Vestigia. Vol. II.

by George Fleming

THE FIRING OF THE SHOT.

Valdez seemed very much struck by the news of little Palmira's arrival. The child had gone to spend the night with Lucia at the house of her cousin. 'But you can call for her there in the morning, my Dino. Ay; call for her and take her with you by all means. So Italia sent her after you? Ah! it needs a woman to think of a thing like that. Ay; take the child; 'tis the one surest way of diverting any suspicion. And I'll be near you, lad, at the time; I'll look after her; I'll look after her.'

The old man had placed both food and wine upon the table in the small lodging which he had secured for himself and De Rossi, but Dino did not even make a pretence of eating.

'You'll be fit for nothing to-morrow, lad,' Valdez remonstrated, looking at him rather anxiously.

'I want nothing—nothing,' said Dino with passionate impatience, turning his back upon him and beginning to pace up and down the narrow room.

'Nay, have your own way, lad; have your own way.'

Dino went and stood by the window, looking out at the small, dimly-lighted street. A slight shower of rain was falling; he stood there for a long time idly watching the reflections of the gas-lamp opposite upon the glistening stones.

'Valdez,' he said abruptly, 'where do you suppose I shall be at this time to-morrow?' But he went on without giving him time to answer. 'It's an odd thing—that feeling that one has done with one's youth. I've had an experience that has made everything different to me. I could not go back now; no more than a man could go back to being a child. Perhaps I wasn't worth much before. I never thought of that. But I think I might be of some use if I were to live now, Valdez.'

'Ay, my lad. You've made a great difference to me as it is,' the old man answered tenderly.

Presently he, too, rose from his chair and went and stood beside the window.

'There was one thing I had to tell you; I nearly forgot it. I've been to see the head men of the committee since I came up here, and I've settled one thing for you,—after to-morrow your name gets struck off the books. I've done one or two things for them in my time,' Valdez said slowly, 'and they owed me something. I never asked them for anything before. And I made myself responsible for you in this matter, lad; I answered for you at Leghorn.' He laid his hand on Dino's shoulder. 'It was I who brought you into this thing at the beginning. And I made a mistake. You're not fit for it. But you've never reproached me with what it costs you, my lad; never once.'

Dino looked at him vaguely, as if he scarcely understood what was said.

'I'm not afraid, if that is what you mean,' he said simply. 'I never was afraid for myself. It is only leaving the others that I mind—Italia, and the mother, and old Drea. You don't know how good they have been to me, Valdez. I don't know why. It seems now as if I had never done anything for it. But I'm not frightened. You need not think I'd play you false at the last.'

'No, lad; no.'

'I offered once to give it all up—to throw everything over—for Italia. She would not let me. But you don't know how I hurt her, Valdez. And I can never make it up to her now.'

'Ah! she has a brave heart, that girl,' said Valdez in his deepest voice. 'A brave true heart. And courage and passion, Dino, you can't go beyond that,—courage and passion, they're the immortal facts of life. Where they pass the world marks the spot.'

He shifted his grasp a little, and let his hand rest upon the young man's arm, 'Come to bed, boy. Give over thinking. You are tired out, my Dino; you need sleep,' he said, speaking with a strange new gentleness. As for himself, he never went to bed at all. Through the long dreary hours of the night he sat patiently waiting in the darkened room for the sun to rise upon a new day.

Dino had thrown himself down upon the hard couch at the end of the room. He slept heavily, the sleep of young exhaustion. Once, towards daybreak, he started up suddenly with an exclamation of alarm.

'Valdez! I thought it was morning, Valdez.'

'Nay, lad; I'll call you when the time comes; go to sleep.'

'What sort of a night is it now?'

The old democrat rose stiffly from his chair; he felt cramped and sore from the long night's watching. He pushed aside the scanty curtain. 'The rain has stopped. It'll be a fine day to-morrow.'

'So much the better,' Dino said. 'I should like the sun to shine.' His head dropped again upon his hard pillow. The candle had burnt itself out in its socket. There was no sound in the room but the heavy breathing of the weary sleeper and the ticking of Valdez's watch, which lay before him on the table. He sat there, counting the hours.

And at last the dawn broke, chill and gray; the dim light struggling in at the window made a faint glimmer upon the glasses which stood beside the untouched food. To the old man keeping his faithful watch beside the sleeper, this was perhaps the hardest hour of all—till the darkness wore slowly away; the sky turned to a clear stainless blue; and all the city awoke to the radiance of the April day.

Soon the bells began their joyous clash and clamour. It was hardly eight o'clock when the two men stepped out into the street together, but the rejoicing populace was astir already, and hurrying towards the new quarter of the Macao.

Rome was in festa, heavy and splendid Rome. Bright flags fluttered, and many-coloured carpets and rugs were suspended from every available window. All along the Via Nazionale, a double row of gaudily-decked Venetian masts, hung with long wreaths and brilliant flapping banners, marked the course where the royal carriages were to pass. But it was farther on, at the Piazza dell' Indipendenza, that the crowd was already thickest. The cordon of soldiers had been stationed here since early morning. Looking down from any of the neighbouring balconies upon that swarming sea of holiday-makers, it seemed impossible that even the great Piazza could contain more; and yet at every instant the place grew fuller and fuller; a steady stream of people poured in from every side street; peasants from the country in gay festa dress; shepherds from the Campagna in cloaks of matted sheepskin; and strapping black-haired girls with shrill voices and the step of queens, who had come all the way from Trastevere to look on at the spectacle,—there was no end, no cessation to the thickening and the growing excitement of the crowd.

