Ha! Whispers in the air, sounds wandering without bodies, as mysterious as though they had come across a hundred miles, for he had heard no footsteps, no rustle, no sound of any sort. Nothing but the two voices. They were so weirdly disembodied and unbelievable that he had to clothe them in attributes: the excitable — the morose. They were quite near. But he did not know on which side of the arch within which he was hiding. For he was frankly hiding now — no doubt about it. He had remembered that he had left his pistols by his bedside. And he was certain he would hear the voices again. The wait seemed long before the fluent-loquacious came back through space and was punctually followed by the deep voice which this time emitted only an unintelligible grunt.
The disagreeable sense of having no means of defence in case of necessity prevented Cosmo from leaving the shelter of the deep arch. Two men, the excitable and the morose, were within a foot of him. Remembering that the tower was accessible on its seaward face, Cosmo surmised that they had just landed from a boat and had crept round barefooted, secret and, no doubt, ready to use their knives. Smugglers probably. That they should ply their trade within three hundred yards of the guardroom with a sentry outside did not surprise him very much. These were Austrian soldiers, ignorant of local conditions and certainly not concerned with the prevention of smuggling. Why didn’t these men go about their business, then? The road was clear. But perhaps they had gone? It seemed to him he had been there glued to that door for an hour. As a matter of fact it was not ten minutes. Cosmo, who had no mind to be stabbed through a mere mistake as to his character, was just thinking of making a dash in the direction of the guardhouse when the morose but cautiously lowered voice began, close to the arch, abruptly: “Where did the beast get to? I thought a moment ago he was coming. Didn’t you think too that there were footsteps — just as we landed?”
Cosmo’s uplifted foot came down to the ground. Of the excitable whisperer’s long rigmarole not a word could be made out. Cosmo imagined him short and thick. The other, whom Cosmo pictured to himself as lean and tall, uttered the word, “Why?” The excitable man hissed fiercely: “To say good-bye.” — ”Devil take all these women,” commented the morose voice dispassionately. The whisper, now raised to the pitch of a strangled wheeze, remarked with some feeling: “He may never see her again.”
It was clear they had never even dreamt of any human being besides themselves having anything to do on this part of the shore at this hour of the night. “ Won’t they be frightened when I rush out,” thought Cosmo taking off his cloak and throwing it over his left forearm. If it came to an encounter he could always drop it. But he did not seriously think that he would be reduced to nsing his fists.
He judged it prudent to leave the archway with a bound which would get him well clear of the tower, and on alighting faced about quickly. He heard an exclamation but he saw no one. They had bolted! He would have laughed had he not been startled himself by a shot fired somewhere in the distance behind his back — the most brutally impressive sound that can break the silence of the night. Instantly, as if it had been a signal, a lot of shouting broke on his ear, yells of warning and encouragement, a savage clamour which made him think of a lot of people pursuing a mad dog. He advanced, however, in the direction of the portico, wishing himself out of the way of this odious commotion, when the flash of a musket shot showed him for a moment the tilted head in a shako and the white cross-belts of an Austrian soldier standing erect in the middle of the open ground. Cosmo stopped short, then inclined to the left, moving cautiously and staring into the darkness. The yelling had died out gradually away from the seashore, where he remembered a cluster of the poorer sort of houses nestled under the cliffs. He could not believe that the shot could have been fired at him, till another flash and report of a musket followed by the whizz of the bullet very near his hand persuaded him to the contrary. Thinking of nothing but getting out of the line of fire, he stooped low and ran on blindly till his shoulder came in contact with some obstacle extremely hard and perfectly immovable.
He put his hand on it, felt it rough and cold, and disv covered it was a stone, an enormous square block such as are used in building breakwaters. Several others were lying about in a cluster like a miniature village on a miniature plain. He crept amongst them, spread his cloak on the ground, and sat down with his back against one of the blocks. He wondered at the marvellous eyesight of that confounded soldier. He was not aware that his dark figure had the starry sky for a background. “He nearly had me,” he thought. His whole being recoiled with disgust from the risk of getting a musket ball through his body. He resolved to remain where he was till all that incomprehensible excitement had quietened down and that brute with wonderful powers of vision had gone away. Then his road would be clear. He would give him plenty of time.
The stillness all around continued, becoming more convincing, as the time passed, in its suggestion of everything being over, convincing enough to shame ,:midity itself. Why this reluctance to go back to his room? What was a room in an inn, in any house? A small portion of space fenced off with bricks or stones in which innumerable individuals had been alone with their good and evil thoughts, temptations, fears, troubles of all sorts, and had gone out without leaving a trace. This train of thought led him to the reflection that no man could leave his troubles behind . . . never . . . never. . . . “It’s no use trying,” he thought with despair. Why should he go to Livorno? What would be the good of going home? Lengthening the distance would be like lengthening a chain. What use would it be to get out of sight? . . . “If I were to be struck blind to-morrow it wouldn’t help me.” He forgot where he was till the convincing silence round him crumbled to pieces before a faint and distant shout which recalled him to the sense of his position. Presently he heard more shouting, still distant but much nearer. This took his mind from himself and started his imagination on another track. The man hunt was not over, then! The fellow had broken cover again and had been headed towards the tower. He depicted the hunted man to himself as long-legged, spare, agile, for no other reason than because he wished him to escape. He wondered whether the soldier with the sharp eyes would give him a shot. But no shot broke the silence which had succeeded the distant shouts. Got away perhaps? At least for a time. Very possibly he had stabbed somebody and ... by heaven! here he was!
