Part 18 (2/2)
By the side of Clelia were Manlio and the gentle Silvia. Of all our ladies only the Signora Aurelia was missing, and she had ended her unintentionally adventurous career by marrying the good-natured Captain Thompson, to whom she clung like the ivy to the oak; and although the sea was still a little repugnant to her, on account of that storm in which she had suffered so much, yet the billows had lost much of their terror, now her British sea-lion stood by her side to guard her.
Orazio and Muzio were standing together in a corner of the room talking over the events of the day, when Attilio, going up to them, made them acquainted with his discovery, and after some consultation they started off in company to the Piazza di San Marco. Not a few vain efforts did the three friends make to break through the crowd before they succeeded in at last reaching the object of their search, and whilst General Garibaldi, recalled by the people to the balcony, was again addressing the crowd, he saw his three young friends surround the fict.i.tious Venetian. The iron hand of Orazio grasped the wrist of the agent like a vice, and Muzio, whose voice the scoundrel had formerly heard, fixing his glittering eyes upon him, said in a low tone, ”Cencio, come with us.”
The tool of the priests, the traitor of the meeting at the Baths of Caracalla, trembled from head to foot, his florid face became pale as that of a corpse, and, without articulating a word, he walked forward in the direction indicated by Muzio, between the other two Romans, who pushed him unresistingly on.
CHAPTER LIII. THE ”GOVERNMENT”
When one thinks upon the hardly accomplished union of this our Italy, and of the rulers who have ”led” her over the th.o.r.n.y path she has trodden, one can not but bow before the wisdom of Providence, who has uplifted her until she has const.i.tuted herself a nation.
Often in meditating upon this--our beautiful, grand, but unhappy native land--we in imagination have pictured her as a chariot drawn with patient toil by the generous portion of the people, having for device the ”good of all,” preceded by the star of Providence like a s.h.i.+ning beacon, with the wicked host of rulers and their immense retinue following behind, disconcerted and fatigued, holding on to and endeavoring to draw back the vehicle of the State, even at the risk of destroying it in their efforts; while the people, impoverished, checked, and humiliated by that heavy rabble tugging in the rear, remain submissive and constant in their labors, clearing away the obstacles that cross their path towards redemption, and proceeding gradually forward without despairing of a future reparation. Reparation, indeed!
From whom, my countrymen, do you expect reparation? From the re-a.s.sured professors of priestcraft, of Jesuitism, and of imposture, who have been restored to your towns and villages at the expense of your patrimony to maintain you in ignorance and in misery?
One of the many means of corruption employed by the powerful to render the populace slaves, is at the present day the ”black division”--the priests. Kings who no longer believe in them have begun to use them to control the people, and keep them from justice, light, and liberty, in the name of ”religion.” This is the ”reparation” which thou awaitest, _popolo infelice!_ Reparation--and how shouldst thou demand or deserve it, who kneelest daily and hourly at the feet of a lying and chuckling priesthood?
In the mean time, however, one of the agents of this priesthood is walking, with his wicked head held down, in the grasp of Orazio and Attilio; Muzio going before to open the way through the mult.i.tude of people, and thus the four arrived finally at a tavern in the Vicola degli Schiavoni.
CHAPTER LIV. THE SENTENCE OF DEATH
”Let us pa.s.s quickly and on tiptoe that ma.s.s of corruption and slaughter called the Papacy,” says Guerrazzi; or, to quote his own indignant Italian: ”_Pa.s.siamo presto, e sulla punta dei piedi, quel macchio di fimo e di sangue che si chiama Papato_.”
The Popes, who call themselves the vicegerents of Christ, slaughter men with cha.s.sepots, play the executioner upon their political enemies, and instruct the world in the science of tortures, Inquisitions, _autos-da fe_, and murder. In former days many unhappy nations had the misfortune to suffer therefrom. Spain, for example, who has recently thrown off the yoke, for centuries groaned under the tortures of Rome. Even now the priest of Christ in the Vatican satiates his sanguinary vengeance in various ways, having recourse to the dagger, poison, brigandage, and murders of all kinds and degrees.
