The Finger of Fate: A Romance

And again the cell resounded with his fierce, exultant laughter.

“Cospetto!” cried the chief, suddenly changing tone, as his eye fell upon a white object lying in the corner of the cell; “what’s this? Una lettera! And carta bianca! And here, pen and ink! So, so, signore! you’ve been carrying on a correspondence? Bring him out to the light!” he vociferated. “Bring everything!”

And with a fierce oath he rushed into the open air, one of his followers dragging the captive after him. Another carried the sheet of paper – surplus of the supply left by Popetta – as also the ink-horn and pen.

The whole band had by this time gathered upon the ground.

“Comrades!” cried the capo, “there’s been treason in our absence. See what we’ve found. Paper, pen, and ink, in the cell of our prisoner. And, look – on his fingers the stain! He’s been writing letters! What could they have been about but to betray us? Examine him. See if they be still upon his person!”

The search was instantly made – extending to every pocket of the prisoner’s dress, every fold where a letter might be concealed. One was brought to light, but evidently not of recent writing. It was the letter of introduction to the father of Luigi Torreani.

“To whom is it addressed?” asked the chief, snatching it from the hands of his satellite.

“Diavolo!” he exclaimed, on reading the superscription. “Here’s a correspondence unexpected!”

Without further delay he pulled the epistle out of its envelope, and commenced making himself master of the contents. He did not communicate them to the bystanders; but the expression that passed over his countenance told them that the letter contained something that strangely interested him. It was like the grim smile of the tiger, who feels that the prey has been already secured, and lies helpless within reach of his claws.

“So, signore!” he exclaimed, once more bending his eyes upon the young Englishman. “You told me you had no friends in Italy. Una menzogna that was. Rich friends you have – powerful friends. The chief magistrate of a town, with,” he satirically whispered, placing his lips close to the captive’s ear, “with a very pretty daughter! What a pity you did not have an opportunity to present your letter of introduction. Never mind; you may make her acquaintance yet – soon, perhaps, and here among the mountains. That will be all the more romantic, signor pittore.”

The whispered insinuation, as also the satirical tone in which it was made, passed like a poisoned shaft through the heart of Henry Harding. Every hour, since the first of his captivity, his interest conceived for the sister of Luigi Torreani had been growing stronger, while that hitherto felt for Belle Mainwaring had passed altogether out of his mind.

Stung by the speeches of the brigand, he made no reply. Anything he could have said would have served no purpose, even had there been opportunity to say it. But there was not. The tormentor thought not of listening to any response from his prisoner; and, without waiting for one, he continued: —

“Compagnos!” cried he, addressing himself to his band, “you have here before you the proofs of treason. No wonder the soldiers are gathering upon our track. It remains for you to discover who have been the traitors.”

“Yes, yes!” cried a score of voices. “The traitors! Who are they? Let us know that, and we’ll settle the score with them!”

“Our prisoner here,” continued the chief, “has written a letter – as you can all see for yourselves. It has been despatched, too: since it is not upon his person. To whom has it been sent? Who carried it? Who supplied him with pen, ink, and paper? These are the questions to be considered.”

“Who was left to keep guard over him?” inquired one of the men.

“Tommaso!” answered several.

“Where is Tommaso?” shouted a score of voices.

“I am here!” responded the brigand who bore that name.

“Answer us then. Did you do this?”

“Do what?”

“Furnish the writing materials to our prisoner?”

“No,” firmly replied Tommaso.

“You need not waste your time questioning him,” interposed a voice, recognised as that of Popetta. “It was I who furnished them.”

“Yes,” said the rival brigandess, speaking aside to several members of the band, “not only found them, but carried them to the cell herself.”

“Tutti!” cried the chief, in a voice of thunder, that stilled the murmurs produced by this communication. “For what purpose did you supply them, Cara Popetta?”

“For the common good,” replied the woman, seemingly with the intent to give justification for what she had done.

“How?” shouted a score of voices.

