Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  The beginning of the feast was marked by a sudden outburst of music in the palace: the Duke’s orchestra was playing an induction. And now doubtless traitors and betrayed were dipping together in the same saltdish, bowing and smiling one to another and drinking solemnly to peace and friendship in the future. Sanazarro set to work upon the lock with his chisel. It was an easier matter even than he had supposed; for the stone was planed already and fell away in so large a lump that the fragment served him thenceforward as chisel. The bolt was soon laid bare, the door opened inwards without resistance, and the sculptor was free. He hastily visited the doors of the other cells, beat upon them and called upon the inmates to say who they were. From some there came no answer but the hollow reverberation of his own blows; from others different voices replied to him, some mockingly, some evidently excited to a brief hope of liberation; but nowhere the voice of Ippolita. Sanazarro passed his hand over his brow; he was certain that Orsino would not cast her into a dungeon; certain, therefore, that she was free.

  As he had supposed, this wing of the palace was silent and deserted; but as he drew near to the great hall the noise of steps, the clatter of dishes, the gay inarticulate babble of many voices came, as it were, to meet him. At last he saw light at the end of the dark corridor he followed; and in the light, many servants going hurriedly to and fro between the feast and the kitchen. He did not know, of course, that his imprisonment had been kept secret, and would willingly have avoided curious eyes; but he had no choice; to reach his own chamber it was necessary to put on a bold face and go through the thick of the bustle and by the doors of the very room in which the carouse went noisily forward. He held his breath as he did so; but no one sought to stay him; no one — so great was the hurry — found time so much as to look him between the eyes; and he could tell himself, when he had finished this perilous traject and got upstairs between the lines of flaring torches, that he had escaped recognition by any. The torches went no higher than the first double flight of stairs (a sure sign that all the great guests had their billets on the first floor), and Sanazarro was hurrying on yet higher, in a sort of scanty twilight of a few candles posted here and there at wide intervals along the walls, when he almost fell over a couple of the Duke’s valets coming down a side passage. He fell back with an incontrollable impulse for self-defence, and drew the chisel — the only weapon left to him. But the men saluted him quite respectfully, wished the Signor Sanazarro a good evening, and passed on, judging him probably in his cups. Without further accident he reached his own apartment, and having provided himself with his favourite sword and dagger, and all his money and jewels, returned again to the first landing of the stair. Here, behind some hangings and at a place where he could see out through the division of two widths, he concealed himself and waited until the company should retire. Possibly, even as they passed, he might find the opportunity to let slip a word of caution...

  His heart beat very fast, as you may imagine, as the hours went on. The uproar in the hall dwindled not, but rather increased; and there were songs, from time to time, and pieces of music by the orchestra. At last, towards midnight, he heard the sound of feet and voices near at hand. An officer, flushed with drink, and very gay, proceeded to line the stair and the passage with alternate halberdiers and men carrying flambeaux. All the men had been drinking, as well as the officer, and there was a great deal of laughing among them, and many jests that were plain enough to Sanazarro, though they might not have been very comprehensible to any one unacquainted with the intended treachery. A brawny halberdier was posted just in front of him, so that he scarcely dared to breathe; and the next few minutes went very irksomely with the poor sculptor, cramped up behind the hangings. He had not long, however, of such penance. The orchestra began an energetic finale; there was a good deal of faint cheering, the halberdiers and flambeau-bearers pulled themselves together and were silent. Then Sanazarro saw, over the shoulder of the man in front of him, a princely party coming up the wide staircase between the lines of attendants. Orsino came first, leading Bartolomeo by the hand; and then Cosmo holding the hand of Gian Pietro; and behind them a goodly company of pages and officers and petty nobles, attached to either family. All seemed the worse for drink, at the first glance; but, as they continued to pass before him, a disquieting suspicion forced itself into the sculptor’s mind and grew ever more and more certain. It seemed to him that all, whether hosts or guests, whether followers of Orsino or Bartolomeo, were making much of their intoxication, were not nearly so drunken as they would give themselves out for. He seemed to detect sober glances passing from one to another, and a fold of gravity on the most exalted-looking countenance. The foot tripped, and the tongue spoke foolishly; but, in more instances than one, Sanazarro would have laid a long wager that the mind was not much perturbed.

  As this procession went by him and disappeared down the long corridor, the music died away in the hall below; and the men on the stair shouldered their halberds, extinguished their torches and trooped off laughing to the guard room. Sanazarro was just about to separate the hangings and come forth, when he heard voices and steps returning, and Orsino and his uncle went past again in close conversation, and stopped, not ten feet from his hiding-place, at the top of the stair.

  ‘No,’ said Cosmo, ‘nothing, I grant. To a desire.’

  ‘And you saw, too,’ returned the Duke, evidently continuing some strain of argument, ‘they made no difficulty about Ippolita’s absence. They believed she was still in the palace.’

  ‘I imagine they did.’

