Chapter XXVII: Diplomacy

"How did it happen, dear princess," said the bandit, in a careless tone, as soon as he and Agatha were in the garden, arm-in-arm, "that you were imprudent enough to try to make me speak of Michel in presence of a cicisbeo so valuable to you as the Marquis della Serra? Your highness forgets one thing: that if I know the secrets of Villa Ficarazzi, I probably know those of Villa Palmarosa as well, since Abbé Ninfo maintains an equally assiduous surveillance over both houses."

"So Abbé Ninfo has seen you first, eh, captain?" rejoined the princess, trying to assume an equally unembarrassed tone; "and he took you into his confidence in order to obtain your services in his interest?"

Agatha knew very well what to think in that respect. Certainly, if she had not discovered that the abbé had already sought the Piccinino's assistance in abducting, or perhaps murdering Michel, she would not have thought it necessary to resort to him in order to procure the abduction of the abbé. But she was careful not to allow her real motive to be discovered. She desired that the bandit's self-love should be flattered by what he might consider an instinctive impulse on her part.

"From whatever source I derive my information," he replied, with a smile, "I leave it to you to judge of its accuracy. The last time that the cardinal came to visit your highness, there was a young man at the gate of your park whose distinguished features and bearing were in striking contrast with his costume, which was covered with dust and worn by a long journey. What caprice induced the cardinal to examine that young man and to insist upon questioning him? that is something which Ninfo himself does not know and has commissioned me to find out, if possible. One thing is certain: that the mania, which has beset the cardinal for a long time, of inquiring the name and age of all the young men of the lower classes whose faces attract his attention, has survived the loss of activity and memory. It is as if he still retained a sort of vague distrust, a relic of his exalted police functions; and his imperative glance commands Abbé Ninfo to ask questions and report to him. It is true that when the abbé showed him the written result of his investigation, he seemed to take no interest in it; in like manner, whenever the abbé annoys him with his impertinent requests or insinuating questions, his eminence, after reading the first words, closes his eyes angrily, to show that he doesn't wish to be fatigued any more. Perhaps your highness did not know these details, which Doctor Recuperati knows nothing of; for, during the few hours' sleep which the excellent doctor is permitted to enjoy, the watchfulness of the devoted servants with whom Your Highness has surrounded the cardinal does not avail to prevent Ninfo from entering his room, waking him without ceremony, and placing before him certain written sentences from which he hopes for favorable results. When the cardinal is awakened in this way, his pain and his anger make his mind momentarily more lucid than usual; he reads, seems to understand, and tries to utter words of which an occasional syllable is intelligible to his persecutor; but almost immediately he collapses again, and the feeble flame of his life is so much nearer extinction."

"So that villain has ceased to be a mere flatterer and spy, to become my unfortunate uncle's torturer and assassin?" cried the princess, indignantly. "You must see, signor captain, that he must be delivered from him at once, and that I need no other motive for desiring that he be taken out of our way."

"Pardon me, signora," rejoined the bandit, obstinately. "If I had not informed you of these things, you would still have personal motives of even greater weight, which you do not choose to tell me, but which I have learned from Ninfo. I never enter into an affair without making myself thoroughly acquainted with it; and it sometimes falls to my lot, as you see, to question both parties. Permit me to continue my disclosures, therefore, and I trust that they will lead to disclosures on your part.

"Abbé Ninfo did not examine very closely or ask many questions of the individual at your highness's park gate. After a moment, seeing that the cardinal continued somewhat agitated by the encounter, as if the young man's face had aroused memories which he could not arrange and place,--for his eminence often wears himself out, it seems, in such painful mental toil,--the abbé retraced his steps and examined the young man more carefully. The young man evidently had some reason for being on his guard, for he deceived the abbé, who really took him for a poor devil, and even gave him alms. But two days later, the abbé, having, for the purpose of spying, disguised himself as a workman employed in the preparations for your ball, soon discovered that his poor devil was a brilliant artist, very much petted and favored by your highness, and by no means in a position to accept alms at the gate of a palace, since he is the son of a well-to-do artisan, Pier-Angelo Lavoratori.

