The Headsman, James Fenimore Cooper [top 100 books to read TXT] 📗

not serve his cause; for it left the impression among the auditors, that he weighed the morality and immorality of his acts simply by their result.

"It is time to bring this to an end," said the Signor Grimaldi, who had been thoughtful and melancholy while the others spoke: "thou hast something to address particularly to me, Maso; but if thy claim is no better than that of our common country, I grieve to say, it cannot be admitted."

"Signore, the voice of a Doge of Genoa is not often raised in vain, when he would use it in behalf of another!"

At this sudden announcement of the traveller's rank, the monks and the châtelain started in surprise, and a low murmur of wonder was heard in the chapel. The smile of Peterchen, and the composure of the Baron de Willading, however, showed that they, at least, learned nothing new. The bailiff whispered the prior significantly, and from that moment his deportment towards the Genoese took still more of the character of formal and official respect. On the other hand, the Signor Grimaldi remained composed, like one accustomed to receive deference, though his manner lost the slight degree of restraint that had been imposed by the observance of the temporary character he had assumed.

"The voice of a Doge of Genoa should not be used in intercession, unless in behalf of the innocent," he replied, keeping his severe eye fastened on the countenance of the accused.

Again Il Maledetto seemed laboring with some secret that struggled on his tongue.

"Speak," continued the Prince of Genoa; for it was, in truth, that high functionary, who had journeyed incognito, in the hope of meeting his ancient friend at the sports of Vévey, "Speak, Maso, if thou hast aught serious to urge in favor of thyself; time presses, and the sight of one to whom I owe so much in this great jeopardy, without the power to aid him, grows painful."

"Signor Doge, though deaf to pity, you cannot be deaf to nature."

The countenance of the Doge became livid; his lips trembled even to the appearance of convulsions.

"Deal no longer in mystery, man of blood!" he said with energy. "What is thy meaning?"

"I entreat your eccellenza to be calm. Necessity forces me to speak; for, as you see, I stand between this revelation and the block--I am Bartolo Contini!"

The groan that escaped the compressed lips of, the Doge, the manner in which he sank into a seat, and the hue of death that settled over his aged countenance, until it was more ghastly even than that of the unhappy victim of violence, drew all present, in wonder and alarm, around his chair. Signing for those who pressed upon him to give way, the Prince sat gazing at Maso, with eyes that appeared ready to burst from their sockets.

"Thou Bartolomeo!" he uttered huskily, as if horror had frozen his voice.

"I am Bartolo, Signore, and no other. He who goes through many scenes hath occasion for many names. Even your Highness travels at times under a cloud."

The Doge continued to stare on the speaker with the fixedness of regard that one might be supposed to fasten on a creature of unearthly existence.

"Melchior," he said slowly, turning his eyes from one to the other of the forms that filled them, for Sigismund had advanced to the side of Maso, in kind concern for the old man's condition,--"Melchior, we are but feeble and miserable creatures in the hand of one who looks upon the proudest and happiest of us, as we look upon the worm that crawls the earth! What are hope, and honor, and our fondest love, in the great train of events that time heaves from its womb, bringing forth to our confusion? Are we proud? fortune revenges itself for our want of humility by its scorn. Are we happy? it is but the calm that precedes the storm. Are we great? it is but to lead us into abuses that will justify our fall. Are we honored stains tarnish our good names, in spite of all our care!"

"He who puts his trust in the Son of Maria need never despair!" whispered the worthy clavier touched nearly to tears by the sudden distress of one whom he had learned to respect. "Let the fortunes of the world pass away, or change as they will, his chastening love outliveth time!"

The Signor Grimaldi, for, though the elected of Genoa, such was in truth the family name of the Doge, turned his vacant gaze for an instant on the Augustine, but it soon reverted to the forms and faces of Maso and Sigismund, who still stood before him, filling his thoughts even more than his sight.

"Yes, there is a power--" he resumed, "a great and beneficent Being to equalize our fortunes here, and when we pass into another state of being, loaded with the wrongs of this, we shall have justice! Tell me, Melchior, thou who knew my youth, who read my heart when it was open as day, what was there in it to deserve this punishment? Here is Balthazar, come of a race of executioners--a man condemned of opinion--that prejudice besets with a hedge of hatred--that men point at with their fingers, and whom the dogs are ready to bay--this Balthazar is the father of that gallant youth, whose form is so perfect, whose spirit is so noble, and whose life so pure; while I, the last of a line that is lost in the obscurity of time, the wealthiest of my land, and the chosen of my peers, am accursed with an outcast, a common brigand, a murderer, for the sole prop of my decaying house--with this Il Maledetto--this man accursed--for a son!"

