CHAPTER XLVI
THE LAST
There is hard winter overhead in the mountains when Italian Springwalks the mountain-sides with flowers, and hangs deep valley-walls withflowers half fruit; the sources of the rivers above are set about withfangs of ice, while the full flat stream runs to a rose of sunlight.High among the mists and snows were the fugitives of Brescia, andthose who for love or pity struggled to save them wandered through theblooming vales, sometimes hearing that they had crossed the frontierinto freedom, and as often that they were scattered low in death andcaptivity. Austria here, Switzerland yonder, and but one depth betweento bound across and win calm breathing. But mountain might call tomountain, peak shine to peak; a girdle of steel drove the hunted menback to frosty heights and clouds, the shifting bosom of snows andlightnings. They saw nothing of hands stretched out to succour. They sawa sun that did not warm them, a home of exile inaccessible, crags likean earth gone to skeleton in hungry air; and below, the land oftheir birth, beautiful, and sown everywhere for them with torture andcaptivity, or death, the sweetest. Fifteen men numbered the escape fromBrescia. They fought their way twice through passes of the mountains,and might easily, in their first dash Northward from the South-facinghills, have crossed to the Valtelline and Engadine, but that in theirinsanity of anguish they meditated another blow, and were readier tomarch into the plains with the tricolour than to follow any course offlight. When the sun was no longer in their blood they thought of reasonand of rest; they voted the expedition to Switzerland, that so theyshould get round to Rome, and descended from the crags of the Tonale,under which they were drawn to an ambush, suffering three of their partykilled, and each man bloody with wounds. The mountain befriended them,and gave them safety, as truth is given by a bitter friend. Among icycrags and mists, where the touch of life grows dull as the nail of afore-finger, the features of the mountain were stamped on them, and withhunger they lost pride, and with solitude laughter; with endless fleeingthey lost the aim of flight; some became desperate, a few craven.Companionship was broken before they parted in three bodies, commandedseverally by Colonel Corte, Carlo Ammiani, and Barto Rizzo. Cortereached the plains, masked by the devotion of Carlo's band, who luredthe soldiery to a point and drew a chase, while Corte passed theline and pushed on for Switzerland. Carlo told off his cousin AngeloGuidascarpi in the list of those following Corte; but when he fled upto the snows again, he beheld Angelo spectral as the vapour on a jutof rock awaiting him. Barto Rizzo had chosen his own way, none knewwhither. Carlo, Angelo, Marco Sana, and a sharply-wounded Brescian lad,conceived the scheme of traversing the South Tyrol mountain-range towardFriuli, whence Venice, the still-breathing republic, might possibly begained. They carried the boy in turn till his arms drooped long down,and when they knew the soul was out of him they buried him in snow, andthought him happy. It was then that Marco Sana took his death for anomen, and decided them to turn their heads once more for Switzerland;telling them that the boy, whom he last had carried, uttered "Rome" withthe flying breath. Angelo said that Sana would get to Rome; and Carlo,smiling on Angelo, said they were to die twins though they had been bornonly cousins. The language they had fallen upon was mystical, scarceintelligible to other than themselves. On a clear morning, with theSwiss peaks in sight, they were condemned by want of food to quit theirfastness for the valley.
Vittoria read the faces of the mornings as human creatures base triedto gather the sum of their destinies off changing surfaces, fair notmeaning fair, nor black black, but either the mask upon the secretof God's terrible will; and to learn it and submit, was the spiritualburden of her motherhood, that the child leaping with her heartmight live. Not to hope blindly, in the exceeding anxiousness of herpassionate love, nor blindly to fear; not to bet her soul fly out amongthe twisting chances; not to sap her great maternal duty by affectingfalse stoical serenity:--to nurse her soul's strength, and suckle herwomanly weakness with the tsars which are poison--when repressed; tobe at peace with a disastrous world for the sake of the dependent lifeunborn; lay such pure efforts she clung to God. Soft dreams of sacrednuptial tenderness, tragic images, wild pity, were like phantomsencircling her, plucking at her as she went, lest they were beneath herfeet, and she kept them from lodging between her breasts. The thoughtthat her husband, though he should have perished, was not a life lostif their child lived, sustained her powerfully. It seemed to whisper attimes almost as it were Carlo's ghost breathing in her ears: "On thee!"On her the further duty devolved; and she trod down hope, lest it shouldbuild her up and bring a shock to surprise her fortitude; she put backalarm.
