Chapter Eighteen.
A Sympathiser.
There was one who witnessed the scene with a sympathising heart. It is almost superfluous to say that it was a woman; for no man in that community would have dared to take side against the brigands. While in it, these ruffians were complete masters of the place, and out of it their authority was little less. Their den was not distant, and on any day they could descend upon the unprotected town, and vent it with the torch of destruction.
The woman who sympathised with the young Englishman was still only a girl; and although a daughter of the sindico, or chief magistrate, of the place, she could do nothing to rescue him from his persecutors. Even the intermittent authority exercised by her father would have been unavailing; and her sympathy for the stranger only existed in the secret recesses of her heart.
Standing in a balcony of what appeared the best house in the village, she presented a picture that may be seen only in a town of the Roman Campagna—a combination of those antique classic graces which we associate with the days of Lucretia. Beauty of the most striking type, innocence of aspect that betokened the most perfect purity, and below, a street crowded with striding Tarquins!
She looked like a solitary lamb in the midst of a conglomeration of wolves, feebly shepherded by her father and the village priest—by the Law and the Church, both on the last legs of a decadent authority.
It was a singular picture to contemplate; nor had it escaped the notice of the young Englishman.
The girl had been observed in the balcony ever since his arrival; and as her position was not very far from the place where the brigands had permitted him to take a seat, he had a fair view of her, and could note her every action. He could see that she was not accosted like the commoner maidens of the village; but, for all this, bold glances were occasionally given to her, and brutal jests uttered within her hearing. She had looked towards the captive, and he at her, until more than once their eyes had met; and he fancied that in hers he could read signs of a sympathetic nature. It may have been but pity for his forlorn situation, but it was pity that expressed itself in a most pleasing way.
While gazing on that dark Italian girl, he thought of Belle Mainwaring; but never, during the whole period of his self-exile, had he thought of her with less pain. As he continued to gaze he felt a strange solace stealing over his thoughts, and which he could only account for by the humiliation caused by his captivity—by a sorrow of the present expelling a sorrow of the past. Something whispered him that the relief might be more than temporary, he could not tell why. He only knew, or thought, that if he could be permitted to look long enough into the eyes of that Roman maiden he might think of Belle Mainwaring with a calmer spirit—perhaps forget her altogether. In that hour of imprisonment he was happier than he had been for the past twelve months of free, unfettered life. From the contemplation of that fair form, posed in the balcony above him, he had, in one hour, drawn more inspiration than from all the statues seen in the Eternal City.
One thing interfered with his newly-sprung happiness. He observed that the girl only looked upon him with glances of stealth; that the moment their eyes met, hers were quickly withdrawn. This might have gratified him all the more, but that he had discovered the cause. He saw that she was under surveillance. Had it been her father who was watching her there would have been nothing to cause him pain. But it was not. The eyes that seemed so vigilantly bent upon, her were those of the bandit chief; who, wine-cup in hand, sat outside the little inn, with his face constantly turned towards the house of the sindico.