*CHAPTER XXIII*
It is remarkable how quickly the brute genii will adapt himself to hispint bottle when once the cork is in. Elastic, it must be remembered,has the two properties of expansion and retraction, the latter being incorresponding proportion with the former. Wherefore, the greater itsstretching capacity the more compact its compass unstretched.
So it is with life, which is elastic, and mostly lived at a tension.Relax that tension, and behold the buoyant temperament rinding roomierquarters in a straitened confinement than would ever a flaccid one inthe same; and this in defiance of Bonnivard, that fettered Nimrod of themountains, whose heart broke early in captivity, and who, nevertheless,as a matter of fact, did not exist.
The truth is, a pint pot is over-enough to contain the mind of many anhonest vigorous fellow; and it is the mind, rather than the body, whichstruggles for elbow-room. Carlo, in his prison, suffered little fromthat mere mental horror of circumscription which, to a more sensitivesoul, had been the infinite worst of his doom. He champed, and stamped,and raged, sure enough; cursed his fate, his impotence, hisrestrictions; but all from a cleaner standpoint than the nerves--fromone (no credit to him for that) less constitutionally personal. That heshould be shut from the possibility of helping in a sore pass the littlefriend of his love, of his faith, of his adoration--the pretty child whohad needed, never so much as at this moment, the help and protection ofhis strong arm--here was the true madness of his condition. And he boreit hardly, while the fit possessed him, and until physical exhaustionmade room for the little reserves of reason which all the time had beenwaiting on its collapse.
Then, suddenly, he became very quiet; an amenable, wicked, dangerousthing; fed greedily; nursed his muscles; spake his gaolers softly whenthey visited him; refrained from asking useless questions to elicitevasive answers; brooded by the hour together when alone. They treatedhim with every consideration; answered practically his demands forbooks, paper, pens and ink, wine--for all bodily ameliorations of hislot which he chose to suggest, short of the means to escape it. There,only, was there no concession--no response to the request of an insultedcavalier to be returned the weapons of his honour of which he had beenbasely mulcted. His fingers must serve his mouth, he was told, and histeeth his meat--they were sharp enough. At which he would grin, andclick those white knives together, and return to his brooding.
But not, at last, for long. Very soon he was engaged in exploring hisdungeon, a gloomy cellar, two-thirds of it below the level of the moat,and lit by a single window, deep-shafted under the massive ceiling. Hissearch, at first, yielded him no returns but of impenetrableinduracy--no variations, knock where he might, in the echolessirresponsiveness of dumb-thick walls. Only, with that incessanttap-tapping of his, the trouble in his brain fell into rhythm, chimingout eternally, monotonously, the inevitable answer to a fruitlessquestion with which, from the outset, he had been tormenting himself,and from which, for all his sickness of its vanity, he could not escape.
'What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Done nothing,therefore. What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Donenothing, therefore.'
So, the villainy was working, and he in his dungeon powerless tocounteract it.
He lived vividly through all these phases--of despair, ofself-concentration, of resourceful hope--during the opening twenty-fourhours of his confinement. And then, once upon a time, very suddenly,very softly, very remotely, there was borne in upon him the strangeimpression that he was not alone in his underworld.
The first shadow of this conviction came to haunt him during the secondnight of his imprisonment, when, having fallen asleep, there presentlystole into his brain, out of a deep sub-consciousness of consciousness,the knowledge that some voice, extraneous to himself, was moaning andthrobbing into his ear.
At the outset this voice appealed to him for nothing more than theemotional soft babble of a dream. It seemed to reach to him from a vastdistance, breathing very faint, and thin, and sweet through aeons ofpathetic memories. He could not identify or interpret it, save in sofar as its burden always hinted of a wistful sadness. But, gradually, asthe spell of it enwrapped and claimed him, out of its inarticulatenessgrew form, and out of that form recognition.
It was Bernardo singing to his lute. How could he not have known it,when here was the boy actually walking by his side? They trod a smilingmeadow, sweet with narcissus and musical with runnels. The voice madeecstasy of the Spring; frisked in the blood of little goats; unlockedthe sap of trees, so that they leapt into a spangled spray of blossoms.
A step--and the turf was dry beneath their feet. The sun smote downupon the plain; the grasshopper shrieked like a jet of fire; thefull-uddered cattle lowed for evening and the shadowed stall.
Again, a step--and the leaves of the forest blew abroad like flakes ofburning paper; the vines shed fruit like heavy drops of blood; the skygrew dark in front, rolling towards them a dun wall of fog--the musicwailed and ceased.
He turned upon his comrade; and saw the lute swung aside, the pale lipsyet trembling with their song. He knew the truth at once.
