Part 9 (1/2)
Though almost as strongly interested in this news as the waiter himself, I did not permit my interest to become manifest. I never forgot for a second the character I had a.s.sumed, and drawing the cigar slowly from my lips I merely said:
”Then they have caught a great rascal. I congratulate the Government!
Where is the fellow?”
”In the great square,” returned the garcon, eagerly. ”If the signor would walk round the corner he would see Carmelo, bound and fettered.
The saints have mercy upon him! The crowds there are thick as flies round a honeycomb! I must go thither myself--I would not miss the sight for a thousand francs!”
And he ran off, as full of the antic.i.p.ated delight of looking at a brigand as a child going to its first fair. I put on my hat and strolled leisurely round to the scene of excitement. It was a picturesque sight enough; the square was black with a sea of eager heads, and restless, gesticulating figures, and the center of this swaying, muttering crowd was occupied by a compact band of mounted gendarmes with drawn swords flas.h.i.+ng in the pale evening light--both horses and men nearly as motionless as though cast in bronze. They were stationed opposite the head-quarters of the Carabinieri, where the chief officer of the party had dismounted to make his formal report respecting the details of the capture before proceeding further.
Between these armed and watchful guards, with his legs strapped to a st.u.r.dy mule, his arms tied fast behind him, and his hands heavily manacled, was the notorious Neri, as dark and fierce as a mountain thunder-storm. His head was uncovered--his thick hair, long and unkempt, hung in matted locks upon his shoulders--his heavy mustachios and beard were so black and bushy that they almost concealed his coa.r.s.e and forbidding features--though I could see the tiger-like glitter of his sharp white teeth as he bit and gnawed his under lip in impotent fury and despair--and his eyes, like leaping flames, blazed with a wrathful ferocity from under his s.h.a.ggy brows. He was a huge, heavy man, broad and muscular; his two hands clinched, tied and manacled behind him, looked like formidable hammers capable of striking a man down dead at one blow; his whole aspect was repulsive and terrible--there was no redeeming point about him--for even the apparent fort.i.tude he a.s.sumed was mere bravado--meretricious courage--which the first week of the galleys would crush out of him as easily as one crushes the juice out of a ripe grape. He wore a nondescript costume of vari-colored linen, arranged in folds that would have been the admiration of an artist. It was gathered about him by means of a brilliant scarlet sash negligently tied. His brawny arms were bare to the shoulder--his vest was open, and displayed his strong brown throat and chest heaving with the pent-up anger and fear that raged within him. His dark grim figure was set off by a curious effect of color in the sky--a long wide band of crimson cloud, as though the sun-G.o.d had thrown down a goblet of ruby wine and left it to trickle along the smooth blue fairness of his palace floor--a deep after-glow, which burned redly on the olive-tinted eager faces of the mult.i.tude that were everywhere upturned in wonder and ill-judged admiration to the brutal black face of the notorious murderer and thief, whose name had for years been the terror of Sicily. I pressed through the crowd to obtain a nearer view, and as I did so a sudden savage movement of Neri's bound body caused the gendarmes to cross their swords in front of his eyes with a warning clash. The brigand laughed hoa.r.s.ely.
”Corpo di Cristo!” he muttered--”think you a man tied hand and foot can run like a deer? I am trapped--I know it! But tell HIM,” and he indicated some person in the throng by a nod of his head ”tell him to come hither--I have a message for him.”
The gendarmes looked at one another, and then at the swaying crowd about them in perplexity--they did not understand.
Carmelo, without wasting more words upon them, raised himself as uprightly as he could in his strained and bound position, and called aloud:
”Luigi Biscardi! Capitano! Oh he--you thought I could not see you! Dio!
I should know you in h.e.l.l! Come near, I have a parting word for you.”
At the sound of his strong harsh voice, a silence half of terror, half of awe, fell upon the chattering mult.i.tude. There was a sudden stir as the people made way for a young man to pa.s.s through their ranks--a slight, tall, rather handsome fellow, with a pale face and cold, sneering eyes. He was dressed with fastidious care and neatness in the uniform of the Bersagliere--and he elbowed his way along with the easy audacity of a privileged dandy. He came close up to the brigand and spoke carelessly, with a slightly mocking smile playing round the corners of his mouth.
”Ebbene!” he said, ”you are caught at last, Carmelo! You called me--here I am. What do you want with me, rascal?”
Neri uttered a ferocious curse between his teeth, and looked for an instant like a wild beast ready to spring.
”You betrayed me,” he said in fierce yet smothered accents--”you followed me--you hunted me down! Teresa told me all. Yes--she belongs to you now--you have got your wish. Go and take her--she waits for you--make her speak and tell you how she loves you--IF YOU CAN!”
Something jeering and withal threatening in the ruffian's look, evidently startled the young officer, for he exclaimed hastily:
”What do you mean, wretch? You have not--my G.o.d! you have not KILLED her?”
Carmelo broke into a loud savage laugh.
”She has killed herself!” he cried, exultingly. ”Ha, ha, I thought you would wince at that! She s.n.a.t.c.hed my knife and stabbed herself with it!
Yes--rather than see your lying white face again--rather than feel your accursed touch! Find her--she lies dead and smiling up there in the mountains and her last kiss was for ME--for ME--you understand! Now go!
and may the devil curse you!”
Again the gendarmes clashed their swords suggestively--and the brigand resumed his sullen att.i.tude of suppressed wrath and feigned indifference. But the man to whom he had spoken staggered and seemed about to fall--his pale face grew paler--he moved away through the curious open-eyed by-standers with the mechanical air of one who knows not whether he be alive or dead. He had evidently received an unexpected shock--a wound that pierced deeply and would be a long time healing.
I approached the nearest gendarme and slipped a five-franc piece into his hand.
”May one speak?” I asked, carelessly. The man hesitated.
”For one instant, signor. But be brief.”
I addressed the brigand in a low clear-tone.