Chapter 5

It is serious when a young fellow sketches in water-colours a charming sylph-like girl in various entrancing attitudes; it is disastrous when she teaches him a soft flowing language like the Italian; but it is absolute destruction when he teaches her the English tongue and watches her pretty lips strive to surround words never intended for the vocal resources of a foreigner. As all these influences were brought to bear on Walter Standish, what chance did the young fellow have? Absolutely as little as has the un-roped man who misses his footing on the Matterhorn.

And Tina? Poor little girl, she was getting paid back with a vengeance for all the heart-aches she had caused--Italian, German, or Swiss variety. She fell helplessly in love with the stalwart Englishman, and realised that she had never known before what the word meant. Bitterly did she regret the sham battles of the heart that she had hitherto engaged in. Standish took it so entirely for granted that he was the first to touch her lips (in fact she admitted as much herself) that she was in daily, hourly terror lest he should learn the truth. Meanwhile Pietro unburdened his neglected soul of strange oily imprecations that might have sounded to the uneducated ear of Standish like mellifluous benedictions, notwithstanding the progress he was making in Italian under Tina's tuition. However, Pietro had one panacea for all his woes, and that he proceeded to sharpen carefully.

One evening Standish was floating dreamily through the purple haze, thinking about Tina of course, and wondering how her piquant archness and Southern beauty would strike his sober people at home. Tina was very quick and adaptable, and he had no doubt she could act to perfection any part he assigned to her, so he was in doubt whether to introduce her as a remote connexion of the reigning family of Italy, or merely as a countess in her own right. It would be quite easy to ennoble the long line of hotel-keepers by the addition of "di" or "de" or some such syllable to the family name. He must look up the right combination of letters; he knew it began with "d." Then the _pension_ could become dimly "A castle on the Italian lakes, you know"; in fact, he would close up the _pension_ as soon as he had the power, or change it to a palace. He knew that most of the castles in the Tyrol and many of the palaces of Italy had become boarding- houses, so why not reverse the process? He was sure that certain furnishing houses in London could do it, probably on the hire system. He knew a fashionable morning paper that was in the habit of publishing personal items at so much a line, and he thought the following would read well and be worth its cost:--

"Mr. Walter Standish, of St. John's Wood, and his wife, the Comtessa di Lenza, are spending the summer in the lady's ancestral home, the Palazzio di Lenza, on the lake of Como."

This bright vision pleased him for a moment, until he thought it would be just his luck for some acquaintance to happen along who remembered the Palazzio Lenza when it was the Pension Lenz--rates on application. He wished a landslide would carry buildings, grounds, and everything else away to some unrecognisable spot a few hundred feet down the mountain.

Thus it was that young Standish floated along with his head in the clouds, swinging his cane in the air, when suddenly he was brought sharply down to earth again. A figure darted out from behind a tree, an instinct rather than reason caused the artist to guard himself by throwing up his left arm. He caught the knife thrust in the fleshy part of it, and the pain was like the red-hot sting of a gigantic wasp. It flashed through his brain then that the term cold steel was a misnomer. The next moment his right hand had brought down the heavy knob of his stout stick on the curly head of the Italian, and Pietro fell like a log at his feet. Standish set his teeth, and as gently as possible drew the stiletto from his arm, wiping its blade on the clothes of the prostrate man. He thought it better to soil Pietro's suit than his own, which was newer and cleaner; besides, he held, perhaps with justice, that the Italian being the aggressor should bear any disadvantages arising from the attack. Finally, feeling wet at the elbow, he put the stiletto in his pocket and hurried off to the hotel.

Tina fell back against the wall with a cry at the sight of the blood. She would have fainted, but something told her that she would be well advised to keep her senses about her at that moment.

"I can't imagine why he should attack me," said Standish, as he bared his arm to be bandaged. "I never saw him before, and I have had no quarrel with any one. It could not have been robbery, for I was too near the hotel. I cannot understand it."