The mountains and the valleys scarce had names for her understanding;they were but a scene where the will of her Maker was at work. Rarelyhas a soul been so subjected to its own force. She certainly had theimage of God in her mind.
Yet when her ayes lingered on any mountain gorge, the fate of herhusband sang within it a strange chant, ending in a key that rangsounding through all her being, and seemed to question heaven. Thismusic framed itself; it was still when she looked at the shroudedmountain-tops. A shadow meting sunlight on the long green slopes arousedit, and it hummed above the tumbling hasty foam, and penetrated hangingdepths of foliage, sad-hued rock-clefts, dark green ravines; it becameconvulsed where the mountain threw forward in a rushing upward lineagainst the sky, there to be severed at the head by cloud. It was silentamong the vines.
Most painfully did human voices affect her when she had this music;speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing, and touch distressed her:an edge of purple flame would then unfold the vision of things toher eyes. She had lost memory; and if by hazard unawares one idea wasprojected by some sudden tumult of her enslaved emotions beyond knownand visible circumstances, her intelligence darkened with am oppressivedread like that of zealots of the guilt of impiety.
Thus destitute, her eye took innumerable pictures sharp as on abrass-plate: torrents, goat-tracks winding up red earth, rocks veiledwith water, cottage and children, strings of villagers mounting to thechurch, one woman kneeling before a wayside cross, her basket ather back, and her child gazing idly by; perched hamlets, rollingpasture-fields, the vast mountain lines. She asked all that she saw,"Does he live?" but the life was out of everything, and these showstold of no life, neither of joy nor of grief. She could only distantlyconnect the appearance of the white-coated soldiery with the source ofher trouble. They were no more than figures on a screen that hid theflashing of the sword which renders dumb. She had charity for one whowas footsore and sat cherishing his ankle by a village spring, and shefed him, and not until he was far behind, thought that he might haveseen the white face of her husband.
Accurate tidings could not be obtained, though the whole course of thevale was full of stories of escapes, conflicts, and captures. Merthyrlearnt positively that some fugitives had passed the cordon. He cameacross Wilfrid and Count Karl, who both verified it in the most sanguinemanner. They knew, however, that Major Nagen continued in the mountains.Riding by a bend of the road, Merthyr beheld a man playing amongchildren, with one hand and his head down apparently for concealment athis approach. It proved to be Beppo. The man believed that Count Ammianihad fled to Switzerland. Barto Rizzo, he said, was in the mountainsstill, and Beppo invoked damnation on him, as the author of those lyingproclamations which had ruined Brescia. He had got out of the city laterthan the others and was seeking to evade the outposts, that he mightjoin his master--"that is, my captain, for I have only one master;" hecorrected the slip of his tongue appealingly to Merthyr. His left handwas being continually plucked at by the children while he talked, andafter Merthyr had dispersed them with a shower of small coin, he showedthe hand, saying, glad of eye, that it had taken a sword-cut intendedfor Count Ammiani. Merthyr sent him back to mount the carriage,enjoining him severely not to speak.
When Carlo and his companions descended from the mountains, they entereda village where there was an inn recognized by Angelo as the abode ofJacopo Cruchi. He there revived Carlo's animosity toward We
isspriessby telling the tale of the passage to Meran, and his good reasons fordetermining to keep guard over the Countess Alessandra all the way.Subsequently Angelo went to Jacopo for food. This he procured, but hewas compelled to leave the man behind, and unpaid. It was dark when heleft the inn; he had some difficulty in evading a flock of whitecoats,and his retreat from the village was still on the Austrian side.Somewhat about midnight Merthyr reached the inn, heralding the carriage.As Jacopo caught sight of Vittoria's face, he fell with his shouldersstraightened against the wall, and cried out loudly that he had betrayedno one, and mentioned Major Weisspriess by name as having held the pointof his sword at him and extracted nothing better than a wave of thehand and a lie; in other words, that the fugitives had retired to theTyrolese mountains, and that he had shammed ignorance of who they were.Merthyr read at a glance that Jacopo had the large swallow and calmdigestion for bribes, and getting the fellow alone he laid money inview, out of which, by doubling the sum to make Jacopo correct his firststatement, and then by threatening to withdraw it altogether, he gainedknowledge of the fact that Angelo Guidascarpi had recently visited theinn, and had started from it South-eastward, and that Major Weisspriesswas following on his track. He wrote a line of strong entreaty toWeisspriess, lest that officer should perchance relapse into angerat the taunts of prisoners abhorring him with the hatred of Carlo andAngelo. At the same time he gave Beppo a considerable supply of money,and then sent him off, armed as far as possible to speed Count Ammianisafe across the borders, if a fugitive; or if a prisoner, to ensure thebest which could be hoped for him from an adversary become generous.That evening Vittoria lay with her head on Laura's lap, and the pearlylittle crescent of her ear in moonlight by the window. So fair and youngand still she looked that Merthyr feared for her, and thought of sendingher back to Countess Ammiani.