Dino had taken his place very early. It was exactly at the corner of the Piazza, where a street-lamp made a support for his back, and prevented him from being brushed aside by the gathering force and pressure of the multitude. He had found a safe place for Palmira to stand, on the iron ledge which ran around the lamp-post. The child's little pale face rose high above the crowd; she was quiet from very excess of excitement, only from time to time she stooped to touch her brother's shoulder in token of mute content.

Valdez stood only a few paces behind them. He had kept the revolver in his own possession to the last moment. It was arranged that he should pass it to Dino at a preconcerted signal, and as the King came riding past for the second time.

Dino had scarcely spoken all that morning, but otherwise there was no sign of unusual excitement about him. He was deadly pale; at short intervals a faint red flush came and went like a stain upon his colourless cheek. But he answered all little Palmira's questions very patiently. The morning seemed very long to him, that was all. He stood fingering the handkerchief in his pocket with which he was to give Valdez the signal for passing him the weapon.

It was more than twenty-four hours now since he had tasted food, and the long abstinence was beginning to tell upon him; at times his head felt dizzy, and if he closed his eyes the continuous roar and chatter of the crowd sunk—died away far off—like the sound of the surf upon a distant shore. At one moment he let himself go entirely to this curious new sensation of drifting far away; it was barely an instant of actual time, but he recovered himself with a start which ran like ice from head to foot; it was a horrible sensation, like a slow return from the very nothingness of death. He shivered and opened his eyes wide and looked about him. He seemed to have been far far away from it all in that one briefest pause of semi-unconsciousness, yet his eyes opened on the same radiant brightness of the sunshine; a holiday sun shining bravely down on glancing arms and fretting horses; on the dark line of the soldiers pressing back the people, and the many-coloured dresses, the laughing, talking, good-natured faces of the gesticulating crowd.

One of these mounted troopers was just in front of Dino. As the human mass surged forward, urged by some unexplainable impulse of excitement and curiosity, this man's horse began backing and plunging. The young soldier turned around in his saddle, and his quick glance fell upon Palmira's startled face.

'Take care of your little girl there, my friend,' he said to Dino good-humouredly, and forced his horse away from the edge of the pavement.

Dino looked at him without answering. He wondered vaguely if this soldier boy with the friendly blue eyes and the rosy face would be one of the first to fall upon him when he was arrested? And then his thoughts escaped him again—the dimness came over his eyes.

He roused himself with a desperate effort. He began to count the number of windows in the house opposite; then the number of policemen stationed at the street corner; an officer went galloping by; he fixed his eyes upon the glancing uniform until it became a mere spot of brightness in the distance.

Hark!

The gun at the palace. The King was starting from the Quirinal. All the scattered cries and laughs and voices were wielded together into one long quavering roar of satisfaction and excitement.

There—again! and nearer at hand this second gun.

The cheers rise higher, sink deeper. He is coming, the young soldier King, the master of Italy, the popular hero. See! hats are waving, men are shouting,—the infection of enthusiasm catches and runs like fire along the line of eager, expectant faces. Here he comes. The roar lifts, swells, grows louder and louder; the military bands on either side of the piazza break with one accord into the triumphant ringing rhythm of the royal march. They have seen the troops defile before them with scarcely a sign of interest, but now, at sight of that little isolated group of riders with the plumed and glittering helmets, there comes one mad instant of frantic acclamation, when every man in that crowd feels that he too has some part and possession in all the compelling, alluring splendour and success of life.

And just behind the royal cavalier, among the glittering group of aides-de-camp, rode the young Marchese Balbi. He was so near that Dino could scarcely believe their eyes did not actually meet; but if Gasparo recognised him he gave no sign, riding on with a smile upon his happy face, his silver-mounted accoutrements shining bravely in the sun.

And so, for the first time, the doomed King passed by.

Dino scarcely heeded him; at that moment he had forgotten everything unconnected with the sight of that one familiar face. His mother, his old home,—Italia even,—had grown dim and unreal; he forgot them all in the sensation of that quick rush of renewed affection. All the old pride, the old delight, in Gasparo, which had made so great a part of his boyhood, came back upon him with the irresistible claims of reawakened tenderness. He was there to commit a murder; and out of all that crowd he saw only the one face which he knew—and he loved it.

That curious sense of floating away, far away from everything living, fell upon him again. He lost all count of time. He could never tell how long it was before he heard little Palmira cry out in shrill tones of childish excitement:

'I see him, Dino. There he comes again. The King, the King all in gold!'

Dino started, it seemed to him as if he started wide awake. He drew himself up like a soldier standing at attention; his brain was steady; his senses all alert. He watched eagerly, the white plumes were slowly advancing between the two serried ranks of the soldiery. He waited until he could distinguish the King's face distinctly; he saw him lean a little forward and pat his restive horse——.

And then, without turning, he gave Valdez the preconcerted signal.

And even as he raised the handkerchief to his lips he heard, not ten paces off, the sharp ringing report of a shot.

It was all over in an instant—the sound—the plunging of the frightened horses. He saw the white plume of the King pass by unscathed, and Gasparo Balbi, who was riding nearest him, throw up his arms and fall backward, quietly, into the rising cloud of dust.

A great cry broke from the people all about him—it rang in his ears—it sounded far away like the beating of a furious tide upon the distant, distant shore. A blackness, a horrible blackness which he could feel, passed over his face like a cloud. And then he knew nothing more.

*****

Some quarter of an hour later one of the two guardie who were helping to lift his insensible body into a street cab looked compassionately down at Dino's clenched hands and pallid death-like face.

''Tis no wonder the poor giovane fainted,' he said sympathetically, addressing the little crowd about him. ''Tis no wonder he fainted. Perdio! as it so happens I was looking straight at him,—he was not ten paces away from the villain who fired the shot.'