In the Roman tribunal the sentence of death had been long p.r.o.nounced against Prince T------, the brother of our Irene; and Cencio, with eight cut-throats of the Holy See under his command, was under orders to take advantage of the tumult arising upon the arrival of Garibaldi in Venice to execute the atrocious decree. The eight accomplices of the spy had been posted in the immediate neighborhood of the Hotel Victoria, in all the ways by which he could possibly arrive. Four were to hire a gondola and ply at the steps, with secret instructions to dispatch the gondoliers if necessary, that there might be no witness to lay the charge against them.
Cencio had not undertaken to perform the actual deed, but simply the task of following the Prince's movements. Fortunately for the Roman n.o.ble the spy failed in his scent, and was now not only in the clutches of our three friends who had captured him, but in those of a fourth personage, who was still more formidable to him--no other, in fact, than our old acquaintance Gasparo.
Gasparo, after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, had accompanied his new friends to territory that was not Papal, and had offered his services as attendant to Prince T------. He had therefore accompanied him to Venice. Whilst his master roamed through the saloons of the Zecchini Palace, the watchful follower, who had remained on the threshold to enjoy the sight of that brilliant scene, saw the three Romans whom he loved as sons penetrate into the crowd. He determined to keep near them, and found himself shortly after in the tavern of Vicola dei Schiavoni, at the heels of Cencio.
It would be no easy matter to describe the terror and confusion of the clerical Sinon surrounded by our four friends. They led him to an out-of-the-way room on the upper story, and desired the waiter to bring them something to drink, and then leave them, as they had some business to transact.
When the waiter had obeyed them, and departed, they locked the door, and ordering the agent to sit against the wall, they moved to the end of the table, and, seating themselves upon a bench, placed their elbows on the table and fixed a look upon the knavish wretch which made him tremble.
Under any other circ.u.mstances the wretch would have inspired compa.s.sion, and might have been forgiven for his treachery, in consideration of his present agony of fear.
The four friends, cold, impa.s.sive, and relentless, satisfied themselves for some time with fixing their eyes upon the traitor, while he, quite beside himself, with wide-opened mouth and eyes, was doing his best to articulate something; but all he could mutter was, ”Signore--I--am--not,” and other less intelligible monosyllables.
The calmness of the four Romans was somewhat savage, but for their deep cause of hatred; and if any one could have contemplated the scene he would have been reminded forcibly of the fable of the rat under the inexorable gaze of the terrier-dog, which watches every movement, and then pounces out upon it, crunching all the vermin's bones between its teeth. Or could a painter have witnessed that silent a.s.sembly, he would have found a subject for a splendid picture of deep-seated wrath and terror.
We have already described the persons of the three friends--true types of the ancient Roman--with fine and artistic forms. Gasparo was even more striking--one of those heads which a French photographist would have delighted to ”take” as the model of an Italian brigand--and the picture would have been more profitable than the likeness of any European sovereign. He was indeed, in his old age, a superb type of a brigand, but a brigand of the n.o.bler sort. One of those who hate with a deadly hatred the cutthroat rabble; one who never stained himself with any covetous or infamous action, as the paid miscreants of the priests do, who commit acts that would fill even a panther's heart with horror.
Even the successor of Gianni would have made a valuable appearance in a _quadro caratteristico_, for certainly no subject could have served better to display panic in all its disgusting repulsiveness. Glued to the wall behind him, he would, if his strength had equalled his wish, have knocked it down, or bored his way through it to get farther from those four terrible countenances, which stared impa.s.sively and mercilessly at him, meditating upon his ruin, perhaps upon his death.
The austere voice of Muzio, already described as the chief of the Roman contropolizia, was the first to break that painful silence.
”Well, then, Cencio,” he began, ”I will tell you a story which, as you are a Roman, you may perhaps know, but, at all events, you shall know it now. One day our forefathers, tired of the rule of the first king of Rome--who, amongst other amiable things, had killed his brother Remus with a blow because he amused himself with jumping over the walls he had erected around Rome--our fathers, I repeat, by a _senattis consultant_, decided to get rid of their king, who was rather too meddlesome and despotic. _Detto-fatto!_ they rushed upon him with their daggers, and, although he struggled valorously, Romulus fell under their blows. But, now the deed was done, it was necessary to invent a stratagem, for the Roman people were somewhat partial to their warlike king. They accordingly accepted the advice of an old senator, who said, 'We will tell the people that Mars (the father of Romulus) has descended amongst us, and, after reproaching us for thieving a little too much, and being indignant to see the son of a G.o.d at our head, has carried him off to heaven.'
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