'We part here,' he murmured. 'Is it not? So swiftly run thy seasons.And you return to Spring; and I--O, I, go on! Whither, sweet angel? O,wilt thou not linger a little, that, reaching mine allotted end, I mayhurry back to overtake thee?'
Then, clasping his hands in agony, the tears running down his cheeks, hesaw how the boy bent to whisper in his ear--words of divine solace--nay,not words, but music--music, music all, of an unutterable pathos.
And he awoke, to hear the shrunk, inarticulate murmur of it stillwhispering to his heart.
He sat up, panting, in the deep blackness. His hands trembled; his facewas actually wet. But the music had not ended with his dream. Grownvery soft and far and remote, it yet went sounding on in fact--or was itonly in fancy?
His still-drugged brain surged back into slumber on the thought.Instantly the voice began to take shape and reality: he caught himselffrom the mist--as instantly it fell again into a phantom of itself.
And thus it always happened. So surely as he listened wakeful,straining his hearing, the voice would reach him as a far plaintivemurmur, a vague intolerable sweetness, without identity or suggestionsave of some woful loss. So surely did his brain swerve and his achingeyes seal down, it would begin to gather form, and words out of form,and expression out of words--expression, of a sorrow so wildly sad andmoving, that his dreaming heart near broke beneath the burden of itsgrief.
A strange experience; yet none so strange but that we must all haveknown it, what time our errant soul has leapt back into our wakingconsciousness, carrying with it, on the wind of its return, some echo ofthe spirit world with which it had been consorting. Who has not knownwhat it is to wake, in a dumb sleeping house, to the certain knowledgeof a cry just uttered, a sentence just spoken, of a laugh or whisperstricken silent on the instant, nor felt the darkness of his roomvibrate and settle into blankness as he listened, and, listening, lostthe substance of that phantom utterance?
But at length for Carlo dream and reality were blended in oneforgetfulness.
Morning weakened, if it could not altogether dissipate, hissuperstitions. Though one be buried in a vault, there's that in themere texture of daylight, even if the thinnest and frowziest, to mufflethe fine sense of hearing. If, in truth, those mystic harmonics stillthrobbed and sighed, his mind had ceased to be attuned to them. He lentit to the more practical business of resuming his examination of hisprison.
At midday, while he was sitting at his dinner, a visitor came andintroduced himself to him, leaping, very bold and impudent, to the tableitself, where he sat up, trimming his whiskers anticipatory. It was amonstrous brown rat; and self-possessed--Lord! Carlo dropped his fistson the cloth, and stared, and then fell to grinning.
'O, you've arrived, have you!' said he. 'Your servant, Messer Topo!'
It was obviously the gentleman's name. At the sound of it,
he loweredhis fore-paws, flopped a step or two nearer, and sat up again. Carloconsidered him delightedly. He was one of those men between whom andanimals is always a sympathetic confidence.
'Is it, Messer Topo,' said he, 'that you desire to honour me with thereversion of a former friendship? What! You flip your whiskers inprotest? No friend, you imply, who could educate your palate to cookedmeats, and then betray it, returning you to old husks? Has he desertedyou, then? Alas, Messer! We who frequent these cellars are not mastersof our exits and our entrances. How passed he from your ken, that sameunknown? Feet-first? Face-first? Tell me, and I'll answer for hisfaith or faithlessness.'
The visitor showed some signs of impatience.
'What!' cried Carlo. 'My grace is overlong? Shall we fall to? Yet,soft. Fain would I know first the value of this proffered love, which,to my base mind, seems to smack a little of the cupboard.'
His hand went into the dish. Messer Topo ceased from preening hismoustache, and stiffened expectant, his paws erect.
'Ha-ha!' cried Carlo. 'You are there, are you? O, Messer Topo, MesserTopo! Even prisoners, I find, possess their parasites.'
He held out a morsel of meat. The big rat took it confidently in hispaws; tested, and approved it; sat up for more.
'What manners!' admired Carlo. 'Art the very pink of Topos. Come,then; we'll dine together.'
Messer Topo acquitted himself with perfect correctness. When satisfied,he sat down and cleaned himself. Carlo ventured to scratch his head.He paused, to submit politely to the attention--which, though undesired,he accepted on its merits--then, the hand being withdrawn, waited amoment for courtesy's sake, and returned to his scouring. In the midst,the key grated in the door, and like a flash he was gone.
'Ehi!' pondered Carlo; 'it is very evident he has been trained to shy atauthority.'
It seemed so, indeed, and that authority knew nothing of him.Otherwise, probably, authority would have resented his interference withits theories of solitary confinement to the extent of trapping andkilling him.
