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

to consult these mute but veracious witnesses.

"Let them be produced!--let them be instantly produced and examined!" he whispered eagerly to those around him. Then turning slowly to the immovable Maso, he demanded--"And thou, man of falsehood and of blood! what dost thou reply to this clear and probable tale?"

Il Maledetto smiled, as if superior to a weakness that had blinded the others. The expression of his countenance was filled with that look of calm superiority which certainty gives to the well-informed over the doubting and deceived."

"I have to reply, Signore, and honored father," he coolly answered, "that Balthazar hath right cleverly related a tale that hath been ingeniously devised. That I am Bartolo, I repeat to thee, can be proved by a hundred living tongues in Italy.--Thou best knowest who Bartolo Contini is, Doge of Genoa.'

"He speaks the truth," returned the prince, dropping his head in disappointment. "Oh! Melchior, I have had but too sure proofs of what he intimates! I have long been certain that this wretched Bartolo is my son, though never before have I been cursed with his presence. Bad as I was taught to think him, my worst fears had not painted him as I now find the truth would warrant."

"Has there not been some fraud--art thou not the dupe of some conspiracy of which money has been the object?"

The Doge shook his head, in a way to prove that he could not possibly flatter himself with such a hope.

"Never: my offers of money have always been rejected."

"Why should I take the gold of my father?" added Il Maledetto; "my own skill and courage more than suffice for my wants."

The nature of the answer, and the composed demeanor of Maso, produced an embarrassing pause.

"Let the two stand forth and be confronted," said the puzzled clavier at length; "nature often reveals the truth when the uttermost powers of man are at fault--if either is the true child of the prince, we should find some resemblance to the father to support his claim."

The test, though of doubtful virtue, was eagerly adopted, for the truth had now become so involved, as to excite a keen interest in all present. The desire to explain the mystery was general, and the slightest means of attaining such an end became of a value proportionate to the difficulty of effecting the object. Sigismund and Maso were placed beneath the lamp, where its light was strongest, and every eye turned eagerly to their countenances, in order to discover, or to fancy it discovered, some of those secret signs by which the mysterious affinities of nature are to be traced. A more puzzling examination could not well have been essayed. There was proof to give the victory to each of the pretenders, if such a term may be used with propriety as it concerns the passive Sigismund, and much to defeat the claims of the latter. In the olive-colored tint, the dark, rich, rolling eye, and in stature, the advantage was altogether with Maso, whose outline of countenance and penetrating expression had also a resemblance to those of the Doge, so marked as to render it quite apparent to any who wished to find it. The habits of the mariner had probably diminished the likeness, but it was too obviously there to escape detection. That hardened and rude appearance, the consequence of exposure, which rendered it difficult to pronounce within ten years of his real age, contributed a little to conceal what might be termed the latent character of his countenance, but the features themselves were undeniably a rude copy of the more polished lineaments of the Prince.

The case was less clear as respects Sigismund. The advantage of ruddy and vigorous youth rendered him such a resemblance of the Doge--in the points where it existed--as we find between the aged and those portraits which have been painted in their younger and happier days. The bold outline was not unlike that of the noble features of the venerable Prince, but neither the eye, the hair, nor the complexion, had the hues of Italy.

"Thou seest," said Maso, tauntingly, when the disappointed clavier admitted the differences in the latter particulars, "This is an imposition that will not pass. I swear to you, as there is faith in man, and hope for the dying Christian, that so far as any know their parentage, I am the child of Gaetano Grimaldi, the present Doge of Genoa, and of no other man! May the saints desert me!--the blessed Mother of God be deaf to my prayers!--and all men hunt me with their curses, if I say aught in this but holy truth!"

The fearful energy with which Maso uttered this solemn appeal, and a certain sincerity that marked his manner, and perhaps we might even say his character, in spite of the dissolute recklessness of his principles, served greatly to weaken the growing opinion in favor of his competitor.

"And this noble youth?" asked the sorrowing Doge--"this generous and elevated boy, whom I have already held next to my heart, with so much of a father's joy--who and what is he?"

"Eccellenza, I wish to say nothing against the Signor Sigismondo. He is a gallant swimmer, and a staunch support in time of need. Be he Swiss, or Genoese, either country may be proud of him, but self-love teaches us all to take care of our own interests before those of another. It Would be far pleasanter to dwell in the Palazzo Grimaldi, on our warm and sunny gulf, honored and esteemed as the heir of a noble name, than to be cutting heads in Berne; and honest Balthazar does but follow his instinct, in seeking preferment for his son!"

