista, the gondolier that I once entertained in my household?"

"Signore, 'tis not Battista."

As he spoke, the stranger faced the moon, in a manner that threw all of its mild light upon his features.

"Jacopo!" exclaimed the duke, recoiling, as did all in Venice habitually, when that speaking eye was unexpectedly met.

"Signore--Jacopo."

In a moment the rapier of Don Camillo glittered in the rays of the moon.

"Keep thy distance, fellow, and explain the motive that hath brought thee thus across my solitude!"

The Bravo smiled, but his arms maintained their fold.

"I might, with equal justice, call upon the Duke of Sant' Agata to furnish reasons why he wanders at this hour among the Hebrew graves."

"Nay, spare thy pleasantry; I trifle not with men of thy reputation; if any in Venice have thought fit to employ thee against my person, thou wilt have need of all thy courage and skill ere thou earnest thy fee."

"Put up thy rapier, Don Camillo, here is none to do you harm. Think you, if employed in the manner you name, I would be in this spot to seek you? Ask yourself whether your visit here was known, or whether it was more than the idle caprice of a young noble, who finds his bed less easy than his gondola. We have met, Duke of Sant' Agata, when you distrusted my honor less."

"Thou speakest true, Jacopo," returned the noble, suffering the point of his rapier to fall from before the breast of the Bravo, though he still hesitated to withdraw the weapon. "Thou sayest the truth. My visit to this spot is indeed accidental, and thou could'st not have possibly foreseen it. Why art thou here?"

"Why are these here?" demanded Jacopo, pointing to the graves at his feet. "We are born, and we die--that much is known to us all; but the when and the where are mysteries, until time reveals them."

"Thou art not a man to act without good motive. Though these Israelites could not foresee their visit to the Lido, thine hath not been without intention."

"I am here, Don Camillo Monforte, because my spirit hath need of room. I want the air of the sea--the canals choke me--I can only breathe in freedom on this bank of sand!"

"Thou hast another reason, Jacopo?"

"Aye, Signore--I loathe yon city of crimes!"

As the Bravo spoke, he shook his hand in the direction of the domes of St. Mark, and the deep tones of his voice appeared to heave up from the depths of his chest.

"This is extraordinary language for a----"

"Bravo; speak the word boldly, Signore--it is no stranger to my ears. But even the stiletto of a Bravo is honorable, compared to that sword of pretended justice which St. Mark wields! The commonest hireling of Italy--he who will plant his dagger in the heart of his friend for two sequins, is a man of open dealing, compared to the merciless treachery of some in yonder town!"

"I understand thee, Jacopo; thou art, at length, proscribed. The public voice, faint as it is in the Republic, has finally reached the ears of thy employers, and they withdraw their protection."

Jacopo regarded the noble, for an instant, with an expression so ambiguous, as to cause the latter insensibly to raise the point of his rapier, but when he answered it was with his ordinary quiet.

"Signor Duca," he said, "I have been thought worthy to be retained by Don Camillo Monforte!"

"I deny it not--and now that thou recallest the occasion, new light breaks in upon me. Villain, to thy faithlessness I owe the loss of my bride!"

Though the rapier was at the very throat of Jacopo, he did not flinch. Gazing at his excited companion, he laughed in a smothered manner, but bitterly.

"It would seem that the Lord of Sant' Agata wishes to rob me of my trade," he said. "Arise, ye Israelites, and bear witness, lest men doubt the fact! A common bravo of the canals is waylaid, among your despised graves, by the proudest Signor of Calabria! You have chosen your spot in mercy, Don Camillo, for sooner or later this crumbling and sea-worn earth is to receive me. Were I to die at the altar itself, with the most penitent prayer of holy church on my lips, the bigots would send my body to rest among these hungry Hebrews and accursed heretics. Yes, I am a man proscribed, and unfit to sleep with the faithful!"

His companion spoke with so strange a mixture of irony and melancholy, that the purpose of Don Camillo wavered. But remembering his loss, he shook the rapier's point, and continued:--

"Thy taunts and effrontery will not avail thee, knave," he cried. "Thou knowest that I would have engaged thee as the leader of a chosen band, to favor the flight of one dear from Venice."

"Nothing more true, Signore."

"And thou didst refuse the service?"

"Noble duke, I did."

"Not content with this, having learned the particulars of my project, thou sold the secret to the Senate?"

