CHAPTER XLIX

DRIFTING

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs," cried Mollie, looking back over her shoulder at the countess, and showing her pretty teeth as they pushed off.

"I propose a fine of a dozen bottles," answered Cariton, "on the first man, woman, or child who quotes or misquotes Byron for the remainder of the evening."

"0, which were best, To roam or rest, Land's lap, or ocean's breast?"

said Mollie, looking sideways under her falling hair to the lover at her side, while her hand trailed down in the warm sea water over the side of the little gliding gondola.

Little Sunshine threw back his long hair and looked up at the large bright stars while the stars looked right down into the bright, clear sea as women look into a glass and see their own beauty, and seemed glad and light, and ready to dance with delight.

The old general sat planning a railroad in the sea, and Mrs. W. wiped her eyes and looked at her delighted daughter, and still maintained, without effort, her reputation for eloquent silence.

The countess seemed lost, as was her wont, in the flower bed of rose and pink and pink and rose, and ever and anon turned her face to her father, who very tranquilly rested at full length on his lifted couch as the little fleet softly drifted away to the sea, and the gondoliers kept time with their oars.

Then the great round moon, yellow and large and indolent, rose up slowly behind the island of Saint Helen, and shadowed its way along the billows of the Adriatic till it stood above the waves, and then moved slowly through the masts and ropes, and the thousand crossed and yellow sails that marched and countermarched before the City of the Sea.

Cannon were booming from some distant battlement in celebration of some great deed or day, and the water seemed to tremble. Now and then a star would loosen from the upper deep, and drop swift and silent through space as if shaken loose, to either bum to death or drown itself in the sea.

There were bands of music playing in the gardens on the little islands as they passed, and now and then rockets and Roman candles shot up as if in answer to the signals sent down from the upper world.

The oars of the gondoliers flashed fire and flamed with phosphorescent light even with the slightest touch of the warm soft water, and little Sunshine leaned and trailed his hands, and played as if with cloven tongues of fire. The heart was full and satisfied.

"O! that we could now drift and drive into the infinite. I think that somewhere near, and very near, are the shores of the eternal world, and that one might touch and land tonight, and never taste of death."

Murietta did not speak. His hand was touching hers, as if by accident. He opened his palm and took her hand in his, and pressed it for his answer. She drew her hand away, and then they drifted on, and she did not speak again.

The little fleet drew around the convent of Armenian monks on the little Isle of Cypresses, where Lord Byron wrote the first cantos of "Childe Harold," and the countess beckoned a return.

"I must be pressing on for the Tyrol as soon as we have had a day of rest," she said to Murietta by way of apology for the early return.

"And you are alone; the count is — " The artist hesitated.

"The count is still in Rome. He tells me it is impossible for him to get away; that his affairs, my affairs in fact, are too much involved for him to be able to get away till I have paid an enormous sum of money, which is not just now at my command. O, I had the hardest time to get away! Do you know that old admiral tried to prevent my escape from that hot and unhealthy city? I really thought we must all die in Rome. You see when I got all ready to come they pretended that I should and would be arrested if I tried to go away without settling numerous bills and paying incredible sums that no one ever heard of before."

"And how did you accomplish it finally?"

"I simply gave the count cheques, cheques for all I had, and blank cheques to fill up at his pleasure."

"And so left Rome a ruined woman so far as your fortune is concerned," answered the artist emphatically.

"What chance had I? We were dying in Rome. I should have gone mad on the spot. Do you know that after you came away those bold, bad men, who were always drunk in outer parts of the palace, actually entered my parlour and refused to leave?"

"But the count, your husband! Good heavens! was he helpless?"

"The poor gentle count, my husband, was helpless. They bullied him, told him he was allowing his American wife to rule him, and really terrified him to break open my doors and admit them into my private apartments."

"And lady, what did you do— poor child, with your Italian husband and count who is so clownish as to prefer his boon companions and countrymen to his wife, and to take side for ever against her?"

"What could I do? I appealed to the authorities. I was told that in this land the husband is lord and master of the house, and all that is in it, and, too, can control every movement of his wife. My father at last, dying as he was, managed to call in the consul. But nothing could be done. I simply left my house in the possession of these men, and by paying and still by promising these enormous sums, I managed to get out of Rome alive."

"Well, lady, I struck your husband, I sprinkled his blood on the floor and on the wall. I was ashamed of it then, but I am not sorry now."

"There! Do not speak of that. Never speak of that to me again," said she. "You were wrong, you were brutal. My husband, the count, is a gentleman. He is not wicked. He is weak, but he is not wicked."

"Woman! woman! woman!" mused Murietta to himself as the party once more drew near the hotel. "Woman! woman! woman! I will never understand you, study you and your motives as I may!"

"Do you know my father still thinks we may meet with my brother in the Alps somewhere," said she, suddenly turning to Murietta just before landing.

"Well, if it is a pleasure and a consolation to the old man," answered the artist, "do not rob him of it. Nearly all the pleasure of life is made up of delusions; but you will never see your brother any more."

"But we may Mr. Murietta," she urged. "It is not impossible, you know."

"And how about the ring?"

