“Ina pensa a te,”
which evidently meant, “Gina is thinking of thee.”
Instantly he replied by successive displays of his own lamp through the aperture in his shutter:
“Fabrizio loves thee.”
This correspondence was kept up till daylight. It was the hundred and seventy-third night of his captivity, and these signals, he was informed, had been made every night for four months. But any one might notice and understand the signs; that very night a system of abbreviations was agreed upon. A series of three rapid flashes was to stand for the duchess, four for the prince, two for Count Mosca. Two quick flashes, followed by two slow ones, was to mean “escape.” It was settled that for the future they would use the ancient alphabet “alla monaca,” which, to baffle indiscreet curiosity, alters the usual position of the letters in the alphabet, and gives them others of its own devising. Thus, “A” becomes the tenth letter, and “B” the third; so that three successive eclipses of the lamp stand for “B,” ten for “A,” and so forth. The words were separated by a short interval of darkness. A meeting was arranged for an hour after the following midnight, and that next night the duchess came to the tower, which stood about a quarter of a league from the town. Her eyes filled with tears when she beheld signals made by Fabrizio, whom she had so often given up for dead. She signalled to him herself, with the lamp: “I love you! Courage! health! hope! Use your muscles in your room; you will want all the strength of your arms.”
“I have not seen him,” thought the duchess to herself, “since that concert when the Fausta sang, and he appeared at my drawing-room door dressed as a footman. Who could have dreamed, then, of the fate that was awaiting us!” The duchess apprised Fabrizio by signal that he would soon be rescued, “thanks to the goodness of the prince” (there was always a chance that the signals might be read). Then she began to say all sorts of tender things; she could not tear herself away from him. Nothing but the entreaties of Ludovico, whom she had made her confidential servant, because he had been useful to Fabrizio, could induce her to discontinue the signals, even close upon daybreak, when they might possibly attract the attention of some evil-disposed person. This reiterated assurance of his approaching deliverance threw Fabrizio into the deepest melancholy. Clelia remarked this next morning, and was imprudent enough to inquire its cause.
“I see I am on the point of giving the duchess serious cause for displeasure.”
“And what can she possibly ask of you that you could refuse?” exclaimed Clelia, pricked by the most eager curiosity.
“She wants me to leave this place,” he replied, “and that is what I will never consent to do.”