The prisoner saw no more of his little sedate visitor that evening; but,with night and sleep, the voice again took up the tale of his haunting;and this time, somehow, to his dreaming senses, Messer Topo seemed to bethe medium of its piteous conveyance to him. Once more he woke, andslept, and woke again; and always to hear the faint music gaining orlosing body in opposite ratio with his consciousness. He was troubledand perplexed; awake by dawn, and harking for confirmation of hisdreams. But daylight plugged his hearing.
He had expected Messer Topo to breakfast. He did not come. Hecalled--and there he was. They exchanged confidences and discussedbiscuits. The key grated, and Messer Topo was gone.
This day Carlo set himself to solve the mystery of his visitor'slightning disappearances--_Anglice_, to find a rat-hole. Fingering, inthe gloom, along the joint of floor and wall, he presently discovered ajagged hole which he thought might explain. Without removing his hand,he called softly: 'Topo! Messer Topo!' Instantly a little sharp snout,tipped with a chilly nose, touched him and withdrew. He stood up, asthe key turned in the lock once more.
This time it was Messer Jacopo himself who entered, while his bulldogswatched at the door. He came to bring the prisoner a volume of Martial,which Carlo had once had recommended to him, and of which he had sincebethought himself as a possible solace in his gloom. The Provost Marshaladvanced, with the book in his hand, and seeing his captive'soccupation, as he thought, paused, with a dry smile on his lips. Then,with his free palm, he caressed the wall thereabouts.
'Strong masonry, Messer,' he said; 'good four feet thick. And whatbeyond? A dungeon, deadlier than thine own.'
Carlo laughed.
'A heavy task for nails, old hold-fast, sith you have left me nothingelse. _Lasciate ogni speranza_, hey, and all the rest? I know, I know.Yet, look you, there should have been coming and going here once, tojudge by the tokens.'
He signified, with a sweep of his hand, a square patch on the stones,roughly suggestive of a blocked doorway, wherein the mortar certainlyappeared of a date more recent than the rest.
The other made a grim mouth.
'Coming, Messer,' he said; 'but little going. Half-way he sticks whoentered, waiting for the last trump. He'll not move until.'
Carlo recoiled.
'There's one immured there?'
'Ay, these ten years----'
And the wooden creature, laying the book on the table, stalked out likean automaton.
He left the prisoner gulping and staring. Here, in sooth, was food forhis fancy, luckily no great possession. But the horror bit him,nevertheless. Presently he took up the book--tried to forget himself init. He found it certainly very funny, and laughed: found it very gross,and laughed--and then thought of Bernardo, and frowned, and threw thething into a corner. Then he started to his feet and went up and down,nervously, with stealthy glances to the wall. Haunted! No wonder hewas haunted. Did it sob and moan in there o' nights, beating with itspoor blind hands on the stone? Did it----
A thought stung him, and he stopped. The rat! Its run broke into thatnewer mortar, penetrated, perhaps, as far as the buried horror itself.Was _there_ the secret of the music? Was it wont, that hapless spectre,putting its pallid lips to the hole, to sigh nightly through it itsmelodious tale of griefs?
He stood gnawing his thumb-nail.
What might it be--man or woman? There was that legend of a nun withchild by--Nay, horrible! What might it be? Nothing at this last,surely--sexless--just a spongy chalk of bones, a soft rubble for rats tonest in. O, Messer Topo, Messer Topo! on what dust of human tragedy didyou make your bed! Perhaps----
No! perish the thought! Messer Topo was a gentleman--descendant of along line of gentlemen--no hereditary cannibal. He preferred meatscooked to raw. An hereditary guardian, rather, of that flagrant tomb.And yet--
He lay down to rest that night, lay rigid for a long while, battlingwith a monstrous soul-terror. A burst of perspiration relieved him atlast, and he sank into oblivion.
Then, lo! swift and instant, it seemed, the unearthly music caught himin its spell. It was more poignant than he had known it yet--loud,piercing, leaping like the flame of a blown candle. He awoke, sweatingand trembling. The vibration of that gale of sorrow seemed yet ringingin his ears--from the walls, from the ceiling, from the glass rim of hisdrinking-vessel on the table, which repeated it in a thousand tinklingchimes. But again the voice itself had attenuated to a ghost ofsound--a mere AEolian thread of sweetness.
_But it was a voice_.
Carlo sat up on his litter. He was a man of obdurate will, of aconquering resolution; and the moment, unnerving as it seized him out ofsleep, found him nevertheless decided. A shaft of green moonlightstruck down from the high grate into his dungeon, spreading like oilwhere it fell; floating over floor and table; leaving little darkobjects stranded in its midst. Its upper part, reflecting the movingwaters of the moat outside, seemed to boil and curdle in a frantic danceof atoms, as though the spirit music were rising thither in soundlessbubbles.