  ‘Well then, I was right to let her go quietly, was I not? It is easier to tell a falsehood than to pacify a discontented woman.’

  ‘Like enough,’ replied the uncle, ‘like enough’; and he descended the stair, while Orsino turned and went warily back by the way he had come.

  Sanazarro’s mind was set at rest about the Duchess; she was safe out of the palace, it was plain, and he had a shrewd guess he should find her, whenever he wanted, at the old nunnery among the hills; so he had his mind free for the immediate interests of the night. He came out of his concealment, and tried to imagine where Bartolomeo would most probably be set to sleep. After passing under review all the apartments of the first floor, he pitched upon one as the most probable — he could hardly have told why — and, without knowing very distinctly what he wished to do, set off stealthily along the corridor towards it. He was burthened by a dreadful sense of insecurity; he knew that behind these shut doors there were no sleepers, but men waiting for a signal, with bright eyes and their swords across their knees; at any moment the storm might burst; it seemed as if the floor was alive and quaked under his steps. Suddenly, he stood still. A cold sweat burst out over his body. Yes, he was right; there was a footfall in the corridor besides his own, a stealthy, treacherous footfall drawing near to meet him. He stepped back into the shadow of a doorway and waited, with his hand on his dagger. It was a poor shelter; but there was none other within reach, and the newcomer (whoever he was) might turn the corner at any moment. Nor had the sculptor long to wait. Orsino himself, on tiptoes, with hands held up to balance him, and eyes fixed wakefully on the empty air, as he gave up his whole spirit to the task of walking without noise — Orsino, in a hat and cloak, brushed close by him and was gone upon the instant. Where could he be going? What black business had he on hand? It was plainly secret, even from Cosmo. For a moment the sculptor stood bewildered; then he made up his mind and stole after the Duke.

  It was easy enough to follow unobserved along the corridor. But the stair gave a great advantage to the chased; and when the pursuer gained the ground floor, he whom he was pursuing had disappeared. Many passages branched off from the foot of the stair — it was not a great stair, but a private flight in the west wing; and as there was no reason for choosing any one instead of another, Sanazarro paused, irresolute. As he was thus standing, he heard the creak of a hinge, and a little puff of fresh night air from the garden blew upon his face and made the lights wink
and the shadows bestir themselves along the dim gallery. This was indication sufficient, and next moment the artist had opened the private door and stood, almost dazzled, on the threshold. The orange tufts and paved alleys of the garden were displayed in strange detail and relief by a flood of vivid moonlight; the very shadows looked solid, and one would have feared to walk upon them if they had not moved with the wind. Down the centre alley, Sanazarro saw the cloaked figure of the Duke moving away swiftly, like a blot upon the intense white light. A turbulent crowd of recollections surged into his brain and disappeared again. This centre alley led to the Belvedere; the Duke had renewed his relations with Isotta; probably the massacre was not to begin until some dead hour of the morning; and my lord would grow weary if he sat in his own room to wait the fatal signal. Such levity on an occasion of so much tragic import would have been incredible on the part of most men; but it was by no means inconsistent with the known character of Orsino. These were, in fact, the sort of incongruities that had the attraction like that of a precipice for disordered fancy. And he was never content unless he were strongly moved, whether by passion or religion, or the uncertain issue of some piece of perilous or desperate policy. This avidity for violent sensations was with him a mode of cowardice that often stood in the stead, and played the part of bravery. All this passed through Sanazarro’s brain in the least interval of time. Whether or not he was right in his conclusion, he could not doubt the importance of the opportunity now afforded him. Orsino slain, a death blow would be dealt to the whole plan of massacre; just when it was ripe, it would be troubled and diverted; and while the traitors were looking for their absent leader, the betrayed might have the more time to escape or to fortify their position. He did not hesitate. Loosening his rapier in the sheath, he followed the faster after his quarry.

  The Duke was perhaps half-way between the palace and the Belvedere, when the sound of Sanazarro’s footsteps reached his ears. He started and turned round. The sculptor did not trust himself to articulate any word, lest his voice should be recognised as that of one not privy to the night’s undertaking; but he waved his arm significantly and gave vent to a long ‘hist!’ Orsino stopped and waited, apparently not without great anxiety; for he moved uneasily, put his hand twice to his sword and at last, when the sculptor was already close to him, drew it suddenly and fell on guard. Sanazarro followed his example, and the blades met. ‘Aha! my sculptor!’ cried the Duke; and he laughed cruelly. He knew himself to be a fine swordsman, but forgot, in his excitement, how long he had been out of practice and how much weakness had been left upon him by his recent sickness. The fight endured, perhaps, a minute and a half. Then Sanazarro’s blade passed through the Duke’s sword arm; and the latter, throwing away his weapon, falling on the ground and putting up his hands as if to shield himself, cried out in a terrible shrill voice that he was not fit to die. But the sculptor did not stop to listen to him, and drove his rapier three times through the Duke’s body till the point rang upon the pavement. Then he stopped and put his hand to his heart. Even in recollection, the tones in which the miserable devil had cried out for mercy, chilled and horrified him. He had killed men before, but never any who had not met death courageously.

