CHAPTER LVI.--LEWIS ATTENDS AN EVENING PARTY, AND NARROWLY ESCAPES BEING

“CUT” BY AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

“Now listen to me, and be good, and sensible, and tractable for once in your life,” exclaimed Laura, when Lewis’s agitation had in some degree subsided. “You appear to have acted with more than sufficient self-will and impetuosity all through this affair, and the result has not proved so satisfactory as to justify you in refusing a friend’s advice and assistance. Excuse my plain speaking,” she continued, with a frank smile which would have thawed the moroseness of the most churlish misanthrope who ever reversed the precepts of Christianity by hating his neighbour, “but I must either say all I think or be wholly silent. Besides, it is no kindness to hide the truth from you.”

“What would you have me do?” returned Lewis sadly. “Believe me, I reproach myself for my past folly more bitterly than you could do were you my worst enemy, instead of the gentle, zealous friend you are.”

“I would not have you at present do anything, more especially anything rash,” returned Laura, “but simply leave the matter in my hands.”

“Promise me----” began Lewis.

“I promise you I will do nothing which can in the smallest degree compromise your honour, or even your pride,” returned Laura, with the slightest possible degree of sarcasm in her tone; “beyond this I will promise you nothing, and if you have not sufficient faith to trust my friendship thus far, you are less worthy of it than I have deemed you.”

Lewis glanced with mingled surprise and admiration at the animated features of his spirited confidante. Accustomed to Rose’s calm, persuasive reasoning, and the half-earnest, half-playful, but wholly bewitching manners of sweet Annie Grant, Laura’s keen wit and fearless bearing surprised and pleased, while at the same time they insensibly influenced him. “I _will_ trust you,” he said; “you have the strong sense and bold energy of a man’s mind united with all the gentleness and refinement which are woman’s especial attributes. I will and do trust you fully. But alas! dear friend,” he continued sorrowfully, “neither you nor any one else can remove the cause of my unhappiness. I will not attempt to deceive you or myself; despite my best endeavours to forget her I cannot, and I am miserable. I, who deemed myself so strong, am powerless to cast this affection from me; and though I despise her for her weak fickleness, though I scorn her for allowing herself to be contracted to that man of whom I never can bear to think as the brother of your kind-hearted, liberal-minded husband, I yet love her with the reasonless passion of an idiot.”

“You take too gloomy a view of the affair. She may not be so much to blame as you imagine; she may yet prove worthy of your affection,” urged Laura.

“Would to Heaven it could be so!” exclaimed Lewis vehemently. “You bid me consider the matter calmly and sensibly,” he continued, after a pause; “by doing so I perceive the hopes with which you would fain inspire me to be unreasonable and delusive. Facts speak for themselves, and as they remain unalterable, so must my grief. Either she does not return my affection, and is attached to her intended bridegroom, or, loving me, she has with the most culpable weakness allowed herself to be persuaded into an engagement with a man every way unworthy of her, to whom she is, to say the least, indifferent; and this, not in consequence of a lengthened persecution, but within twenty-four hours after I have left her, fondly deeming that had fate allowed me to ask her hand she would not have refused it.”

“It is very strange, very unaccountable,” returned Laura, musing, “so much so, indeed, that I feel sure we do not yet know the whole truth, and that there must be some way of explaining her conduct satisfactorily.”

Lewis shook his head mournfully.

“Farewell,” he said; “you will soon be able to judge for yourself, and will find that the view I take of the affair, gloomy as it may appear, is indeed the only true one.”

“You will dine with us to-day? Charles particularly wishes it; you must not refuse. Remember, it will be the last time for some weeks that I may have an opportunity of seeing you!” pleaded Laura.

“I do not know why I consent, except that it seems impossible to say no to you,” returned Lewis, unable to resist the influence of Laura’s sympathetic kindness. “You will find me but a dull companion,” he continued with a deep sigh, “for your intelligence has completely unmanned me.”

“We will take the chance of that,” replied Laura with an incredulous smile; and so, shaking hands, they parted.