He listened a minute, scarce breathing; then dropped softly to thefloor, and stole across his chamber, and stooped and listened at thewall.
The next moment he had risen and staggered back, panting, glaring withdilated eyes into the dark. There was no longer doubt. It was by wayof Messer Topo's pierced channel that the music had come welling to him.
But whence?
Commanding himself by a tense effort, he bent once more, and listened.Long now--so long, that one might have heard the passion in his heartconceive, and writhe, and grow big, and at length deliver itself in afierce and woful cry: 'Bernardo! my little, little brother!'
With the words, he leapt up and away--tore hither and thither like amadman--mouthed broken imprecations, fought for articulate speech andself-control. The truth--all the wicked, damnable truth--had burst uponhim in a flash. No ghostly voice was this of a ten years immured; butone, now recognised
, sweet and human beyond compare, the piteoussolution of all his hauntings. The run pierced further than to thatmiddle tragedy--pierced to a tragedy more intimate and dreadful--piercedthrough into the adjoining cell, where lay his child, his little love,perishing of cold and hunger. He read it all in an instant--thedisastrous consequences of his own disaster. And he could not comfortor intervene while this, his pretty swan, was singing himself to deathhard by.
Pity him in that minute. I think, poor wretch, his state was near theworse--so strong, and yet so helpless. He shrieked, he struck himself,he blasphemed. Monstrous? it was monstrous beyond all human limits ofmalignity. So the ring had sped and wrought! What had this angel done,but been an angel? What had Cicada, so hide-bound in his own conceit offolly? Curst watchdogs both, to let themselves be fooled and chainedaway while the wolf was ravening their lamb!
He sobbed, fighting for breath:--
'Messer Topo, Messer Topo! Thou art the only gentleman! I crave thyforgiveness, O, I crave thy forgiveness for that slander! A rat! I'lllove them always--a better gentleman, a better friend, bringing ustogether!'
With the thought, he flung himself down on the floor, and put his ear tothe hole. Still, very faint and remote, the music came leaking by it--avoice; the throb of a lute.
He changed his ear for his lips:--
'Bernardo!' he screamed; 'Bernardo! Bernardo!' and listened anew.
The music had ceased--that was certain. It was succeeded by a confused,indistinguishable murmur, which in its turn died away.
'Bernardo!' he screeched again, and lay hungering for an answer.
It came to him, suddenly, in one rapturous soft cry:--
'Carlo!'
No more. The sweet heart seemed to break, the broken spirit to wing onit. Thereafter was silence, awful and eternal.
He called again and again--no response. He rose, and resumed hismaddened race, to and fro, praying, weeping, clutching at his throat.At length worn out, he threw himself once more by the wall, his ear tothe hole, and lying there, sank into a sort of swoon.
Messer Topo, sniffing sympathetically at his face, awoke him. He satup; remembered; stooped down; sought to cry the dear name again, andfound his voice a mere whisper. That crowned his misery. But he couldstill listen.
No sound, however, rewarded him. He spent the day in a dreadful tensionbetween hope and despair--snarled over the periodic visits of hisgaolers--snarled them from his presence--was for ever crouching andlistening. They fancied his wits going, and nudged one another andgrinned. He never thought to question them; was always one of thosestrong souls who find, not ask, the way to their own ends. He knew theywould lie to him, and was only impatient of their company. Seeing hisstate, they were at the trouble to take some extra precautions, alwaysposting a guard on the stairs before entering his cell. Messer Lanti,normal, was sufficiently formidable; possessed, there was no foretellinghis possibilities.
But they might have reassured themselves. Escape, at the moment, wasfarthest from his thoughts or wishes. He would have stood for hisdungeon against the world; he clung to his wall, like a frozenragamuffin to the outside of a baker's oven.
Presently he bethought himself of an occupation, at once suggestive andtime-killing. He had been wearing his spurs when captured--weapons, ofa sort, overlooked in the removal of deadlier--and these, in view ofvague contingencies, he had taken off and hidden in his bed. Hisprecaution was justified; he saw a certain use for them now; and so,procuring them, set to work to enlarge with their rowels the opening ofthe rat hole. He wrought busily and energetically. Messer Topo sat byhim a good deal, watching, with courteous and even curious forbearance,this really insolent desecration of his front door. They dined togetheras usual; and then Carlo returned to his work. His plan was to enlargethe opening into a funnel-like mouth, meeter for receiving and conveyingsounds. It had occurred to him that the point of the tiny passage'sissue into the next cell might be difficult of localisation by oneimprisoned there, especially if the search--as he writhed to pictureit--was to be made in a blinding gloom. If he could only have continuedto help by his voice--to cry 'Here! Here!' in this tragic game ofhide-and-seek! He wrought dumbly, savagely, nursing his lungs againstthat moment. But still by night it had not come to be his.