Her first question with the lifting of her eyelids was if he had ceasedto trust to her courage.
"No," said Merthyr; "there are bounds to human strength; that is all."
She answered: "There would be to mine--if I had not more than humanstrength beside me. I bow my head, dearest; it is that. I feel that Icannot break down as long as I know what is passing. Does my husbandlive?"
"Yes, he lives," said Merthyr; and she gave him her hand, and went toher bed.
He learnt from Laura that when Beppo mounted the carriage in silence, afit of ungovernable wild trembling had come on her, broken at intervalsby a cry that something was concealed. Laura could give no advice;she looked on Merthyr and Vittoria as two that had an incomprehensibleknowledge of the power of one another's natures, and the fiery creatureremained passive in perplexity of minds as soft an attendant as asuffering woman could have:
Merthyr did not sleep, and in the morning Vittoria said to him, "Youwant to be active, my friend. Go, and we will wait for you here. I knowthat I am never deceived by you, and when I see you I know that thetruth speaks and bids me be worthy of it Go up there," she pointed withshut eyes at the mountains; "leave me to pray for greater strength. I amamong Italians at this inn; and shall spend money here; the poor peoplelove it." She smiled a little, showing a glimpse of her old charitablehumour.
Merthyr counselled Laura that in case of evil tidings during his absenceshe should reject her feminine ideas of expediency, and believe that shewas speaking to a brave soul firmly rooted in the wisdom of heaven.
"Tell her?--she will die," said Laura, shuddering.
"Get tears from her," Merthyr rejoined; "but hide nothing from her fora single instant; keep her in daylight. For God's sake, keep her indaylight."
"It's too sharp a task for me." She repeated that she was incapable ofit.
"Ah," said he, "look at your Italy, how she weeps! and she has cause.She would die in her grief, if she had no faith for what is to come. Idare say it is not, save in the hearts of one or two, a conscious faith,but it's real divine strength; and Alessandra Ammiani has it. Do as Ibid you. I return in two days."
Without understanding him, Laura promised that she would do her utmostto obey, and he left her muttering to herself as if she were schoolingher lips to speak reluctant words. He started for the mountains withgladdened limbs, taking a guide, who gave his name as Lorenzo, andtalked of having been 'out' in the previous year. "I am a patriot,signore! and not only in opposition to my beast of a wife, I assure you:a downright patriot, I mean." Merthyr was tempted to discharge him atfirst, but controlled his English antipathy to babblers, and discoveredhim to be a serviceable fellow. Toward nightfall they heard shots upa rock-strewn combe of the lower slopes; desultory shots indicatingrifle-firing at long range. Darkness made them seek shelter in apine-hut; starting from which at dawn, Lorenzo ran beating about like adog over the place where the shots had sounded on the foregoing day; hefound a stone spotted with blood. Not far from the stone lay a militaryglove that bore brown-crimson finger-ends. They were striking off toa dairy-but for fresh milk, when out of a crevice of rock overhungby shrubs a man's voice called, and Merthyr climbing up from perch toperch, saw Marco Sana lying at half length, shot through hand andleg. From him Merthyr learnt that Carlo and Angelo had fled higher up;yesterday they had been attacked by coming who tried to lure there tosurrender by coming forward at the head of his men and offering safety,and "other gabble," said Marco. He offered a fair shot at his heart,too, while he stood below a rock that Marco pointed at gloomily as ahope gone for ever; but Carlo would not allow advantage to be taken ofeven the treacherous simulation of chivalry, and only permitted firingafter he had returned to his men. "I was hit here and here," said Marco,touching his wounds, as men can hardly avoid doing when speaking of thefresh wound. Merthyr got him on his feet, put money in his pocket, andled him off the big stones painfully. "They give no quarter," Marcoassured him, and reasoned that it must be so, for they had not takenhim prisoner, though they saw him fall, and ran by or in view of him inpursuit of Carlo. By this Merthyr was convinced that Weisspriessmeant well. He left his guide in charge of Marco to help him into theEngadine. Greatly to his astonishment, Lorenzo tossed the back of hishand at the offer of money. "There shall be this difference between meand my wife," he remarked; "and besides, gracious signore, serving mycountrymen for nothing, that's for love, and the Tedeschi can't punishme for it, so it's one way of cheating them, the wolves!" Merthyr shookhis hand and said, "Instead of my servant, be my friend;" and Lorenzomade no feeble mouth, but answered, "Signore, it is much to my honour,"and so they went different ways.
