The venerable Girardi presently beheld the Count pacing the little court with agitated footsteps, and gestures of anxiety and impatience. How tediously were the moments passing—how cruel the delay to which he was exposed! Three hours had elapsed since he despatched his petition; and no answer. As the sap of the expiring plant oozed from the wounded bark, Charney felt that he had rather his own blood were required of him. The old man, addressing him from the window, tried in vain to afford him consolation; but at length, more experienced than himself in accidents of the vegetable and animal kingdom, indicated a mode of closing up the wounds of the stems, so as to remove at least one source of peril.
With a mixture of finely chopped straw and moistened clay, he forms a mastic, easily fixed upon the bark with bandages of torn cambric. An hour passed rapidly in the performance; but at its close, the Count has to bewail anew the silence of the governor.
At the usual dinner hour, Ludovico made his appearance with a vexed and careworn countenance, annunciatory of no good tidings. The jailer scarcely deigns a reply to the interrogations of Charney, except by monosyllables, or the roughest remonstrances.
“Can’t you wait? What use in so much hurry? Give him time to write!”
Ludovico seemed preparing himself for the part which he found he should be required to play in the sequel.
Charney touched not a morsel: the sentence of life or death was impending over Picciola; and he sat trying to inspire himself with courage, by protesting that none but the most cruel of men could refuse so trifling a concession as he had asked. But his impatience did but increase with his arguments, as if the commandant could have no business more important in hand than to address an immediate answer to his memorial. At the slightest noise, Charney’s eyes turned eagerly towards the door by which he was expecting the fiat of the governor.
Evening came—no news; night—not a word! The unfortunate prisoner did not close his eyes that night!
