CHAPTER LXVIII. A MEETING AND A PARTING
In the same room where Pracontal and Longworth had parted in anger, the two men, reconciled and once more friends, sat over their dessert and a cigar. The handsome reparation Pracontal had offered in a letter had been frankly and generously met, and it is probable that their friendship was only the more strongly ratified by the incident.
They were both dressed with unusual care, for Lady Augusta “received” a few intimate friends on that evening, and Pracontal was to be presented to them in his quality of accepted suitor.
“I think,” said Longworth, laughingly, “it is the sort of ordeal most Englishmen would feel very awkward in. You are trotted out for the inspection of a critical public, who are to declare what they think of your eyes and your whiskers, if they augur well of your temper, and whether, on the whole, you are the sort of person to whom a woman might confide her fate and future.”
“You talk as if I were to be sent before a jury and risk a sentence,” said Pracontal, with a slight irritation in his tone.
“It is something very like it.”
“And I say, there is no resemblance whatever.”
“Don't you remember what Lord Byron in one of his letters says of a memorable drive through Ravenna one evening, where he was presented as the accepted?—There's that hang-dog rascal that followed us through the gardens of the Vatican this morning, there he is again, sitting directly in front of our window, and staring at us.”
“Well, I take it those benches were placed there for fellows to rest on who had few arm-chairs at home.”
“I don't think, in all my experience of humanity, I ever saw a face that revolted me more. He is n't ugly, but there is something in the expression so intensely wicked, that mockery of all goodness, that Retsch puts into Mephistopheles; it actually thrills me.”
“I don't see that—there is even drollery in the mouth.”
“Yes, diabolic humor, certainly. Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Did n't you see that when I lifted my glass to my lips, he made a pantomime of drinking too, and bowed to me, as though in salutation?”
“I knew there was fun in the fellow. Let us call him over and speak to him.”
“No, no, Pracontal; do not, I beseech you. I feel an aversion towards him that I cannot explain. The rascal poisons the very claret I 'm drinking just by glancing at me.”
“You are seldom so whimsical.”
“Would n't you say the fellow knew we were talking of him? See he is smiling now; if that infernal grin can be called a smile.”
“I declare, I will have him over here; now don't go, sit down like a good fellow; there's no man understands character better than yourself, and I am positively curious to see how you will read this man on a closer inspection.”
“He does not interest, he merely disgusts, me.”
Pracontal arose, drew nigh the window, and waved his napkin in sign to the man, who at once got up from his seat, and slowly, and half indolently, came over to the window. He was dressed in a sort of gray uniform of jacket and trousers, and wore a kerchief on his head for a cap, a costume which certainly in no degree contributed to lessen the unfavorable impression his face imparted, for there was in his look a mixture of furtiveness and ferocity positively appalling.
“Do you like him better now?” asked Longworth, in English.
And the fellow grinned at the words.
“You understand English, eh?” asked Pracontal.
“Ay, I know most modern languages.”
“What nation are you?”
“A Savoyard.”
“Whence do you come now?”
“From the galleys at Ischia.”
“Frank that, anyhow,” cried Longworth. “Were you under sentence there?”
“Yes, for life.”
“For what offence?”
“For a score that I committed, and twice as many that I failed in.”
“Murder, assassination?”
He nodded.
“Let us hear about some of them,” said Pracontal, with interest.
“I don't talk of these things; they are bygones, and I 'd as soon forget them.”
“And do you fancy they 'll be forgotten up there,” said Pracontal, pointing upwards as he spoke.
“What do you know about 'up there,'” said he, sternly, “more than myself? Are not your vague words, 'up there,' the proof that it 's as much a mystery to you as to me?”
“Don't get into theology with him, or you 'll have to listen to more blasphemy than you bargain for,” whispered Longworth; and whether the fellow overheard or merely guessed the meaning of the words, he grinned diabolically, and said,—
“Yes, leave that question there.”
“Are you not afraid of the police, my friend?” asked Longworth. “Is it not in their power to send you back to those you have escaped from?”
“They might with another, but the Cardinal Secretary knows me. I have told him I have some business to do at Rome, and want only a day or two to do it, and he knows I will keep my word.”
