"You are my prisoner, in the Grand Duke's name. Get up, dress yourself and follow me."
Il Nanno had betrayed me, or some other more inveterate enemy. I rose, put on my shoes and a cloak, and told the officer I was ready. As I was tying my shoe, Belviso whispered in my ear, "Courage, I follow." He bade me a mock farewell, with tears and embraces, and I went out a prisoner.
I understood that I was to be taken at once to the Fortress of Volterra. Now, indeed, this famous, infamous prison was to have me and bury me alive.
CHAPTER XXXVII
I COMMIT A DOUBLE MURDER
Francis Antony Strelley, Tennis-ball of Fate, should be inscribed upon my tomb, unless like the wandering Jew I were not destined to have any other than that restless globe upon whose shelving surfaces I was for ever to slip and slide. Here was I once more buffeted on to the road; and yet I could not fairly pretend that there was no fault of mine concerned in the stroke. O, fatal dower of beauty that was thine, Aurelia! Could I say that, had I maintained my firm resolve of a few days' date, and fixed my heart and inclination where they were due— towards the loving bosom and welcoming arms of my Virginia—this new shame had come upon me? Alas, what malign influence drew thee, lady, to Siena, to rekindle my flame, to melt my conjugal desires, to betray me into the old passion, to draw me into the old despair? Thus I bitterly questioned myself as, guarded on either hand by mounted men, I descended the silent street on the way to what I must needs consider perpetual imprisonment.
Going out of the Porta Romana, where we were obliged to wait in the cold drizzle of a cheerless dawn for the porter to open the gate, a deeply veiled, respectably dressed young woman asked the favour of our escort from the corporal, and received it, probably on account of her good looks, which should be extraordinary. She was going, she said, to join her husband at Volterra, and feared the brigands who were notoriously rife in that country. The corporal offered to take her pillion behind him. "Willingly, sir," she said, and was lifted up by the troopers. As we went out of the gate she raised her veil to use her handkerchief and to look at me. In a moment I saw that it was my brave and affectionate Belviso, and was no little comforted by the thought that here, at any rate, was one heart in Siena generously inclined to mine.
We baited at Colle, and rested there two or three hours; from thence we mounted a very steep hill and reached a country of abounding desolation and misery, where bare grey hills alternated with dense thickets, and were told that there was not a human habitation for the rest of the journey to Volterra. Our guards saw to the priming of their muskets before they started from Colle, and kept a sharp lookout on all sides of the way. We met nothing, however, threatening or otherwise, for nearly half our journey, but somewhere about four o'clock of the afternoon, when we were traversing a barren moor, the corporal gave a sharp cry and reined up his horse. Before I knew what he was about a pistol had been placed in my hands, and he said, "Every man for himself now. You are free, sir."
"How—free?" I asked him.
His reply was to point ahead of us. "Brigands," he said, "and the
Kingdom of Heaven in view."