The person to whom he alluded was one of the gang of robbers who had been assassinated by his companions for hesitating to commit some crime suggested by their leader. No tyranny is so dreadful as that which is exercised by villains over their young accomplices, who become their slaves. Piedro, who was of a cowardly nature, trembled at the threatening countenance of his captain, and promised submission.
In the course of the morning, inquiries were made secretly amongst the count’s servants; and the two men who were engaged to sit up at the villa that night along with Francisco, were bribed to second the views of this gang of thieves. It was agreed that about midnight the robbers should be let into the house; that Francisco should be tied hand and foot, whilst they carried off their booty. “He is a stubborn chap, though so young, I understand,” said the captain of the robbers to his men; “but we carry poniards, and know how to use them. Piedro, you look pale. You don’t require to be reminded of what I said to you when we were alone just now?”
Piedro’s voice failed, and some of his comrades observed that he was young and new to the business. The captain, who, from being his pretended friend during his wealthy days, had of late become his tyrant, cast a stern look at Piedro, and bid him be sure to be at the old Jew’s, which was the place of meeting, in the dusk of the evening. After saying this he departed.
Piedro, when he was alone, tried to collect his thoughts—all his thoughts were full of horror. “Where am I?” said he to himself; “what am I about? Did I understand rightly what he said about poniards? Francisco; oh, Francisco! Excellent, kind, generous Francisco! Yes, I recollect your look when you held the bunch of grapes to my lips, as I sat by the sea-shore deserted by all the world; and now, what friends have I. Robbers and—” The word murderers he could not utter. He again recollected what had been said about poniards, and the longer his mind fixed upon the words, and the look that accompanied them, the more he was shocked. He could not doubt but that it was the serious intention of his accomplices to murder Francisco, if he should make any resistance.
Piedro had at this moment no friend in the world to whom he could apply for advice or assistance. His wretched father died some weeks before this time, in a fit of intoxication. Piedro walked up and down the street, scarcely capable of thinking, much less of coming to any rational resolution.
The hours passed away, the shadows of the houses lengthened under his footsteps, the evening came on, and when it grew dusk, after hesitating in great agony of mind for some time, his fear of the robbers’ vengeance prevailed over every other feeling, and he went at the appointed hour to the place of meeting.
The place of meeting was at the house of that Jew to whom he, several months before, sold the diamond cross. That cross which he thought himself so lucky to have stolen, and to have disposed of undetected, was, in fact, the cause of his being in his present dreadful situation. It was at the Jew’s that he connected himself with this gang of robbers, to whom he was now become an absolute slave.
“Oh, that I dared to disobey!” said he to himself, with a deep sigh, as he knocked softly at the back door of the Jew’s house. The back door opened into a narrow, unfrequented street, and some small rooms at this side of the house were set apart for the reception of guests who desired to have their business kept secret. These rooms were separated by a dark passage from the rest of the house, and numbers of people came to the shop in the front of the house, which looked into a creditable street, without knowing anything more, from the ostensible appearance of the shop, than that it was a kind of pawnbroker’s, where old clothes, old iron, and all sorts of refuse goods, might be disposed of conveniently.
At the moment Piedro knocked at the back door, the front shop was full of customers; and the Jew’s boy, whose office it was to attend to these signals, let Piedro in, told him that none of his comrades were yet come, and left him in a room by himself.
He was pale and trembling, and felt a cold dew spread over him. He had a leaden image of Saint Januarius tied round his neck, which, in the midst of his wickedness, he superstitiously preserved as a sort of charm, and on this he kept his eyes stupidly fixed, as he sat alone in this gloomy place.