Read Ebook: The Piccinino Volume 1 (of 2) by Sand George Cortazzo Oreste Illustrator Ives George Burnham Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 583 lines and 43419 words, and 12 pages

agnanimity and vindictiveness. He has a portion of his father's virtues and good qualities. His vices and failings are of a different sort. Like his father, he is loyal in friendship, and his oath is sacred; but while his father, even when carried away by fierce passions, was always a true believer, and indeed devout in the depths of his heart, the son, if I am not mistaken, and if he has not changed, is the most placid and coolest atheist that ever lived. If he has passions, he gratifies them so secretly that they cannot be discovered. I know of but one, and that I have made no attempt to overcome,--it is hatred of the foreigner and love of country. That love is so intense that he carries it even to love of locality. Far from being a spendthrift like his father, he is economical and orderly, and owns a pretty little estate at Nicolosi, with a garden and some land, where he lives almost always alone, to all appearance, when he is not on some secret expedition in the mountains. But he arranges his absences with so much caution, and receives his friends with so much mystery, that no one ever knows whether he is away from the house, or in his garden, smoking and reading. In order to preserve this skilfully managed freedom of action, he makes a practice of not replying or showing himself when anyone knocks at his door. So that, when he is ten leagues away, no one can say that he is not kept within the walls of his fortress by a fit of unsociability.

"I can understand that this man is a hero in your eyes, uncle, while you have difficulty in esteeming one whose qualities are so faintly outlined as mine."

"I esteem the quality of words, not their number," replied the Capuchin. "You have said two or three words which satisfy me, and as for my hero, as you call him, he is so far from being lavish with them that I have had to judge him by deeds rather than by speech. I, myself, rarely speak of matters upon which I feel very strongly, and if you find me prolix to-day, it is because I am obliged to tell you in two hours what I have had no chance to tell you in the eighteen years that you have been in this world, a stranger to me. However, reserve is not a defect in my eyes. I loved Castro-Reale as I shall never love anybody else; and we passed whole days together, by ourselves, without speaking a word. He was suspicious, as every true Sicilian should be, and so long as he distrusted himself and others, he had a noble heart and a noble spirit."

"The young man we are going to see must be very deeply attached to you, uncle, since you are sure of finding him prepared to receive me?"

"If he loves anyone on earth, I am that one, although I scolded and worried him well when he was my pupil. However, I am not perfectly certain that he will grant what I have to ask him in your behalf. He will have to overcome some repugnance; but I hope for the best."

"Doubtless he knows all that you will not allow me to know myself of my affairs and my destiny?"

"He? he knows nothing whatsoever of them, and he shall know nothing before you do. The little that you are both to know for the present, I will tell you both. After that, it may be that the Piccinino will guess more than he should. His penetration is very keen; but whatever he may guess, he will never tell you; and he will never ask you what he wants to find out; my mind is at rest so far as that is concerned. Now, silence; we are coming out of the woods into a cultivated and settled part of the mountain. We must be seen by as few people as possible on our way to the place where our man awaits us."

They walked silently and cautiously along hedges and clumps of trees, keeping in the shadow and avoiding trodden paths; and in the gathering dusk they soon reached the Piccinino's abode.

IL PICCININO

The Piccinino's house stood by itself on the mountain, about half a mile from the village, from which it was separated by a steep ravine; it was on the uppermost edge of a fertile tract, where the atmosphere was soft and balmy. A few hundred feet higher it began to be cold, and the terrors of the desert were foreshadowed by the absence of tilled land, and by ridges of lava so numerous and so broad that the mountain seemed inaccessible in that direction. Michel observed that the situation was particularly favorable to the purposes of a man who was half citizen, half outlaw. At home, he could enjoy all the comforts of life; on leaving his home, he at once escaped from the presence of his fellow-men and the requirements of the law.

The hill, the slope of which was very abrupt on one side, but gentle and fertile on the other, was covered to its very summit with luxuriant vegetation, whose mysterious exuberance was sedulously fostered by an industrious and intelligent hand. Carmelo Tomabene's garden was renowned for its beauty and the great abundance of its fruits and flowers. But its entrance was jealously guarded, and it was enclosed on all sides by high verdure-covered palisades. The house, which was of considerable size and well built, although without apparent striving for effect, stood upon the site of a small abandoned fort. Some fragments of thick walls, and the base of a square tower, which had been utilized to strengthen and enlarge the new building, which bore the marks of extensive repairs, gave to the modest structure an air of solidity, and of semi-rustic, semi-seignoral importance. However, it was simply the dwelling of a well-to-do farmer, although one felt that a man of refined habits and tastes might find life enjoyable therein.

