“And was this tale believed?” Signor Forli exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “No Italian would for a moment have thought it true—at least, none who had the misfortune to be born under the Neapolitan rule. Surely my wife never believed it?”
“In her heart I know now that she did not,” Frank said, “but she kept her doubts to herself for the sake of my mother. She thought that it was far better that she should believe that father was dead than that she should believe him buried in one of the foul prisons he had described.”
“She was right—she was right,” the professor said: “it was certainly better. And your mother—did she lose hope?”
“She told me that she would not allow herself to believe that he might still be alive, and I believe that she and the signora never said one word on the subject to each other until just before I started.” He then related how the courier had been brought over, how he had been installed in the house in Cadogan Place, and how no suspicion of his being a spy had been entertained until after the receipt of Garibaldi’s letter, and how they were convinced at last that he had overheard all the arrangements made for his leaving for Italy.
“And you are alive, Frank, to tell me this! By what miracle did you escape from the net that was thrown around you?”
This part of the story was also told.
“It was well arranged and bravely carried through, Frank. So you took up the mission which had cost your father either his life or his liberty? It was a great undertaking for a lad, and I wonder indeed that your mother, after the losses she had suffered, permitted you to enter upon it. Well, contrary to all human anticipations, you have succeeded in one half of it, and you will, I trust, succeed in the other. What seemed hardly possible—that you should enter the castle of Reggio as one of its conquerors, and so have free access to the secrets of its prison—has been accomplished; and if Garibaldi succeeds in carrying his arms farther, and other prison doors are opened, we may yet find your father. What you have told me has explained what has hitherto been a puzzle to me: why I should have been treated as a special prisoner, and kept in solitary confinement. Now I understand it. England had taken the matter up; and as the government of Naples had denied all knowledge of me, it was necessary that neither any prisoner, who, perhaps, some day might be liberated, nor any prison official should know me, and be able to report my existence to the British representative. You may be sure that, had your father come here, and examined every prisoner and official, privately, he would have obtained no intelligence of me. Giuseppe Borani would not have been here, he would have been removed, and none would dream that he was the prisoner for whom search was made. And now tell me briefly about this expedition of Garibaldi. Is all Europe at war, that he has managed to bring an army here?”
“First of all, grandfather, I must tell you what happened last year.”
He then related the incidents of the war of 1859, whereby France and Sardinia united and wrested Milan and Lombardy from the Austrians; the brilliant achievements of the Garibaldians; the disappointment felt by Italy at Nice and a part of Savoy being handed over to Napoleon as the price of the services that he had rendered; how Bologna and Florence, Palma, Ferrara, Forli, and Ravenna, had all expelled their rulers and united themselves with Sardinia; and how, Garibaldi having been badly treated and his volunteers disbanded, he himself had retired disappointed and hurt to Caprera.
Then he related briefly the secret gathering of the expedition; the obstacles thrown in its way; its successful landing in Sicily, and the events that had terminated with the expulsion of the Neapolitan forces from the island.