"I—I can't. At least, not now," I managed to stammer, as I hastened to slip from her side.
I wanted to be alone to think. Keppel's companion of the previous night, the man to whom the conception of that diabolical plot was due, was still on board. But who was he?
I ate nothing, and was ready to take my seat in the first boat that went ashore. I had excused myself from making one of the party at the opera, after giving all necessary directions, and, on pretence of going to a chemist's to make a purchase, I separated myself from Ulrica, Gerald, and Lord Eldersfield in the Via Grande, the principal thoroughfare.
How next to act I knew not. No doubt Keppel's intention was to send on board some explosive destined to sink the Vispera to the bottom with all on board. At all hazards, the yacht must not sail. Yet, how was it possible that I could prevent it without making a full statement of what I had overheard?
I entered the pharmacy and purchased the first article that came into my mind. Then, returning into the street, I wandered on, plunged in my own distracting thoughts. Keppel had gone alone to the telegraph office in a cab.
The soft, balmy Italian night had fallen, and the white streets and piazzas of Leghorn were filled, as they always are at evening, with the light-hearted crowds of idlers; men with their hats stuck jauntily askew, smoking, laughing, gossiping; and women, dark-haired, black-eyed, the most handsome in all Italy, each with a mantilla of black lace or some light-coloured silk as head-covering, promenading and enjoying the bel fresco after the toil and burden of the day. None in all the world can surpass in beauty the Tuscan women—dark, tragic, with eyes that flash quickly in love or hatred, with figures perfect, and each with an easy-swinging gait that a duchess might envy. It was Suor Angelica who had once repeated to me the verse written about them by an old Florentine poet:
"S'è grande, è oziosa,
S'è piccola, è viziosa;
S'è, bella, è vanitosa;
S'è brutta, è fastidiosa."
Every type, indeed, is represented in that long, single street at night—the dark-haired Jewess, the classic Greek, the thick-lipped Tunisian, the pale-cheeked Armenian, and the beautiful Tuscan, the purest type of beauty in all the world.
Once again, after several years, I heard, as I walked onward, the soft sibilations of the Tuscan tongue about me, the gay chatter of that city of sun and sea, where, although half the population is in a state of semi-starvation, hearts are still as light as in the days when "cara Livorno" was still prosperous. But alas! it has sadly declined. Its manufactures, never very extensive, have died cut; its merchant princes are ruined, or have deserted it, and its trade has ebbed until there is no work for those honest, brown-faced men, who are forced to idle upon the stone benches in the piazza, even though their wives and children are crying for bread.
The splendid band of the garrison was playing in the great Piazza Vittorio, in front of the British Consulate, where the Consular flag was waving, because the warships were in the port. The music was in acknowledgment of the fact that the British Marine Band had played before the Prefecture on the previous evening. The Consulate was illuminated, and on the balcony, in company with a large party, was the Consul himself, the popular Jack Hutchinson—known to every English and American resident throughout Tuscany as the merriest and happiest of good fellows, as well as a distinguished author and critic. I recognised him, looking cool in his suit of white linen, but hurried on across the great square, feeling that no time should be lost, and yet not knowing what to do.