"Oh," began old Lenz, "it's easy enough to account for it. He----"

Tina darted one look at her father that went through him as the blade had gone through the outstretched arm. His mouth closed like a steel trap.

"Please go for Doctor Zandorf, papa," she said sweetly, and the old man went. "These Italians," she continued to Standish, "are always quarrelling. The villain mistook you for some one else in the dusk."

"Ah, that's it, very likely. If the rascal has returned to his senses, he probably regrets having waked up the wrong passenger."

When the authorities searched for Pietro they found that he had disappeared as absolutely as though Standish had knocked him through into China. When he came to himself and rubbed his head, he saw the blood on the road, and he knew his stroke had gone home somewhere. The missing knife would be evidence against him, so he thought it safer to get on the Austrian side of the fence. Thus he vanished over the Stelvio pass, and found horses to drive on the other side.

The period during which Standish loafed around that lovely garden with his arm in a sling, waited upon assiduously and tenderly by Tina, will always be one of the golden remembrances of the Englishman's life. It was too good to last for ever, and so they were married when it came to an end. The old man would still have preferred a Swiss innkeeper for a son-in-law, yet the Englishman was better than the beggarly Italian, and possibly better than the German who had occupied a place in Tina's regards before the son of sunny Italy appeared on the scene. That is one trouble in the continental hotel business; there is such a bewildering mixture of nationalities.

Standish thought it best not to go back to England at once, as he had not quite settled to his own satisfaction how the _pension_ was to be eliminated from the affair and transformed into a palace. He knew a lovely and elevated castle in the Tyrol near Meran where they accepted passers-by in an unobtrusive sort of way, and there, he resolved, they would make their plans. So the old man gave them a great set-out with which to go over the pass, privately charging the driver to endeavour to get a return fare from Meran so as to, partly at least, cover the outlay. The carriage was drawn by five horses, one on each side of the pole and three in front. They rested the first night at Bormeo, and started early next day for over the pass, expecting to dine at Franzenshoehe within sight of the snowy Ortler.

It was late in the season and the weather was slightly uncertain, but they had a lovely Italian forenoon for going up the wonderful, zigzag road on the western side of the pass. At the top there was a slight sprinkling of snow, and clouds hung over the lofty Ortler group of peaks. As they got lower down a steady persistent rain set in, and they were glad to get to the shelter and warmth of the oblong stone inn at Franzenshoehe, where a good dinner awaited them. After dinner the weather cleared somewhat, but the clouds still obscured the tops of the mountains, and the roads were slippery. Standish regretted this, for he wanted to show his bride the splendid scenery of the next five miles where the road zigzags down to Trefoi, each elbow of the dizzy thoroughfare overhanging the most awful precipices. It was a dangerous bit of road, and even with only two horses, requires a cool and courageous driver with a steady head. They were the sole guests at the inn, and it needed no practised eye to see that they were a newly married couple. The news spread abroad, and every lounger about the place watched them get into their carriage and drive away, one hind wheel of the carriage sliding on its skid, and all breaks on.

At the first turning Standish started, for the carriage went around it with dangerous speed. The whip cracked, too, like a succession of pistol shots, which was unusual going down the mountain. He said nothing to alarm his bride, but thought that the driver had taken on more wine than was good for him at the inn. At the second turn the wheel actually slid against and bumped the stone post that was the sole guard from the fearful precipice below. The sound and shock sent a cold chill up the back of Standish, for he knew the road well and there were worse places to come. His arm was around his wife, and he withdrew it gently so as not to alarm her. As he did so she looked up and shrieked. Following her glance to the front window of their closed carriage, where the back of the driver is usually to be seen, he saw pressed against the glass the distorted face of a demon. The driver was kneeling on his seat instead of sitting on it, and was peering in at them, the reins drawn over his shoulder, and his back to the horses. It seemed to Standish that the light of insanity gleamed from his eyes, but Tina saw in them the revengeful glare of the _vendetti_; the rage of the disappointed lover.

