"I have been impatient for your return," Horace exclaimed, as soon as Raphael emerged from the trees. "Have you heard any tidings from Staiti? Can you give me any news of my mother?"
Raphael made a sign in the negative, as he advanced to the foot of the rocky ascent.
Horace leaned over the rough parapet and said in English, "Could you not contrive to bear a note or a message from me to my mother?"
"Matteo made me give my word of honor that I would not do so," replied Raphael. "Had he not bound me by that which he knows that I never break, he would have detained me in his fastness here, almost as close a prisoner as yourself."
With the agility of a chamois, the young Italian now ascended the rocks to gain the platform in front of the cave, unimpeded by his instrument, which he carried slung behind him. His first glance, on reaching the spot where Horace awaited him, was directed towards the fettered ankles of the captive.
"You have been attempting to escape!" he said quickly.
"Is it a crime in your eyes to make an effort for freedom?" asked the prisoner.
"In your case it is useless—utterly useless—worse than useless," said Raphael with earnestness. "I know better than you can know, in how close a clutch you are held; I see, as you cannot see, the pitfalls surrounding you here."
"But what can I do?" exclaimed Horace impatiently, chafing under the sense of bondage like a caged lion.
"Trust in God," was the reply: and these three words, uttered with the manly simplicity of one who in himself had proved their power, dispelled in the mind of Horace every lingering doubt and suspicion as regarded the character of Raphael. Wonderingly he resolved the mystery of the connection of a man of no ordinary earnestness of devotion, with the lowest and worst of his race. As little would Horace have expected to find the rich blossoms of the passion-flower twining round a cluster of poisonous fungi, or a jewel glittering on some heap of corruption, as a firm, decided Christian man in a den of robbers and thieves. How could a rain-drop retain its purity when mixed with the stagnant waters of a pool? How could the spark of faith still live with so fierce a storm of temptation around it?