"Don Camillo Monforte, I did not. My engagements with the council would not permit me to serve you; else, by the brightest star of yonder vault! it would have gladdened my heart to have witnessed the happiness of two young and faithful lovers. No--no--no; they know me not, who think I cannot find pleasure in the joy of another. I told you that I was the Senate's, and there the matter ended."

"And I had the weakness to believe thee, Jacopo, for thou hast a character so strangely compounded of good and evil, and bearest so fair a name for observance of thy faith, that the seeming frankness of the answer lulled me to security. Fellow, I have been betrayed, and that at the moment when I thought success most sure."

Jacopo manifested interest, but, as he moved slowly on, accompanied by the vigilant and zealous noble, he smiled coldly, like one who had pity for the other's credulity.

"In bitterness of soul, I have cursed the whole race for its treachery," continued the Neapolitan.

"This is rather for the priore of St. Mark, than for the ear of one who carries a public stiletto."

"My gondola has been imitated--the liveries of my people copied--my bride stolen. Thou answerest not, Jacopo?"

"What answer would you have? You have been cozened, Signore, in a state, whose very prince dare not trust his secrets to his wife. You would have robbed Venice of an heiress, and Venice has robbed you of a bride. You have played high, Don Camillo, and have lost a heavy stake. You have thought of your own wishes and rights, while you have pretended to serve Venice with the Spaniard."

Don Camillo started in surprise.

"Why this wonder, Signore? You forget that I have lived much among those who weigh the chances of every political interest, and that your name is often in their mouths. This marriage is doubly disagreeable to Venice, who has nearly as much need of the bridegroom as of the bride. The council hath long ago forbidden the banns."

"Aye--but the means?--explain the means by which I have been duped, lest the treachery be ascribed to thee."

"Signore, the very marbles of the city give up their secrets to the state. I have seen much, and understood much, when my superiors have believed me merely a tool; but I have seen much that even those who employed me could not comprehend. I could have foretold this consummation of your nuptials, had I known of their celebration."

"This thou could'st not have done, without being an agent of their treachery."

"The schemes of the selfish may be foretold; it is only the generous and the honest that baffle calculation. He who can gain a knowledge of the present interest of Venice is master of her dearest secrets of state; for what she wishes she will do, unless the service cost too dear. As for the means--how can they be wanting in a household like yours, Signore?"

"I trusted none but those deepest in my confidence."

"Don Camillo, there is not a servitor in your palace, Gino alone excepted, who is not a hireling of the Senate, or of its agents. The very gondoliers who row you to your daily pleasures have had their hauds crossed with the Republic's sequins. Nay, they are not only paid to watch you, but to watch each other."

"Can this be true!"

"Have you ever doubted it, Signore?" asked Jacopo, looking up like one who admired another's simplicity.

"I knew them to be false--pretenders to a faith that in secret they mock; but I had not believed they dared to tamper with the very menials of my person. This undermining of the security of families is to destroy society at its core."

"You talk like one who hath not been long a bridegroom, Signore," said the Bravo with a hollow laugh. "A year hence, you may know what it is to have your own wife turning your secret thoughts into gold."

"And thou servest them, Jacopo?"

"Who does not, in some manner suited to his habits? We are not masters of our fortune, Don Camillo, or the Duke of Sant' Agata would not be turning his influence with a relative to the advantage of the Republic. What I have done hath not been done without bitter penitence, and an agony of soul that your own light servitude may have spared you, Signore."

"Poor Jacopo!"

"If I have lived through it all, 'tis because one mightier than the state hath not deserted me. But, Don Camillo Monforte, there are crimes which pass beyond the powers of man to endure."

The Bravo shuddered, and he moved among the despised graves in silence.

"They have then proved too ruthless even for thee?" said Don Camillo, who watched the contracting eye and heaving form of his companion, in wonder.

"Signore, they have. I have witnessed, this night, a proof of their heartlessness and bad faith, that hath caused me to look forward to my own fate. The delusion is over; from this hour I serve them no longer."

The Bravo spoke with deep feeling, and his companion fancied, strange as it was coming from such a man, with an air of wounded integrity. Don Camillo knew that there was no condition of life, however degraded or lost to the world, which had not its own particular opinions of the faith due to its fellows; and he had seen enough of the sinuous course of the oligarchy of Venice, to understand that it was quite possible its shameless and irresponsible duplicity might offend the principles of even an assassin. Less odium was attached to men of that class, in Italy and at that day, than will be easily imagined in a country like this; for the radical defects and the vicious administration of the laws, caused an irritable and sensitive people too often to take into their own hands the right of redressing their own wrongs. Custom had lessened the odium of the crime; and though society denounced the assassin himself, it is scarcely too much to say, that his employer was regarded with little more disgust than the religious of our time regard the survivor of a private combat. Still it was not usual for nobles like Don Camillo to hold intercourse, beyond that which the required service exacted, with men of Jacopo's cast; but the language and manner of the Bravo so strongly attracted the curiosity, and even the sympathy of his companion, that the latter unconsciously sheathed his rapier and drew nearer.