"On the night succeeding this discovery, the abbé did not fail to place before Monsignor Hieronymo a sheet of paper containing this information in large letters. But by dint of trying to tighten the last remaining chords of the instrument, the abbé broke them. The cardinal did not understand. The names of Pier-Angelo and Michelangelo Lavoratori conveyed no meaning to him. He muttered a violent oath because Ninfo disturbed his slumber. And so," added the Piccinino, with malicious significance, "the fears which your highness entertains, or pretends to entertain, with respect to Pier-Angelo are entirely without foundation. Although the cardinal long ago prosecuted that excellent man as a conspirator, he has so completely forgotten him that even Ninfo has no hope of reviving the memory of an affair of which he himself knows nothing, and your protégé is in no danger from any denunciation by him, at present."

"I breathe again," said the princess, allowing the bandit to take her hand in his, and even responding to his pressure, with generous confidence. "Your words do me good, captain, and I bless you for having confidence enough in me to reveal the truth to me. That was my whole fear; but, since the cardinal remembers nothing and the abbé knows nothing, I trust to your sagacity for the rest. Look you, captain, it seems to me this is what we have to do. Do you find in your fertile genius some method of obtaining possession of the will, and see that the abbé is informed of it, so that there will be no further occasion for him to persecute the worthy doctor; then keep the abbé's attention diverted so that he will allow my unfortunate uncle to die in peace. That will conclude by diplomatic methods an affair in which I have feared that blood might be shed over paltry questions of money."

"Your excellency goes very fast!" rejoined the Piccinino. "The abbé cannot be put to sleep so easily with regard to another subject, which it is impossible for me, despite my respect, my awe and my embarrassment, to pass over in silence."

"Speak, speak!" said Agatha, hastily.

"Very well, since your highness authorizes me to do so, and does not choose to understand a hint, I will tell you that Abbé Ninfo, while in quest of political intrigues which he has not succeeded in discovering, has put his hand upon a love affair which he has turned to his advantage."

"I do not understand," said the princess, with an air of sincerity that startled the adventurer.

"Can Ninfo have been gulling me," he thought, "or is this woman strong enough to hold her own against me? We will see."

"Signora," he said, in a honeyed tone, holding Agatha's hand against his breast, "you will detest me, I suppose. However, I must serve you against your will by telling you what I know. The abbé discovered that Michelangelo was admitted every day at certain hours to the private apartment in your Casino; that he did not eat with your servants or with the other workmen, but with you, in secret; in a word, that, when he took his siesta, he rested from his artistic labors in the arms of the loveliest and most lovable of women."

"It is false!" cried the princess; "it is an abominable falsehood. I treated that young man with the distinction which I considered that I owed to his talent and his ideas. He ate with his father in a room next to mine, and took his siesta in my picture gallery. Abbé Ninfo did not watch very closely, or he might have told you that Michel, being utterly tired out, passed two or three nights under my roof."

"He told me that, too," replied the Piccinino, who always chose to seem to know beforehand what anyone told him.

"Very well, Signor de Castro-Reale," said Agatha, in a firm voice, looking him full in the face, "there is no doubt about the fact; but I can swear upon my mother's soul and your mother's that that young man never saw me until the day of the ball, when his father first introduced him to me, in presence of two hundred mechanics. I talked to him during the ball, on the main staircase, and the Marquis della Serra, who was escorting me, complimented him, as I did myself, upon his paintings. From that moment down to this very evening Michel had never seen me; ask himself! You are not a man whom one can deceive, captain; use your perspicacity, and I will trust it."

The Piccinino quivered with pleasure at this concise declaration, made with the assurance which truth alone can give, and he pressed Agatha's hand against his breast with such force that she detected his sentiments at last. She had a moment of terror, augmented by a ghastly reminiscence. But she realized, in a flash, the full extent of the dangers to which Michel had been exposed, and, postponing the matter of her own safety to a more favorable season, she determined to deal tenderly with Carmelo Tomabene's pride.

"What motive could Abbé Ninfo have had in telling us that extraordinary story?" he exclaimed.

Agatha fancied that she could understand that the abbé had detected the violent passion for herself by which she saw at last that the bandit was possessed, and that he had endeavored to incite him to vengeance by his tale of intrigue. "If that is so," she thought, "I will use the same weapons, vile Ninfo, since you have been kind enough to furnish me with them."

"Listen, captain," she said; "you who know men so well and read so readily the innermost folds of the conscience, must have discovered that, in addition to all his manifest vices, the abbé is an insatiable libertine? Do you suppose that he has confined himself to coveting my inheritance? did he not let you see that it was not for money alone that he would try to sell me a part of it if he should succeed in obtaining possession of it?"