The dinner passed off heavily enough. Lewis, despite his efforts to the contrary, appeared out of spirits and _distrait_. Charles, having been cautioned and tutored to the utmost extent of female foresight as to what he was to say and what to avoid, grew nervous and puzzle-pated; called Laura, Annie, and asked Lewis why he did not send for Miss Grant (meaning his, Lewis’s, sister Rose) to live with him and keep his house; by which blunders he provoked his wife to such a degree that she could have found in her heart to box his ears for him, without the smallest compunction. The arrival of “Tarley” and the dessert produced a marked improvement, that young gentleman being in the highest possible state of health and spirits, and influenced by a strong determination to partake of everything on the table, wine included, to ignore all established precedents as to eating jam by the intervention of a spoon, to consider walnuts appropriate missiles to throw at the company generally, and the cut-glass decanters in particular, to set maternal authority at defiance, as evinced by a resolution to pull off his left shoe and imbed it in orange marmalade, and in fact to do everything which appeared good in his eyes and naughty in those of his elders, and then and there to make a night of it. These little antics, at first amusing, and secretly patronised and fostered by Charles and Lewis, soon becoming tiresome, and at length unbearable, Laura asserted her prerogative, and disregarding much kicking and a hysterical affection, which was neither laughing nor crying, but a compound of the two, succeeded in carrying away her unruly offspring. When the gentlemen were left to themselves, Leicester, filling his glass and handing the bottle to Lewis, began--

“Do you mix much with the young men of the place, so as to judge of their political bias at all?”

“I am acquainted with some dozen, or more, young artists, though I do not enter much into their pursuits, from want of inclination; although, at first, they pressed me to belong to their clubs. I should say, however, judging from their conversation, that democratic principles were rife among them.”

“I fear so; indeed, from information we have received, I should not be surprised if some attempt were likely to be made to throw off the Austrian yoke.”

“Surely that would be great folly,” returned Lewis; “with the troops and resources the Governor, Count Palffy, has at his command, any popular tumult might easily be quelled. It is only from cowardice or inaction on the part of the authorities that any of these successes in Northern Italy have been achieved.”

“Ay, but inaction is just what I fear,” rejoined Leicester; “the Austrians will not believe in the amount of popular disaffection which exists; they will go on ignoring the danger till the moment at which it could be most successfully combated has escaped them. Not that I care very much about the matter; I am neither Trojan nor Tyrian; but I am anxious to gain some certainty as to the chance of a popular outbreak, that I may take measures to provide for the safety of Laura and the child: besides, I think you are aware we have some guests coming to us; had I known this sooner I should have written to them to postpone their visit till some more favourable opportunity.”

“I will investigate the matter,” returned Lewis eagerly, “and will communicate to you any information I may obtain; women should never be exposed to the chance of witnessing the horrors of street warfare.”

After conversing on this topic for some minutes longer, the gentlemen, being neither of them addicted to the practice of wine-bibbing, followed Laura to the drawing-room. Lewis appeared silent and depressed, and a gloom hung over the little party which no effort on the part of the hostess could dispel.

Soon after ten o’clock their guest rose to take leave.

“I shall send Charles to you very often; and if possible, without attracting attention, I shall occasionally come with him,” observed Laura; “so mind you are not to freeze up again into a marble misanthrope: I consider I have improved you vastly since you have been under my tuition, and I by no means desire to have laboured in vain.”

“You have shown me kindness which I may never be able to repay,” answered Lewis; “but to prove that I neither forget nor feel ungrateful for it, I will struggle against the faults you so justly reprobate: if I sometimes fail, you must remember that it is difficult to preserve a cheerful, easy manner with an aching heart, and so pardon me.”

Having taken a cordial leave of his host and hostess, and refused Charles’s offer of walking home with him, partly because he knew it would be an act of self-denial in his friend to relinquish his wife’s society, partly because he wished to be alone, Lewis quitted the Palazzo Grassini and strolled on in the direction of his own abode. As he passed under the Piazza of St. Mark, a particularly beautiful effect of moonlight on the opposite buildings struck him, and leaning against one of the columns, he paused to observe it. The place where he was standing was in deep shadow, and to any one approaching from the left his figure was invisible, the massive column effectually hiding it. Having thoroughly fixed in his recollection the appearance which had attracted him, and which he proposed to transfer to canvas, he was about to quit the Piazza when a figure wrapped in a dark mantle advanced with a quick yet stealthy tread.