"Thy penitence and regrets, Jacopo, may lead thee yet nearer to virtue," he said, "than mere abandonment of the Senate's service. Seek out some godly priest, and ease thy soul by confession and prayer."

The Bravo trembled in every limb, and his eye turned wistfully to the countenance of the other.

"Speak, Jacopo; even I will hear thee, if thou would'st remove the mountain from thy breast."

"Thanks, noble Signore! a thousand thanks for this glimpse of sympathy to which I have long been a stranger! None know how dear a word of kindness is to one who has been condemned by all, as I have been. I have prayed--I have craved--I have wept for some ear to listen to my tale, and I thought I had found one who would have heard me without scorn, when the cold policy of the Senate struck him. I came here to commune with the hated dead, when chance brought us together. Could I--" the Bravo paused and looked doubtfully again at his companion.

"Say on, Jacopo."

"I have not dared to trust my secrets even to the confessional, Signore, and can I be so bold as to offer them to you."

"Truly, it is a strange behest!"

"Signore, it is. You are noble, I am of humble blood. Your ancestors were senators and Doges of Venice, while mine have been, since the fishermen first built their huts in the Lagunes, laborers on the canals, and rowers of gondolas. You are powerful, and rich, and courted; while I am denounced, and in secret, I fear, condemned. In short, you are Don Camillo Monforte, and I am Jacopo Frontoni!"

Don Camillo was touched, for the Bravo spoke without bitterness, and in deep sorrow.

"I would thou wert at the confessional, poor Jacopo!" he said; "I am little able to give ease to such a burden."

"Signore, I have lived too long shut out from the good wishes of my fellows, and I can bear with it no longer. The accursed Senate may cut me off without warning, and then who will stop to look at my grave! Signore, I must speak or die!"

"Thy case is piteous, Jacopo! Thou hast need of ghostly counsel."

"Here is no priest, Signore, and I carry a weight past bearing. The only man who has shown interest in me, for three long and dreadful years, is gone!"

"But he will return, poor Jacopo."

"Signore, he will never return. He is with the fishes of the Lagunes."

"By thy hand, monster!"

"By the justice of the illustrious Republic," said the Bravo, with a smothered but bitter smile.

"Ha! they are then awake to the acts of thy class? Thy repentance is the fruit of fear!"

Jacopo seemed choked. He had evidently counted on the awakened sympathy of his companion, notwithstanding the difference in their situations, and to be thus thrown off again, unmanned him. He shuddered, and every muscle and nerve appeared about to yield its power. Touched by so unequivocal signs of suffering, Don Camillo kept close at his side, reluctant to enter more deeply into the feelings of one of his known character, and yet unable to desert a fellow-creature in so grievous agony.

"Signor Duca," said the Bravo, with a pathos in his voice that went to the heart of his auditor, "leave me. If they ask for a proscribed man, let them come here; in the morning they will find my body near the graves of the heretics."

"Speak, I will hear thee."

Jacopo looked up with doubt expressed on his features.

"Unburden thyself; I will listen, though thou recounted the assassination of my dearest friend."

The oppressed Bravo gazed at him, as if he still distrusted his sincerity. His face worked, and his look became still more wistful; but as Don Camillo faced the moon, and betrayed the extent of his sympathy, the other burst into tears.

"Jacopo, I will hear thee--I will hear thee, poor Jacopo!" cried Don Camillo, shocked at this exhibition of distress in one so stern by nature. A wave from the hand of the Bravo silenced him, and Jacopo, struggling with himself for a moment, spoke.

"You have saved a soul from perdition, Signore," he said, smothering his emotion. "If the happy knew how much power belongs to a single word of kindness--a glance of feeling, when given to the despised, they would not look so coldly on the miserable. This night must have been my last, had you cast me off without pity--but you will hear my tale, Signore--you will not scorn the confession of a Bravo?"

"I have promised. Be brief, for at this moment I have great care of my own."

"Signore, I know not the whole of your wrongs, but they will not be less likely to be redressed for this grace."

Jacopo made an effort to command himself, when he commenced his tale.

