Cencio had not undertaken to perform the actual deed, but simply the task of following the Prince's movements. Fortunately for the Roman noble the spy failed in his scent, and was now not only in the clutches of our three friends who had captured him, but in those of a fourth personage, who was still more formidable to him—no other, in fact, than our old acquaintance Gasparo.
Gasparo, after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, had accompanied his new friends to territory that was not Papal, and had offered his services as attendant to Prince T———. He had therefore accompanied him to Venice. Whilst his master roamed through the saloons of the Zecchini Palace, the watchful follower, who had remained on the threshold to enjoy the sight of that brilliant scene, saw the three Romans whom he loved as sons penetrate into the crowd. He determined to keep near them, and found himself shortly after in the tavern of Vicola dei Schiavoni, at the heels of Cencio.
It would be no easy matter to describe the terror and confusion of the clerical Sinon surrounded by our four friends. They led him to an out-of-the-way room on the upper story, and desired the waiter to bring them something to drink, and then leave them, as they had some business to transact.
When the waiter had obeyed them, and departed, they locked the door, and ordering the agent to sit against the wall, they moved to the end of the table, and, seating themselves upon a bench, placed their elbows on the table and fixed a look upon the knavish wretch which made him tremble. Under any other circumstances the wretch would have inspired compassion, and might have been forgiven for his treachery, in consideration of his present agony of fear.
The four friends, cold, impassive, and relentless, satisfied themselves for some time with fixing their eyes upon the traitor, while he, quite beside himself, with wide-opened mouth and eyes, was doing his best to articulate something; but all he could mutter was, "Signore—I—am—not," and other less intelligible monosyllables.
The calmness of the four Romans was somewhat savage, but for their deep cause of hatred; and if any one could have contemplated the scene he would have been reminded forcibly of the fable of the rat under the inexorable gaze of the terrier-dog, which watches every movement, and then pounces out upon it, crunching all the vermin's bones between its teeth. Or could a painter have witnessed that silent assembly, he would have found a subject for a splendid picture of deep-seated wrath and terror.
We have already described the persons of the three friends—true types of the ancient Roman—with fine and artistic forms. Gasparo was even more striking—one of those heads which a French photographist would have delighted to "take" as the model of an Italian brigand—and the picture would have been more profitable than the likeness of any European sovereign. He was indeed, in his old age, a superb type of a brigand, but a brigand of the nobler sort. One of those who hate with a deadly hatred the cutthroat rabble; one who never stained himself with any covetous or infamous action, as the paid miscreants of the priests do, who commit acts that would fill even a panther's heart with horror.
Even the successor of Gianni would have made a valuable appearance in a quadro caratteristico, for certainly no subject could have served better to display panic in all its disgusting repulsiveness. Glued to the wall behind him, he would, if his strength had equalled his wish, have knocked it down, or bored his way through it to get farther from those four terrible countenances, which stared impassively and mercilessly at him, meditating upon his ruin, perhaps upon his death. The austere voice of Muzio, already described as the chief of the Roman contropolizia, was the first to break that painful silence.
"Well, then, Cencio," he began, "I will tell you a story which, as you are a Roman, you may perhaps know, but, at all events, you shall know it now. One day our forefathers, tired of the rule of the first king of Rome—who, amongst other amiable things, had killed his brother Remus with a blow because he amused himself with jumping over the walls he had erected around Rome—our fathers, I repeat, by a senattis consultant, decided to get rid of their king, who was rather too meddlesome and despotic. Detto-fatto! they rushed upon him with their daggers, and, although he struggled valorously, Romulus fell under their blows. But, now the deed was done, it was necessary to invent a stratagem, for the Roman people were somewhat partial to their warlike king. They accordingly accepted the advice of an old senator, who said, 'We will tell the people that Mars (the father of Romulus) has descended amongst us, and, after reproaching us for thieving a little too much, and being indignant to see the son of a god at our head, has carried him off to heaven.'
"'But what are we to do with the body?' asked several of the senators.