Lothair, Benjamin Disraeli [crime books to read TXT] 📗

her eye was the first that caught the figure of the distant but descending stranger.

"What is that?" she asked.

The general, immediately using his telescope, after a moment's examination, said: "A lancer of the royal guard."

All eyes were now fixed upon the movements of the horseman. He had descended the winding steep, and now was tracking the craggy path which led into the plain. As he reached the precinct of the camp, he was challenged, but not detained. Nearer and nearer he approached, and it was evident, from his uniform, that the conjecture of his character by the general was correct.

"A deserter from the guard," whispered Colonel Campian, to Lothair.

The horseman wag conducted by an officer to the presence of the commander. When that presence was reached, the lancer, still silent, slowly lowered his tall weapon, and offered the general the dispatch which was fastened to the head of his spear.

Every eye was on the countenance of their chief as he perused the missive, but that countenance was always inscrutable. It was observed, however, that he read the paper twice. Looking up, the general said, to the officer: "See that the bearer is well quartered.--This is for you," he added in a low voice to Theodora, and he gave her an enclosure; "read it quietly, and then come into my tent."

Theodora read the letter, and quietly; though, without the preparatory hint, it might have been difficult to have concealed her emotion. Then, after a short pause, she rose, and the general, requesting his companions not to disturb themselves, joined her, and they proceeded in silence to his tent.

"He is arrested," said the general when they had entered it, "and taken to Alessandria, where he is a close prisoner. 'Tis a blow, but I am more grieved than surprised."

This was the arrest of Garibaldi at Sinigaglia by the Italian government, which had been communicated at Hexham House to Monsignore Berwick by his evening visitor.

"How will it affect operations in the field?" inquired Theodora.

"According to this dispatch, in no degree. Our original plan is to be pursued, and acted upon the moment we are ready. That should be in a fortnight, or perhaps three weeks. Menotti is to take the command on the southern frontier. Well, it may prevent jealousies. I think I shall send Sarano there to reconnoitre; he is well both with Nicotera and Ghirelli, and may keep things straight."

"But there are other affairs besides operations in the field," said Theodora, "and scarcely less critical. Read this," and she gave him the enclosure, which ran in these words:

"The general will tell thee what has happened. Have no fear for that. All will go right. It will not alter our plans a bunch of grapes. Be perfectly easy about this country. No Italian soldier will ever cross the frontier except to combat the French. Write that on thy heart. Are other things as well? Other places? My advices are bad. All the prelates are on their knees to him--with blessings on their lips and curses in their pockets. Archbishop of Paris is as bad as any. Berwick is at Biarritz--an inexhaustible intriguer; the only priest I fear. I hear from one who never misled me that the Polhes brigade has orders to be in readiness. The Mary-Anne societies are not strong enough for the situation--too local; he listens to them, but he has given no pledge. We must go deeper. 'Tis an affair of 'Madre Natura.' Thou must see Colonna."

"Colonna is at Rome," said the general, "and cannot be spared. He is acting president of the National Committee, and has enough upon his hands."

"I must see him," said Theodora.

"I had hoped I had heard the last of the 'Madre Natura,'" said the general with an air of discontent.

"And the Neapolitans hope they have heard the last of the eruptions of their mountain," said Theodora; "but the necessities of things are sterner stuff than the hopes of men."

"Its last effort appalled and outraged Europe," said the general.

"Its last effort forced the French into Italy, and has freed the country from the Alps to the Adriatic," rejoined Theodora.

"If the great man had only been as quiet as we have been," said the general, lighting a cigar, "we might have been in Rome by this time."

"If the great man had been quiet, we should not have had a volunteer in our valley," said Theodora. "My faith in him is implicit; he has been right in every thing, and has never failed except when he has been betrayed. I see no hope for Rome except in his convictions and energy. I do not wish to die, and feel I have devoted my life only to secure the triumph of Savoyards who have sold their own country, and of priests whose impostures have degraded mine."

"Ah! those priests!" exclaimed the general. "I really do not much care for any thing else. They say the Savoyard is not a bad comrade, and at any rate he can charge like a soldier. But those priests? I fluttered them once! Why did I spare any? Why did I not burn down St. Peter's? I proposed it, but Mirandola, with his history and his love of art and all that old furniture, would reserve it for a temple of the true God and for the glory of Europe! Fine results we have accomplished! And now we are here, hardly knowing where we are, and, as it appears, hardly knowing what to do."