The course of the narrative does not require that we should accompany this extraordinary man though the relation of the secrets he imparted to Don Camillo. It is enough for our present purposes to say, that, as he proceeded, the young Calabrian noble drew nearer to his side, and listened with growing interest. The Duke of Sant' Agata scarcely breathed, while his companion, with that energy of language and feeling which marks Italian character, recounted his secret sorrows, and the scenes in which he had been an actor. Long before he was done, Don Camillo had forgotten his own private causes of concern, and, by the time the tale was finished, every shade of disgust had given place to an ungovernable expression of pity. In short, so eloquent was the speaker, and so interesting the facts with which he dealt, that he seemed to play with the sympathies of the listener, as the improvisatore of that region is known to lead captive the passions of the admiring crowd.

During the time Jacopo was speaking, he and his wondering auditor had passed the limits of the despised cemetery; and as the voice of the former ceased, they stood on the outer beach of the Lido. When the low tones of the Bravo were no longer audible, they were succeeded by the sullen wash of the Adriatic.

"This surpasseth belief!" Don Camillo exclaimed after a long pause, which had only been disturbed by the rush and retreat of the waters.

"Signore, as holy Maria is kind! it is true."

"I doubt you not, Jacopo--poor Jacopo! I cannot distrust a tale thus told! Thou hast, indeed, been a victim of their hellish duplicity, and well mayest thou say, the load was past bearing. What is thy intention?"

"I serve them no longer, Don Camillo--I wait only for the last solemn scene, which is now certain, and then I quit this city of deceit, to seek my fortune in another region. They have blasted my youth, and loaded my name with infamy--God may yet lighten the load!"

"Reproach not thyself beyond reason, Jacopo, for the happiest and most fortunate of us all are not above the power of temptation. Thou knowest that even my name and rank have not, altogether, protected me from their arts."

"I know them capable, Signore, of deluding angels! Their arts are only surpassed by their means, and their pretence of virtue by their indifference to its practice."

"Thou sayest true, Jacopo: the truth is never in greater danger, than when whole communities lend themselves to the vicious deception of seemliness, and without truth there is no virtue. This it is to substitute profession for practice--to use the altar for a worldly purpose--and to bestow power without any other responsibility than that which is exacted by the selfishness of caste! Jacopo--poor Jacopo! thou shalt be my servitor--I am lord of my own seignories, and once rid of this specious Republic, I charge myself with the care of thy safety and fortunes. Be at peace as respects thy conscience: I have interest near the Holy See, and thou shalt not want absolution!"

The gratitude of the Bravo was more vivid in feeling than in expression. He kissed the hand of Don Camillo, but it was with a reservation of self-respect that belonged to the character of the man.

"A system like this of Venice," continued the musing noble, "leaves none of us masters of our own acts. The wiles of such a combination are stronger than the will. It cloaks its offences against right in a thousand specious forms, and it enlists the support of every man under the pretence of a sacrifice for the common good. We often fancy ourselves simple dealers in some justifiable state intrigue, when in truth we are deep in sin. Falsehood is the parent of all crimes, and in no case has it a progeny so numerous as that in which its own birth is derived from the state. I fear I may have made sacrifices to this treacherous influence, I could wish forgotten."

Though Don Camillo soliloquized, rather than addressed his companion, it was evident, by the train of his thoughts, that the narrative of Jacopo had awakened disagreeable reflections on the manner in which he had pushed his own claims with the Senate. Perhaps he felt the necessity of some apology to one who, though so much his inferior in rank, was so competent to appreciate his conduct, and who had just denounced, in the strongest language, his own fatal subserviency to the arts of that irresponsible and meretricious body.

Jacopo uttered a few words of a general nature, but such as had a tendency to quiet the uneasiness of his companion; after which, with a readiness that proved him qualified for the many delicate missions with which he had been charged, he ingeniously turned the discourse to the recent abduction of Donna Violetta, with the offer of rendering his new employer all the services in his power to regain his bride.

"That thou mayest know all thou hast undertaken," rejoined Don Camillo, "listen, Jacopo, and I will conceal nothing from thy shrewdness."

The Duke of Sant' Agata now briefly, but explicitly, laid bare to his companion all his own views and measures with respect to her he loved, and all those events with which the reader has already become acquainted.

The Bravo gave great attention to the minutest parts of the detail, and more than once, as the other proceeded, he smiled to himself, like a man who was able to trace the secret means by which this or that intrigue had been effected. The whole was just related, when the sound of a footstep announced the return of Gino. _

Read next: Chapter 18

Read previous: Chapter 16

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