“That would be almost a false assertion, Gonsalvo di Vasari; and the mouths of your race should be clear from dishonour.”
“Why, let him then see!” exclaimed Di Vasari, starting from his seat. A door opposite to the recess in which the prisoner stood was thrown open; and a female—it was Aurelia herself—bound, and guarded by Gonsalvo’s servants, stood before him.
The recoil of the outlaw burst his bonds like threads; the cords that tied him seemed to fall off by witchcraft more than to be broken. But the effort was involuntary; it was followed by no movement, and indicated no purpose. For one moment the hands of the guards were upon their swords; but a single glance was enough, and showed the precaution was needless.
The shadow of that passing door, as it swung slowly to upon its muffled hinges, seemed to sweep every trace of former expression from Arionelli’s countenance. Familiar with objects of danger and alarm, a moment sufficed him to perceive that the ground on which he had stood, as on a rock, was gone. One convulsive shudder ran through his frame, as the high clear voice of Aurelia pronounced, in trembling agony, the name of “Luigino!” He bowed his face, as one who abandoned further contest, and seemed to await what was to come.
“Luigino Arionelli,” said Gonsalvo, coldly, and in the measured tone of conscious power, “do you yet repent you of your obstinacy; and will you make confession as to the fate of Lorenzo di Vasari?”
A pause ensued, and the robber attempted to rally his faculties; but the effort was unsuccessful. At length he spoke, but not as he had before spoken; there was a difference in the steadiness of his tone, and a still wider in the carelessness of his manner.—“You know, my lords,” he said, “that the power is now yours. There was but one creature on earth for whom I could have wept or trembled, and she is in your hands. The struggle is over; I and my companions have lived like men; and I trust we shall die like men. Let my wife depart; she has done the state no wrong, and has no knowledge of that which you desire to learn. And as soon as she shall have passed the boundaries of the Florentine territory, I will confess the whole—much or little—that I can disclose of the fate of the Chevalier di Vasari.”
The very deep, though repressed, anxiety with which the speaker put this proposal, seemed to imply a doubt how far it could be accepted. He was not mistaken; those who held the power, knew the tenure by which they held it, and that tenure they were not disposed to part with.
“Trifle not with the sword and with the fire, if you are wise, Arionelli!” said Gonsalvo di Vasari. “Press not too far upon the patience of this court. She whom you call your wife stands, no less than yourself, within the scope of our danger. Whatever mercy is extended to her, must be upon your full and unconditional submission; and not until all questions which may be put to you have been answered satisfactorily. Therefore I caution you once more; speak instantly, and without reserve; and press no longer on the forbearance of this tribunal; for you guess not the fate which you may draw down upon yourself if you do so.”
The outlaw’s passion rose in his fear’s despite. “And press me not too far, my lords,” he exclaimed, “if you are wise. For once remove the temptation of Aurelia’s safety—and ten thousand times the torments you command shall never win an answer from me. Take heed, good Gonfalonière, what you do! Ask your slaves here, if, at the foot of the gibbet, I shrank from the death which was before me. You have the power; beware you strain it not too far. I am in your chains—defenceless—helpless. Those arms are bound, whose strength, if they were free, perhaps the stoutest soldier here might find too much to cope with. But go one point only too far—To tear the hook from the fish’s entrails is not to land him! You cannot kill the robber Luigino, though you kill him in extremest tortures, but you kill the secret which you want—the secret for which he dies—at the same moment.”