In Direst Peril

by David Christie Murray

Those who understood, or who thought they understood, translated this brief statement of mine to those who did not, and this made a deep hum all about the table. In the midst of it a man entered at the door, and, advancing to the count, began to talk to him animatedly in some local dialect, of which I could not understand so much as a syllable. The count nodded twice or thrice to signify attention, and though at first he looked doubtful, he ended by smiling, and dismissed the messenger with an applauding pat upon the shoulder. He rose to his feet before the man had reached the door, and made a brief statement, which was received with a mingling of dissent and applause. Ruffiano leaped to his feet, crying out in English:

“Brothers, I claim a word!” and there was instant silence, every face turning attentively to his. He began to speak rapidly, with all his usual vehemence, and with even more than his usual plenitude of gesture. Almost at the beginning of his argument he bent his lean figure forward and beat rapidly upon the table with the palm of his hand, and then, suddenly recovering his full height, sent both arms backward. Brunow sat immediately on his right, and the back of the orator's hand caught him resoundingly upon the cheek; and at this unexpected incident the audience broke into a sudden shout of laughter, in which Brunow tried to join—with a curiously ill success, I thought. I could not understand the subject of discussion, for Ruffiano had immediately gone back to his native language, and there was something about Brunow's look which could hardly be accounted for by so trifling a misadventure as that which had just occurred. The instinct of the eye told him that I was looking at him, and he glanced at me and then suddenly averted his face. He made an effort to appear at ease, but his color came and went strangely, and both his hands trembled, though I saw that he was pressing them heavily upon the table with the intent to steady them. I thought he might possibly have been raging inwardly at me, and that in his unreasoning anger at me he might find my mere presence hateful to him; but I could not help thinking that his looks expressed fear or suspense rather than anger. When the laughter excited by the accident had died away, Ruffiano turned to him with a voice and gesture of apology; and having once laid his hand on Brunow's shoulder, continued to address him as if the argument he was offering, whatever it might be, concerned Brunow more intimately than any one else there present. He seemed, so far as I could judge, to carry the suffrages of the meeting with him, but I had quite resigned any feeble attempt I had made to follow the thread of his discourse, when I caught distinctly the words, “Beware of the women! I say it again and again and again: beware of the women! It is my last word, beware of the women!” Every word of this I understood quite clearly; and while I was wondering why the advice was given, Ruffiano dropped back with a grotesque suddenness into his seat, and shouted the words of warning a fourth time, striking both hands, palms downward, on the table.

Brunow followed him, and beginning somewhat shakily at first, recovered confidence as he went on, and, warming to his work, delivered a speech which sounded eloquent and persuasive. It pleased his audience, beyond a doubt, for almost every sentence was punctuated with murmurs of approval; and when he sat down there was warm applause, in which almost everybody but Ruffiano joined, but he remained unconvinced and dissatisfied; it was evident from the way in which he rolled his gaunt figure in his chair, and his frequent cries of “No, no! wrong, wrong! absolutely wrong!” The count persuaded him to silence, and then spoke again to the man who had charge of the door. He bowed and disappeared, and there was a moment or two of waiting, during which everybody looked eagerly towards the entrance. I seized the opportunity to whisper an inquiry to the count.

“A deputation of Italian and Hungarian legates,” he responded. “They desire to congratulate us on the news of to-day, and to express their sympathy for The Cause.”

“That can do but little harm,” I answered. “But I agree with Ruffiano all the same: the less they know of our actual intentions the better.”

The count nodded smilingly. “You are quite right; ours is not work for women.”

As he spoke the door-keeper reappeared, bowing, and the whole assembly rose to its feet. Half a dozen ladies entered, and some eight or ten of our own number, among whom the count and Brunow were most conspicuous, moved to welcome them. After a little bustle of compliments and arrangement, chairs were found for the visitors at the far end of the room, and the meeting fell back into its former aspect. One of our unlooked-for visitors sat on the chair near the old grand piano, and I could see her white hand, ungloved and with a jewelled bracelet sparkling at the wrist, resting on the key-board. That corner of the long and narrow chamber was so dim, and the intervening lamps and candles sent up such a glare between, that I was not quite certain of her identity; but I felt a shock of surprise in the mere fancy that this was the Baroness Bonnar. I made a movement to one side, and, shading my eyes from the light, made her out with certainty. It was the Baroness Bonnar, and no other. She had often spoken in my hearing of her Hungarian birth, and of her hatred of the Austrians; but I had never been inclined to regard this as being more than a bit of private theatricals, and I was astonished to find her withdrawing herself from the butterfly, fashionable career she seemed to follow, and taking so much interest in sterner matters as her presence there seemed to indicate.

There was a little ceremonial, in the course of which the count proffered a formal welcome to the deputation; and one of the ladies, who was richly attired and wore an air of much distinction, spoke for three or four minutes in a balanced, musical voice. The count whispered me her title—I have forgotten it ages ago, though she was a great personage in her time—and told me that she had lost her husband and her three sons in the struggle for independence. This made her interesting and venerable, and I watched her closely as I listened to the balanced accents of her mournful and musical voice. While this lady spoke her figure hid that of the baroness, but I could still see the white hand resting on the key-board, and the jewelled bracelet glittering in some stray ray of light. By-and-by the hand began to hover over the keys as if it were playing a phantom air, and a moment later I saw its fellow hovering in company with it. Just as the speaker sat down I heard the sound of a chord, but this went unnoticed in the burst of cheering which arose.

I could see the baroness now. She was sitting with both hands on the keys, and as the cheering died away they rose and fell again with a loud and brilliant crash. Everybody turned and stared in a dead silence, and she began to sing. I had heard that song from Violet's lips, and a day or two later she made me a translation of it, of which I have long since forgotten everything but the first verse. It was a song of revolution, almost as popular in Italy and quite as sternly prohibited as was the Marseillaise in France. Here is the one verse that I remember:

“Oh, is it sleep or death
In which Italia lies?
Betwixt her pallid lips is any breath?
Is any light of life within her eyes?
Oh, is it sleep or death?”