[CHAPTER XVII.]
ONE EFFORT MORE.
We will now return to Raphael, who with keen and breathless interest had watched from the shade of the forest Horace's passage along the perilous ledge. When Marco's hand had been laid on the shoulder of the youth, the Rossignol could hardly refrain from springing forward to the rescue, and scarcely had Horace himself experienced greater satisfaction than did his friend when that startling danger was past. When the fugitive had disappeared from his view, Raphael, for the first time, appeared to have leisure to think of himself. To aid in the escape of a prisoner was, as he well knew, a crime to be atoned for only with life. Raphael was young, and notwithstanding the recent bereavement, which had been like the wrenching away of a heart-string, life was to Raphael a precious thing, not to be parted with lightly.
As he stood with folded arms under the of the waving boughs, a sense of the loveliness of nature came on his poet-soul with a soothing, softening power. He felt loath to leave God's beautiful world. How divinely fair looked the scene before him, beneath the silvery rays of the moon! How wooingly breathed the night-breeze upon his feverish brow! How sweet sounded the nightingale's song, warbled soft through the stilly air! Hope, even earthly hope, was not dead in that young bosom; there was still a desire for human love and for human happiness there. Raphael thought of Horace, blessed with friends, a mother, a home; not, indeed, with envy, but with the instinctive yearning of a tender and loving nature for the sympathy of human hearts, of which he had known so little.
Thus the improvisatore had no intention of awaiting a violent death with folded hands; he revolved all possible means of escape. From Matteo's mercy he expected as little as he would have done from that of a lioness whose cubs had been slaughtered before her eyes. He must not await the burst of frantic fury of a father bereaved of his son and balked of his vengeance. Nor could Raphael count upon the protection of any of the band, though he knew that on some he had the claim of gratitude. No, he must rely upon the aid of God and his own efforts alone.
Raphael resolved to wait just long enough to give Horace a fair start, which might be essential to his safety, and then to follow himself in the same track as that which his friend had pursued. It was true that Marco must be passed on the perilous rock—that the bandit had pistols in his belt, and that his bullet always levelled his victim. But Raphael deemed it possible that the man would be reluctant to slay a comrade, alone and unarmed. Marco was savage, ignorant, blinded by superstition, a fanatic who regarded murder itself as a venial offence compared with heresy; but he was not so utterly hardened and depraved as were Matteo and Beppo. The fate of Enrico had seemed somewhat to move even his rugged nature. At all events, Raphael felt that of two dangers the lesser one was to be chosen;—better to try the chance of passing Marco, than to await the return of Matteo and his gang.
After recommending himself to the protection of his heavenly Father, in submission to the divine will, whatever that will might appoint, the young Italian quitted the shrouding shade, and with a firm step advanced towards the sentinel, whose eyes were at that moment, turned in an opposite direction. Raphael had, as we have seen, divested himself both of hat and mantle. His face was calm, but very pale;—the expression that of a man who knows that he is facing death, but who has nerved himself to face it without flinching. The mass of rich dark hair thrown back from his high, pale forehead, fell almost to his shoulders, damp with the dews of night.
Marco was repeating an Ave for the soul of the miserable Enrico, when, chancing to turn round, he suddenly beheld the tall figure approaching him in the moonlight, bareheaded, in its spirit-like stillness and calmness, with the gaze of its large, thoughtful eyes riveted on his own. It came along the path by which, not an hour before, he believed that Raphael had passed. The Rossignol marveled to see the fear which he was wrestling down in his own heart suddenly transferred to the man before him. Marco's eyes dilated, his lips parted, his very hair seemed to rise from his head; he crossed himself with a trembling hand, moved backwards step by step as Raphael Goldoni drew nearer, but staring at him still, like the hare fascinated by the gaze of the serpent. At last with a cry, "'E il suo spirito!" ("It is his ghost!") The strong man actually turned and fled, overpowered by superstitious terrors.
Then Raphael knew the cause of that before inexplicable alarm which his presence had inspired, and with thankfulness for the path thus cleared for him which he could never have reckoned, came a bitter pang of remembrance, as he thought on his brother, loved and lost! There appeared to be as little cause to doubt the death of Enrico as there would have been had he been dashed over the Falls of Niagara; no human foresight could have calculated upon the singular accident to which he owed his almost miraculous preservation.
Scarcely had the Rossignol entered the wood on the further side of the pass, with a feeling of deep melancholy as he approached the scene of his brother's fall, when he was startled, as Horace had been, by the sound of distant firing. It was evident that Matteo and his ruffian band had lighted on no despicable foe—that they were engaged in a desperate struggle with those who would claim blood for blood, and life for life.