“My name must not appear if you are taken and executed,” she added, “for this matter affects your very life.”
“It is a joy to me to die by injuring the tyrant; it is a much greater joy to die for you. Now that is said, and clearly understood, do me the kindness not to speak of money again. It gives me a painful feeling that you may doubt me.”
“If you are compromised I may be so too,” replied the duchess, “and Fabrizio after me. For that reason, and not at all because I doubt your courage, I insist that the man who will pierce my heart shall be poisoned, and not stabbed. For the same reason, a most important one to me, I command you to do everything in the world to save yourself.”
“I will perform all—faithfully, punctually, and prudently. I foresee, madam, that my vengeance will be bound up with yours. Even if it were otherwise, I would still obey—faithfully, punctually, and prudently. I may not succeed, but I will strive with all the strength a man can use.”
“Fabrizio’s murderer must be poisoned.”
“I had guessed it; and during the seven-and-twenty months of this wandering and hateful life of mine, I have often thought of committing such an action on my own account.”
“If I am detected and condemned as your accomplice,” continued the duchess, and there was pride in her voice, “I do not choose to have it imputed to me that I have tempted you. I command you to make no attempt to see me before the moment of our vengeance. There is to be no question of his being put to death until I give you the signal. At this moment, for instance, his death, far from being a service, would be a misfortune to me. His death will probably not have to take place for several months, but it will take place! I insist that he shall die by poison, and I would rather let him live on than see him killed by a bullet. For reasons which I do not choose to explain, I insist that your life shall be saved.”
The tone of authority the duchess used to him filled Ferrante with delight. A mighty joy shone in his eyes. As we have said, he was frightfully thin, but it was easy to see that he had been exceedingly handsome in his early youth, and he fancied he still was what he had been in former days. “Am I mad?” he thought, “or does the duchess intend, some day, when I shall have given her this proof of my devotion, to make me the happiest of all living men? And why not, after all? Am I not quite as good as that puppet Mosca, who has not been able to do anything for her in her need—not even to help Monsignore Fabrizio to escape?”
“I may desire his death even to-morrow,” continued the duchess, still in the same authoritative tone. “You know that huge reservoir of water, at the corner of the palace, close by the hiding-place you have occasionally occupied? There are secret means whereby all that water can be turned into the street. Well, that shall be the signal for my vengeance. If you are at Parma you will see, if you are living in your woods you will hear, that the great reservoir at the Sanseverina Palace has burst. Act then, at once! But use poison, and, above all things, risk your own life as little as may be. Let no one ever know that I have had a finger in the matter.”