"My God! that's not our driver," cried Standish, who did not recognise the man who had once endeavoured to kill him. He sprang up and tried to open the front window, but the driver yelled out--

"Open that window if you dare, and I'll drive you over here before you get halfway down. Sit still, and I take you as far as the Weisse Knott. That's where you are going over. There you'll have a drop of a mile (_un miglio_)."

"Turn to your horses, you scoundrel," shouted Standish, "or I'll break every bone in your body!"

"The horses know the way, Signor Inglese, and all our bones are going to be broken, yours and your sweet bride's as well as mine."

The driver took the whip and fired off a fusilade of cracks overhead, beside them, and under them. The horses dashed madly down the slope, almost sending the carriage over at the next turn. Standish looked at his wife. She had apparently fainted, but in reality had merely closed her eyes to shut out the horrible sight of Pietro's face. Standish thrust his arm out of the open window, unfastened the door, and at the risk of his neck jumped out. Tina shrieked when she opened her eyes and found herself alone. Pietro now pushed in the frame of the front window and it dropped out of sight, leaving him face to face with her, with no glass between them. "Now that your fine Inglese is gone, Tina, we are going to be married; you promised it, you know."

"You coward," she hissed; "I'd rather die his wife than live yours."

"You're plucky, little Tina, you always were. But he left you. I wouldn't have left you. I won't leave you. We'll be married at the chapel of the Three Holy Springs, a mile below the Weisse Knott; we'll fly through the air to it, Tina, and our bed will be at the foot of the Madatseh Glacier. We will go over together near where the man threw his wife down. They have marked the spot with a marble slab, but they will put a bigger one for us, Tina, for there's two of us."

Tina crouched in the corner of the carriage and watched the face of the Italian as if she were fascinated. She wanted to jump out as her husband had done, but she was afraid to move, feeling certain that if she attempted to escape Pietro would pounce down upon her. He looked like some wild beast crouching for a spring. All at once she saw something drop from the sky on the footboard of the carriage. Then she heard her husband's voice ring out--

"Here, you young fool, we've had enough of this nonsense."

The next moment Pietro fell to the road, propelled by a vigorous kick. His position lent itself to treatment of that kind. The carriage gave a bump as it passed over Pietro's leg, and then Tina thinks that she fainted in earnest, for the next thing she knew the carriage was standing still, and Standish was rubbing her hands and calling her pleasant names. She smiled wanly at him.

"How in the world did you catch up to the carriage and it going so fast?" she asked, a woman's curiosity prompting her first words.

"Oh, the villain forgot about the short cuts. As I warned him, he ought to have paid more attention to what was going on outside. I'm going back now to have a talk with him. He's lying on the road at the upper end of this slope."

Tina was instantly herself again.

"No, dearest," she said caressingly; "you mustn't go back. He probably has a knife."

"I'm not afraid."

"No, but I am, and you mustn't leave me."

"I would like to tie him up in a hard knot and take him down to civilisation bumping behind the carriage as luggage. I think he's the fellow who knifed me, and I want to find out what his game is."

Here Tina unfortunately began to faint again. She asked for wine in a far-off voice, and Standish at once forgot all about the demon driver. He mounted the box and took the reins himself. He got wine at the little cabin of the Weisse Knott, a mile or two farther down. Tina, who had revived amazingly, probably on account of the motion of the carriage, shuddered as she looked into the awful gulf and saw five tiny toy houses in the gloom nearly a mile below.

"That," said Standish, "is the chapel of the Three Holy Springs. We will go there to-night, if you like, from Trefoi."

"No, no!" cried Tina, shivering. "Let us get out of the mountains at once."

At Trefoi they found their own driver awaiting them.

"What the devil are you doing here, and how did you get here?" hotly inquired Standish.

"By the short cuts," replied the bewildered man. "Pietro, one of master's old drivers, wanted--I don't know why--to drive you as far as Trefoi. Where is he, sir?"

