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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 5. The Prime Minister - Chapter 13 |
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_ PART FIVE. THE PRIME MINISTER CHAPTER XIII It was still dark overhead, and the streets with their thin covering of snow were as silent as a catacomb. Through the door of the church, when the leather covering was lifted, there came the yellow light of the candles burning on the altar. The priest in his gold vestments stood with his face to the glistening shrine, and his acolytes knelt beside him. There was only one worshipper, an old woman who was kneeling before a chair in the gloom of a side chapel. The tinkle of the acolytes' bell and the faint murmur of the priest's voice were the only sounds that broke the stillness. Rossi and Roma stepped up on tiptoe, and as the Father finished his mass and turned to go they made their declaration. The old man was startled and disturbed, but the priest commits no crime who listens to the voice of conscience, and he took their names and gave them his blessing. They parted at the church door. "You will write when you cross the frontier?" "Yes." "Adieu then, until we meet again!" "If I am long away from you, Roma...." "You cannot be long away. You will be with me every day and always." She was assuming a lively tone to keep up his courage, but there was a dry glitter in her eyes and a tremor in her voice. He took her full, round form in his arms for a last embrace. "If the result of this night's work is that I am arrested and brought back and imprisoned...." "I can wait for you," she said. "If I am banished for life...." "I can follow you." "If the worst comes to the worst, and one way or another death itself should be the fate that falls to me...." "I can follow you there, too." "If we meet again we can laugh at all this, Roma." "Yes, we can laugh at all this," she faltered. "If not ... Adieu!" "Adieu!" She disengaged her clinging arms with one last caress; there was an instant of unconsciousness, and when she recovered herself he was gone. At the next moment there came through the darkness the measured tramp, tramp, tramp of the patrol. With a quivering heart Roma stood and listened. There was a slight movement among the soldiers, a scarcely perceptible pause, and then the tramp, tramp, tramp as before. Rossi looked back as he turned the corner, and saw Roma, in her light cloak, gliding across the silent street like a ghost. Three or four hundred yards inside the gate of St. John Lateran in one of the half-finished tenement houses on the outskirts of Rome, there is a cellar used as a resting-place and eating-house by the carriers from the country who bring wine into the city. This cellar was the only place that seemed to be awake when Rossi walked towards the city walls. Some eight or nine men, in the rude dress of wine-carriers, lay dozing or talking on the floor. They had been kept in Rome overnight by the closing of the gate, and were waiting for it to be opened in the morning. Without a moment's hesitation David Rossi stepped down and spoke to the men. "Gentlemen," he said, "you know who I am. I am Rossi. The police have orders to arrest me. Will you help me to get out of Rome?" "What's that?" shouted a drowsy voice from the smoky shadows of the cellar. "It's the Honourable Rossi," said a lad who had shambled up. "The oysters are after him, and will we help him to escape?" "Will we? It's not _will_ we; it's _can_ we, Honourable," said a thick-set man, who lifted his head from an upturned horse-saddle. In a moment the men were all on their feet, asking questions and discussing chances. The gate was to be opened at six, and the first train north was to go out at half-past nine. But the difficulty was that everybody in Rome knew Rossi. Even if he got through the gate he could not get on to the train within ten miles of the city without the certainty of recognition. "I have it!" said the thick-set man with the drowsy voice. "There's young Carlo. He got a scratch in the leg last night from one of the wet nurses of the Government, and he'll have to lie upstairs for a week at least. Why can't he lend his clothes to the Honourable? And why can't the Honourable drive Carlo's cart back to Monte Rotondo, and then go where he likes when he gets there?" "That will do," said Rossi, and so it was settled. * * * * * When the train which left Rome for Florence and Milan at 9.30 in the morning arrived at the country station of Monte Rotondo, eighteen miles out, a man in top-boots, blue trousers, a white waistband and a red-lined overcoat got into the people's compartment. The train was crowded with foreigners who were flying from the risks of insurrection, and even the third-class carriages were filled with well-dressed strangers. They were talking bitterly of their experiences the night before. Most of them had been compelled to barricade their bedroom doors at the hotels, and some had even passed the night at the railway station. "It all comes of letting men like this Rossi go at large," said a young Englishman with the voice of a pea-hen. "For my part, I would put all these anarchists on an uninhabited island and leave them to fight it out among themselves." "Say, Rossi isn't an anarchist," said a man with an American intonation. "What is he?" "A dreamer of dreams." "Bad dreams, then," said the voice of the pea-hen, and there was general laughter. _ |
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