A movement of astonishment escaped the listeners, even the Baron de Willading not suspecting the real cause of his friend's distress. Maso alone was unmoved; for while the aged father betrayed the keenness of his anguish, the son discovered none of that sympathy of which even a life like his might be supposed to have left some remains in the heart of a child. He was cold, collected, observant, and master of his smallest action.

"I will not believe this," exclaimed the Doge, whose very soul revolted at this unfeeling apathy, even more than at the disgrace of being the father of such a child; "thou art not he thou pretendest to be; this foul lie is uttered that my natural feelings may interpose between thee and the block! Prove thy truth, or I abandon thee to thy fate."

"Signore, I would have saved this unhappy exhibition, but you would not. That I am Bartolo this signet, your own gift sent to be my protection in a strait like this, will show. It is, moreover, easy for me to prove what I say, by a hundred witnesses who are living in Genoa."

The Signor Grimaldi stretched forth a hand that trembled like an aspen to receive the ring, a jewel of little price, but a signet that he had, in truth, sent to be an instrument of recognition between him and his child, in the event of any sudden calamity befalling the latter. He groaned as he gazed at its well-remembered emblems, for its identity was only too plain.

"Maso--Bartolo--Gaetano--for such, miserable boy, is thy real appellation--thou canst not know how bitter is the pang that an unworthy child brings to the parent, else would thy life have been different. Oh! Gaetano! Gaetano! what a foundation art thou for a father's hopes! What a subject for a father's love! I saw thee last a smiling innocent cherub, in thy nurse's arms, and I find thee with a blighted sod, the pure fountain of thy mind corrupted, a form sealed with the stamp of vice, and with hands dyed in blood; prematurely old in body, and with a spirit that hath already the hellish taint of the damned!

"Signore, you find me as the chances of a wild life have willed. The world and I have been at loggerheads this many a year, and in trifling with its laws, I take my revenge of its abuse--" warmly returned Il Maledetto, for his spirit began to be aroused. "Thou bear'st hard upon me, Doge--father--or what thou wilt--and I should be little worthy of my lineage, did I not meet thy charges as they are made. Compare thine own career with mine, and let it be proclaimed by sound of trumpet if thou wilt, which hath most reason to be proud, and which to exult. Thou wert reared in the hopes and honors of our name; thou passed thy youth in the pursuit of arms according to thy fancy, and when tired of change, and willing to narrow thy pleasures, thou looked about thee for a maiden to become the mother of thy successor; thou turned a wishing eye on one young, fair, and noble, but whose affections, as her faith, were solemnly, irretrievably plighted to another."

The Doge shuddered and veiled his eye; but he eagerly interrupted Maso.

"Her kinsman was unworthy of her love," he cried; "he was an outcast, and little better than thyself, unhappy boy, except in the chances of condition."

"It matters not, Signore; God had not made you the arbiter of her fate. In tempting her family by your greater riches, you crushed two hearts, and destroyed the hopes of your fellow-creatures. In her was sacrificed an angel, mild and pure as this fair creature who is now listening so breathlessly to my words; in him a fierce untamed spirit, that had only the greater need of management, since it was as likely to go wrong as right. Before your son was born, this unhappy rival, poor in hopes as in wealth, had become desperate; and the mother of your child sank a victim to her ceaseless regrets, at her own want of faith as much as for his follies."

"Thy mother was deluded, Gaetano; she never knew the real qualities of her cousin, or a soul like hers would have lothed the wretch."

"Signore, it matters not," continued Il Maledetto, with a ruthless perseverance of intention, and a coolness of manner that would seem to merit the description which had just been given his spirit, that of possessing a hellish taint; "she loved him with a woman's heart; and with a woman's ingenuity and confidence, she ascribed his fall to despair for her loss."

"Oh, Melchior! Melchior! this is fearfully true!" groaned the Doge.

"It is so true, Signore, that it should be written on my mother's tomb. We are children of a fiery climate; the passions burn in our Italy like the hot sun that glows there. When despair drove the disappointed lover to acts that rendered him an outlaw, the passage to revenge was short. Your child was stolen, hid from your view, and cast upon the world under circumstances that left little doubt of his living in bitterness, and dying under the contempt, if not the curses, of his fellows. All this, Signor Grimaldi, is the fruit of your own errors. Had you respected the affections of an innocent girl, the sad consequences to yourself and me might have been avoided."

"Is this man's history to be believed, Gaetano?" demanded the baron, who had more than once betrayed a wish to check the rude tongue of the speaker.

"I do not--I cannot deny it; I never saw my own conduct in this criminal light before, and yet now it all seems frightfully true!"

Il Maledetto laughed. Those around him thought his untimely merriment resembled the mockery of a devil.

"This is the manner in which men continue to sin,