"And suppose he should refuse you?"
"He would compel me to disobey him, which would grieve me deeply, I confess, not because of the penance to-morrow, but because I do not like to fail in my duty. The old soldier looks upon his orders as the supreme law."
Five minutes later, Fra Angelo joined Michel again at the door of the church.
"Granted," he said, "but I am commanded, in order to pay my debt to God, to perform an act of faith and say a short prayer before the altar of the Virgin. As I am excused from attending the evening services, the least I can do is to ask pardon from my greatest superior. Come and pray with me, young man; it can do you no harm, and will give you strength."
Michel followed his uncle to the foot of the altar. The setting sun made the stained-glass windows glow as with fire, and strewed with sapphires and rubies the flagged floor on which the Capuchin knelt. Michel knelt beside him, and watched him as he prayed with simple fervor. A flame-colored pane, whose reflection fell upon his shaven head, made it appear luminous and, as it were, aflame. The young painter was seized with respect and enthusiastic admiration as he looked upon that noble, strong and ingenuous face, which humbled itself in all sincerity in prayer; and he, too, moved to the depths of his heart, prayed for his country, his family and himself, with a simple faith and candor which he had not known since his childhood.
XXIII
THE DESTATORE
"May I venture to ask you where we are going, uncle?" queried Michel, when they had taken a dark and narrow path which led among the old olive-trees on the mountain.
"Certainly," replied Fra Angelo; "we are going to call upon the last real brigand in Sicily."
"There are some left then?"
"A few, although sadly deteriorated. They are still ready to fight for their country, and they keep alive the last spark of the sacred flame. However, I ought to tell you that they are a sort of cross between the gallant fellows of long ago, who scrupulously refrained from taking a hair from the head of a good patriot, and the cutthroats of the present day, who kill and rob everyone they meet. These men discriminate when they can; but, as their business has become very bad, and as the police are more to be feared than in my time, they cannot always choose; so that I do not hold them up as beyond reproach; but, such as they are, they still have certain virtues which we should seek in vain elsewhere: fidelity to their oaths, remembrance of past services, the revolutionary spirit, love of country; in a word, all that remains of the chivalrous spirit of our old bands still casts a faint gleam in the hearts of a few poor fellows, who live by themselves, a half-sedentary, half-wandering life. That is to say, they are settled in villages or in the open country; they have their families there, and in some cases are supposed to be peaceable husbandmen, submissive to the law, and having no quarrel with the campiere.[2] If any of them are suspected, or, perhaps, involved in some trouble, they are more wary, do not go to see their wives or children except at night, or else remove their homes to some almost inaccessible location. But the man whom we are going to see is still free from any direct persecution. He lives openly in a neighboring village, and can go where he pleases. You will not regret having made his acquaintance, and I give you leave to study his character, for he is a very interesting and remarkable person."