"Not so, dear general," said Theodora. "Where we are is the threshold of Rome, and if we are wise we shall soon cross it. This arrest of our great friend is a misfortune, but not an irredeemable one. I thoroughly credit what he says about the Italian troops. Rest assured he knows what he is talking about; they will never cross the frontier against us. The danger is from another land. But there will be no peril if we are prompt and firm. Clear your mind of all these dark feelings about the 'Madre Natura.' All that we require is that the most powerful and the most secret association in Europe should ratify what the local societies of France have already intimated. It will be enough. Send for Colonna, and leave the rest to me."


CHAPTER 54

The "Madre Natura" is the oldest, the most powerful, and the most occult, of the secret societies of Italy. Its mythic origin reaches the era of paganism, and it is not impossible that it may have been founded by some of the despoiled professors of the ancient faith. As time advanced, the brotherhood assumed many outward forms, according to the varying spirit of the age: sometimes they were freemasons, sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes artists, sometimes men of letters. But whether their external representation were a lodge, a commandery, a studio, or an academy, their inward purpose was ever the same; and that was to cherish the memory, and, if possible, to secure the restoration of the Roman Republic, and to expel from the Aryan settlement of Romulus the creeds and sovereignty of what they styled the Semitic invasion.

The "Madre Natura" have a tradition that one of the most celebrated of the popes was admitted to their fraternity as Cardinal del Medici, and that when he ascended the throne, mainly through their labors, he was called upon to cooperate in the fulfilment of the great idea. An individual who, in his youth, has been the member of a secret society, and subsequently ascends a throne, may find himself in an embarrassing position. This, however, according to the tradition, which there is some documentary ground to accredit, was not the perplexing lot of his holiness Pope Leo X. His tastes and convictions were in entire unison with his early engagements, and it is believed that he took an early and no unwilling opportunity of submitting to the conclave a proposition to consider whether it were not both expedient and practicable to return to the ancient faith, for which their temples had been originally erected.

The chief tenet of the society of "Madre Natura" is denoted by its name. They could conceive nothing more benignant and more beautiful, more provident and more powerful, more essentially divine, than that system of creative order to which they owed their being, and in which it was their privilege to exist. But they differed from other schools of philosophy that have held this faith, in this singular particular: they recognize the inability of the Latin race to pursue the worship of Nature in an abstract spirit, and they desired to revive those exquisite personifications of the abounding qualities of the mighty mother which the Aryan genius had bequeathed to the admiration of man. Parthenope was again to rule at Naples instead of Januarius, and starveling saints and winking madonnas were to restore their usurped altars to the god of the silver bow and the radiant daughter of the foaming wave.

Although the society of "Madre Natura" themselves accepted the allegorical interpretation which the Neo-Platonists had placed upon the pagan creeds during the first ages of Christianity, they could not suppose that the populace could ever comprehend an exposition so refined, not to say so fanciful. They guarded, therefore, against the corruptions and abuses of the religion of Nature by the entire abolition of the priestly order, and in the principle that every man should be his own priest they believed they had found the necessary security.

As it was evident that the arrest of Garibaldi could not be kept secret, the general thought it most prudent to be himself the herald of its occurrence, which he announced to the troops in a manner as little discouraging as he could devise. It was difficult to extenuate the consequences of so great a blow, but they were assured that it was not a catastrophe, and would not in the slightest degree affect the execution of the plans previously resolved on. Two or three days later some increase of confidence was occasioned by the authentic intelligence that Garibaldi had been removed from his stern imprisonment at Alessandria, and conveyed to his island-home, Caprera, though still a prisoner.

About this time, the general said to Lothair: "My secretary has occasion to go on an expedition. I shall send a small detachment of cavalry with her, and you will be at its head. She has requested that her husband should have this office, but that is impossible; I cannot spare my best officer. It is your first command, and, though I hope it will involve no great difficulty, there is no command that does not require courage and discretion. The distance is not very great, and so long as you are in the mountains you will probably be safe; but in leaving this range and gaining the southern Apennines, which is your point of arrival, you will have to cross the open country. I do not hear the Papalini are in force there; I believe they have concentrated themselves at Rome, and about Viterbo. If you meet any scouts and reconnoitring parties, you will be able to give a good account of them, and probably they will be as little anxious to encounter you as you to meet them. But we must be prepared for every thing, and you may be threatened by the enemy in force; in that case you will cross the Italian frontier, in the immediate neighborhood of which you will keep during the passage of the open country, and surrender yourselves and your arms to the authorities. They will not be very severe; but, at whatever cost and whatever may be the odds, Theodora must never