Fra Angelo approached the gate, and pulled a bell-cord, which, starting among the honeysuckles in which the gate was embowered, followed a long vine-clad arbor and was connected with a bell inside the house; but the sound of the bell was so deadened that it could not be heard outside. The cord was not visible amid the foliage, and one needed to be previously cognizant of its existence to make use of it. The monk pulled the cord three times, at carefully measured intervals; then five times, then twice, then three times again; after which he folded his arms for five minutes, when he repeated the signals in the same order and with the same care. One ring more or less and the mysterious proprietor might have allowed them to wait all night without admitting them.

At last the garden gate was opened. A small man, wrapped in a cloak, approached, took Fra Angelo by the hand, whispered to him for some moments, then turned to Michel, bade him enter, and walked before them, after closing the gate. They walked through the long arbor which formed a cross extending the whole length and width of the garden, and entered the house through a sort of rustic porch formed of large pillars covered with vine and jasmine. Their host then ushered them into a large room, neatly and simply furnished, where everything indicated regularity and sobriety on the part of the owner. There he invited them to sit, and, stretching himself out on an enormous couch covered with red silk, coolly lighted his cigar; then, without any demonstration of friendliness toward the monk, he waited for him to speak. He showed no impatience, no curiosity. He gave his whole attention to removing his brown cloak lined with pink, carefully folding it, and rearranging his silk sash, as if he desired to be perfectly comfortable while listening to what they had to say to him.

He was disturbed by the thought that that incident was unlikely to dispose in his favor the man at whose hands he was about to ask a service. But the Piccinino did not seem to recognize him, and Michel concluded that it would be as well not to remind him of that unpleasant incident.

He had plenty of leisure to examine his features and to seek therein some indication of his character. But it was impossible for him to detect any trace of emotion, of determination, of any human feeling, on that impassive and expressionless face. It was not even impertinent, although his attitude and his silence might seem to denote a purpose to display contempt.

The Piccinino was a young man of about twenty-five years. His short stature and slender figure justified the sobriquet which had been given him, and to which he submitted with more coquetry than vexation. It is impossible to imagine a more slender and delicate, and, at the same time, more perfect figure, than that young man's. Admirably proportioned, and modelled like an antique bronze, he made up for his lack of muscular strength by extreme suppleness. He was reputed to be without a compeer in all bodily exercises, although he was dependent solely upon his address, his coolness, his agility, and the unerring accuracy of his glance. No one could tire him at walking, or overtake him at running. He climbed precipices with the self-possession of a chamois; he was as good a shot with the rifle as with the pistol or the sling; and in all sports of that sort he was so sure of winning all the prizes that he had ceased to take the trouble to compete. He was an excellent horseman and a fearless swimmer; in fact, there was no method of locomotion or of fighting in which he was not certain to display a marked superiority to anyone who ventured to try conclusions with him. Being fully alive to the advantages of physical strength in a mountainous country, and with the life of an adventurer before him, he had striven in early years to acquire what nature seemed to have denied him in that regard. He had exercised and developed his muscles with incredible energy and persistence, and had succeeded in making his fragile frame the trusty slave and obedient instrument of his will.

And yet, seeing him reclining thus upon his couch, one might have taken him for a sickly or indolent woman. Michel did not know that, after travelling twenty leagues on foot during the day, he systematically rested for a certain number of hours, and that he had watched and studied himself so closely in every respect that he knew exactly how many moments he must pass in a horizontal position in order to escape the annoyance of a lame back and legs.

His face was of a peculiar type of beauty: it was the Siculo-Arabian type in all its purity. Extraordinary sharpness of outline, a somewhat exaggerated oriental profile, long, languishing, velvety black eyes, a shrewd and lazy smile, a wholly feminine grace, and an indefinable gentleness and coldness which it was impossible to explain at the first glance.