As the new-comer approached the spot where Lewis was stationed a low whistle pierced the air, and immediately a second figure, also disguised in a dark robe, appeared from behind a pillar which had hitherto concealed him, and addressing the other, observed--

“You are late; I have waited for you.”

“The delay was unavoidable, Signor,” was the reply; “I was forced to wait myself for Paulo, as until I had seen him I could not bring you the password.”

“And what is it?” inquired the first speaker eagerly. The other glanced round with a suspicious air as he replied, “I Martiri di Cosenza.” *

* The brothers Bandiera, two youths of high Patrician Venetian descent, were denounced to the Austrian government, and shot as conspirators at Cosenza, June 25th, 1844.

“Good!” was the rejoinder; “and the place of meeting?”

“The great Hall of the Palazzo--iani,” naming one of the many ruined palaces which are to be found in Venice.

“Wisely chosen,” observed the first speaker, who appeared of a rank superior to that of his companion; “the time of meeting must be at hand?”

“If Vossignoria proceeds thither leisurely, the hour will strike as you reach the appointed rendezvous.”

“’Tis well,” was the reply. “Now leave me; we must not be seen together.”

The person addressed raised his cap as a token of respect, and turning, hurried from the spot--his confederate paused a moment as if in deliberation, and then strolled leisurely away in the direction of the Palazzo--iani. Lewis waited till the echoes of his retreating footsteps died away in the distance, then starting in the direction of his own dwelling, he walked with rapid strides till he reached the corner of one of the less-frequented streets; having done so, he struck down it, running at a pace which few could have kept up with till he approached his own house, when he again moderated his speed. Letting himself in with a private key, he entered his sitting-room, took a brace of small pistols from a drawer, loaded them carefully, and concealing them in a breast-pocket, flung a dark cloak over his shoulders and again quitted the room. His determination was taken. Accident having put him in possession of the time and place of some secret meeting, as well as the pass-word which he doubted not would ensure his admission, his love of adventure occasioned him instantly to resolve to be present at it. The assembly was doubtless of a political nature, and besides gratifying his taste for excitement, he might obtain some information in regard to the probability of a popular insurrection, and thus satisfy Leicester’s anxiety for the safety of his wife and child--in which (though Lewis would not own the motive even to himself) might be involved that of Annie Grant. That the expedition he projected was a dangerous one he was well aware, but he trusted to chance and to his own tact and presence of mind to save him from discovery, and in case of these failing him, he possessed the pistols as a last resource. Twenty minutes’ brisk walking brought him beneath the walls of the Palazzo.

Pausing under the shadow of the building, he waited till he had seen two or three persons, carefully muffled up, proceeding in a particular direction. Conjecturing from their appearance and evident desire to escape observation that they were bound on the same errand as himself, he followed with a quick but noiseless step the next man who passed. This person walked on rapidly till he reached a small archway; here he stopped and looked round, as if to assure himself that he was not followed, when, perceiving Lewis, he seemed embarrassed, and after a moment’s deliberation, during which he scrutinised the young artist’s figure narrowly, he stationed himself in the centre of the path, as if to intercept Lewis’s further progress. As he approached the stranger advanced a step to meet him, observing in Italian--

“The Signor walks late, and chooses a strange path; may I venture to inquire his object in so doing?”

“The same as your own,” returned Lewis sternly; adding in a tone of command, “We are too late already, lead the way.”

The person thus addressed, in whom, from a slight peculiarity in his accent, Lewis recognised him who had appeared the inferior of the two speakers whose conversation he had overheard in the Piazza of St. Mark, seemed for a moment undecided how to act; and then, either deceived by Lewis’s manner, or purposing to postpone any further investigation till he should obtain the assistance of the other conspirators, he passed through the archway, and turning abruptly to the right hand, ran up a flight of stone steps terminated by a low door closely studded with large iron nail heads. Giving a low whistle, some one from within partially opened the door and the stranger entered, followed by Lewis. The moment he had done so, the door was shut and bolted behind him, and he found himself in total darkness; at the same instant he felt his arms pinioned by a powerful grasp, while a gruff voice exclaimed--

“Give the pass-word!”

