“Yes, dear brother,” was the reply which she conveyed to him: “your happiness is my only consideration.”
But, as she gave this assurance, an ill-subdued sigh escaped her breast, and she compressed her lips tightly to crush the emotions that were agitating her. A cloud evanescently appeared on the broad and marble forehead; the penciled brows contracted, and the eyes flashed brightly—oh! far more brightly than glanced the ray of the morning sun through the windows, upon the glossy surface of her luxuriant hair. A momentary spasm seemed to convulse the full and rounded form; and the small, elegantly shaped foot which peered from beneath her flowing robe, tapped the floor twice with involuntary movement.
Mistress as she usually was of even her most intense feelings, and wonderfully habituated by circumstances to exercise the most complete command over her emotions, she was now for an instant vanquished by the gush of painful sentiments which crowded on her soul.
Francisco did not, however, observe that transitory evidence of acute feeling on the part of his sister—a feeling which seemed to partake of the nature of remorse, as if she were conscience-stricken!
For she loved her brother deeply—tenderly, but after the fashion of her own wild and wonderful disposition—a love that was not calculated always to prove friendly to his interests.
Francisco paced the room in an agitated manner.
At length he stopped near where his sister was standing, and intimated to her that Flora might perhaps have repaired to the residence of her aunt.
Nisida conveyed to him this answer: “The moment that I missed Flora ere now, I dispatched a domestic to her aunt’s cottage; but she has not been there since Sunday last.”
“Some treachery is at work here, Nisida,” was the young count’s response. “Flora has not willingly absented herself.”
At this moment Francisco’s page entered the apartment to announce that Dr. Duras was in the reception-room.
The young count made a sign to his sister to accompany him; and they proceeded to the elegant saloon where the physician was waiting.
Having saluted the count and Nisida with his usual urbanity, Dr. Duras addressed himself to the former, saying, “I have just learnt from your lordship’s page that the favorite attendant on your sister has most unaccountably disappeared.”
“And both Nisida and myself are at a loss what to conjecture, or how to act,” replied Francisco.
“Florence is at this moment the scene of dreadful crimes,” observed the physician. “Yesterday morning a young female was murdered by a near neighbor of mine——”
“I was astounded when I heard of the arrest of Signor Wagner on such a charge,” interrupted the count. “He was latterly a frequent guest at this house: although, I believe, you never happened to meet him here?”
“No,” answered the physician; “but I saw him at the funeral of your lamented father, and once or twice since in the garden attached to his mansion; and I certainly could not have supposed, from his appearance, that he was a man capable of so black a crime. I was, however, about to observe that Florence is at this moment infested by a class of villains who hesitate at no deed of turpitude. This Signor Wagner is a foreigner, possessed of immense wealth, the sources of which are totally unknown; and, moreover, it is declared that the sbirri, yesterday morning, actually traced the robber-captain Stephano to the vicinity of his mansion. All this looks black enough, and it is more than probable that Wagner was in league with the redoubtable Stephano and his banditti. Then the mysterious disappearance of Flora is, to say the least, alarming, for I believe she was a well conducted, virtuous, estimable young woman.”
“She was—she was indeed!” exclaimed Francisco. “At least,” he added, perceiving that the physician was somewhat astonished at the enthusiasm with which he spoke—“at least, such is my firm impression; such, too, is the opinion of my sister.”
“The motive which brought me hither this morning,” said Dr. Duras, “was to offer you a little friendly advice, which my long acquaintance with your family, my dear count, will prevent you from taking amiss.”
“Speak, doctor—speak your thoughts!” cried Francisco, pressing the physician’s hand gratefully.
“I would recommend you to be more cautious how you form an intimacy with strangers,” continued Dr. Duras. “Rumor has a thousand tongues—and it is already reported in Florence that the alleged murderer was on familiar terms with the noble Count of Riverola and Lady Nisida.”
“The duke himself is liable to be deceived in respect to the real character of an individual,” said Francisco proudly.
“But his highness would not form hasty acquaintances,” replied the physician. “After all, it is with the best possible feeling that I offer you my counsel—knowing your generous heart, and also how frequently generosity is imposed upon.”
“Pardon the impatience with which I answered you, my dear friend,” exclaimed the young count.
“No pardon is necessary,” said the physician; “because you did not offend me. One word more and I must take my leave. Crimes are multiplying thickly in Florence, and Stephano’s band becomes each day more and more daring; so that it is unsafe to walk alone in the city after dusk. Beware how you stir unattended, my dear Francisco, at unseasonable hours.”
“My habits are not of that nature,” replied the count. “I, however, thank you cordially for your well-meant advice. But you appear to connect the disappearance of Flora Francatelli,” he added, very seriously, “with the dreadful deed supposed to be committed by Signor Wagner!”
“I merely conjecture that this Wagner is associated with that lawless horde who have become the terror of the republic,” answered the physician; “and it is natural to suppose that these wretches are guilty of all the enormous crimes which have lately struck the city with alarm.”
