"You know him—ha! ha! and are a jolly priest after all. Alla akbar! instead of a prying monkish spy, I find you a comrade. Thou who knowest Gaspare must doubtless have heard of me. He is now in Canne, planning my escape from this cursed cockpit; to which the double-dyed villany of Petronio has consigned me. Gaspare was my stanch gossip in the cloisters of Friuli, and my master-at-arms and fac-totum on board the Crescent: his ingenuity alone saved me when I had nearly fallen into the clutches of the grand bailiff, for slaying the Capitano Batello. Fi! the recollection of that adventure haunts me yet: the glazing eyes, the clenched teeth, the pale visage, and the gleaming sword; the silver hairs, and the old man's blood streaming on the white dress and whiter bosom of his daughter! "O, cursed flask!" said the ruffian, pausing to squeeze the leathern bottle. "May every monk and mollah anathematize thee in the name of Christ and Mahomet; for thou art now empty, useless, and upon thy vacuity I cry anathema! Beautiful wert thou indeed, Paula Batello, and too pure a being for such a serpent as Lancelloti to behold!"
"Caro signor, I would gladly hear her story?"
"And so thou shalt: firstly, because thou art a comrade of our Apollo with the hump; secondly, because I would like to hear thy opinion upon it; and thirdly, because I love to have some one to talk to in this blasted vault, whose walls I would that Satan rent asunder and ruined for ever." And without further preface, he commenced the following story; which deserves a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER II.
THE MONK'S STORY.
The Capitano Batello was an old soldier of the Venetian Republic, who, after an active life, retired to spend the winter of his days among the woody solitudes of Friuli. All the village loved the good old capitano, who made wooden swords and flags for the children, and retailed his campaigns and adventures a thousand times to the frequenters of the cantina, where he was the military and political oracle; and at mass, all made way for the white-haired old man, when he came slowly marching up the aisle, with the Signorina Paula leaning on his arm. The old soldier's doublet was perhaps a little threadbare, or his broad hat glazed at the edge; yet he never forgot his rank, even when struggling for existence with half a ducatoon a day.
But Paula, the gentle-voiced, the blue-eyed and fair-haired Paula, was the admiration of all—the glory of the village; and the old captain watched her as a miser would a precious jewel. Beard of Ali! she would have brought a princely sum at Algiers.
She was beautiful, and her soft blue eyes looked one fully and searchingly in the face with all the confidence of perfect innocence. Her mother was gone to heaven, as the captain said, when he engaged me as tutor to Paula and her brother: an office for which I received a trifle, that went into the treasury of San Baldassare—a trap which swallowed everything. The boy, Rosario, was a chubby little rogue, and for a time I took pleasure in hearing their lisping accents, as they conned over their task in an arbour which Paula's hands had formed at the back of their little cottage.
Thunder! how often have I looked back with astonishment on those days, when on the gun-deck of the Crescent I stood at the head of five hundred of the boldest hearts of Tunis and Tripoli. Who then could have recognised in Osman the blood-thirsty, the hypocritical Fra Lancelloti? Yes! I was ever a hypocrite, and regarded with scorn and detestation the sombre garb which tied me to the monastery. But my fate was not in my own hands: my parents were a son and daughter of old mother church, and I came into the world very unfortunately for both parties. They threw me into the lantern of San Baldassare, where thirty years before my father had been found himself. As a reward for giving me life, my mother died in the dungeons of San Marco; and my father expiated his share in the matter at the first general auto-da-fé: so you see that I come of a martyred family.
A prisoner from my boyhood upwards, I looked upon the world as a realm of light and joy, from which I was for ever debarred by those mysterious vows which the monks had induced me to profess before their meaning was understood. When from my iron grate I looked on the vale of the winding Isonza, blooming with foliage and verdure and bounded by the blue Carinthian hills, and listened to the rushing sound of the free bold river, how intense were my longings to follow its course to where it plunged headlong into the Gulf of Trieste; where for hours I have watched the scudding sails till my eyes and heart ached. O, hours of longing and of agony! To see nature spread before me in all her glory, yet be unable to taste her sweets: to be a prisoner without a crime. And love, or what the world calls love, I knew not what it was; though a secret spirit whispered within me: I longed to look on some fair face, and to hear a gentle voice reply to mine; but love's magic, its mystery, and its madness, I was yet to learn. With a heart thus formed, and open to the assaults of that wicked little god—whom the ancients should have depicted as a giant—you may imagine my sensations on finding myself in the presence of Paula; whose face and form far outshone the famous Madonna of our chapel. A hot blush suffused my cheek: but the fair face of Paula revealed only the rosy tinge of health, and her brow the calm purity of perfect innocence. I was silent and awed in her presence: an Italian monk awed by a girl of seventeen!