"I don't know," said Standish. "We saw nothing of him. He must have been pushed off the box by the madman. Here, jump up and let us get on."

Tina breathed again. That crisis was over.

They live very happily together, for Tina is a very tactful little woman.

THE HOUR AND THE MAN.

Prince Lotarno rose slowly to his feet, casting one malignant glance at the prisoner before him.

"You have heard," he said, "what is alleged against you. Have you anything to say in your defence?"

The captured brigand laughed.

"The time for talk is past," he cried. "This has been a fine farce of a fair trial. You need not have wasted so much time over what you call evidence. I knew my doom when I fell into your hands. I killed your brother; you will kill me. You have proven that I am a murderer and a robber; I could prove the same of you if you were bound hand and foot in my camp as I am bound in your castle. It is useless for me to tell you that I did not know he was your brother, else it would not have happened, for the small robber always respects the larger and more powerful thief. When a wolf is down, the other wolves devour him. I am down, and you will have my head cut off, or my body drawn asunder in your courtyard, whichever pleases your Excellency best. It is the fortune of war, and I do not complain. When I say that I am sorry I killed your brother, I merely mean I am sorry you were not the man who stood in his shoes when the shot was fired. You, having more men than I had, have scattered my followers and captured me. You may do with me what you please. My consolation is that the killing me will not bring to life the man who is shot, therefore conclude the farce that has dragged through so many weary hours. Pronounce my sentence. I am ready."

There was a moment's silence after the brigand had ceased speaking. Then the Prince said, in low tones, but in a voice that made itself heard in every part of the judgment-hall--

"Your sentence is that on the fifteenth of January you shall be taken from your cell at four o'clock, conducted to the room of execution, and there beheaded."

The Prince hesitated for a moment as he concluded the sentence, and seemed about to add something more, but apparently he remembered that a report of the trial was to go before the King, whose representative was present, and he was particularly desirous that nothing should go on the records which savoured of old-time malignity; for it was well known that his Majesty had a particular aversion to the ancient forms of torture that had obtained heretofore in his kingdom. Recollecting this, the Prince sat down.

The brigand laughed again. His sentence was evidently not so gruesome as he had expected. He was a man who had lived all his life in the mountains, and he had had no means of knowing that more merciful measures had been introduced into the policy of the Government.

"I will keep the appointment," he said jauntily, "unless I have a more pressing engagement."

The brigand was led away to his cell. "I hope," said the Prince, "that you noted the defiant attitude of the prisoner."

"I have not failed to do so, your Excellency," replied the ambassador.

"I think," said the Prince, "that under the circumstances, his treatment has been most merciful."

"I am certain, your Excellency," said the ambassador, "that his Majesty will be of the same opinion. For such a miscreant, beheading is too easy a death."

The Prince was pleased to know that the opinion of the ambassador coincided so entirely with his own.

The brigand Toza was taken to a cell in the northern tower, where, by climbing on a bench, he could get a view of the profound valley at the mouth of which the castle was situated. He well knew its impregnable position, commanding as it did, the entrance to the valley. He knew also that if he succeeded in escaping from the castle he was hemmed in by mountains practically unscalable, while the mouth of the gorge was so well guarded by the castle that it was impossible to get to the outer world through that gateway. Although he knew the mountains well, he realised that, with his band scattered, many killed, and the others fugitives, he would have a better chance of starving to death in the valley than of escaping out of it. He sat on the bench and thought over the situation. Why had the Prince been so merciful? He had expected torture, whereas he was to meet the easiest death that a man could die. He felt satisfied there was something in this that he could not understand. Perhaps they intended to starve him to death, now that the appearance of a fair trial was over. Things could be done in the dungeon of a castle that the outside world knew nothing of. His fears of starvation were speedily put to an end by the appearance of his gaoler with a better meal than he had had for some time; for during the last week he had wandered a fugitive in the mountains until captured by the Prince's men, who evidently had orders to bring him in alive. Why then were they so anxious not to kill him in a fair fight if he were now to be merely beheaded?