Left to himself Merthyr set step vigorously upward. Information fromherdsmen told him that he was an hour off the foot of one of the passes.He begged them to tell any hunted men who might come within hail that afriend ran seeking them. Farther up, while thinking of the fine natureof that Lorenzo, and the many men like him who could not by the veryexistence of nobility in their bosoms suffer their country to go throughanother generation of servitude, his heart bounded immensely, for heheard a shout and his name, and he beheld two figures on a rock near thegorge where the mountain opened to its heights. But they were not Carloand Angelo. They were Wilfrid and Count Karl, the latter of whom haddiscerned him through a telescope. They had good news to revive him,however: good at least in the main. Nagen had captured Carlo and Angelo,they believed; but they had left Weisspriess near on Nagen's detachment,and they furnished sound military reasons to show why, if Weisspriessfavoured the escape, they should not be present. They supposed that theywere not half-a-mile from the scene in the pass where Nagen was beingforcibly deposed from his authority: Merthyr borrowed Count Karl'sglass, and went as they directed him round a bluff of the descendinghills, that faced the vale, much like a blown and beaten sea-cliff.Wilfrid and Karl were so certain of Count Ammiani's safety, that theironly thought was to get under good cover before nightfall, andhaply into good quarters, where the three proper requirements of thesoldier-meat, wine, and tobacco--might be furnished to them. After animperative caution that they should not present themselves before theCountess Alessandra, Merthyr sped quickly over the broke
n ground. Howgaily the two young men cheered to him as he hurried on! He met a sortof pedlar turning the bluntfaced mountain-spur, and this man said, "Yes,sure enough, prisoners had been taken," and he was not aware of harmhaving been done to them; he fancied there was a quarrel between twocaptains. His plan being always to avoid the military, he had slunkround and away from them as fast as might be. An Austrian commonsoldier, a good-humoured German, distressed by a fall that had hurthis knee-cap, sat within the gorge, which was very wide at the mouth.Merthyr questioned him, and he, while mending one of his gatheredcigar-ends, pointed to a meadow near the beaten track, some distance upthe rocks. Whitecoats stood thick on it. Merthyr lifted his telescopeand perceived an eager air about the men, though they stood ranged incareless order. He began to mount forthwith, but amazed by a suddenringing of shot, he stopped, asking himself in horror whether it couldbe an execution. The shots and the noise increased, until the confusionof a positive mellay reigned above. The fall of the meadow swept toa bold crag right over the pathway, and with a projection that seensideways made a vulture's head and beak of it. There rolled a corpsedown the precipitous wave of green grass on to the crag, where itlodged, face to the sky; sword dangled from swordknot at one wrist,heels and arms were in the air, and the body caught midway hung poisedand motionless. The firing deadened. Then Merthyr drawing nearer beneaththe crag, saw one who had life in him slipping down toward the body,and knew the man for Beppo. Beppo knocked his hands together and groanedmiserably, but flung himself astride the beak of the crag, and tookthe body in his arms, sprang down with it, and lay stunned at Merthyr'sfeet. Merthyr looked on the face of Carlo Ammiani.