“_I Martiri di Cosenza_,” replied Lewis firmly.

“Proceed,” was the rejoinder, as the grasp was removed from his arms, and the light of a dark lantern was thrown along the narrow stone passage in which Lewis now found himself. Having traversed this, a second door opened at his approach, a rush of cold air streamed upon him, and he found himself in a large dimly-lighted chamber, in which were assembled somewhere about thirty persons, who were gathered round a long table, at the upper end of which stood a man, who, with his arm extended, and his whole bearing indicative of strong excitement, was addressing the meeting. Drawing the collar of his cloak more over his face, and choosing a spot where the shadow of one of the heavy columns which supported the roof served in some measure to conceal him, Lewis joined the group. As he did so, the speaker, glancing with flashing eyes round the assembly, exclaimed--

“We are resolved, then--the cup is full to overflowing--we will bow no longer beneath the yoke of foreign tyrants. Our brethren in Milan have set us a glorious example--the accursed Austrian already trembles before their valour. Italy has shaken off her lethargy;--we have only to be true to ourselves and to the glorious cause, and liberty awaits our efforts.”

A subdued murmur of consent and approbation ran through the assembly, and the speaker continued--

“Thus agreed, then, it only remains for us to _act_, and our first duty is to succour those who have suffered for our sakes. Those heroes, those martyrs to the cause of the Venetian people, Daniel Manin and Niccolo Tommaseo, languish in an unjust imprisonment; we will demand their liberation, and that with a voice that shall force the tyrants to listen--the voice of an awakened and indignant nation.”

As the speaker ceased, amidst a subdued buzz of approbation, a man in the dress of an artisan arose, and rolling his fierce blood-shot eyes around the assembly, exclaimed--

“Yes, brothers, we will liberate our brave compatriots--Manin and Tommaseo shall be set free to aid in the struggle for our liberty; but we must do more, Venice must rise and cast out those foreign butchers. A blow must be dealt which shall strike terror into their coward hearts; a blow which shall prove to them the fate they may expect, if they dare to oppress and withstand a people struggling for their freedom. And on whom can it so justly fall as on the arch-tyrant, sold hand and soul to Austria, thirsting only for vengeance and for murder--the base persecutor Marinovich?”

He paused; there was a moment’s silence, and then a low whisper went round the assembly, “Death to Marinovich!” There was again a pause, and then men began to communicate with one another in deep muttered tones. After a short interval the first speaker, who had been writing rapidly, arose, and again addressing them, said--

“We are, then, agreed; and our first act shall be the liberation of Manin and Tommaseo. It is time that we disperse as silently and cautiously as may be; we must creep now that we may soar hereafter.”

In order not to interrupt the thread of our narrative, we have described the proceedings as they occurred--we must now revert to Lewis. During the delivery of the first speech he observed that the man who had addressed him as he entered, and who appeared a tall, muscular young fellow, had contrived to place himself by his side, and was regarding him from time to time with looks of mistrust and suspicion. At the proposal for the assassination of Colonel Marinovich, the commandant at the Arsenal, a man who, though a strict disciplinarian, Lewis knew by report to be a brave and gallant officer, he had been unable to repress some slight sign of disapprobation. As he did so he perceived a scowl pass across the features of his watcher, who took the opportunity of drawing yet nearer to him, while an accidental movement revealed the unpleasant fact that he held in his hand a naked stiletto. As the president ended his final address, Lewis, who had kept his eye fixed on the features of his dangerous neighbour, felt convinced that the man only awaited the termination of the business proceedings to denounce him to his fellow-conspirators. With his usual coolness and decision in moments of danger, Lewis saw that his only chance of safety lay in taking the initiative; accordingly, catching the man’s eye, he fixed on him a piercing glance, as he said in a stern whisper--

“The first word you utter aloud you are a dead man;” at the same moment he presented the muzzle of a pistol within an inch of his ear. The man started slightly and attempted to increase the distance between them, but Lewis laid an iron grasp on his collar and detained him; having stood for a moment irresolute, he said, in the same low whisper in which Lewis had addressed him--

“You are an Austrian spy.”