"What is your name?" asked Toza of his gaoler.

"I am called Paulo," was the answer.

"Do you know that I am to be beheaded on the fifteenth of the month?"

"I have heard so," answered the man.

"And do you attend me until that time?"

"I attend you while I am ordered to do so. If you talk much I may be replaced."

"That, then, is a tip for silence, good Paulo," said the brigand. "I always treat well those who serve me well; I regret, therefore, that I have no money with me, and so cannot recompense you for good service."

"That is not necessary," answered Paulo. "I receive my recompense from the steward."

"Ah, but the recompense of the steward and the recompense of a brigand chief are two very different things. Are there so many pickings in your position that you are rich, Paulo?"

"No; I am a poor man."

"Well, under certain circumstances, I could make you rich."

Paulo's eyes glistened, but he made no direct reply. Finally he said, in a frightened whisper, "I have tarried too long, I am watched. By- and-by the vigilance will be relaxed, and then we may perhaps talk of riches."

With that the gaoler took his departure. The brigand laughed softly to himself. "Evidently," he said, "Paulo is not above the reach of a bribe. We will have further talk on the subject when the watchfulness is relaxed."

And so it grew to be a question of which should trust the other. The brigand asserted that hidden in the mountains he had gold and jewels, and these he would give to Paulo if he could contrive his escape from the castle.

"Once free of the castle, I can soon make my way out of the valley," said the brigand.

"I am not so sure of that," answered Paulo. "The castle is well guarded, and when it is discovered that you have escaped, the alarm- bell will be rung, and after that not a mouse can leave the valley without the soldiers knowing it."

The brigand pondered on the situation for some time, and at last said, "I know the mountains well."

"Yes;" said Paulo, "but you are one man, and the soldiers of the Prince are many. Perhaps," he added, "if it were made worth my while, I could show you that I know the mountains even better than you do."

"What do you mean?" asked the brigand, in an excited whisper.

"Do you know the tunnel?" inquired Paulo, with an anxious glance towards the door.

"What tunnel? I never heard of any."

"But it exists, nevertheless; a tunnel through the mountains to the world outside."

"A tunnel through the mountains? Nonsense!" cried the brigand. "I should have known of it if one existed. The work would be too great to accomplish."

"It was made long before your day, or mine either. If the castle had fallen, then those who were inside could escape through the tunnel. Few know of the entrance; it is near the waterfall up the valley, and is covered with brushwood. What will you give me to place you at the entrance of that tunnel?"

The brigand looked at Paulo sternly for a few moments, then he answered slowly, "Everything I possess."

"And how much is that?" asked Paulo.

"It is more than you will ever earn by serving the Prince."

"Will you tell me where it is before I help you to escape from the castle and lead you to the tunnel?"

"Yes," said Toza.

"Will you tell me now?"

"No; bring me a paper to-morrow, and I will draw a plan showing you how to get it."

When his gaoler appeared, the day after Toza had given the plan, the brigand asked eagerly, "Did you find the treasure?"

"I did," said Paulo quietly.

"And will you keep your word?--will you get me out of the castle?"

"I will get you out of the castle and lead you to the entrance of the tunnel, but after that you must look to yourself."

"Certainly," said Toza, "that was the bargain. Once out of this accursed valley, I can defy all the princes in Christendom. Have you a rope?"

"We shall need none," said the gaoler. "I will come for you at midnight, and take you out of the castle by the secret passage; then your escape will not be noticed until morning."

At midnight his gaoler came and led Toza through many a tortuous passage, the two men pausing now and then, holding their breaths anxiously as they came to an open court through which a guard paced. At last they were outside of the castle at one hour past midnight.

The brigand drew a long breath of relief when he was once again out in the free air.

"Where is your tunnel?" he asked, in a somewhat distrustful whisper of his guide.