Francisco turned aside to conceal the emotions which these remarks excited within him; for he began to apprehend that she whom he loved so fondly had met with foul play at the hands of the bravoes and banditti whom Stephano was known to command.
Dr. Duras seized that opportunity to approach Nisida, who was standing at the window; and as he thrust into her hand a note, which was immediately concealed in her dress, he was struck with surprise and grief at the acute anguish that was depicted on her countenance.
Large tears stood on her long, dark lashes, and her face was ashy pale.
The physician made a sign of anxious inquiry; but Nisida, subduing her emotions with an almost superhuman effort, pressed his hand violently and hurried from the room.
Dr. Duras shook his head mournfully, but also in a manner which showed that he was at a loss to comprehend that painful manifestation of feeling on the part of one whom he well knew to be endowed with almost miraculous powers of self-control.
His meditations were interrupted by Francisco, who, addressing him abruptly, said, “In respect to the missing young lady, whose absence will be so acutely felt by my sister, the only course which I can at present pursue, is to communicate her mysterious disappearance to the captain of police.”
“No time should be lost in adopting that step,” responded the doctor. “I am about to visit a sick nobleman in the neighborhood of the captain’s office: we will proceed so far in each other’s company.”
The young count summoned his page to attend upon him, and then quitted the mansion in company with the physician.
In the meantime Nisida had retired to her own apartment, where she threw herself into a seat, and gave vent to the dreadful emotions which had for the last hour been agitating within her bosom.
She wept—oh! she wept long and bitterly: it was terrible and strange to think how that woman of iron mind now yielded to the outpourings of her anguish.
Some time elapsed ere she even attempted to control her feelings; and then her struggle to subdue them was as sudden and energetic as her grief had a moment previously been violent and apparently inconsolable.
Then she recollected the note which Dr. Dura
s had slipped into her hand, and which she had concealed in her bosom; and she hastened to peruse it. The contents ran as follows:
“In accordance with your request, my noble-hearted and much-enduring friend, I have consulted eminent lawyers in respect to the will of the late Count of Riverola. The substance of their opinion is unanimously this: The estates are inalienably settled on yourself, should you recover the faculties of hearing and speaking at any time previous to your brother’s attainment of the age of thirty; and should you enter into possession of the estates, and allow your brother to enjoy the whole or greater part of the revenues, in direct contradiction to the spirit of your father’s will, the estates would become liable to confiscation by his highness the duke. In this case your brother and yourself would alike be ruined.
“Now, the advice that these lawyers give is this: A memorial should be addressed to his highness, exhibiting that you refuse to undergo any surgical treatment or operation for the restoration of the faculties of hearing and speech, inasmuch as you would not wish to deprive your brother of the enjoyment of the estates nor of the title conferred by their possession: that you therefore solicit a decree, confirming his title of nobility, and dispensing with the prerogative of confiscation on the part of the prince, should you recover the faculties of hearing and speech, and act in opposition to the will of your late father in respect to the power of alienating the estates from your own possession.
“Such, my generous-minded friend, is the counsel offered by eminent advocates; and, by the memory of your sainted mother, if not for the sake of your own happiness, I implore you to act in accordance with these suggestions. You will remember that this advice pretty accurately corresponds with that which I gave you, when, late on the night that the will was read, you quitted your sleepless couch and came to my dwelling to consult me on a point so intimately connected with your felicity in this world.
“Your sincerely devoted friend,
“Jeronymo Duras.”
While Nisida was occupied in the perusal of the first paragraph of this letter, dark clouds lowered upon her brow; but as she read the second paragraph, wherein the salutary advice of the lawyers was conveyed to her, those clouds rapidly dispersed, and her splendid countenance became lighted up with joyous, burning, intoxicating hope!
It was evident that she had already made up her mind to adopt the counsel proffered her by the eminent advocates whom the friendly physician had consulted on her behalf.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SUBURB OF ALLA CROCE—THE JEW—THE ROBBER CHIEF’S LOVE.
It was past the hour of ten on Saturday night, when a tall, powerfully built man emerged from what might be termed the fashionable portion of the city of Florence, and struck into the straggling suburb of Alla Croce.
This quarter of the town was of marvelously bad reputation, being infested by persons of the worst description, who, by herding, as it were, together in one particular district, had converted the entire suburb into a sort of sanctuary where crime might take refuge, and into which the sbirri, or police-officers, scarcely dared to penetrate.
The population of Alla Croce was not, however, entirely composed of individuals who were at variance with the law, for poverty as well as crime sought an asylum in that assemblage of forbidding-looking dwellings, which formed so remarkable a contrast with the marble palaces, noble public buildings, and handsome streets of the city of Florence itself.
And not only did the denizens of penury and crushing toil, the artisans, the vine-dressers, the gardeners, the water-carriers, and the porters of Florence occupy lodgings in the suburb of Alla Croce, but even wealthy persons—yes, men whose treasures were vast enough to pay the ransom of princes—buried themselves and their hoards in this horrible neighborhood.
