“I am Signore Cavallo,” answered the other, blandly.
Langhetti made a peculiar motion with his left arm. The keen eye of the other noticed it in an instant. He returned a gesture of a similar character. Langhetti and he then exchanged some more secret signs. At last Langhetti made one which caused the other to start, and to bow with deep respect.
“I did not know,” said he, in a low voice, “that any of the Interior Council ever came to London.... But come in here,” and he led the way into the inner room, the door of which he locked very mysteriously.
A long conference followed, the details of which would only be tedious. At the close Cavallo said, “There is some life in us yet, and what life we have left shall be spent in trapping that miscreant. Italy shall be avenged on one of her traitors, at any rate.”
“You will write as I told you, and let me know?”
“Most faithfully.”
Langhetti departed, satisfied with the result of this interview. What surprised him most was the letter. The writer must have been one who had been acquainted with his past life. He was amazed to find any one denouncing Cigole to him, but finally concluded that it must be some old Carbonaro, exiled through the afflictions which had befallen that famous society, and cherishing in his exile the bitter resentment which only exiles can feel.
Cavallo himself had known Cigole for years, but had no idea whatever of his early career. Cigole had no suspicion that Cavallo had any thing to do with the Carbonari. His firm were general agents, who did business of a miscellaneous character, now commission, now banking, and now shipping; and in various ways they had had dealings with this man, and kept up an irregular correspondence with him.
This letter had excited afresh within his ardent and impetuous nature all the remembrances of early wrongs. Gentle though he was, and pure in heart, and elevated in all his aspirations, he yet was in all respects a true child of the South, and his passionate nature was roused to a storm by this prospect of just retaliation. All the lofty doctrines with which he might console others were of no avail here in giving him calm. He had never voluntarily pursued Cigole; but now, since this villain had been presented to him, he could not turn aside from what he considered the holy duty of avenging a father’s wrongs.
He saw that for the present every thing would have to give way to this. He determined at once to suspend the representation of the “Prometheus,” even though it was at the height of its popularity and in the full tide of its success. He determined to send Beatrice under his sister’s care, and to devote himself now altogether to the pursuit of Cigole, even if he had to follow him to the world’s end. The search after him might not be long after all, for Cavallo felt sanguine of speedy success, and assured him that the traitor was in his power, and that the Carbonari in London were sufficiently numerous to seize him and send him to whatever punishment might be deemed most fitting.