"At once, signor, at once," rejoined the princess hastily. "I am more interested and more alarmed because the lives of my friends are endangered for my sake than by any question of money. Come," she added, rising, and resolutely placing her arm in the bandit's, "we will talk in my flower-garden, and these gentlemen will await us here. Stay, stay, my friends," she said to the marquis and Michel, who would have retired, although the idea of that tête-à-tête caused them both an indefinable dread; "I really need a breath of fresh air, and Signor de Castro-Reale is kind enough to offer me his arm."
Michel and the marquis, as soon as they were alone, looked at each other as if they had had the same thought, and, hastening each to a window, stood where they would not lose sight of the princess for an instant, although they could not overhear a conversation from which she herself seemed content to exclude them.
XXVII
DIPLOMACY
"How did it happen, dear princess," said the bandit, in a careless tone, as soon as he and Agatha were in the garden, arm-in-arm, "that you were imprudent enough to try to make me speak of Michel in presence of a cicisbeo so valuable to you as the Marquis della Serra? Your highness forgets one thing: that if I know the secrets of Villa Ficarazzi, I probably know those of Villa Palmarosa as well, since Abbé Ninfo maintains an equally assiduous surveillance over both houses."
"So Abbé Ninfo has seen you first, eh, captain?" rejoined the princess, trying to assume an equally unembarrassed tone; "and he took you into his confidence in order to obtain your services in his interest?"
Agatha knew very well what to think in that respect. Certainly, if she had not discovered that the abbé had already sought the Piccinino's assistance in abducting, or perhaps murdering Michel, she would not have thought it necessary to resort to him in order to procure the abduction of the abbé. But she was careful not to allow her real motive to be discovered. She desired that the bandit's self-love should be flattered by what he might consider an instinctive impulse on her part.
"From whatever source I derive my information," he replied, with a smile, "I leave it to you to judge of its accuracy. The last time that the cardinal came to visit your highness, there was a young man at the gate of your park whose distinguished features and bearing were in striking contrast with his costume, which was covered with dust and worn by a long journey. What caprice induced the cardinal to examine that young man and to insist upon questioning him? that is something which Ninfo himself does not know and has commissioned me to find out, if possible. One thing is certain: that the mania, which has beset the cardinal for a long time, of inquiring the name and age of all the young men of the lower classes whose faces attract his attention, has survived the loss of activity and memory. It is as if he still retained a sort of vague distrust, a relic of his exalted police functions; and his imperative glance commands Abbé Ninfo to ask questions and report to him. It is true that when the abbé showed him the written result of his investigation, he seemed to take no interest in it; in like manner, whenever the abbé annoys him with his impertinent requests or insinuating questions, his eminence, after reading the first words, closes his eyes angrily, to show that he doesn't wish to be fatigued any more. Perhaps your highness did not know these details, which Doctor Recuperati knows nothing of; for, during the few hours' sleep which the excellent doctor is permitted to enjoy, the watchfulness of the devoted servants with whom Your Highness has surrounded the cardinal does not avail to prevent Ninfo from entering his room, waking him without ceremony, and placing before him certain written sentences from which he hopes for favorable results. When the cardinal is awakened in this way, his pain and his anger make his mind momentarily more lucid than usual; he reads, seems to understand, and tries to utter words of which an occasional syllable is intelligible to his persecutor; but almost immediately he collapses again, and the feeble flame of his life is so much nearer extinction."
"So that villain has ceased to be a mere flatterer and spy, to become my unfortunate uncle's torturer and assassin?" cried the princess, indignantly. "You must see, signor captain, that he must be delivered from him at once, and that I need no other motive for desiring that he be taken out of our way."
"Pardon me, signora," rejoined the bandit, obstinately. "If I had not informed you of these things, you would still have personal motives of even greater weight, which you do not choose to tell me, but which I have learned from Ninfo. I never enter into an affair without making myself thoroughly acquainted with it; and it sometimes falls to my lot, as you see, to question both parties. Permit me to continue my disclosures, therefore, and I trust that they will lead to disclosures on your part.
"Abbé Ninfo did not examine very closely or ask many questions of the individual at your highness's park gate. After a moment, seeing that the cardinal continued somewhat agitated by the encounter, as if the young man's face had aroused memories which he could not arrange and place,—for his eminence often wears himself out, it seems, in such painful mental toil,—the abbé retraced his steps and examined the young man more carefully. The young man evidently had some reason for being on his guard, for he deceived the abbé, who really took him for a poor devil, and even gave him alms. But two days later, the abbé, having, for the purpose of spying, disguised himself as a workman employed in the preparations for your ball, soon discovered that his poor devil was a brilliant artist, very much petted and favored by your highness, and by no means in a position to accept alms at the gate of a palace, since he is the son of a well-to-do artisan, Pier-Angelo Lavoratori.