Cosmo had caught the faint sound of running feet on the hard ground. And even before he had decided that it was no illusion it stopped short and a bulky object fell hurtling from the sky so near to him that Cosmo instinctively drew in his legs with a general start of his body which caused him to knock his hat off against the stone. He became aware of a man’s back almost within reach of his arm. There could be no doubt he had taken a leap over the stone and had landed squatting on his heels. Cosmo expected him to rebound and vanish, but he only extended his arm to seize the hat as it rolled past him and at the same moment pivoted on his toes, preserving his squatting posture.
“If lie happens to have a knife in his hand he will plunge it into me,” thought Cosmo. So without moving a limb he hastened to say in a loud whisper: “Run to the tower. Your friends are waiting for you.” It was a sudden inspiration. The man without rising flung himself forward full length and, propped on his arms, brought his face close to Cosmo. His white eyeballs seemed to be starting out of his head. In this position the silence between them lasted for several seconds.
“My friends, but who are you?” muttered the man.
And then the recognition came, instantaneous and mutual. Cosmo simply said, “Hallo!” while the man, letting himself fall to the ground, uttered in a voice faint with emotion, “My Englishman!”
“ There were two of them,” said Cosmo.
“Two? Did they see you?”
Cosmo assured him that they had not. The other, still agitated by the unexpectedness of that meeting, asked, incredulous and even a little suspicious: “What am I to think, then? How could you know that they were my friends?”
Cosmo disregarded th
e question. “You will be caught if you linger here,” he whispered.
The other, as though he had not heard the warning, insisted: “How could they have mentioned my name to you?”
“They mentioned no names. . . . Run.”
“I don’t think they are there now,” said the fugitive.
“Yes. There was noise enough to scare anybody away,” commented Cosmo. “What have you done?”
The other made no answer, and in the pause both men listened intently. The night remained dark. Cosmo thought: “Some smuggling affair,” and the other muttered to himself, “I have misled them.” He sat up by the side of Cosmo and put Cosmo’s hat, which he had been apparently holding all the time, on the ground between them.
“You are a cool hand,” said Cosmo. “The soldiers ...”
“Who cares for the soldiers? They can’t run.”
“They have muskets, though.”
“Oh, yes. I heard the shots and wondered at whom they were fired.”
“At me. That’s why I have got in here. There is one of them who can see in the dark,” explained Cosmo, who had been very much impressed. His friend of the tower emitted a little chuckle.
“And so you have hidden yourself in here. Soldiers, water, and fire soon make room for themselves. But they did not know who they were after. They got the alarm from that beast.”
He paused suddenly, and Cosmo asked: “Who was after you?”
“One traitor and God knows how many sbirri. If they had been only ten minutes later they would have never set eyes on me.”
“I wonder they didn’t manage to cut you off, if they were so many,” said Cosmo.
“They didn’t know. Look! Even now I have deceived them by doubling back. You see I was in a house.” He seemed to hesitate.
“Oh, yes,” said Cosmo. “Saying good-bye.”
The man by his side made a slight movement and preserved a profound silence for a time.
“As I have no demon,” he began slowly, “to keep me informed about other people’s affairs, I must ask you what you were doing here?”
“Wrhy, taking the air like that other evening. But why don’t you try to get away while there is time?”
“Yes, but where?”
“You were going to leave Genoa,” said Cosmo. “Either on a very long or a very deadly journey.”
Again the man by his side made a movement of surprise and remained silent for a while. This was very extraordinary, as though some devil having his own means to obtain knowledge had taken on himself for a disguise the body of an Englishman of the kind that travels and stays in inns. The acquaintance of Cosmo’s almost first hour in Genoa was very much puzzled and a little suspicious, not as before something dangerous but as before something inexplicable, obscure to his mind like the instruments that fate makes use of sometimes in the affairs of men.
“So you did see two men a little while ago waiting for me?”
“I did not see them. They seemed to think you were late,” was the surprising answer.
“And how do you know they were waiting for me?”
“I didn’t,” said Cosmo naturally. And the other muttered a remark that he was glad to hear of something that Cosmo did not know. But Cosmo continued: “Of course I didn’t, not till you jumped in here.”
The other made a gesture requesting silence and lent his ear to the unbroken stillness of the surroundings.
“Signore,” he said suddenly in a very quiet and distinct whisper, “it may be true that I was about to leave this town, but I never thought of leaving it by swimming. No doubt the noise was enough to frighten anybody away, but it has been quiet enough now for a long time and I think that I will crawl on as far as the tower to see whether perchance they didn’t think it worth while to bring their boat back to the foot of the tower. I have put my enemies off the track and I fancy they are looking for me in very distant places from here.
