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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. The Roman Of Rome - Chapter 16 |
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_ PART SIX. THE ROMAN OF ROME CHAPTER XVI At eight o'clock the next morning Roma was going into the courtyard of the Castle of St. Angelo when she met the carriage of the Prime Minister coming out. The coachman was stopped from inside, and the Baron himself alighted. "You look tired, my child," he said. "I _am_ tired," she answered. "Hardly more than a month, yet so many things have happened!" "Oh, that! That's nothing--nothing whatever." "Why should you pass through these privations? Roma, if I allowed these misfortunes to befall you it was only to let you feel what others could do for you. But I am the same as ever, and you have only to stretch out your hand and I am here to lighten your lot." "All that is over now. It is no use speaking as you spoke before. You are talking to another woman." "Strange mystery of a woman's love! That she who set out to destroy her slanderer should become his slave! If he were only worthy of it!" "He is worthy of it." "If you should hear that he is not worthy--that he has even been untrue to you?" "I should think it is a falsehood, a contemptible falsehood." "But if you had proof, substantial proof, the proof of his own pen?" "Good-morning! I must go." "My child, what have I always told you? You will give the man up at last and carry out your first intention." With a deep bow and a scarcely perceptible smile the Baron turned to the open door of his carriage. Roma flushed up angrily and went on, but the poisoned arrow had gone home. The military tribunal had begun its session. A ticket which Roma presented at the door admitted her to the well of the court where the advocates were sitting. The advocate Fuselli made a place for her by his side. It was a quiet moment and her entrance attracted attention. The judges in their red armchairs at the green-covered horse-shoe table looked up from their portfolios, and there was some whispering beyond the wooden bar where the public were huddled together. One other face had followed her, but at first she dared not look at that. It was the face of the prisoner in his prison clothes sitting between two Carabineers. The secretary read the indictment. Bruno was charged not only with participation in the riot of the 1st of February, but also with being a promoter of associations designed to change violently the constitution of the state. It was a long document, and the secretary read it slowly and not very distinctly. When the indictment came to an end the Public Prosecutor rose to expound the accusation, and to mention the clauses of the Code under which the prisoner's crime had to be considered. He was a young captain of cavalry, with restless eyes and a twirled-up moustache. His long cloak hung over his chair, his light gloves lay on the table by his side, and his sword clanked as he made graceful gestures. He was an elegant speaker, much preoccupied about beautiful phrases, and obviously anxious to conciliate the judges. "Illustrious gentlemen of the tribunal," he began, and then went on with a compliment to the King, a flourish to the name of the Prime Minister, a word of praise to the army, and finally a scathing satire on the subversive schemes which it was desired to set up in place of existing institutions. The most crushing denunciation of the delirious idea which had led to the unhappy insurrection was the crude explanation of its aims. A universal republic founded on the principles enunciated in the Lord's Prayer! Thrones, armies, navies, frontiers, national barriers, all to be abolished! So simple! So easy! So childlike! But alas, so absurd! So entirely oblivious of the great principles of political economy and international law, and of impulses and instincts profoundly sculptured in the heart of man! After various little sallies which made his fellow-officers laugh and the judges smile, the showy person wiped his big moustache with a silk handkerchief, and came to Bruno. This unhappy man was not one of the greater delinquents who, by their intelligence, had urged on the ignorant crowd. He was merely a silly and perhaps drunken person, who if taken away from the wine-shop and put into uniform would make a valiant soldier. The creature was one of the human dogs of our curious species. His political faith was inscribed with one word only--Rossi. He would not ask for severe punishment on such a deluded being, but he would request the court to consider the case as a means of obtaining proof against the dark if foolish minds (fit subjects for Lombroso) which are always putting the people into opposition with their King, their constitution, and the great heads of government. The sword clanked again as the young soldier sat down. Then for the first time Roma looked over at Bruno. His big rugged face was twisted into an expression of contempt, and somehow the "human dog of our curious species," sitting in his prison clothes between the soldiers, made the elegant officer look like a pet pug. "Bruno Rocco, stand up," said the president. "You are a Roman, aren't you?" "Yes, I am--I'm a Roman of Rome," said Bruno. The witnesses were called. First a Carabineer to prove Bruno's violence. Then another Carabineer, and another, and another, with the same object. After each of the Carabineers had given his evidence the president asked the prisoner if he had any questions to ask the witnesses. "None whatever. What they say is true. I admit it," he said. At last he grew impatient and cried out, "I admit it, I tell you. What's the good of going on?" The next witness was the Chief of Police. Commendatore Angelelli was called to prove that the cause of the revolt was not the dearness of bread but the formation of subversive associations, of which the "Republic of Man" was undoubtedly the strongest and most virulent. The prisoner, however, was not one of the directing set, and the police knew him only as a sort of watch-dog for the Honourable Rossi. "The man's a fool. Why don't you go on with the trial?" cried Bruno. "Silence," cried the usher of the court, but the prisoner only laughed out loud. Roma looked at Bruno again. There was something about the man which she had never seen before, something more than the mere spirit of defiance, something terrible and tremendous. "Francesca Maria Mariotti," cried the usher, and the old deaf mother of Bruno's wife was