Chapter Thirty Three.
Improved Prison Fare.
A week elapsed from the day the brigands had got back to their mountain den. The plunder had all been appropriated by three or four, to whom fortune had been most favourable. These were already the richest individuals in the band; for amid the mountains of Italy, as in the towns of Homburg and Baden, the banker in the end is sure to sweep in the stakes of the outsiders. Dame Fortune may give luck for a run; but he who can afford to lose longest will outrun her in the end.
Among the winners was the brigand chief, and Cara Popetta put fresh rings upon her fingers, new brooches upon her breast, and additional chains around her neck.
Another expedition began to be talked about, to provide fresh stakes for the game of capo or croce. It was not to be either a grand or distant one—only a little spurt into one of the neighbouring valleys—the capture, if chance allowed it, of some petty proprietor, who might have ventured from the great city to have a look at his estates, or the seizure of such chattels as might be found in a country village. It was chiefly intended to fill up the time, until the return of that secret messenger who had been despatched to England, and from whose mission much was expected.
Their English confrère had given the brigands a hint of the great wealth of their captive’s father, and all were hopeful of receiving the grand ransom that had been demanded by the capo. With five thousand pounds (nearly thirty thousand pezzos), they might play for a month, and go to sleep for another, without troubling themselves about the soldiers in pursuit.
The little expedition, that was to form the interlude while this was being waited for, was soon organised—only about three-fourths of the band being permitted to take part in it. On this occasion the women were also left behind, Cara Popetta among the rest.
The captive, inside his cell, only knew of its having started by the greater tranquillity that reigned around the place. There were still quarrels occurring at short intervals; but these appeared to be between the women, whose voices, less sonorous, were not less energetic in their accents of anger, or more refined in their mode of expressing it. Like their short-cropped hair, their vocabulary appeared to have been shorn of all its elegance—both, perhaps, having been parted with at the same time. Had Henry Harding been in a mind for amusement, he might have found it in witnessing their disputes, that oft occurred right under his window. But he was not. On the contrary, it but disgusted him to think of the degradation to which the angel woman may reach, when once she has strayed from the path of virtue.
And many of these women were beautiful, or had been before they became vicious. No doubt more than one had been the fond hope of some doting parent, perhaps the stay of an aged mother, and the solace of her declining days, and who, having one day strayed beyond the confines of her native village, like the daughter of Pietro, returned “home sad and slow,” or never returned at all!
The heart of the young Englishman was lacerated as he reflected upon their fate. It was torture, when he thought of them in connection with Lucetta Torreani. To think of that pure, innocent girl—the glance he had had of her convinced him that she was this—becoming as one of those feminine fiends who daily jarred and warred outside his window! Surely it could never be. And yet what was there to hinder it? This was the inquiry that now occupied his attention, and filled him with dread forebodings.
Since the departure of the expedition a ray of hope had shone into his cell. It was bright as the sunbeam that there entered. For the mind of the captive, quickened by captivity, like a drowning man, will catch even at straws; and one seemed to offer itself to the imprisoned artist.
In the first place, he perceived that there was a chance of corrupting his gaoler. This was no longer the morose, taciturn fellow, who had hitherto attended upon him, but one who, if not cheerful, was at least talkative. On hearing his voice the prisoner could at once recognise it as that of one of the brigands who had held conversation under his window. It was the one whose sentiments showed him the less hardened of the two, and whom the other had called Tommaso. The captive fancied something might be done with this man. From what he had heard him say, Tommaso did not appear altogether dead to the dictates of humanity. True, he had made confession to having spent some time in a Papal prison. But many a martyr had done that—political and otherwise. The worst against him was his being where he now was; but this might have come from a like cause.
So reflected Henry Harding; and the more did he think of it, after his new gaoler had held converse with him. But he had found something else to reflect upon, also of a hopeful character. The breakfast brought by Tommaso—which was his first meal after the departure of the band—was altogether different from those of former days. Instead of the macaroni pasta, often unseasoned and insipid, there were broiled mutton, sausages, confetti, and a bottle of rosolio!
“Who sent these delicacies?” was the interrogatory of him who received them. He did not put it until after eating his dinner, which in a like way differed from the dinners of previous days. Then he asked the question of his new attendant.
“La signora,” was the answer of Tommaso, speaking in such a courteous tone, that but for the small chamber and the absence of furniture the captive might have fancied himself in an hotel, and especially cared for by one of its waiters.
Throughout the day did this solicitude show itself; and at night the signora herself brought him his supper, without either the intervention or attendance of Tommaso. Shortly after the sun had gone down the young Englishman started at seeing a woman make her way inside his cell; for it was an apparition strange as unexpected.
The small chamber in which he was imprisoned was but the adjunct of a larger apartment—a sort of storeroom, where the brigands kept the bulkier articles of their plunder, as also provisions. In this last was a large window, through which the moon was shining; and it was only on the door of his cell being thrown open that he perceived his feminine visitor. Though she was but dimly seen in the borrowed light of the outer chamber, he could tell that it was a woman.
Who was she?
Only for a second was he in doubt; her large form, as she stood outlined in the doorway, as also the drapery of her dress, told him it was the wife of the chief. He had observed that only she, of all the women belonging to the band, affected female habiliments.
Yes, his visitor was Cara Popetta. He wondered what she could want with him; all the more as she came stealing in apparently in fear of being watched, or followed by some one outside. She had noiselessly opened the outer door, as noiselessly closed it behind her, and in the same way opened and closed that communicating with his cell.