In Direst Peril

by David Christie Murray

As we reached the platform the gaunt phantom swung round upon us, and in a voice like the call of a trumpet announced “The Exile.”

I had already had a taste of the patriotic enthusiasm of the crowd that morning, but I had never seen anything which did more than approach the delirious excitement which set in at this announcement.

There was not a seat in the body of the room, and the men who occupied the floor were packed like herrings in a barrel. One could see nothing but a great wave of swarthy, eager faces, and could hear nothing but a tumult like the roaring of the sea. There was hardly a man in the whole assemblage who was not weeping with excitement; and though I have rather a knack of keeping a cool head under such circumstances, I have to own that I was deeply moved.

It seemed impossible to stop the cheering. Ruffiano, who had constituted himself chairman, gesticulated like a windmill, and roared till he was hoarse in the vain effort to secure silence. It took a full quarter of an hour to wear out this prodigious welcome, and even then it broke out anew in scattered bursts and spurts, as if the people could never have enough of it.

All this while Miss Rossano stood at her father's side, holding one of his hands in both her own. The tears were streaming down her face without cessation, but I had never seen her look so radiant—not even on the night when I first saw her, and the happy brightness of her beauty made me her life-long servant.

The count, poor man, was shaken altogether out of self-control. He hid his eyes with his frail hand, and his tears ran like rain through his wasted fingers. I have tried many and many a time to realize in my own mind what he must have felt, but I have always known the futility of the effort.

Twenty years of solitary imprisonment, a martyrdom of physical degradation quite unspeakable, and sickening even to think of for a moment, darkness, torture, utter despair, and then freedom and human tears, and this astounding roar of triumph, sympathy, and welcome! It was no wonder the scene unmanned him. The wonder was that he had not sunk into an unquestioning animalism—a mere brute state of idiocy—years ago.

There was speech-making enough and to spare when the cheering at last was over. The count himself spoke a few broken words of thanks, which elicited another roar of sympathy and welcome scarcely inferior in volume to the first and only less prolonged. To tell the truth, I felt the whole business rather trying, and I got heartily sick of the name of the courageous, illustrious, magnanimous, and altogether noble and magnificent Signor Fyfa. I knew perfectly well, though I could not understand a tenth part of what was said, that Brunow's shameless exaggerations were accepted here as solid truth, and that I was being lauded for a number of splendid qualities which, to say the least, I had had no chance of displaying. The illustrious, courageous, magnanimous, and altogether noble Brunow came in for his share of the praise, and bowed solemnly, with his hand upon his heart, whenever the crowd cheered him. He made a speech in Italian, and achieved an overwhelming success.

Finally, the whole business was over. We had got back to the vestry, and all but a few of the chieftains had gone away, when I first became aware of the presence of the Baroness Bonnar. A light hand touched my sleeve, and a foreign voice spoke to me in English.

“This is a noble occasion. I have never been so moved in my life. I have cried until I am not fit to be seen.”