"Yes!" cried the Piccinino, this time with the utmost sincerity; "I thought that I could detect revolting desires and hopes on the part of that monster of ugliness and lust. His affected incredulity concerning the possibility of resistance by a woman, in such cases, is simply an attempt to console himself when he thinks of his own physical and moral ugliness. Yes, yes, I suspected it in spite of his hypocrisy. I will not say that he loves you; that would be a profanation of the word love; but he desires you, and he is jealous. Jealous, do I say! Ah! that word again is too respectable! Jealousy is the passion of young hearts, and his is decrepit. He suspects and detests everybody about you. In fact, he has devised an infernal method of conquering you: judging rightly that the desire to ransom your inheritance would not suffice, and supposing that you loved this young artist, he has determined to use him as a hostage and to compel you to purchase at his own price the life and liberty of Michelangelo."

"I ought to have expected that," replied the princess, affecting an air of contemptuous tranquillity, although her whole body was bathed in cold perspiration. "And so he selected you, captain, as his associate in an undertaking worthy of those men who devote themselves to the most hideous of all trades, the mere name of which is so degrading that no true woman could bear to speak it in any tongue! It seems to me that that mark of confidence on the part of the excellent Abbé Ninfo merits a somewhat severe punishment at your hands!"

Agatha had touched the right chord. The abbé's execrable projects, which had previously moved the young bandit to nothing more than satirical contempt, appeared to him now in the light of a personal insult and kindled the thirst for vengeance in him. So true is it that love, even in a wild, unbridled heart, arouses the sentiment of manly dignity.

"Severe punishment!" he said, in a deep voice, with clenched teeth; "he shall have it!--But," he added, "have no further anxiety about anything, signora; deign to place your fate in my hands unreservedly."

"My fate is already in your hands, captain," replied Agatha; "my fortune, my reputation, and the lives of my friends: think you that I have an anxious air?"

And she looked him through and through with a profound gaze, wherein she was so happily inspired by the superior sagacity of the courageous woman, that the Piccinino felt its influence and found that respect and awe were mingled with his passion.--"Ah! you romantic woman," he thought, "you have not outgrown the belief that a bandit chief must be a stage hero or a chevalier of the Middle Ages! And here am I compelled to play that part for your pleasure! Very well, I will play it. Nothing is difficult to him who has read much and reasoned much.--Indeed, why should I not be a hero in good earnest?" he said to himself, as he walked silently beside that trembling woman whom he believed to be so trustful and confiding, pressing her arm to his side with his own trembling arm. "If I have not deigned to be one hitherto, it is simply because the opportunity has never offered, and my essays at grandeur would have been absurd. With such a woman as this, the game is well worth the candle, and I cannot believe that it is difficult to be sublime when the reward is destined to be so sweet. It is an undertaking founded upon a selfish motive more elevated, but no less substantial or less logical than others."

Before assuming definitively the attitude of the princess's true knight, he determined to do away with a lingering remnant of distrust, and he was almost ingenuous in seeking to cure himself of it.

"The only weakness of which I am conscious," he said, "is the dread of playing a ridiculous rôle. Ninfo wished me to play an infamous one, he shall be punished for it; but if your highness really loves that young man--why, that young man also will have reason to regret having deceived me!"

"How am I to understand you?" rejoined Agatha, leading him into the ray of light which the chandelier in her boudoir cast into the garden; "I do really love Michelangelo, Pier-Angelo, and Fra Angelo, as devoted friends and estimable men. To rescue them from the enmity of a villain I would give all the money that anyone might ask. But look at me, captain, and look at that young man musing yonder behind that window. Do you consider that there can possibly exist a bond based upon impure passion between two persons of our respective ages and conditions? You do not know my character. Nobody has ever understood it. Will you be the first one to do it justice? I wish it might be so, for I care very much for your esteem, and I should think that I was wholly undeserving of it if I entertained for that child sentiments which I feared to allow you to detect."

As she spoke, Agatha, who had dropped the bandit's arm, took it again to return to the boudoir; and he was so grateful to her for that mark of trustful friendship, of which she desired Michel and the marquis to be witnesses, that he felt intoxicated and, as it were, beside himself with joy.