“I am not,” returned Lewis; “I am an Englishman.”

The other again started, regarded him fixedly, and then resumed--

“Swear by all you hold sacred never to reveal that which you have learned to-night.”

“I will swear nothing, except to blow out your brains if you attempt to speak or move without my permission,” was the stern, uncompromising rejoinder.

The stranger’s lip quivered and his grasp tightened on the stiletto, but he caught the glance of Lewis’s flashing eyes and felt that he was in earnest, and that his life hung upon a thread. The members of the secret association were by this time noiselessly gliding away in parties of two and three, and Lewis, fearing if he remained too long he might attract the attention of the president, who still continued writing at the table, determined to depart; accordingly, he said in a low whisper--

“Now we will go--precede me; but if I observe you attempt, by word or sign, to betray me, that moment I shoot you like a dog.”

The stranger, who seemed by this time sullenly to have resigned himself to his fate, or possibly to be reserving his strength for the execution of some scheme which he had devised for the future, obeyed in silence, and left the vault closely followed by Lewis, who still retained a firm grasp of his collar, although the ample folds of his cloak prevented the fact from being observed. In this manner they reached the door at the top of the stairs, and here were stationed two brawny-limbed, ruffianly-looking fellows, who acted in the double capacity of porter and sentry. Their attention, however, appeared solely directed to prevent the intrusion of any unwelcome visitant, the advisability of refusing egress to any one who had already passed their scrutiny never seeming to occur to them. This Lewis felt to be the deciding moment of his fate; once outside the gate he would be in comparative safety. Pressing the muzzle of the pistol against the back of his companion’s neck by way of a gentle hint, he muttered, “Remember!”

The young man shuddered slightly as the cold iron touched him, but made no reply. As they reached the gateway, the janitor stationed on the left side, addressing Lewis’s companion, made some inquiry in a low voice. Glancing round appealingly, as if to indicate that he was forced, even for their common safety, to reply, he spoke a few words in a dialect Lewis did not comprehend, when the gate-keeper respectfully held the wicket open and they passed out. And now once again Lewis felt that he was a free man, and he inwardly congratulated himself on having escaped so great peril, which congratulations were, as the event proved, somewhat premature.

Having descended the steps, Lewis loosened his hold on the stranger’s collar, saying carelessly, as he replaced his pistol in his breast--

“There, young gentleman; thanks to your prudence and my precaution of bringing a brace of pistols with me, I have drawn my head out of the lion’s mouth without having it bitten off for my pains. But now I want to have a little serious conversation with you.”

“Wait till we are further from the Palazzo--iani, then,” was the reply, in a voice that yet trembled from excitement or some other deep emotion; “we may be overheard; keep more in the shade of the buildings.”

Suspecting no treachery, Lewis complied. Scarcely had he done so, however, when he fancied he heard a stealthy footstep following him, and turning abruptly, found himself face to face with a tall, savage-looking ruffian, who, armed with a naked stiletto, was evidently meditating mischief. Confused by his sudden motion, the fellow stood for a moment irresolute; not so his intended victim. The path along which he had been proceeding followed the course of one of the smaller _rii_ or canals by which Venice is in so many directions intersected. Availing himself of this circumstance, Lewis rolled his cloak round his arm and sprang upon his assailant, parrying, with the shield thus constituted, a hasty and ineffectual stab which the other made at him. Foiled in his attempt, the ruffian drew back to avoid Lewis’s onset, thereby approaching incautiously too near the bank of the canal. His antagonist was not slow to perceive the opportunity thus afforded him. Following up his retreating foe so as to prevent him from turning to perceive his danger, he waited till the man reached the brink of the canal, then stretching out his foot, he tripped him up, and parrying a second stab as he had done the former one, pushed him over the bank, which at that part was somewhat steep. A heavy fall and a loud splash in the water announced that his stratagem had succeeded, but at the same moment he felt his throat compressed by a powerful grasp, a naked stiletto flashed before him, and the eyes of the young conspirator, burning with hatred and revenge, glared at him through the darkness with the ferocity of those of some savage animal. Up to this point Lewis’s courage and self-possession had never for a moment failed him, but now a strange, wild idea occurred to him, and a horrible dread suddenly overwhelmed him: his senses reeled, his limbs trembled, and for the first time in his life he experienced the mental agony of fear. Instinctively he seized the uplifted wrist of his assailant, and gazed with starting eye-balls at his face, on which the cold moonlight streamed. Yes! there could be no doubt: in the features of the being with whom he was engaged in deadly conflict he recognised a dark, shadowy, but most unmistakable resemblance to Hardy the poacher. Was it incipient madness, or was he thus horribly to be convinced of the reality of tales which he had hitherto deemed the mere drivellings of superstition?--could the dead indeed rise from their graves to seek vengeance on their slayers?

