"AND I once more most earnestly assure Your
Eminence that your refusal is endangering the
peace of the town."
The Governor tried to preserve the respectful
tone due to a high dignitary of the Church; but
there was audible irritation in his voice. His liver
was out of order, his wife was running up heavy
bills, and his temper had been sorely tried during
the last three weeks. A sullen, disaffected populace,
whose dangerous mood grew daily more apparent; a
district honeycombed with plots and bristling with
hidden weapons; an inefficient garrison, of whose
loyalty he was more than doubtful, and a Cardinal
whom he had pathetically described to his adjutant
as the "incarnation of immaculate pig-headedness,"
had already reduced him to the verge of desperation.
Now he was saddled with the Gadfly, an animated
quintessence of the spirit of mischief.
Having begun by disabling both the Governor's
favourite nephew and his most valuable spy, the
"crooked Spanish devil" had followed up his
exploits in the market-place by suborning the
guards, browbeating the interrogating officers,
and "turning the prison into a bear-garden." He
had now been three weeks in the fortress, and the
authorities of Brisighella were heartily sick of their
bargain. They had subjected him to interrogation
upon interrogation; and after employing, to
obtain admissions from him, every device of threat,
persuasion, and stratagem which their ingenuity
could suggest, remained just as wise as on the day
of his capture. They had begun to realize that
it would perhaps have been better to send him into
Ravenna at once. It was, however, too late to
rectify the mistake. The Governor, when sending
in to the Legate his report of the arrest, had
begged, as a special favour, permission to superintend
personally the investigation of this case; and,
his request having been graciously acceded to, he
could not now withdraw without a humiliating
confession that he was overmatched.
The idea of settling the difficulty by a courtmartial
had, as Gemma and Michele had foreseen,
presented itself to him as the only satisfactory
solution; and Cardinal Montanelli's stubborn refusal
to countenance this was the last drop which
made the cup of his vexations overflow.
"I think," he said, "that if Your Eminence knew
what I and my assistants have put up with from
this man you would feel differently about the matter.
I fully understand and respect the conscientious
objection to irregularities in judicial
proceedings; but this is an exceptional case and
calls for exceptional measures."
"There is no case," Montanelli answered,
"which calls for injustice; and to condemn a
civilian by the judgment of a secret military tribunal
is both unjust and illegal."
"The case amounts to this, Your Eminence:
The prisoner is manifestly guilty of several capital
crimes. He joined the infamous attempt of
Savigno, and the military commission nominated
by Monsignor Spinola would certainly have had
him shot or sent to the galleys then, had he not
succeeded in escaping to Tuscany. Since that
time he has never ceased plotting. He is known
to be an influential member of one of the most
pestilent secret societies in the country. He is
gravely suspected of having consented to, if not
inspired, the assassination of no less than three
confidential police agents. He has been caught--
one might almost say--in the act of smuggling
firearms into the Legation. He has offered armed
resistance to authority and seriously wounded two
officials in the discharge of their duty, and he is
now a standing menace to the peace and order of
the town. Surely, in such a case, a court-martial
is justifiable."
"Whatever the man has done," Montanelli replied,
"he has the right to be judged according to law."
"The ordinary course of law involves delay, Your
Eminence, and in this case every moment is precious.
Besides everything else, I am in constant
terror of his escaping."
"If there is any danger of that, it rests with you
to guard him more closely."
"I do my best, Your Eminence, but I am
dependent upon the prison staff, and the man
seems to have bewitched them all. I have
changed the guard four times within three weeks;
I have punished the soldiers till I am tired of it,
and nothing is of any use. I can't prevent their
carrying letters backwards and forwards. The
fools are in love with him as if he were a woman."
"That is very curious. There must be something
remarkable about him."
"There's a remarkable amount of devilry--I
beg pardon, Your Eminence, but really this man is
enough to try the patience of a saint. It's hardly
credible, but I have to conduct all the interrogations
myself, for the regular officer cannot stand
it any longer."
"How is that?"
"It's difficult to explain. Your Eminence, but
you would understand if you had once heard the
way he goes on. One might think the interrogating
officer were the criminal and he the judge."
"But what is there so terrible that he can do?
He can refuse to answer your questions, of course;
but he has no weapon except silence."
"And a tongue like a razor. We are all mortal,
Your Eminence, and most of us have made mistakes
in our time that we don't want published
on the house-tops. That's only human nature,
and it's hard on a man to have his little slips of
twenty years ago raked up and thrown in his teeth----"
"Has Rivarez brought up some personal secret
of the interrogating officer?"
"Well, really--the poor fellow got into debt
when he was a cavalry officer, and borrowed a little
sum from the regimental funds----"
"Stole public money that had been intrusted to
him, in fact?"
"Of course it was very wrong, Your Eminence;
but his friends paid it back at once, and the affair
was hushed up,--he comes of a good family,--and
ever since then he has been irreproachable. How
Rivarez found out about it I can't conceive; but
the first thing he did at interrogation was to bring
up this old scandal--before the subaltern, too!
And with as innocent a face as if he were saying
his prayers! Of course the story's all over the
Legation by now. If Your Eminence would only
be present at one of the interrogations, I am sure
you would realize---- He needn't know anything
about it. You might overhear him from------"
Montanelli turned round and looked at the Governor
with an expression which his face did not often wear.
"I am a minister of religion," he said; "not a
police-spy; and eavesdropping forms no part of
my professional duties."
"I--I didn't mean to give offence------"
"I think we shall not get any good out of
discussing this question further. If you will
send the prisoner here, I will have a talk with
him."
"I venture very respectfully to advise Your Eminence
not to attempt it. The man is perfectly
incorrigible. It would be both safer and wiser to
overstep the letter of the law for this once, and get
rid of him before he does any more mischief. It
is with great diffidence that I venture to press the
point after what Your Eminence has said; but after
all I am responsible to Monsignor the Legate for
the order of the town------"
"And I," Montanelli interrupted, "am responsible
to God and His Holiness that there shall
be no underhand dealing in my diocese. Since you
press me in the matter, colonel, I take my stand
upon my privilege as Cardinal. I will not allow a
secret court-martial in this town in peace-time. I
will receive the prisoner here, and alone, at ten
to-morrow morning."
"As Your Eminence pleases," the Governor
replied with sulky respectfulness; and went away,
grumbling to himself: "They're about a pair, as
far as obstinacy goes."
He told no one of the approaching interview till
it was actually time to knock off the prisoner's
chains and start for the palace. It was quite
enough, as he remarked to his wounded nephew,
to have this Most Eminent son of Balaam's ass
laying down the law, without running any risk of
the soldiers plotting with Rivarez and his friends
to effect an escape on the way.
When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the
room where Montanelli was writing at a table
covered with papers, a sudden recollection came
over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he
had sat turning over manuscript sermons in a study
much like this. The shutters had been closed, as
they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller's
voice outside had called: "Fragola! Fragola!"
He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes
and set his mouth in a smile.
Montanelli looked up from his papers.
"You can wait in the hall," he said to the
guards.
"May it please Your Eminence," began the sergeant,
in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness,
"the colonel thinks that this prisoner is
dangerous and that it would be better------"
A sudden flash came into Montanelli's eyes.
"You can wait in the hall," he repeated quietly;
and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses
with a frightened face, left the room with his men.
"Sit down, please," said the Cardinal, when the
door was shut. The Gadfly obeyed in silence.
"Signor Rivarez," Montanelli began after a
pause, "I wish to ask you a few questions, and
shall be very much obliged to you if you will
answer them."
The Gadfly smiled. "My ch-ch-chief occupation
at p-p-present is to be asked questions."
"And--not to answer them? So I have heard;
but these questions are put by officials who are
investigating your case and whose duty is to use
your answers as evidence."
"And th-those of Your Eminence?" There
was a covert insult in the tone more than in the
words, and the Cardinal understood it at once; but
his face did not lose its grave sweetness of
expression.
"Mine," he said, "whether you answer them
or not, will remain between you and me. If they
should trench upon your political secrets, of course
you will not answer. Otherwise, though we are
complete strangers to each other, I hope that you
will do so, as a personal favour to me."
"I am ent-t-tirely at the service of Your Eminence."
He said it with a little bow, and a face
that would have taken the heart to ask favours out
of the daughters of the horse-leech.
"First, then, you are said to have been smuggling
firearms into this district. What are they
wanted for?"
"T-t-to k-k-kill rats with."
"That is a terrible answer. Are all your fellow-men
rats in your eyes if they cannot think as you do?"
"S-s-some of them."
Montanelli leaned back in his chair and looked
at him in silence for a little while.
"What is that on your hand?" he asked
suddenly.
The Gadfly glanced at his left hand. "Old
m-m-marks from the teeth of some of the rats."
"Excuse me; I was speaking of the other
hand. That is a fresh hurt."
The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut
and grazed. The Gadfly held it up. The wrist
was swollen, and across it ran a deep and long
black bruise.
"It is a m-m-mere trifle, as you see," he said.
"When I was arrested the other day,--thanks to
Your Eminence,"--he made another little bow,--
"one of the soldiers stamped on it."
Montanelli took the wrist and examined it
closely. "How does it come to be in such a state
now, after three weeks?" he asked. "It is all
inflamed."
"Possibly the p-p-pressure of the iron has not
done it much good."
The Cardinal looked up with a frown.
"Have they been putting irons on a fresh
wound?"
"N-n-naturally, Your Eminence; that is what
fresh wounds are for. Old wounds are not much
use. They will only ache; you c-c-can't make
them burn properly."
Montanelli looked at him again in the same
close, scrutinizing way; then rose and opened a
drawer full of surgical appliances.
"Give me the hand," he said.
The Gadfly, with a face as hard as beaten iron,
held out the hand, and Montanelli, after bathing
the injured place, gently bandaged it. Evidently
he was accustomed to such work.
"I will speak about the irons," he said. "And
now I want to ask you another question: What do
you propose to do?"
"Th-th-that is very simply answered, Your Eminence.
To escape if I can, and if I can't, to die."
"Why 'to die'?"
"Because if the Governor doesn't succeed in
getting me shot, I shall be sent to the galleys, and
for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have
not got the health to live through it."
Montanelli rested his arm on the table and
pondered silently. The Gadfly did not disturb
him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes,
lazily enjoying the delicious physical sensation of
relief from the chains.
"Supposing," Montanelli began again, "that
you were to succeed in escaping; what should you
do with your life?"
"I have already told Your Eminence; I should
k-k-kill rats."
"You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I
were to let you escape from here now,--supposing
I had the power to do so,--you would use your
freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead
of preventing them?"
The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the
wall. "'Not peace, but a sword';--at l-least I
should be in good company. For my own part,
though, I prefer pistols."
"Signor Rivarez," said the Cardinal with unruffled
composure, "I have not insulted you as
yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends.
May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or
do you wish me to suppose that an atheist cannot
be a gentleman?"
"Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places
courtesy high among the Christian virtues. I remember
your sermon in Florence, on the occasion
of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender."
"That is one of the subjects about which I
wished to speak to you. Would you mind
explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness
you seem to feel against me? If you have
simply picked me out as a convenient target, that
is another matter. Your methods of political controversy
are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics
now. But I fancied at the time that there was some
personal animosity towards me; and if so, I should be
glad to know whether I have ever done you wrong or in
any way given you cause for such a feeling."
Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the
bandaged hand to his throat. "I must refer Your
Eminence to Shakspere," he said with a little
laugh. "It's as with the man who can't endure
a harmless, necessary cat. My antipathy is a
priest. The sight of the cassock makes my
t-t-teeth ache."
"Oh, if it is only that----" Montanelli dismissed
the subject with an indifferent gesture.
"Still," he added, "abuse is one thing and perversion
of fact is another. When you stated, in
answer to my sermon, that I knew the identity
of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake,--I
do not accuse you of wilful falsehood,--and stated
what was untrue. I am to this day quite ignorant
of his name."
The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an
intelligent robin, looked at him for a moment
gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and
burst into a peal of laughter.
"S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent,
Arcadian people--and you never guessed!
You n-never saw the cloven hoof?"
Montanelli stood up. "Am I to understand,
Signor Rivarez, that you wrote both sides of the
controversy yourself?"
"It was a shame, I know," the Gadfly answered,
looking up with wide, innocent blue eyes. "And
you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if it
had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh,
it w-w-was so funny!"
Montanelli bit his lip and sat down again. He
had realized from the first that the Gadfly was trying
to make him lose his temper, and had resolved
to keep it whatever happened; but he was beginning
to find excuses for the Governor's exasperation.
A man who had been spending two hours
a day for the last three weeks in interrogating the
Gadfly might be pardoned an occasional swear-word.
"We will drop that subject," he said quietly.
"What I wanted to see you for particularly is this:
My position here as Cardinal gives me some voice,
if I choose to claim my privilege, in the question
of what is to be done with you. The only use to
which I should ever put such a privilege would be
to interfere in case of any violence to you which
was not necessary to prevent you from doing violence
to others. I sent for you, therefore, partly
in order to ask whether you have anything to
complain of,--I will see about the irons; but perhaps
there is something else,--and partly because
I felt it right, before giving my opinion, to see for
myself what sort of man you are."
"I have nothing to complain of, Your Eminence.
'A la guerre comme a la guerre.' I am
not a schoolboy, to expect any government to pat
me on the head for s-s-smuggling firearms onto its
territory. It's only natural that they should hit
as hard as they can. As for what sort of man I
am, you have had a romantic confession of my sins
once. Is not that enough; or w-w-would you like
me to begin again?"
"I don't understand you," Montanelli said
coldly, taking up a pencil and twisting it between
his fingers.
"Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego,
the pilgrim?" He suddenly changed his voice and began
to speak as Diego: "I am a miserable sinner------"
The pencil snapped in Montanelli's hand.
"That is too much!" he said.
The Gadfly leaned his head back with a soft little
laugh, and sat watching while the Cardinal
paced silently up and down the room.
"Signor Rivarez," said Montanelli, stopping at
last in front of him, "you have done a thing to me
that a man who was born of a woman should hesitate
to do to his worst enemy. You have stolen
in upon my private grief and have made for
yourself a mock and a jest out of the sorrow of a
fellow-man. I once more beg you to tell me:
Have I ever done you wrong? And if not, why
have you played this heartless trick on me?"
The Gadfly, leaning back against the chair-cushions,
looked up with his subtle, chilling, inscrutable smile
"It am-m-mused me, Your Eminence; you took
it all so much to heart, and it rem-m-minded me--
a little bit--of a variety show----"
Montanelli, white to the very lips, turned away
and rang the bell.
"You can take back the prisoner," he said when
the guards came in.
After they had gone he sat down at the table,
still trembling with unaccustomed indignation,
and took up a pile of reports which had been sent
in to him by the parish priests of his diocese.
Presently he pushed them away, and, leaning on
the table, hid his face in both hands. The Gadfly
seemed to have left some terrible shadow of himself,
some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt
the room; and Montanelli sat trembling and
cowering, not daring to look up lest he should see
the phantom presence that he knew was not there.
The spectre hardly amounted to a hallucination.
It was a mere fancy of overwrought nerves; but
he was seized with an unutterable dread of its
shadowy presence--of the wounded hand, the
smiling, cruel mouth, the mysterious eyes, like
deep sea water----
He shook off the fancy and settled to his work.
All day long he had scarcely a free moment, and
the thing did not trouble him; but going into his
bedroom late at night, he stopped on the threshold
with a sudden shock of fear. What if he
should see it in a dream? He recovered himself
immediately and knelt down before the crucifix
to pray.
But he lay awake the whole night through.
