"Are you not a messenger?" interrupted the large man.
A strange audacity possessed Francesco of a sudden.
"Certainly I am a messenger," he returned fearlessly,—"but not to your rebellious city, Messere!"
The last part of his speech was either not heard, or not heeded, for at the first there was loud applause. In the midst of the clamor, Francesco was endeavoring to make himself understood, but finding his efforts futile, he resigned himself to silence, and was carried onward with the crowd, calm as the atom at the centre of a cyclone, yet noting all the incidents of the way. He watched the streets with their luxuriant picturesqueness, so different in appearance from the severe and heroic style of Viterbo. At last Francesco accosted the big horseman, inquiring the direction of the palace. Thereupon the latter became more civil and offered to accompany the stranger in person. This innuendo Francesco thought best to decline, giving as his reason that he intended putting up at an inn, it being too late to see the Regent.
Having received the desired intelligence, Francesco abandoned himself for the nonce to the charm of the hour, the magic of the place. As he rode leisurely through the streets, crowds came and went from Santa Maria. Now and then the note of a mandolin was heard. All was life, mirth, happiness! How fair this city,—the city that seemed to be girt only by lilies! The flower-girl, nodding and smiling, distributed her violets, embedded in geraniums. The blind beggar touched his harp; in the distance were heard the rhythmic strains of a Barcarole.
Over the whole gulf a faint, transparent mist had arisen.
The magnolias shone white in the dying light. The soughing of the wind through the leafy boughs sounded like the faint music of Aeolian harps.
The dying light touched the walls of houses and palaces with mellow hues, then faded away before the swift southern night. Here and there torches gleamed; then the city grew silvery in the moonlight which flooded the heavens.
As in a dream Francesco rode in the direction indicated by the horseman. Again he was to enter the sphere of his former life; again he was to move in the sphere of a court, again he was to taste the life of the past. It was the same,—yet not the same. Then he had been happy, care-free, loving and beloved. Now he stood alone, looking from a frosty elevation upon the joys of life! Would the dark phantoms of the past vanish, here in this radiant air, under this cloudless, sun-fraught sky?
The inn, where he took lodging, was built after the manner of the thirteenth century, in a hollow square. It was of white stone, simple, harmonious, with quaint carvings and ornamentations. The Byzantine arches of the cloistered walks were its chief beauty, disclosing a vista of the garden with its orange trees and grape-vines; its waving rose bushes, which encircled the ancient fountain. A long parapet of dusky tiles left open the beautiful view of the Bay of Naples.