Читать книгу The Siege of Malta (St. Angelo) - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 12

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Angelica, with misery at her cousin’s peril warring with other feelings (but with a bright colour in none), lingered at his side, unsure that he wished her there, but reluctant to go. Antonio stood his ground alike, thinking that he saw what must be done, and of a resolute purpose to make it clear.

Francisco stood with no thought now of the flight which Antonio would have urged. His irresolution was of another sort. How could he aid her most? Should he go to her now, to take counsel while there was time? He was unsure whether the guards who stood waiting to make her arrest would regard it as within their duty to bar his way, and he might well hesitate to incur the humiliation of refusal or to attempt a violent entrance.

Antonio, knowing his own mind better than the others knew theirs, was the first to speak.

“If you will take advice from one who has seen more of the ways of men than you have had leisure to do, and can observe where you stand, as has ever seemed to be somewhat beyond your sight, you will use a time which may not be long. You should be away in this hour.”

The words brought decision to Francisco’s mind, or perhaps rather consciousness of decision already made.

“You may see well,” he replied, “with your eyes, but they are not mine. I will neither desert her part at this need, nor will I fly as one pleading a guilt which I do not own.... And I may be in less danger than you suppose, for you must see that the Grand Master has passed me by, though he has made her arrest, he being silenced by what I said.”

“I have observed you,” Antonio answered to that, “to be as guileless as any man I have met, and as no woman could ever be; but, if you can think that, you are more innocent than I had concluded before. He owes you thanks for these guns, and for what they did. He will neither forget that, nor will it turn him aside from the hard methods of war. He will act by the process the law provides, without dally or haste, and if you should use the time to be quickly gone, I would not say that he would be over-much grieved. But in her case there was process already out, and her arrest is the routine of the law.... And he may be the more content that you go, having her safely within the bag.... Here is Don Garcio, who was once your friend. He may know more of these matters than we, being in Sir Oliver’s grace as few are. You can ask him, if you will, and see whether we do not counsel alike.”

Francisco must look at his cousin when this was said, and met troubled eyes.

“Francis,” she said, “I would not urge you to flee, if you think it shame, but I am in a great fear. There was proclamation of death against who should do what you cannot deny, and it was said to be without favour to any, of whatever degree. It is time of war, and the Grand Master can be a most hard, though I would not say that he is a pitiless man.”

“Be he as hard as he may,” Francisco replied, “he has foes enough over the wall, without making others of those who have done such service as I.... I would say that it is counsel of cowards, if you will not take it amiss. But we may urge our friends to that which our honour would not allow.”

“Then,” Antonio replied, “if you call me coward, I will say no more, beyond this. You may go in the next hour, or you will be dead in a week. So in that space you must get all the further honour your life will know.”

“That you are wrong in that,” Francisco replied, with more confidence than he had spoken before, “I would wager all you could lose, except that, if the loss were mine, I might lack occasion to pay. But, in a word, I will stay here, as my duty is. Only, I will leave you in charge for a short time, for I will see the Provost-Marshal, that she be lodged as her station requires, and have such comforts as gold will buy.”

“You may spare your legs,” Antonio replied, “for a better cause. For I can tell you that the Provost-Marshal has not so base an apartment to give, but it would be better than was the cellar from which she came.”

Angelica did not understand all the implications of this remark, not being aware that Venetia had been born in the next Genoese street to that in which Captain Antonio made his home, but she felt that there was another beside herself who would not have valued Venetia at her own price, at which she was not displeased. She felt also that Francisco was taking the course which honour required, and, if that were so, it must not be her part to turn him aside for any peril it had.

She saw too that dignity and discretion (for even he must see that his friends were few enough now!) might be insufficient to restrain her cousin’s resentment at Antonio’s contemptuous words, and was the quicker to speak, that she might turn his mind in another way.

“Francis, I would not ask you to play the coward, as I think you know. But will you assent that I see Sir Oliver now, and learn all I can of what the Grand Master will be likely to do? And I will meet you again, and you could then resolve how it may be avoided, or else met.”

