The World's Greatest Books — Volume 04 — Fiction

by Unknown

Meanwhile, Baldassarre, lurking about Florence, had armed himself with a knife, and was ravenous for revenge. Being homeless, he called by chance at Tessa's little house, and she, not knowing who he was, took pity on his age and misery, gave him shelter in a shed, and food and drink.

Whilst he was there, Tito came, and, too frankly simple to keep anything from him, Tessa confessed that she had disobeyed his injunctions against holding converse with strangers, and was sheltering a strange, weary old man in the shed without. Her description of this guest left Tito in no doubt as to his identity, and, subduing his first perturbation, he conceived that he might turn the situation to his own advantage. He went out to the shed, and looking down upon Baldassarre in the moonlight, sought to propitiate him with honeyed words, specious explanations, and a plea for pardon. But the old man answered nothing, till his smouldering fury burst into a flame, then he precipitated himself upon the intruder and struck with all his force; but the blade of the knife broke off short against the hidden coat of mail.

Tito insisted that he was welcome to remain there, and said what he could to soothe him, but Baldassarre would stay no longer when he knew whose roof covered him. Presently, he armed himself anew, and waited for another opportunity. He learned all that was to be known of Tito's career since his arrival in Florence; ascertained that he was married, and had thoughts of winning his wife's sympathy and telling her of Tessa. Then one night he contrived to get into the Rucellai Gardens, where Tito was at supper with a gathering of Florentine notabilities, and, seized in time and held back from assassinating him, he passionately denounced him before the company as a scoundrel, a liar, and a robber.

There were those present who had been on the church steps that day when Baldassarre had clutched Tito by the arm, and Tito had then explained away his momentary panic. Questioned now by one of these, he declared that though when first he encountered his accuser he did not recognise him, he now saw that he was the servant who years ago accompanied him and his adoptive father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of misdemeanours, and that the story of his being rescued from beggary was the vision of a disordered brain.

Baldassarre was given a chance to prove that he was not the servant, but the great scholar to whom Tito was indebted for his learning.

"The ring I possess," said Rucellai, "is a fine sard that I myself purchased from Messer Tito. It is engraved with a subject from Homer. Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that subject was taken?"

But sitting to look over the book, Baldassarre realised that the sufferings through which he had passed had unhinged his mind and his memory; the words he stared at had no meaning for him, and he lifted his hands to his head in despair.

The consequence of this fresh failure was that Baldassarre was cast into prison, and Tito was at liberty to pursue his political ambitions unhaunted by that dogging shadow that was to him as the shadow of death. He managed his affairs so cleverly that whichever party came uppermost he was secure of favour and money.

But by-and-by the tide began to turn against him. Baldassarre was at large again, and met Romola and told her not only of his own wrongs, but of Tessa. She saw Tessa and her two children, and befriended them, and was so far from blaming that innocent little creature that she did not even disclose the truth to her; but she was importunate with Tito that he should make atonement to the man who had been a father to him. Then came a day when Tito's treacheries were discovered by the party he was supposed to serve, and he had to flee for his life through Florence. Scattering jewels and gold to delay his pursuers, he leaped from the bridge into the river, and swam in the darkness, leaving the bellowing mob to think he was drowned.

But far down the stream there were certain eyes that saw him from the banks of the river, and when he landed and fell, faint and helpless, Baldassarre's hands closed on his throat; and next evening a passer-by found the two dead bodies there.