"Oh, it is the ring that gives father hope. You see father is a very wise man, with a cool practical head, and he says that brother may have sent the ring to Rome, knowing that in time it must fall in with Americans, and possibly with his own people, or into the hands at least of some one who knew him. Yes," sighed the countess, "father thinks he is still in the Alps in the hands of the brigands, who hope by a long silence to secure a still greater ransom for his release."

"And what has been done with the ring?"

She opened her brown eyes and looked at Murietta as if she was not quite certain that she had done a wise thing, and was sorry for the fact she was about to relate. "Well," she went on at last, "father said the ring belonged to the old admiral, who claimed to have bought it at an obscure shop in a low street, and as I could not have any rest about it, and as they were torment my father about it the time, weak and dying as he was, I gave it up to the man."

"You gave it up to your brother's murderers!" said Murietta.

"God help us all," she answered, "there is much that I do not understand. But I must take care of my father, and keep them from tormenting him. They put him on the rack to extort money or whatever they chose from me. O, if I were only among my kind once more."

"Well, lady, you shall be among your kind again. Be patient. Take care. Go to the Tyrol; cross the mountains, and then drop down the Rhine and cross the channel and you are safe."

"But I — I have promised not to leave Italy. And do you see that big, sleek ruffian who has been put in charge of my boy?"

"In heaven's name, could you not choose your own servant and courier?"

"I? I could take nothing but this man. I could not take a step without consenting to keep this man constantly with me, and solemnly promising not to leave Italy."

"But you shall leave Italy, nevertheless, if you like," the artist whispered earnestly, "there is certainly enough American manhood in Venice, anyhow, to help you through."

She turned to the artist. "Do you know what you are saying? You, Murietta, you are a dreamer, I know just what you feel and believe. But, mark me! you will find that when a thing like this is to be put to the test, every man is busy with his own affairs. Do you know what answer you would receive if you went to any man with my story and asked his assistance and counsel?"

"I do not."

"You would be referred to the lady's husband."

Just then the boat touched the marble landing, and the two stood a moment on the step after leaving the gondola, before following their party.

"We go in the morning early, before the sun is hot on the plains of Verona," said the lady, "and I must now say goodbye, and I give you my hand in token of eternal friendship, and I give you a thousand thanks for what you have done, and even what you have wished to do for my welfare."

She reached her hand as she spoke. He lifted it to his lips, let it fall, said goodnight, and returned to the gondola.

The days were dull enough now that the countess was gone away and would never come again, and Murietta wandered 1 about over Venice, feeding the doves of Saint Mark now, and now winding through the dark and lonesome passages so full of strange, black eyed, and mysterious people. He was decidedly lonesome now, for Carlton had left him. That young man, who was for ever reforming tomorrow, had displaced the great white cockatoo and the small blue poodle in the heart of Mollie, and now the two lovers were perpetually drifting and driving away in a gondola together.

At last, to the infinite relief of Murietta, the fifteenth day of August was at hand. That was the day on which he knew Annette would reach Lake Como. That day to him had become a sort of a Day of Declaration.

He was bidding Carlton good-bye one evening as he stood with the inseparable lovers on one end of the marble balcony, while the general and Mrs. W. occupied the other end, and looked out over the sea or fed from their hands the doves that fluttered about the balcony.

"And so you leave us in the morning for Como" sighed Carlton, with an effort.

"Oh! won't it be jolly, Carlton," chimed in the merry hearted Mollie. "Everybody will be at Como but us. I declare it is too bad! Come, let us go to Como, too."

"I have not the least objection to going to Como, my dear, as your gallant knight; but what will the general say?"

"Ask him!" answered the mischievous Mollie, looking up sideways from under her little sailor's hat.

"Ah! that's what I have been thinking about for a month. I declare I have got real thin over the agony and the anxiety. Ask him! yes that's easily said."

"Shall I ask him for you?" said Murietta kindly.

"No, but we will do it together. Come! all three of us abreast."

With Carlton supported between them they moved down upon the general, who sat there feeding the doves of Saint Mark from his hand, and forgetting for the nonce all about his gridiron of railroads.

"There now! softly you young people. and don't fitighten them. There now! See what you have done! I had three of them feeding out of my hand at once."

"Most potent, grave, and reverend seignior," began Carlton at last in a faltering voice.

"Go on, go on," whispered Mollie, as she punched him affectionately with her elbow, "go on, that's all right, that's bully, bet your life! that's just the thing, for thia is Desdemona's palace, where the bloody Moor told his piteous tale."

"Most potent, grave, and reverend seignior," again faltered Carlton, "rude am I in speech — "

"Now don't frighten my doves, do — "

"And but little gifted with the set phrases of—"

"Why what in the name of sense does the man mean to frighten away my doves? Well go on."

"I mean, general, that I want this particular dove of yours for my own."

The great railroad man fell into a brown study. At last he raised his head and said, " Well, I reckon I had better give her to a Saxon painter than a Latin prince. But how, my dear Carlton, about your weakness for wine?"

"General Wopsus, I will reform tomorrow, won't I, Mollie?"

The innocent, light hearted girl from the great West looked, up through her tears, half laughing, from under her sailor's hat, and leaning affectionately on Carlton's arm as she turned her eyes to his, said saucily, "Bet your life!"