While Michel was contemplating with admiration, mingled with some inward irony, the ease with which that well-favored youth rolled a cigarette of Algerian tobacco in his fingers, slender and tapering as a Bedouin's, Fra Angelo, who seemed neither surprised nor annoyed by his reception, made a circuit of the room, bolted the door, and, having inquired if they were quite alone in the house, to which query the Piccinino replied in the affirmative with a nod, he began thus:

"I thank you, my son, for not compelling me to wait for this appointment. I have come to ask a favor at your hands: are you able and willing to devote a few days to it?"

"A few days?" repeated the Piccinino, in such a soft voice that Michel was fain to glance anew at the muscles of steel in his legs in order to be sure that it was not a woman who spoke; but the tone of the voice signified too clearly to be misunderstood: "You are jesting!"

"I said a few days," rejoined the monk, calmly. "You will have to go down the mountain, follow this young man, my nephew, to Catania, and stay by him until you have succeeded in relieving him from an enemy who is tormenting him."

The Piccinino turned slowly toward Michel, and stared at him as if he had not previously seen him; then, taking from his belt a richly-mounted stiletto, he presented it to him with an almost imperceptible smile of irony and contempt, as if to say: "You are old enough and strong enough to defend yourself."

Michel, annoyed at being placed in such a position, was about to make a sharp retort, when Fra Angelo cut him short, placing his iron hand on his shoulder.

"Be quiet, my boy," he said; "you do not know what I am talking about, and there is no occasion for you to speak. My friend," he continued, addressing the bandit, "if my nephew were not a man and a Sicilian, I should not introduce him to you. I am going to tell you what we expect of you, unless you tell me beforehand that you cannot or will not help us."

"Padre Angelo," replied the bandit, taking the monk's hand, and putting it to his lips with a caressing gesture and an affectionate glance that changed the character of his face entirely, "whatever you may ask, I am always willing to do for you. But no man can do all that he is willing to do. So I must know what it is."

"A man annoys us."

"I understand."

"We do not wish to kill him."

"You are unwise."

"He is to be kidnapped then?"

"Yes, but we do not know how to go about it."

"I should have known in the old days," replied the Capuchin. "I had friends and places of shelter. Now, I am a monk."

"You are foolish," rejoined the bandit with undisturbed tranquillity. "So, I am to kidnap a man, am I? Is he very stout, very heavy?"

"He is very light," replied the monk, who apparently understood that metaphor, "and no one will give you a ducat for his skin."

"In that case, good-evening, father; I can't take him alone and put him in my pocket like a handkerchief. I must have men, and they are not to be had for nothing, as in your day."

"You don't understand me; you may fix the compensation of your men yourself, and they shall be paid."

"Do you make yourself responsible for that, father?"

"I do."

"You alone?"

"I alone. And, so far as you are concerned, if the affair had not been a magnificent one, I should not have selected you."

"Well, we will see about it next week," rejoined the bandit, in order to obtain more ample information as to the profits of the affair.

"In that case, we will say nothing more about it," said the monk, hurt by his distrust; "we must go forward at once or not at all."

"At once? What about a chance to collect my men, persuade them, and give them their instructions?"

"You can do it to-morrow morning, and to-morrow night they can be at their posts."

"I see that you are in no great hurry, or you would have told me to start to-night. If you can wait until to-morrow, you can wait a fortnight."

"No; for I intend to take you away with me now, send you to a certain villa where you will talk with one of the persons interested in the success of the affair, and give you until to-morrow night to inspect the locality, become acquainted with all necessary details, set up your batteries, notify your men, station them, arrange for allies in the citadel. Bah! it is more time than you need! At your age I wouldn't have asked your father for half of it."

Michel saw that the Capuchin had touched the right chord at last; for when he was appealed to as the son of the Prince of Castro-Reale, a title which nobody dared or chose to give him openly, the Piccinino started, sat up and sprang to his feet as if he were ready to start at once. But suddenly he put his hand to his leg and fell back on the couch.

"It is impossible," he said, "I am in too much pain."

"What is the matter?" asked Fra Angelo. "Are you wounded? Is that spent ball of last year still troubling you? In the old days we used to march with bullets in our bodies. Your father did thirty leagues without thinking of having the one extracted that he received in the thigh at Leon-Forte; but the young men of to-day need a year to be cured of a bruise."

Michel thought that his uncle had gone a little too far, for the Piccinino resumed his recumbent attitude with a gesture of profound indignation, stretched himself on his back, puffed away at his cigarette, and maliciously left to the good priest the embarrassing necessity of continuing the conversation.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet