CHAPTER XXVI
THE DUEL IN THE PASS
Meanwhile Captain Weisspriess had not been idle. Standing at a bluntangle of the ways converging upon Vittoria's presumed destination, hehad roused up the gendarmerie along the routes to Meran by Trent on oneside, and Bormio on the other; and he soon came to the conclusion thatshe had rejected the valley of the Adige for the Valtelline, whence hesupposed that she would be tempted either to cross the Stelvio or one ofthe passes into Southernmost Tyrol. He was led to think that she wouldcertainly bear upon Switzerland, by a course of reasoning connectedwith Angelo Guidascarpi, who, fleeing under the cross of blood, mightbe calculated on to push for the mountains of the Republic; and he mightjudging by the hazards--conduct the lady thither, to enjoy the fruits ofcrime and love in security. The captain, when he had discovered Angelo'screst and name on the betraying handkerchief, had no doubts concerningthe nature of their intimacy, and he was spurred by a new and thriceeager desire to capture the couple--the criminal for the purposes ofjustice, and the other because he had pledged his notable reputationin the chase of her. The conscience of this man's vanity was extremelyactive. He had engaged to conquer the stubborn girl, and he thought itpossible that he might take a mistress from the patriot ranks, with aloud ha! ha! at revolutionists, and some triumph over his comrades. Andbesides, he was the favourite of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein, who yetrefused to bring her estates to him; she dared to trifle; she also was awoman who required rude lessons. Weisspriess, a poor soldier bearingthe heritage of lusty appetites, had an eye on his fortune, and servedneither Mars alone nor Venus. Countess Anna was to be among thatcompany assembled at the Castle of Sonnenberg in Meran; and if, whileintroducing Vittoria there with a discreet and exciting reserve, he atthe same time handed over the assassin of Count Paul, a fine harvest ofpraise and various pleasant forms of female passion were to be lookedfor--a rich vista of a month's intrigue; at the end of it possibly hiswealthy lady, thoroughly tamed, for a wife, and redoubled triumph overhis comrades. Without these successes, what availed the fame of thekeenest swordsman in the Austrian army?--The feast as well as the plumesof vanity offered rewards for the able exercise of his wits.
He remained at the sub-Alpine inn until his servant Wilhelm (for whom hehad despatched the duchess's chasseur, then in attendance on Vittoria)arrived from Milan, bringing his uniform. The chasseur was directed onthe Bormio line, with orders that he should cause the arrest ofVittoria only in the case of her being on the extreme limit of the Swissfrontier. Keeping his communications alert, Weisspriess bore that wayto meet him. Fortune smiled on his strategy. Jacob BaumwalderFeckelwitz--full of wine, and discharging hurrahs along the road--methim on the bridge over the roaring Oglio, just out of Edolo, and gavehim news of the fugitives. 'Both of them were at the big hotel inBormio,' said Jacob; 'and I set up a report that the Stelvio waswatched; and so it is.' He added that he thought they were going toseparate; he had heard something to that effect; he believed that theyoung lady was bent upon crossing one of the passes to Meran. Last nightit had devolved on him to kiss away the tears of the young lady's maid,a Valtelline peasant-girl, who deplored the idea of an expedition overthe mountains, and had, with the usual cat-like tendencies of theseItalian minxes, torn his cheek in return for his assiduities. Jacobdisplayed the pretty scratch obtained in the Herr Captain's service, andgot his money for having sighted Vittoria and seen double. Weisspriessdecided in his mind that Angelo had now separated from her (or rather,she from him) for safety. He thought it very probable that she wouldlikewise fly to Switzerland. Yet, knowing that there was the attractionof many friends for her at Meran, he conceived that he should act moreprudently by throwing himself on that line, and he sped Jacob Baumwalderalong the Valtelline by Val Viola, up to Ponte in the Engadine, withorders to seize her if he could see her, and have her conveyed to Cles,in Tyrol. Vittoria being only by the gentlest interpretation of herconduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous Imperial officer mightin those military times venture to employ the gendarmerie for his ownpurposes, if he could but give a plausible colour of devotion to theImperial interests.
The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, taking a guide fromthe skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted the Val Camonica, climbedthe Tonale, and reached Vermiglio in the branch valley of that name,scientifically observing the features of the country as he went.At Vermiglio he encountered a brother officer of one of his formerregiments, a fat major on a tour of inspection, who happened to be aweek behind news of the army, and detained him on the pretext of helpinghim on his car--a mockery that drove Weisspriess to the perpetualreply, 'You are my superior officer,' which reduced the major to ask himwhether he had been degraded a step. As usual, Weisspriess was pushed toassert his haughtiness, backed by the shadow of his sword. 'I am a manwith a family,' said the major, modestly. 'Then I shall call youmy superior officer while they allow you to remain so,' returnedWeisspriess, who scorned a married soldier.
'I aspired to the Staff once myself,' said the major. 'Unfortunately, Igrew in girth--the wrong way for ambition. I digest, I assimilate witha fatal ease. Stout men are doomed to the obscurer paths. You may quoteNapoleon as a contrary instance. I maintain positively that his day wasover, his sun was eclipsed, when his valet had to loosen the buckles ofhis waistcoat and breech. Now, what do you say?'
'I say,' Weisspriess replied, 'that if there's a further depreciation ofthe paper currency, we shall none of us have much chance of digesting orassimilating either--if I know at all what those processes mean.'
'Our good Lombard cow is not half squeezed enough,' observed the major,confidentially in tone. 'When she makes a noise--quick! the pail ather udders and work away; that's my advice. What's the verse?--ourZwitterwitz's, I mean; the Viennese poet:--
"Her milk is good-the Lombard cow; Let her be noisy when she pleases But if she kicks the pail, I vow, We'll make her used to sharper squeezes: We'll write her mighty deeds in CHEESES: (That is, if she yields milk enow)."
'Capital! capital!' the major applauded his quotation, and went on tospeak of 'that Zwitterwitz' as having served in a border regiment, aftercreating certain Court scandal, and of his carrying off a Wallach ladyfrom her lord and selling her to a Turk, and turning Turk himself andkeeping a harem. Five years later he reappeared in Vienna with a volumeof what he called 'Black Eagle Poems,' and regained possession of hisbarony. 'So far, so good,' said the major; 'but when he applied for hisold commission in the army--that was rather too cool.'
Weisspriess muttered intelligibly, 'I've heard the remark, that youcan't listen to a man five minutes without getting something out ofhim.'
'I don't know; it may be,' said the major, imagining that Weisspriessdemanded some stronger flavours of gossip in his talk. 'There's no stirin these valleys. They arrested, somewhere close on Trent yesterdayafternoon, a fellow calling himself Beppo, the servant of an Italianwoman--a dancer, I fancy. They're on the lookout for her too, I'm told;though what sort of capers she can be cutting in Tyrol, I can't evenguess.'
The major's car was journeying leisurely toward Cles. 'Whip that brute!'Weisspriess sang out to the driver, and begging the major's pardon,requested to know whither he was bound. The major informed him thathe hoped to sup in Trent. 'Good heaven! not at this pace,' Weisspriessshouted. But the pace was barely accelerated, and he concealed hisreasons for invoking speed. They were late in arriving at Trent, whereWeisspriess cast eye on the imprisoned wretch, who declared piteouslythat he was the trusted and innocent servant of the Signorina Vittoria,and had been visiting all the castles of Meran in search of her. Thecaptain's man Wilhelm had been the one to pounce on poor Beppo while thelatter was wandering disconsolately. Leaving him to howl, Weisspriessprocured the loan of a horse from a colonel of cavalry at the BuonConsiglio barracks, and mounted an hour before dawn, followed byWilhelm. He reached Cles in time to learn that Vittoria and her partyhad passed through it a little in advance of him. Breakfasting there, heenjoyed the first
truly calm cigar of many days. Gendarmes whom he hadmet near the place came in at his heels. They said that the party wouldpositively be arrested, or not allowed to cross the Monte Pallade.The passes to Meran and Botzen, and the road to Trent, were strictlyguarded. Weisspriess hurried them forward with particular orders thatthey should take into custody the whole of the party, excepting thelady; her, if arrested with the others, they were to release: her maidand the three men were to be marched back to Cles, and there kept fast.
The game was now his own: he surveyed its pretty intricate moves as ona map. The character of Herr Johannes he entirely discarded: an Imperialofficer in his uniform, sword in belt, could scarcely continue thatmeek performance. 'But I may admire music, and entreat her to give mea particular note, if she has it,' said the captain, hanging incontemplation over a coming scene, like a quivering hawk about to closeits wings. His heart beat thick; which astonished him: hitherto it hadnever made that sort of movement.
From Cles he despatched a letter to the fair chatelaine at Meran,telling her that by dainty and skilful management of the paces, he wasbringing on the intractable heroine of the Fifteenth, and was tobe expected in about two or three days. The letter was entrusted toWilhelm, who took the borrowed horse back to Trent.
Weisspriess was on the mule-track a mile above the last villageascending to the pass, when he observed the party of prisoners, andclimbed up into covert. As they went by he discerned but one person infemale garments; the necessity to crouch for obscurity prevented himfrom examining them separately. He counted three men and beheld one ofthem between gendarmes. 'That must be my villain,' he said.
It was clear that Vittoria had chosen to go forward alone. The captainpraised her spirit, and now pushed ahead with hunter's strides. Hepassed an inn, closed and tenantless: behind him lay the Val di Non;in front the darker valley of the Adige: where was the prey? A storm ofrage set in upon him with the fear that he had been befooled. He lit acigar, to assume ease of aspect, whatever the circumstances mightbe, and gain some inward serenity by the outer reflection of it--notaltogether without success. 'My lady must be a doughty walker,' hethought; 'at this rate she will be in the Ultenthal before sunset.' Awooded height ranged on his left as he descended rapidly. Coming to aroll of grass dotted with grey rock, he climbed it, and mounting oneof the boulders, beheld at a distance of half-a-dozen stone-throwsdownward, the figure of a woman holding her hand cup-shape to a waysidefall of water. The path by which she was going rounded the height hestood on. He sprang over the rocks, catching up his clattering steelscabbard; and plunging through tinted leafage and green underwood,steadied his heels on a sloping bank, and came down on the path withstones and earth and brambles, in time to appear as a seated pedestrianwhen Vittoria turned the bend of the mountain way.
Gracefully withdrawing the cigar from his mouth, and touching his breastwith turned-in fingers, he accosted her with a comical operatic effortat her high notes
'Italia!'
She gathered her arms on her bosom and looked swiftly round: then at theapparition of her enemy.
It is but an ironical form of respect that you offer to the prey youhave been hotly chasing and have caught. Weisspriess conceived thathe had good reasons for addressing her in the tone best suited to hischaracter: he spoke with a ridiculous mincing suavity:
'My pretty sweet! are you not tired? We have not seen one another fordays! Can you have forgotten the enthusiastic Herr Johannes? You havebeen in pleasant company, no doubt; but I have been all--all alone.Think of that! What an exceedingly fortunate chance this is! I wassmoking dolefully, and imagining anything but such a rapture.--No, no,mademoiselle, be mannerly.' The captain blocked her passage. 'You mustnot leave me while I am speaking. A good governess would have taught youthat in the nursery. I am afraid you had an inattentive governess, whodid not impress upon you the duty of recognizing friends when you meetthem! Ha! you were educated in England, I have heard. Shake hands. Itis our custom--I think a better one--to kiss on the right cheek and theleft, but we will shake hands.'
'In God's name, sir, let me go on,' Vittoria could just gather voice toutter.
'But,' cried the delighted captain, 'you address me in the tones of abasso profundo! It is absurd. Do you suppose that I am to be deceivedby your artifice?--rogue that you are! Don't I know you are a woman? asweet, an ecstatic, a darling little woman!'
He laughed. She shivered to hear the solitary echoes. There wassunlight on the farthest Adige walls, but damp shade already filled theEast-facing hollows.
'I beg you very earnestly, to let me go on,' said Vittoria.
'With equal earnestness, I beg you to let me accompany you,' he replied.'I mean no offence, mademoiselle; but I have sworn that I and no one butI shall conduct you to the Castle of Sonnenberg, where you will meet theLenkenstein ladies, with whom I have the honour to be acquainted. Yousee, you have nothing to fear if you play no foolish pranks, like akicking filly in the pasture.'
'If it is your pleasure,' she said gravely; but he obtruded the bow ofan arm. She drew back. Her first blank despair at sight of the trap shehad fallen into, was clearing before her natural high courage.
'My little lady! my precious prima donna! do you refuse the mosttrifling aid from me? It's because I'm a German.'
'There are many noble gentlemen who are Germans,' said Vittoria.
'It 's because I'm a German; I know it is. But, don't you see, Germanyinvades Italy, and keeps hold of her? Providence decrees it so--ask thepriests! You are a delicious Italian damsel, and you will take the armof a German.'
Vittoria raised her face. 'Do you mean that I am your prisoner?'
'You did not look braver at La Scala'; the captain bowed to her.
'Ah, I forgot,' said she; 'you saw me there. If, signore, you will do methe favour to conduct me to the nearest inn, I will sing to you.'
'It is precisely my desire, signorina.
You are not married to that man Guidascarpi, I presume? No, no: you aremerely his... friend. May I have the felicity of hearing you call meyour friend? Why, you tremble! are you afraid of me?'
'To tell the truth, you talk too much to please me,' said Vittoria.
The captain praised her frankness, and he liked it. The trembling of herframe still fascinated his eyes, but her courage and the absence of allwomanly play and cowering about her manner impressed him seriously. Hestood looking at her, biting his moustache, and trying to provoke her tosmile.
'Conduct you to the nearest inn; yes,' he said, as if musing. 'Tothe nearest inn, where you will sing to me; sing to me. It is not anobjectionable scheme. The inns will not be choice: but the society willbe exquisite. Say first, I am your sworn cavalier?'
'It does not become me to say that,' she replied, feigning a demuresincerity, on the verge of her patience.
'You allow me to say it?'
She gave him a look of fire and passed him; whereat, following her,he clapped hands, and affected to regard the movement as part of anoperatic scena. 'It is now time to draw your dagger,' he said. 'You haveone, I'm certain.'
'Anything but touch me!' cried Vittoria, turning on him. 'I know that Iam safe. You shall teaze me, if it amuses you.'
'Am I not, now, the object of your detestation?'
'You are near being so.'
'You see! You put on no disguise; why should I?'
This remark struck her with force.
'My temper is foolish,' she said softly. 'I have always been used tokindness.'
He vowed that she had no comprehension of kindness; otherwise would shecontinue defiant of him? She denied that she was defiant: upon which heaccused the hand in her bosom of clutching a dagger. She cast the daggerat his feet. It was nobly done, and he was not insensible to the courageand inspiration of the act; for it checked a little example of a trialof strength that he had thought of exhibiting to an armed damsel.
'Shall I pick it up for you?' he said.
'You will oblige me,' was her answer; but she could not con
trol aconvulsion of her underlip that her defensive instinct told her was besthidden.
'Of course, you know you are safe,' he repeated her previous words,while examining the silver handle of the dagger. 'Safe? certainly!Here is C. A. to V.... A. neatly engraved: a gift; so that the younggentleman may be sure the young lady will defend herself from lionsand tigers and wild boars, if ever she goes through forests and overmountain passes. I will not obtrude my curiosity, but who is V.... A.?'
The dagger was Carlo's gift to her; the engraver, by singularmisadventure, had put a capital letter for the concluding letter of hername instead of little a; she remembered the blush on Carlo's face whenshe had drawn his attention to the error, and her own blush when she hadguessed its meaning.
'It spells my name,' she said.
'Your assumed name of Vittoria. And who is C. A.?'
'Those are the initials of Count Carlo Ammiani.'
'Another lover?'
'He is my sole lover. He is my betrothed. Oh, good God!' she threw hereyes up to heaven; 'how long am I to endure the torture of this man inmy pathway? Go, sir, or let me go on. You are intolerable. It 's thespirit of a tiger. I have no fear of you.'
'Nay, nay,' said Weisspriess, 'I asked the question because I am underan obligation to run Count Carlo Ammiani through the body, and feltat once that I should regret the necessity. As to your not fearing me,really, far from wishing to hurt you--'
Vittoria had caught sight of a white face framed in the autumnal forestabove her head. So keen was the glad expression of her face, thatWeisspriess looked up.
'Come, Angelo, come to me;' she said confidently.
Weisspriess plucked his sword out, and called to him imperiously todescend.
Beckoned downward by white hand and flashing blade, Angelo steadied hisfeet and hands among drooping chestnut boughs, and bounded to Vittoria'sside.
'Now march on,' Weisspriess waved his sword; 'you are my prisoners.'
'You,' retorted Angelo; 'I know you; you are a man marked out for one ofus. I bid you turn back, if you care for your body's safety.'
'Angelo Guidascarpi, I also know you. Assassin! you double murderer!Defy me, and I slay you in the sight of your paramour.'
'Captain Weisspriess, what you have spoken merits death. I implore of myMaker that I may not have to kill you.'
'Fool! you are unarmed.'
Angelo took his stilet in his fist.
'I have warned you, Captain Weisspriess. Here I stand. I dare you toadvance.'
'You pronounce my name abominably,' said the captain, dropping hissword's point. 'If you think of resisting me, let us have no womenlooking on.' He waved his left hand at Vittoria.
Angelo urged her to go. 'Step on for our Carlo's sake.' But it wasasking too much of her.
'Can you fight this man?' she asked.
'I can fight him and kill him.'
'I will not step on,' she said. 'Must you fight him?'
'There is no choice.' Vittoria walked to a distance at once.
Angelo directed the captain's eyes to where, lower in the pass, therewas a level plot of meadow.
Weisspriess nodded. 'The odds are in my favour, so you shall choose theground.'
All three went silently to the meadow.
It was a circle of green on a projecting shoulder of the mountain,bounded by woods that sank toward the now shadowy South-flowingAdige vale, whose Western heights were gathering red colour above astrongly-marked brown line. Vittoria stood at the border of the wood,leaving the two men to their work. She knew when speech was useless.
Captain Weisspriess paced behind Angelo until the latter stopped short,saying, 'Here!'
'Wherever you please,' Weisspriess responded. 'The ground is of moreimportance to you than to me.'
They faced mutually; one felt the point of his stilet, the other thetemper of his sword.
'Killing you, Angelo Guidascarpi, is the killing of a dog. But thereare such things as mad dogs. This is not a duel. It is a righteousexecution, since you force me to it: I shall deserve your thanks forsaving you from the hangman. I think you have heard that I can use myweapon. There's death on this point for you. Make your peace with yourMaker.'
Weisspriess spoke sternly. He delayed the lifting of his sword that thebloody soul might pray.
Angelo said, 'You are a good soldier: you are a bad priest. Come on.'
A nod of magnanimous resignation to the duties of his office was thecaptain's signal of readiness. He knew exactly the method of fightingwhich Angelo must adopt, and he saw that his adversary was supple, andsinewy, and very keen of eye. But, what can well compensate for even oneadditional inch of steel? A superior weapon wielded by a trained wristin perfect coolness means victory, by every reasonable reckoning. In thepresent instance, it meant nothing other than an execution, as he hadsaid. His contemplation of his own actual share in the performancewas nevertheless unpleasant; and it was but half willingly that hestraightened out his sword and then doubled his arm. He lessened theodds in his favour considerably by his too accurate estimation of them.He was also a little unmanned by the thought that a woman was to see himusing his advantage; but she stood firm in her distant corner, refusingto be waved out of sight. Weisspriess had again to assure himself thatit was not a duel, but the enforced execution of a criminal who wouldnot surrender, and who was in his way. Fronting a creature that wouldvainly assail him, and temporarily escape impalement by bounding andspringing, dodging and backing, now here now there, like a danglingbob-cherry, his military gorge rose with a sickness of disgust. He hadto remember as vividly as he could realize it, that this man's lifewas forfeited, and that the slaughter of him was a worthy service toCountess Anna; also, that there were present reasons for desiring to bequit of him. He gave Angelo two thrusts, and bled him. The skill whichwarded off the more vicious one aroused his admiration.
'Pardon my blundering,' he said; 'I have never engaged a saltimbanquebefore.'
They recommenced. Weisspriess began to weigh the sagacity of hisopponent's choice of open ground, where he could lengthen the discourseof steel by retreating and retreating, and swinging easily to right orto left. In the narrow track the sword would have transfixed him aftera single feint. He was amused. Much of the cat was in his combativenature. An idea of disabling or dismembering Angelo, and forwardinghim to Meran, caused him to trifle further with the edge of the blade.Angelo took a cut, and turned it on his arm; free of the deadly point,he rushed in and delivered a stab; but Weisspriess saved his breast.Quick, they resumed their former positions.
'I am really so unused to this game!' said Weisspriess, apologetically.
He was pale: his unsteady breathing, and a deflection of his drippingsword-wrist, belied his coolness. Angelo plunged full on him, dropped,and again reached his right arm; they hung, getting blood for blood,with blazing interpenetrating eyes; a ghastly work of dark hands at halflock thrusting, and savage eyes reading the fiery pages of the book ofhell. At last the Austrian got loose from the lock and hurled him off.
'That bout was hotter,' he remarked; and kept his sword-point out on thewhole length of the arm: he would have scorned another for so miserablea form either of attack or defence.
Vittoria beheld Angelo circling round the point, which met himeverywhere; like the minute hand of a clock about to sound his hour, shethought.
He let fall both his arms, as if beaten, which brought on the attack: bysheer evasion he got away from the sword's lunge, and essayed a secondtrial of the bite of steel at close quarters; but the Austrian backedand kept him to the point, darting short alluring thrusts, thinkingto tempt him on, or to wind him, and then to have him. Weisspriess waschilled by a more curious revulsion from this sort of engagement than heat first experienced. He had become nervously incapable of those properniceties of sword-play which, without any indecent hacking or maiming,should have stretched Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, beforehe had a chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to anhonourable duellist. Angelo was scored
with blood-marks. Feeling that hedared not offer another chance to a fellow so desperately close-dealing,Weisspriess thrust fiercely, but delayed his fatal stroke. Angelostooped and pulled up a handful of grass and soft earth in his lefthand.
'We have been longer about it than I expected,' said Weisspriess.
Angelo tightened his fingers about the stringy grasstuft; he stood likea dreamer, leaning over to the sword; suddenly he sprang on it, receivedthe point right in his side, sprang on it again, and seized it in hishand, and tossed it up, and threw it square out in time to burst withinguard and strike his stilet below the Austrian's collar-bone. The bladetook a glut of blood, as when the wolf tears quick at dripping flesh. Itwas at a moment when Weisspriess was courteously bantering him with thequestion whether he was ready, meaning that the affirmative should openthe gates of death to him.
The stilet struck thrice. Weisspriess tottered, and hung his jaw like aman at a spectre: amazement was on his features.
'Remember Broncini and young Branciani!'
Angelo spoke no other words throughout the combat.
Weisspriess threw himself forward on a feeble lunge of his sword, andlet the point sink in the ground, as a palsied cripple supports hisframe, swayed, and called to Angelo to come on, and try anotherstroke, another--one more! He fell in a lump: his look of amazement wassurmounted by a strong frown.
His enemy was hanging above him panting out of wide nostrils, like ahunter's horse above the long-tongued quarry, when Vittoria came tothem.
She reached her strength to the wounded man to turn his face to heaven.
He moaned, 'Finish me'; and, as he lay with his back to earth,'Good-evening to the old army!'
A vision of leaping tumbrils, and long marching columns about to deploy,passed before his eyelids: he thought he had fallen on the battle-field,and heard a drum beat furiously in the back of his head; and on streamedthe cavalry, wonderfully caught away to such a distance that the figureswere all diminutive, and the regimental colours swam in smoke, and theenemy danced a plume here and there out of the sea, while his mother anda forgotten Viennese girl gazed at him with exactly the same unfamiliarcountenance, and refused to hear that they were unintelligible inthe roaring of guns and floods and hurrahs, and the thumping of thetremendous big drum behind his head--'somewhere in the middle of theearth': he tried to explain the locality of that terrible drumming noiseto them, and Vittoria conceived him to be delirious; but he knew that hewas sensible; he knew her and Angelo and the mountain-pass, and that hehad a cigar-case in his pocket worked in embroidery of crimson, blue,and gold, by the hands of Countess Anna. He said distinctly that hedesired the cigar-case to be delivered to Countess Anna at the Castle ofSonnenberg, and rejoiced on being assured that his wish was comprehendedand should be fulfilled; but the marvel was, that his mother shouldstill refuse to give him wine, and suppose him to be a boy: and whenhe was so thirsty and dry-lipped that though Mina was bending over him,just fresh from Mariazell, he had not the heart to kiss her or lift anarm to her!--His horse was off with him-whither?--He was going down witha company of infantry in the Gulf of Venice: cards were in his hands,visible, though he could not feel them, and as the vessel settled forthe black plunge, the cards flushed all honours, and his mother shookher head at him: he sank, and heard Mina sighing all the length of thewater to the bottom, which grated and gave him two horrid shocks ofpain: and he cried for a doctor, and admitted that his horse had managedto throw him; but wine was the cure, brandy was the cure, or water,water! Water was sprinkled on his forehead and put to his lips.
He thanked Vittoria by name, and imagined himself that General, servingunder old Wurmser, of whom the tale is told that being shot and lyinggrievously wounded on the harsh Rivoli ground, he obtained the help ofa French officer in as bad case as himself, to moisten his black tongueand write a short testamentary document with his blood, and for a way ofreturning thanks to the Frenchman, he put down among others, the nameof his friendly enemy's widow; whereupon both resigned their hearts todeath; but the Austrian survived to find the sad widow and espouse her.
His mutterings were full of gratitude, showing a vividly transientimpression to what was about him, that vanished in a narrow-headedflight through clouds into lands of memory. It pained him, he said, thathe could not offer her marriage; but he requested that when his chinwas shaved his moustache should be brushed up out of the way of theclippers, for he and all his family were conspicuous for the immenseamount of life which they had in them, and his father had lainsix-and-thirty hours bleeding on the field of Wagram, and had yetsurvived to beget a race as hearty as himself:--'Old Austria! thou grandold Austria!'
The smile was proud, though faint, which accompanied the apostrophe,addressed either to his country or to his father's personificationof it; it was inexpressibly pathetic to Vittoria, who understood his'Oesterreich,' and saw the weak and helpless bleeding man, with hiseyeballs working under the lids, and the palms of his hands stretchedout open-weak as a corpse, but conquering death.
The arrival of Jacopo and Johann furnished help to carry him onward tothe nearest place of shelter. Angelo would not quit her side until hehad given money and directions to both the trembling fellows, togetherwith his name, that they might declare the author of the deed at onceif questioned. He then bowed to Vittoria slightly and fled. They did notspeak.
The last sunbeams burned full crimson on the heights of the Adigemountains as Vittoria followed the two pale men who bore the woundedofficer between them at a slow pace for the nearest village in thedescent of the pass.
Angelo watched them out of sight. The far-off red rocks spun round hiseyeballs; the meadow was a whirling thread of green; the brown earthheaved up to him. He felt that he was diving, and had the thought thatthere was but water enough to moisten his red hands when his senses lefthim.