  And as he thus stood, he became gradually conscious that there had been other noises in his ear whilst he fought, besides the ring of the blades, the grinding of teeth and the quickened measure of his own arteries. There was a great uproar in the palace, that grew greater moment by moment; and as he turned in bewilderment be saw lights flickering up uncertainly behind the windows, like a fire that the wind blows upon, as though men bearing torches were being thrust hither and thither in a desperate affray. As he turned, also, he became aware of sounds yet more distant. From these sounds, the lower part of the town should be full of horsemen galloping. There came a volley of firearms, and then random shots dropping off here and there along the streets, as though some body of musketeers had been dispersed, and the fugitives stopped ever and again as they ran, to fire another shot on their pursuers. The great bell of the cathedral began suddenly to ring out a tocsin, and ceased as suddenly; the rope had been cut, or the ringer slain.

  Sanazarro began dimly to comprehend; the treason had been double, although fixed for different hours; the town had been carried by a surprise; La Scala was master and the Orsini, outwitted and outnumbered, were selling their lives dearly on the scene of their intended crime. There was one course only before him; and that was to make good his own escape. The stables of the palace were not far distant; and as the sentinels had already taken the alarm and fled, there was no one to prevent him from helping himself to a strong steed, out of many that stood ready caparisoned for the enterprise of the night. At the gate, also, all went well for him. The warder was waiting on the threshold of his lodge, only anxious to know the cause of all this to-do at the palace, and what, under the circumstances, would be the wisest course for a poor gate-keeper to adopt. ‘Leave the gate open, and get into the nearest thicket for your life!’ Sanazarro shouted to him, as he galloped off along the road that leads north-eastward into the hills.

  At the top of the first rising ground he drew bridle and looked back. A tongue of flame played out of one of the upper windows of the palace. ‘My poor statues,’ he thought to himself, and he had half a mind, for a moment, to go back and seek to rescue them. But a statue, after all, is only a statue, and a mistress is a mistress; and Sanazarro had a sense of power in him yet unexhausted, and felt sure that his brain would conceive, and his hands execute, statues still more beautiful than these. Let the dead past bury its dead; and let him go forward to his better inspiration through the night.

  Just about dawn, he met three horsemen face to face upon the road; and one of these stopped and made him a salute. The Duchess, he said, had given him this letter for the hands of Master Sanazarro privately. The sculptor took it, and glanced it over: it told how she had been obliged to leave without seeing him, how he might rest satisfied of her love and preference over all men, and how, for her sake, he should not seek to learn where she had found a refuge. He asked the messenger where he had left the Duchess; but the man only laughed and said he could keep his own counsel as well as the lady could keep hers. Sanazarro bit his lip, and the blood came into his face; he felt a truly masculine sense of shame — that he should have let out to these hired knaves how little he was in his lady’s confidence. So he saluted them, told them somewhat bitterly of what reception they were like to meet with at the town, and rode on again, without so much as offering them wherewithal to drink his health, and pursued for many a mile by an abiding sense of disgrace.

  He still believed that Ippolita would return to the old convent in the hills, where they had first met; but he had now become gloomy and dogged; certain expressions in the letter seemed scarcely compatible with so obvious a retreat. And in his doubt and irritation, he spurred the poor horse so unmercifully that, some time before noon and about a league below the convent, he was fain to leave it behind him at a little wayside hostel, and make the best of his way forward on foot. The early spring of that favoured country was already well advanced; and the sun grew so powerful that he had to desert the highroad and take to a steep path through a piece of woodland.

  Insensibly, as he followed this pleasant way, his irritation was calmed, and a good spirit grew upon him whether he would or not. A little wind blew now and then among the foliage, and stirred the lights and shadows over the new-fledged grass. And even when the air was still, there was a sentiment of life in the mere distribution of the light and darkness, as here and there a single ray shot vividly through some opening in the texture of the wood, or a whole sheath of them plunged down at once and made a little lit space in the shadow. From time to time, also, he was visited by wandering perfumes, sometimes by the faint odour of the violet beds, and sometimes by the strong spell of the sunshine among firs. He felt the springtime through his bones; and though he sought (as a man will, when he is in love) to exaggerate his evils and keep himse
lf in a true martyr’s humour, for the very life of him he could not withhold his lips from smiling, or keep his step from growing lighter as he went. At length he beheld some way before him, on the left hand, a little grey stone chapel, not much more considerable than a country wine cooler, shut with iron gates and approached by three steps, all grown over with a glory of red anemones. The iron gates were open; just as he first set eyes on them, they were opened something farther, and the figure of a woman came forth into the broken sunlight of the grove. — It was Ippolita. His heart stood still for joy. He saw a great start go through her, and then she moved no more, but waited for him quietly upon the lowest step of the three that led up into the little chapel.