“Cospetto!” exclaimed the accused, “the thing is simple enough.”

“Explain it! Explain it!”

“Buono! buono! Listen, and I will. Well, like yourselves, I want to procure the riscatta. I didn’t think the Inglese would get it for us. The letter directed by him wasn’t strong enough. While you were gone, having nothing else to think of, I prevailed upon the galantuomo to write another. What harm was there in that?”

“It was to his father, then?” asked one of the spokesmen.

“Of course it was,” replied Popetta, with a scornful inclination of the head.

“How was it sent?”

“To the posta at Rome. The young man knew how to address it.”

“Who carried it to Rome?”

To this question there was no answer. Popetta had turned aside, and pretended not to hear.

“Compagnos!” cried the chief, “make inquiry, and find out who of those left behind has been absent while we were gone.”

A man was pointed out by the accuser of Popetta. He was a greenhorn – one of the recent recruits of the band, not yet admitted to the privileges of the “giro.” The cross-questioning to which he was submitted soon produced its effect. Notwithstanding the promise of secrecy given to her who had selected him for a messenger, he confessed all. Unfortunately for Popetta, the fellow had been taught to read, and knew enough arithmetic to tell that he carried two letters instead of one. He was able to say that one was for the father of the prisoner. So far, Popetta had spoken the truth. It was the second letter that condemned her. That had been directed to Signor Torreani.

“Hear that!” cried several of the brigands, as soon as the name was announced, and without listening to the address. “The Signor Torreani! Why, it is the sindico of Val di Orno! No wonder we’re being beset with soldiers! Every one knows that Torreani has never been our friend!”

“Besides,” remarked the brigandess who had started the accusation, “why such friendship to a prisoner? Why has he had all the confetti, rosalio, the best things in the place – to say nothing of the company of the signorina herself? Depend upon it, compagnos, there has been treasonable conspiracy!”

Poor Popetta! her time was come. Her husband – if such he was – had found the opportunity long wanted – not to protect, but get rid of her. He could now do so with perfect impunity – even without blame. With the cunning of a tiger he had approached the dread climax; with the ferocity of a tiger he seized upon the opportunity.

“Compagnos!” appealed he, in a tone pretended to be sad; “I need not tell you how hard it is to hear these charges against one who is dear to me – my own wife. And it is harder to think they have been proved. But we are banded together by a law that cannot be broken – the law of self-preservation. That must be mutual among us. To infringe this law would lead to our dissolution – our ruin – and we have sworn to one another, that he, or she, who does aught contrary to it, shall suffer death! Death, though it be brother, sister, wife, or mistress. I, whom you have chosen for your chief, shall prove myself true. By this may you believe me.”

While in the act of speaking the last words, the brigand sprang forward, until he stood by the side of his accused wife – Popetta. Her cry of terror was quickly succeeded by one of a different intonation. It was a shrill scream of agony, gradually subdued to the expiring accents of death, as the woman sank back upon the grass, with a poniard transfixed in her heart!

The scene that followed calls for no description. There was sign of neither weeping, nor woe, in that savage assemblage. There may have been pity; but if there was, it did not declare itself. The murderous chieftain strode quietly away to his quarters, and there sought concealment. He was too hardened to have remorse. Some of his subordinates removed from the spot the ghastly evidence of his crime – burying the body of the brigandess in a ravine close by. But not until they had stripped it of its glittering adornments – the spoils of many a fair maiden of the Campagna.

The prisoner was carried back to his cell, and there left to reflect on the tragedy just enacted – on the fate of poor Popetta. To his excited imagination it appeared but the foreshadowing of a still more fearful fate in store for himself.

Chapter Thirty Seven

A Tough Amputation

During three days succeeding the tragical event recorded, there was tranquillity in the bandit quarters – that gloomy quiet that succeeds some terrible occurrence, alike telling that it has occurred.

So far as Henry Harding saw, the chief kept himself indoors – as if doing decent penance for the brutal crime he had committed.