'I mean—altogether,' he said gravely.
The other two men exchanged glances.
'Per Bacco! I wouldn't do it! no, not for my own flesh and blood brother,—not I!' cried the third man present, bringing the open palm of his hand lightly down upon the table before him. It was noticeable that they all three moved and spoke with a certain caution and in the quietest tones possible. 'I would not do it. I wouldn't answer for——'
The German checked his rising voice with a look. 'I have taken note of what you are prepared to do, friend Valdez. You are prepared?' he added sharply, with another searching glance.
Pietro Valdez lifted his melancholy eyes from the table before him and stared the speaker straight in the face. Then his head dropped again, and he shrugged his shoulders wearily: 'I am prepared—yes. But I look like joking, don't I? It is so probable that I should select this occasion for a jest!'
'I ask your pardon, signor Valdez. I will make a note of what you have said.'
'Ay, notes, notes. But I see nothing done,' broke in little Pierantoni irrepressibly. 'It is all very well to say the people can wait. Santa Pazienza! the people have waited. They are getting tired of waiting now. Once, the lower down you ground them the better they submitted. We know all that—at Naples. But it's a mistake to grind a man, or a people, down too far;—'tis so easy to grind all the humanity out of them and leave only the beast. And some beasts have teeth, and object to being baited.'
He got up and sat down again, holding his hands straight out before him and shaking his ten hooked fingers with a gesture as if he were sowing corn. 'If you shoot at the Czar of all the Russias—well, 'tis a kind of logic. You pit one autocrat against the other: Death against the Imperial Will: and the best man wins. And there's no more unanswerable argument than a rifle ball. It was our lords and masters taught us that long ago—at the Paris barricades. I say, if you shoot the Czar you prove nothing new. But to fire at a popular Prince—— To take a man at the apex of his power, in the midst of his people, to teach him that there's no popularity, no moderation, no amount of good nature, or good intentions, or good luck even, that can alter the eternal justice of things—— That's not stabbing at a King: it's putting your knife into the Institution; cutting the throat of royalty itself—and not merely royalty as a political institution, but royalty as a symbol of social inequality. Is it vengeance? I protest that it is no more an act of vengeance than the sentence of a judge. Have we not tried them, these Kings? Cristo Santo! have we not tried 'em and found 'em wanting? Is it a murder? do you call it murder when a man shoots down a bandit—an outlaw—with a price upon his head? And they are outlaws,' he added with a short laugh. 'Ay, and they wear their crowns for a purpose. 'Tis a shining target at the least——'
'Bene.' The German contemplated him for a moment with an air of faint amusement; then rose slowly from his place at table and moved with a cat-like step towards the door. He stooped his shaggy head and looked long and deliberately through the keyhole at the various occupants of the adjoining room. 'Bene. 'Tis all safe. But eloquence like our Pierantoni's is apt to attract—crowds,' he said, looking up again with a sudden peculiarly simple and artless smile.
The little Neapolitan leaned half-way across the table, his black eyes flashing. 'Per Cristo!—you suspect some one? some—traitor?'