brought into court. She wore a coloured handkerchief on her head as usual, and two shawls over her shoulders. Being a relative of the prisoner, she was not sworn. "Your name and your father's name?" said the president. "Francesca Maria Mariotti," she answered. "I said your father's name." "Seventy-five, your Excellency." "I asked you for your father's name." "None at all, your Excellency." A Carabineer explained that the woman was nearly stone deaf, whereupon the president, who was irritated by the laughter his questions had provoked, ordered the woman to be removed. "Tommaso Mariotti," said the president, after the preliminary interrogations, "you are porter at the Piazza Navona, and will be able to say if meetings of political associations were held there, if the prisoner took part in them, and who were the organising authorities. Now answer me, were meetings ever held in your house?" The old man turned his pork-pie hat in his hand, and made no answer. "Answer me. We cannot sit here all day doing nothing." "It's the Eternal City, Excellency--we can take our time," said the old man. "Answer the president instantly," said the usher. "Don't you know he can punish you if you don't?" At that the Garibaldian's eyes became moist, and he looked at the judges. "Generals," he said, "I am only an old man, not much good to anybody, but I was a soldier myself once. I was one of the 'Thousand,' the 'Brave Thousand' they called us, and I shed my blood for my country. Now I am more than threescore years and ten, and the rest of my days are numbered. Do you want me for the sake of what is left of them to betray my comrades?" "Next witness," said the president, and at the same moment a thick, half-stifled voice came from the bench of the accused. "Why the ---- don't you go on with the trial?" "Prisoner," said the president, "if you continue to make these interruptions I shall stop the trial and order you to be flogged." Bruno answered with a peal of laughter. The president--he was a bald-headed man with the heavy jaw of a bloodhound--looked at him attentively for a moment, and then said to the men below: "Go on." The next witness was the Director of Regina C[oe]li. He deposed that the prisoner had made a statement to him which he had taken down in writing. This statement amounted to a denunciation of the Deputy David Rossi as the real author of the crime of which he with others was charged. After the denunciation had been read the president asked the prisoner if he had any questions to put to the witness, and thereupon Bruno cried in a loud voice: "Of course I have. It is exactly what I've been waiting for." He had risen to his feet, kicked over a chair which stood in front of him, and folded his arms across his breast. "Ask him," said Bruno, "if he sent for me late at night and promised my pardon if I would denounce David Rossi." "It was not so," said the Director. "All I did was to advise him not to observe a useless silence which could only condemn him to further imprisonment if by speaking the truth he could save himself and serve the interests of justice." "Ask him," said Bruno, "if the denunciation he speaks of was not dictated by himself." "The prisoner," said the Director, "made the denunciation voluntarily, and I rose from my bed to receive it at his urgent request." "Ask him if I said one word to denounce David Rossi." "The prisoner had made statements to a fellow-prisoner, and these were embodied in the document he signed." The advocate Fuselli interposed. "Then the Court is to understand that the Director who dictated this denunciation knew nothing from the prisoner himself?" The Director hesitated, stammered, and finally admitted that it was so. "I was inspired by a sentiment of justice," he said. "I acted from duty." "This man fed me on bread and water," cried Bruno. "He put me in the punishment cells and tortured me in the strait-waistcoat with pains and sufferings like Jesus Christ's, and when he had reduced my body and destroyed my soul he dictated a denunciation of my dearest friend and my unconscious fingers signed it." "Don't shout so loud," said the president. "I'll shout as loud as I like," said Bruno, and everybody turned to look at him. It was useless to protest. Something seemed to say that no power on earth could touch a man in a mood like that. The next witness was the chief warder. He deposed that he was present at the denunciation, that it was made voluntarily, and that no pressure whatever was put upon the prisoner. "Ask him," cried Bruno, "if on Sunday afternoon, when I went into his cabinet to withdraw the denunciation, he refused to let me." "It is not true," said the witness. "You liar," cried Bruno, "you know it is true; and when I told you that you were making me drag an innocent man to the galleys I struck you, and the mark of my fist is on your forehead still. There it is, as red as a Cardinal, while the rest of your face is as white as a Pope." The president no longer tried to restrain Bruno. There was something in the man's face that was beyond reproof. It was the outraged spirit of Justice. The chief warder went on to say that at various times he had received reports that Rocco was communicating important facts to a fellow-prisoner. "Where is this fellow-prisoner? Is he at the disposition of the court?" said the president. "I'm afraid he has since been set at liberty," said the witness, whereupon Bruno laughed uproariously, and pointing to some one in the well, he shouted: "There he is--there! The dandy in cuffs and collar. His name is Minghelli." "Call him," said the president, and Minghelli was sworn and examined. "Until recently you were a prisoner in Regina C[oe]li, and have just been pardoned for public services?" "That is true, your Excellency." "It's a lie," cried Bruno. Minghelli leaned on the witness's chair, caressed his small moustache, and told his story. He had occupied the next cell to the prisoner, and talked with him in the usual language of prisoners. The prisoner had spoken of a certain great man and then of a certain great act, and that the great man had gone to England to prepare for it. He understood the great man to be the Deputy Rossi, and the great act to be the overthrow of the constitution and the assassination of the King. "You son of a priest," cried Bruno, "you lie!" "Bruno Rocco," said the president, "do not agitate yourself. You are under the protection of the law. Be calm and tell us your own story." _ |
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