We allude to that most undeservedly-persecuted race, the Jews—a race endowed with many virtues and generous qualities, but whose characters have been blackened by a host of writers whose narrow minds and illiberal prejudices have induced them to preserve all the exaggerations and misrepresentations which tradition hands down in the Christian world relative to the cruelly-treated Israelite.
The enlightened commercial policy of those merchant princes, the Medici, had, during the primal glories of their administrative sway in the Florentine Republic, relaxed the severity of the laws against the Jews, and recognizing in the persecuted Israelites those grand trading and financial qualities which have ever associated the idea of wealth with their name, permitted them to follow unmolested their specific pursuits.
But at the time of which we are writing—the year 1521—the prince who had the reins of the Florentine Government, had yielded to the representations of a bigoted and intolerant clergy, and the Jews had once more become the subjects of persecution. The dissipated nobles extorted from them by menace those loans which would not have been granted on the security proffered; and the wealthy members of the “scattered race” actually began to discover that they could repose greater confidence in the refuse of the Florentine population than in the brilliant aristocracy, or even in the famous sbirri themselves. Thus had many rich Jews established themselves in the quarter of Alla Croce; and by paying a certain sum to the syndic, or magistrate of this suburb—a functionary elected by the inhabitants themselves, and in virtue of a law of their own enactment—the persecuted Israelites enjoyed comparative security and peace.
We now return to the man we left plunging into the suburbs of which we have afforded a short and necessary account.
This individual was dressed in simple attire, but composed of excellent materials. His vest was of dark velvet, slashed, but not embroidered; and on his breast he wore a jazeran, or mailed cuirass, which was not only lighter than a steel corselet, but was equally proof against poniard or pike. In his broad leather belt were stuck two pairs of pistols, and a long dagger; a heavy broadsword also hung by his side. His black boots came up nearly to the knee—in contravention of the prevailing fashion of that age, when these articles of dress seldom reached above the swell of the leg. A large slouched hat, without plumage or any ornament, was drawn down as much as possible over his features; and the broad mantello, or cloak, was gathered round the body in such a manner that it covered all the left side and the weapons fastened in the belt, but left the sword arm free for use in any sudden emergency.
Behind the wayfarer stretched the magnificent city of Florence, spreading over the deep vale, on both sides of the Arno, and, as usual, brilliant with light, like a world of stars shining in mimic rivalry of those that studded the purple vault above.
Before him were the mazes of the Alla Croce, the darkness of which suburb was only interrupted by a few straggling and feeble lights gleaming from houses of entertainment, or from huts whose poverty required not the protection of shutters to the casements.
And now, as one of those faint lights suddenly fell upon the wayfarer’s countenance, as he passed the abode in which it shone—let us avail ourselves of the opportunity afforded by that glimpse, to state that this man’s features were handsome, but coarse, bearing the traces of a dissolute life. His age was apparently forty; it might even have been a few years more matured—but his coal-black hair, mustachio, and bushy whiskers, unstreaked by silver, showed that time sat lightly on his head, in spite of the evident intimacy with the wine-cup above alluded to.
Having threaded the greater portion of the suburb, which was almost knee-deep in mud—for it had been raining nearly all day, and had only cleared up after sunset—the individual whom we have been describing stopped at the corner of a street, and gave a shrill whistle.
The signal was immediately answered in a similar fashion, and in a few minutes a man emerged from the darkness of a by-street. He also was well-armed, but much more plainly dressed than the other; and his countenance was such as would not have proved a very friendly witness in his favor in a court of justice.
“Lomellino?” said the first individual whom we have described in this chapter.
“Captain Steph
ano!” responded the other.
“All right, my fine lad,” returned the bandit-captain. “Follow me.”
The two robbers then proceeded in silence until they reached a house larger and stronger in appearance than any other in the same street. The shutters which protected the casements were massive and strengthened with iron bars and huge nails, somewhat after the fashion of church doors.
The walls were of solid gray stones, whereas those of the adjacent huts were of mud or wood. In a word, this dwelling seemed a little fortress in the midst of an exposed and unprotected town.
Before this house the robbers stopped.
“Do you remain on the other side of the street, Lomellino,” said the bandit-chief; “and if need be, you will answer to my accustomed signal.”
“Good, captain,” was the reply; and Lomellino crossed over the way to the deep shade of the houses on that side.
Stephano then gave a low knock at the door of the well-defended dwelling above described.
Several minutes elapsed; and no sounds were heard within.
“The old usurer is at home, I know,” muttered Stephano to himself; for the moment he had knocked a gleam of light, peeping through a crevice in an upper casement, had suddenly disappeared. He now rapped more loudly at the door with the handle of his heavy broadsword.
“Ah! he comes!” muttered the bandit-chief, after another long pause.
“Who knocks so late?” demanded a weak and tremulous voice from within.
“I—Stephano Verrina!” cried the brigand pompously: “open—and fear not.”
The bolts were drawn back—a chain fell heavily on the stone floor inside—and the door opened, revealing the form of an old and venerable-looking man, with a long white beard. He held a lamp in his hand: and, by its fitful glare, his countenance, of the Jewish cast, manifested an expression denoting the terror which he vainly endeavored to conceal.
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