“Yes,” he said, though with less grace than he might, “I will thank you for that, if it can be readily learned, for it will be of avail to know.... Can you say a word beyond that, that Venetia be not too straitly confined, she having done that which her honour required, and no more?”

There was a pause during which she was not sure what her answer would be. Venetia’s honour? She did not think its requirements could be much, at whatever pass. Much less than even a steward’s blood should be spilled to save. Look where she was now! But then she laughed in her sudden way: “Yes. I will say that, if you so desire.” She turned abruptly, seeing that Venetia was coming out, whom she was not anxious to meet.

Francisco, when he cast his thoughts in that way at a later hour, was content to feel that the shadow which had lain between his cousin and him was somewhat lifted aside. He associated it vaguely with his having taken Venetia under his protection, which it had been necessary to conceal, even from her. But if she had not known, nor perhaps guessed, till now, could it be that? Then he remembered Angelica’s reproach that he had put her in such a position that she had been obliged to appear as his mistress in La Cerda’s eyes, lest there should have been more mischief than that.... It had been as they came down the stairs that the quarrel had reached its head, though it had been latent before. Its root had lain in his reproaches against herself that she had come in a disguise that he thought shame to the name she bore.... Yet he saw that her honour stood, and that she had maintained it somewhat more firmly than he could be said to have done with his to that hour. He saw also that she had shown more loyalty to himself than he had to her (though he would never have loitered to reach her side, had she been in peril that he could aid, as he may have failed to observe), and these were thoughts that he did not like. They abased his pride. He had been grave to rebuke what he thought the unseemly prank that had brought her there, and it was he who was fallen into the pit, while she walked cool and secure.

Yet he was glad to feel that the cloud between them was less, though it had not gone. When he thought of that, he realized, by instinct’s rather than logic’s aid, that Venetia was the cause, and that she was one whom Angelica was never likely to love. In fact, he must make a choice. Sooner or later, it would come to that, more definitely than now. He did not doubt what the choice would be, for Venetia filled his thoughts, and every passionate hope was centred upon her sharp gay wit, her courageous conduct of life, and the grace of her pale-gold head; but the thought gave him no joy. For, by a paradox which is frequent in the interchanges of human life, as Angelica had become less to him, she had become more. But Venetia was the madonna who filled his dreams.

Turning from these thoughts to his own peril (if such it were), he found that he could face it with less fear than it may have seemed to deserve. Every passion must thrive at the cost of others, which dwindle that it may swell. He thought of what he had done, and could see little to blame, and even less to regret. The Grand Master’s proclamation might threaten a felon’s fate, but why should such things be proclaimed? Bitter anger and pride strengthened him to fight fear, and to meet any accusation which might be made with a bold front. Had he not sunk the boats which would else have landed those who might have won the centre of the Sanglea, even had St. Michael’s fort still flown the eight-pointed cross, which was less than sure? And it had been something more than the competence which every battery commander may be expected to show, that his guns be fired at the best time, and pointed aright. It was through himself alone that there had been guns there of range sufficient to fire across the whole length of the Christian defence on the harbour-front. And his reward was no more than this! He felt that he would not lack words in his own relief, though he was not always known for a fluent tongue. If he had played a boy’s part, it seemed that it would be met in a man’s way.

He had these thoughts as he walked back from the common jail in the Bourg, where Venetia had been confined. He had found gold to be as potent there as it ever is, whether in palace or slum; though he had paid out less than he would, having had the use of Antonio’s wisdom before he went.

For the little captain had not spared his advice, though he thought it to be a fool’s errand which Francisco pursued. “You will do less with ten crowns of gold,” he had said, “if you pay them down, than if you give one, and show other four which are to be earned in a settled way. But with gold enough that is kept in sight but not pouched, you could put her even to the Grand Master’s bed, so that he must sleep on the floor.”

Francisco may have gained less for Venetia than for his own peace; for she knew enough of jails on their inner side to have got most that she would, short perhaps of the master-key, but she would have paid in a coin which he would not have been quick to guess; as to which she would have said that it left her as rich as she was before, which we may find to be true enough, if we consider it well.

Francisco was not overlong abroad, but he found that Angelica had come and gone when he got back, having had no more to say than she could ask Antonio to report to him.