The treachery, signore, was not in the telling them where I was. Anybody with eyes could have seen me walking about Genoa. No, it was in the telling them who I was.”
He paused again to listen and suddenly changed his position, drawing in his legs.
“Well,” said Cosmo, “I myself wonder who you are.” He noticed the other’s eyes rolling, and the whisper came out of his lips much faster and, as it were, more confidential.
“Attilio, at your service,” the mocking whisper fell into Cosmo’s ear. “I see the signore is not so much of a wizard as I thought.” Then with great rapidity: “Should the signore find something, one never knows, Cantelucci would be the man to give it to.”
And suddenly with a half turn he ran off on all fours, looking for an instant monstrous and vanishing so suddenly that Cosmo remained confounded. He was trying to think what all this might mean, when his ears were invaded by the sound of many footsteps and before he could make a move to get up he found himself surrounded by quite a number of men. As a matter of fact there were only four; but they stood close over him as he sat on the ground, their dark figures blotting all view, with an overpowering effect. Very prudently Cosmo did not attempt to rise; he only picked up his hat, and as he did so it seemed to him that there was something strange about the feel of it. When he put it on his head some object neither very hard nor very heavy fell on the top of his head. He repressed the impulse to have a look at once. “What on earth can it be?” he thought. It felt like a parcel of papers. It was certainly flat. An awestruck voice said, “That’s a foreigner.” Another muttered, “What’s this deviltry?” As Cosmo made an attempt to rise with what dignity he might, the nearest of the band stooped with alacrity and caught hold of his arm above the elbow as if to help him up, with a muttered, “Permesso, signore .” And as soon as he regained his feet his other arm was seized from behind by someone else without any ceremony. A slight attempt to shake himself free convinced Cosmo that they meant to stick on.
“Would it be an accomplice?” wondered a voice.
“No. Look at his hat. That’s an Englishman.”
“So much the worse. They are very troublesome. Authority is nothing to them.”
All this time one or another would take a turn to peer closely into Cosmo’s face, in a way which struck him as offensive. Cosmo had not the slightest doubt that he was in the hands of the municipal sbirri. That strange Attilio had detected their approach from afar. “He might have given me a warning,” he thought. His annoyance with the fugitive did not last long; but he began to be angry with his captors, of which every one, he noticed, carried a cudgel.
“What authority have you to interfere with me?” he asked haughtily. The wretch who was holding his right arm murmured judicially: “An Inglese, without a doubt.” A stout man in a wide-brimmed hat, who was standing in front of him, grunted: “The authority oi four against one,” then addressed his companions to the general effect that he didn’t know what the world was coming to if foreigners were allowed to mix themselves up with conspirators. It looked as if they had been a1 a loss what to do with their captive. One of them in sinuated: “ I don’t know. Those foreigners have plenty of money and are impatient of restraint. A poor mar may get a chance.”
Cosmo thought that probably each of them was pro vided with a stiletto. Nothing prevented them fron stabbing him in several places, weighting his body with some stones from the seashore, and throwing it into the water. What an unlucky reputation to have! He remembered that he had no money with him. The few coins he used to carry in his pocket were lying on his mantelpiece in the bedroom at the inn. This would have made no difference if those men had been bandits, since they would not be aware of the emptiness of his pockets. “ I could have probably bribed them to let me go,” he thought, after he had heard the same man add with a little laugh, “I mean obliging poor men. Those English signori are rich and harmless.”
Cosmo regretted more than ever not being able to make them an offer. It would have been probably successful, as they seemed to be in doubt what to do next. He mentioned he was living a
t the Casa Graziani. “If one of you will go with me there you shall be recompensed for your trouble.” No answer was made to that proposal except that one of the men coughed slightly. Their chief in a hat with an enormous brim seemed lost in deep thought, and his immobility in front of Cosmo appeared to the latter amusingly mysterious and sinister. A sort of nervous impatience came over Cosmo, an absurd longing to tear himself away and make a dash for liberty, and then an absurd discouragement as though he were a criminal with no hiding-place to make for. The man in the big hat jerked up his head suddenly and disclosed the irritable state of his feelings at the failure of getting hold of that furfante. “As to that Englishman,” he continued in his rasping voice not corresponding to his physical bulk, “let him be taken to the guardroom. He will have to show his papers.”
Cosmo was provoked to say: “Do you expect a gentleman to carry his papers with him when he goes out for a walk?”
He was disconcerted by an outburst of laughter on three sides of him. The leader in the hat did not laugh; he only said bitterly: “We expect papers from a man we find hiding.”
“Well, I have no papers on me,” said Cosmo, and immediately in a sort of mental illumination thought, “ Except in my hat.” Of course that object reposing on the top of his head was a bundle of papers, dangerous documents. Attilio was a conspirator. Obviously! The mysterious allusion to something he was to find and hand over to Cantelucci became clear to Cosmo. He felt very indignant with his mysterious acquaintance. “Of course he couldn’t foresee I was going to get into this predicament,” he thought, as if trying to find an excuse for him already.
“Avanti,” commanded the man in front of him.
Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) Page 510