Then, all in an instant, an inspiration came to him. He sat down, andwrote upon a slip of paper: '_From Carlo Lanti, prisoner and neighbour.Mark who brings thee this--whence he issues, and whither returns.Speak, then, by that road_--' and having summoned Messer Topo, fastenedthe billet by a thread about his neck, and, carrying him to his run,dismissed him into it. Wonder of wonders! the great little beastdisappeared upon his errand. Henceforth kill them for vermin thatcalled the rat by such a name!
Messer Topo did not return. What matter, if he had sped his mission?Only, had he? There was the torture. Hour after hour went by, and stillno sign.
Carlo fell asleep, with his ear to the funnel. That night the music didnot visit him. He awoke--to daylight, and the knowledge of a sudden cryin his brain. Tremulous, he turned, and found his voice had come back tohim, and cleared it, and quavered hoarsely into the hole, 'Who speaks?Who's there?'
He dwelt in agony on the answer--thin, exhausted, a croaking gasp, itreached him at length:--
'Cicca--the Fool--near sped.'
'The Fool! Thou--thou and none other?' His cry was like a wolf's atnight; 'none other? Bernardo!' he screeched.
A pause--then: 'Dead, dead, dead!' came wheezing and pouring from thehole.
'Ah!'
He fell back; swayed in a mortal vertigo; rallied. He was quite calm onthe instant--calm?--a rigid, bloodless devil. He set his mouth andspoke, picking his words:--
'So? Is it so? All trapped together, then? When did he die?'
'Quick!' clucked the voice; 'quick, and let me pass. When, say'st?Time's dead and rotten here. I know not. A' heard thee call--androused--and shrieked thy name. His heart broke on it. A' spoke neveragain. All's said and done. What more? I could not find the hole--tillthy rat came. Speak quick.'
What more? What more to mend or mar? Nothing, now. Hope was as dead asTime--a poxed and filthy corpse. Love, Faith, and Charity--dead andputrid. Only two things remained--two things to hug and fondle: revengeand Messer Topo. He bent and spoke again:--
'Starved to death?'
'Starved----'
The queer, far little mutter seemed to reel and swerve into a tinkle--anecho--was gone. Carlo called, and called again--no answer. Then he sethimself to ruminate--a cud of gall and poison.
On the eighth morning of his confinement, Jacopo, in person and alone,suddenly showed himself at the door, which he threw wide open.
'Free, Messer,' he said; 'and summoned under urgency to the palace.'
Carlo nodded, and asked not a single question, receiving even hisweapons back in silence. He had had a certain presentiment that thismoment would arrive. He begged only that the Provost Marshal wouldleave him to himself a minute. He had some thanks to offer up, he said,with a smile, which had been better understood and dreaded by a gentlersoul.
The master gaoler was a religious man, and acquiesced willingly, goingforward a little up the stairway, that the other might be private.Carlo, thereupon, stepped across to the wall, and whispered for MesserTopo.
The big rat responded at once, coming out and sitting up at attention.Carlo put his hands under his shoulders, and lifting him (the two wereby now on the closest terms of intimacy), apostrophised him face toface:--
'My true, mine only friend at last,' he said (his voice was thick andchoking). 'I must go, leaving him to thee. Be reverent with him for mysake--ah! if I return not anon, to carry out and plant that sweet corsein the daisied grass he loved--not dust to dust, but flower to the dearflowers. Look to it. Shall I never see him more--nor thee? I knownot. I've that to do first may part us to eternity--yet must I do it.Come, kiss me God-be-with-ye. Nay, that's a false word. How can He,and this bloody ensign on my bro
w? My brain in me doth knell alreadylike a leper's bell. Canst hear it, red-eyes? No God for me. Whyshould I need Him--tell me that? Christ could not save His friend. Imust go alone--quite alone at last. Only remember I loved thee--alwaysremember that. And so, thou fond and pretty thing, farewell.'
He put his lips to the little furry head; put the animal gently down;longed to it a moment; then, as it disappeared into its run, turned witha wet and burdened sigh.
But, even with the sound, a black and gripping frost seemed to fall uponhim. He drew himself up, set his face to the door, and passed out andon to freedom and the woful deed he contemplated.