Each eye now turned on the headsman, who quailed not under the scrutiny, but maintained the firm front of one conscious that he had done no wrong.

"I have not said that Sigismund is the child of any," he answered in his meek manner, but with a steadiness that won him credit with the listeners. "I have only said that he belongs not to me. No father need wish a worthier son, and heaven knows that I yield my own claims with a sorrow that it would be grievous to bear, did I not hope a better fortune for him than any which can come from a connexion with a race accursed. The likeness which is seen in Maso, and which Sigismund is thought to want, proves little, noble gentlemen and reverend monks; for all who have looked closely into these matters know that resemblances are as often found between the distant branches of the same family, as between those who are more nearly united. Sigismund is not of us, and none can see any trace of either my own or of Marguerite's family in his person or features."

Balthazar paused that there might be an examination of this fact, and, in truth, the most ingenious fancy could not have detected the least affinity in looks, between either of those whom he had so long thought his parents and the young soldier.

"Let the Doge of Genoa question his memory, and look farther than himself. Can he find no sleeping smile, no color of the hair, nor any other common point of appearance, between the youth and some of those whom he once knew and loved?"

The anxious prince turned eagerly towards Sigismund, and a gleam of joy lighted his face again, as he studied the young man's features.

"By San Francesco! Melchior, the honest Balthazar is right. My grandmother was a Venetian, and she had the fair hair of the boy--the eye too, is hers--and--oh!" bending his head aside and veiling his eyes with his hand, "I see the anxious gaze that was so constant in the sainted and injured Angiolina, after my greater wealth and power had tempted her kinsmen to force her to yield an unwilling hand!--Wretch! thou art not Bartolo; thy tale is a wicked deception, invented to shield thee from the punishment due to thy crime!"

"Admitting that I am not Bartolo, eccellenza, does the Signer Sigismondo claim to be he? Have you not assured yourself that a certain Bartolo Contini, a man whose life is passed in open hostility to the laws, is your child? Did you not employ your confidant and secretary to learn the facts? Did he not hear from the dying lips of a holy priest, who knew all the circumstances, that 'Bartolo Contini is the son of Gaetano Grimaldi'? Did not the confederate of your implacable enemy, Cristofero Serrani, swear the same to you? Have you not seen papers that were taken with your child to confirm it all, and did you not send this signet as a gage that Bartolo should not want your aid, in any strait that might occur in his wild manner of living, when you learned that he resolutely preferred remaining what he was, to becoming an image of sickly repentance and newly-assumed nobility, in your gorgeous palace on the Strada Balbi?"

The Doge again bowed his head in dismay, for all this he knew to be true beyond a shadow of hope.

"Here is some sad mistake," he said with bitter regret. "Thou hast received the child of some other bereaved parent, Balthazar; but, though I cannot hope to prove myself the natural father of Sigismund, he shall at least find me one in affection and good offices. If his life be not due to me, I owe him mine; the debt shall form a tie between us little short of that to which nature herself could give birth."

"Herr Doge," returned the earnest headsman, "let us not be too hasty. If there are strong facts in favor of the claims of Maso, there are many circumstances, also, in favor of those of Sigismund. To me, the history of the last is probably more clear than it can be to any other. The time; the country, the age of the child, the name, and the fearful revelations of the criminal, are all strong proofs in Sigismund's behalf, Here are the effects that were given me with the child; it is possible that they, too, may throw weight into his scale."

Balthazar had taken means to procure the package in question from among the luggage of Sigismund, and he now proceeded to expose its contents, while a breathless silence betrayed the interest with which the result was expected. He first laid upon the pavement of the chapel a collection of child's clothing. The articles were rich, and according to the fashions of the times; but they contained no positive proofs that could go to substantiate the origin of the wearer, except as they raised the probability of his having come of an elevated rank in life. As the different objects were placed upon the stones, Adelheid and Christine kneeled beside them, each too intently absorbed with the progress of the inquiry to bethink themselves of those forms which, in common, throw a restraint upon the manners of their sex. The latter appeared to forget her own sorrows, for a moment, in a new-born interest in her brother's fortunes while the ears of the former drank in each syllable that fell from the lips of the different speakers, with an avidity that her strong sympathy with the youth could alone give.

"Here is a case containing trinkets of value," added Balthazar. "The condemned man said they were taken through ignorance, and he was accustomed to suffer the child to amuse himself with them in the prison."

"These were my first offerings to my wife, in return for the gift she had made me of the precious babe," said the Doge, in such a smothered voice