“My faith, you are a very conscientious galley-slave!” cried Pracontal. “Are you hungry?” and he took a large piece of bread from the sideboard and handed it to him. The man bowed, took the bread, and laid it beside him on the window-board.
“And so you and Antonelli are good friends?” said Longworth sneeringly.
“I did not say so. I only said he knew me, and knew me to be a man of my word.”
“And how could a Cardinal know—” when he got thus far he felt the unfairness of saying what he was about to utter, and stopped, but the man took up the words with perfect calmness, and said:—
“The best and the purest people in this world will now and then have to deal with the lowest and the worst, just as men will drink dirty water when they are parched with thirst.”
“Is it some outlying debt of vengeance, an old vendetta, detains you here?” asked Longworth.
“I wouldn't call it that,” replied he, slowly, “but I'd not be surprised if it took something of that shape, after all.”
“And do you know any other great folk?” asked Pracontal, with a laugh. “Are you acquainted with the Pope?”
“No, I have never spoken to him. I know the French envoy here, the Marquis de Caderousse. I know Field-Marshall Kleinkoff. I know Brassieri—the Italian spy—they call him the Duke of Brassieri.”
“That is to say, you have seen them as they drove by on the Corso, or walked on the Pincian?” said Longworth.
“No, that would not be acquaintance. When I said 'know' I meant it.”
“Just as you know my friend here, and know me perhaps?” said Pracontal.
“Not only him, but you,” said the fellow, with a fierce determination.
“Me, know me? what do you know about me?”
“Everything,” and now he drew himself up, and stared at him defiantly.
“I declare I wonder at you, Anatole,” whispered Longworth. “Don't you know the game of menace and insolence these rascals play at?” And again the fellow seemed to divine what passed, for he said:—
“Your friend is wrong this time. I am not the cheat he thinks me.”
“Tell me something you know about me,” said Pracontal, smiling; and he filled a goblet with wine, and handed it to him.
The other, however, made a gesture of refusal, and coldly said,—“What shall it be about? I 'll answer any question you put to me.”
“What is he about to do?” cried Longworth. “What great step in life is he on the eve of taking?”
“Oh, I'm not a fortune teller,” said the man, roughly; “though I could tell you that he's not to be married to this rich Englishwoman. That fine bubble is burst already.”
Pracontal tried to laugh, but he could not; and it was with difficulty he could thunder out,—“Servants' stories and lackeys' talk!”
“No such thing, sir. I deal as little with these people as yourself. You seem to think me an impostor; but I tell you I am less of a cheat than either of you. Ay, sir, than you, who play fine gentlemen, mi Lordo, here in Italy, but whose father was a land-steward; or than you—”
“What of me—what of me?” cried Pracontal, whose intense eagerness now mastered every other emotion.
“You I who cannot tell who or what you are, who have a dozen names, and no right to any of them; and who, though you have your initials burned in gunpowder in the bend of your arm, have no other baptismal registry. Ah! do I know you now?” cried he, as Pracontal sank upon a seat, covered with a cold sweat and fainting.
“This is some rascally trick. It is some private act of hate. Keep him in talk till I fetch a gendarme.” Longworth whispered this, and left the room.
“Bad counsel that he has given you,” said the man. “My advice is better. Get away from this at once—get away before he returns. There's only shame and disgrace before you now.”
He moved over to where Pracontal was seated, and placing his mouth close to his ear, whispered some words slowly and deliberately.
“And are you Niccolo Baldassare?” muttered Pracontal.
“Come with me, and learn all,” said the man, moving to the door; “for I will not wait to be arrested and made a town talk.”
Pracontal arose and followed him.
The old man walked with a firm and rapid step. He descended the stairs that led to the Piazza del Popolo, crossed the wide piazza, and issued from the gate out upon the Campagna, and skirting the ancient wall, was soon lost to view among the straggling hovels which cluster at intervals beneath the ramparts. Pracontal continued to walk behind him, his head sunk on his bosom, and his steps listless and uncertain, like one walking in sleep. Neither were seen more after that night.