As these thoughts flashed meteor-like through his brain, his antagonist made a violent but ineffectual effort to free his wrist, and this action in great measure restored Lewis’s self-possession. Ghosts had not thews and sinews, and even in that moment of peril a flush of shame at his childish terror spread over his brow, and the impulse seemed to rend redoubled vigour to his frame. Consequently the struggle, though severe, was short. Superior in strength to his assailant, Lewis, having succeeded in wresting the dagger from his grasp, hurled it into the canal, leaving him completely unarmed and at his mercy. The stranger was the first to speak. Folding his arms across his breast with an air of dogged resolution, he said, speaking for the first time in English, and without the slightest foreign accent--

“You were wrong to throw away that weapon; it would have done your work as effectually and more silently than the pistol.”

“You consider your life as forfeit, then?” inquired Lewis.

“I expect you to do by me as I would have done by you,” was the concise reply.

“I am no assassin,” returned Lewis coldly; “and that reminds me of your worthy associate. You engaged my attention, so that I am ignorant whether he sank or swam.”

“Never fear for honest Jacopo,” was the answer; “he follows the calling of a gondolier when his stiletto is not in requisition, and can swim like a fish. Look yonder; he has gained the shore, and is even now watching us.”

As he spoke, Lewis observed a tall figure crouching under a projecting portion of the bank of the canal.

“He will not molest you further,” continued his late antagonist; “once foiled in his spring, like the tiger, he will not renew the attack. Had he slain you I should have paid him five _zwanzigers_; as it is, the poor fellow will only get his ducking for his pains.”

“Why did he follow us?” asked Lewis.

“When you entered I gave him a hint not to let you pass on your return; had he attempted to stop you, however, I believed you would shoot me, therefore, thinking I could obtain your death or capture without losing my own life, I gave him a glance by which he knew he was not to interrupt you. He then asked me in the thieves’ patois of this place what he was to do, and I told him to _follow_ us, as you were a spy. You know the rest.”

Lewis paused for a moment, and then said abruptly, “You are an Englishman?”

“I am.”

“You will accompany me to my rooms,” rejoined Lewis; “I would question you further.”

“For what purpose?”

“That you will learn at the fitting time,” returned Lewis.

“What if I refuse?”

“I will summon the police, and if you attempt to escape, I will shoot you through the head,” was the stern rejoinder.

“I will go with you,” replied the stranger; “but I warn you I will not be arrested: my liberty is dear to me, my life I hold cheap--so cheap that even now, unarmed as I am, and unequal to you in muscular strength, I am tempted again to rush on you and try the chances of a death-struggle.”

“I would advise you not to do so,” returned Lewis calmly; “besides,” he added, “I may be more disposed to befriend you than you are aware of--it is with no hostile purpose I thus force you to accompany me, believe me.”

“I will trust you,” was the reply. “Your looks and words have, I know not why, a strange power over me--you must possess the gift of the _Malocchio_, which these Italians believe in--it was your glance, far more than your pistol, which kept me silent in the chamber of meeting.”

During almost the whole of this conversation they had been walking side by side in the direction of the street in which Lewis’s studio was situated, and in another five minutes they reached it.

“Have I your word of honour that you will not again attempt my life, or seek to escape till our interview is concluded?” asked Lewis.

“You have,” was the concise reply.

“Follow me, then,” continued Lewis; and drawing a key from his pocket, he unfastened the door, entered, closed it again, and accompanied by the stranger, led the way through the painting-room into his study.