"Peace-offerings, yes; but make me some offerings of war, that fine army, for instance; and, by the way, if you will give me a yacht instead of the villa I may consent to be your guest. Meantime we understand each other. I will give immediate orders to my people that no fire is on any account to be lighted in the Pope's kitchens, as the chimneys are unsafe. Should I perceive a column of smoke rising from them I shall know that you are here, and I will come to you. If, on the other hand, I hear that you are in this vicinity on the business of which we spoke, I shall make Mondragone my residence; and should you perceive my smoke signal——"
"Then," he interrupted, speaking very low, but so distinctly that Celio's heart froze as he listened—"then, Paulette, be the danger what it may, heaven nor hell shall keep me from you."
They parted in the most commonplace manner, the Princess returning to Rome after the conclusion of the repast, but, though she appeared to sleep all the way, Celio marked when she alighted that her face, illuminated by the strong glare that blazed from the open door of the villa, was haggard as from long vigils.
Deeply distressed, the poor dragon spent a sleepless night, but towards morning an inspiration came to him. He saw his way to saving his lady without arousing the suspicions of her husband. She had forbidden the use of the Pope's chimneys to the guardian of the villa, plainly that they should serve solely as signals between herself and Murat. But the reason which she had given for their disuse, that they were unsafe, furnished the secretary with his pretext, and he wrote his master urging that they should be taken down.
Before the Prince had time to reply the event which he had dreaded took place. The Princess, in direct opposition to her husband's parting request, announced her determination to visit her sister at Naples. It was not in her secretary's province to remonstrate, and he was soon to gain a point of view from which the inexplicable behaviour of his mistress presented a very different aspect.
Arrived at Naples the Princess and her suite were met by Queen Caroline and installed in a charming villa near the city, and on the succeeding day the entire household were taken by the King and Queen for a short cruise in the royal yacht.
Outside the island of Ischia the party landed, and climbing to a ruined tower which commanded an extensive prospect, they plainly discerned in a hidden cove a little craft flying a flag unfamiliar at that time to Celio Benvoglio, a striped red and white pennon studded with golden bees. It was the ensign chosen by Napoleon while lord of Elba, and displayed by the six swift sailing pinnaces which made up the Emperor's little navy.
Pauline now informed her suite that she was about to pay a visit to her brother, which for important reasons must not for the present be suspected. Her maids of honour must therefore return to her Neapolitan villa, and, to keep up the fiction of her presence, announce on the morrow that the Princess had succumbed to an attack of fever. The Court physician would pay daily visits as would the King and Queen, but no others would be admitted to the secret.
With feminine fondness for intrigue the three maids of honour entered into the plan, while Celio, relieved from his tormenting suspicions accompanied his mistress to Elba.
Here, admitted to her conferences with her brother as he fulfilled new and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and co-operation with Napoleon.