CHAPTER LIII

KIDNAPPING

It was nearly evening, and the countess was walking in the little wood by the lake waiting the arrival of the boat. She was quite ready for her departure. Murietta had done what little there was to do, so as to put everything beyond the reach of accident, and now, all ready to step into the boat, she was walking up and down in the little avenue on the edge of the lake. The child had wandered off, only a few steps, to the edge of the vineyard.

A man, a bare headed man with enormous ears and a red face, came up out of the grape vines, spoke to Giuseppe, the courier who had charge of the child, and then darting forward caught it under his arm, and turned to fly. There was a struggle and a scream, and the thief stumbled and fell there as he looked back, for Murietta was upon him.

The kidnapper dropped the child and; escaped into the ruins. The little thing was terribly frightened and fearfully bruised j about the head. Life seemed extinct.

The boat came and went, but the countess sat all the time by a little bedside with her hands wrung together, and weeping through her falling hair as if her heart would break.

Who should stand by her side at such a time? This man, who had waited for this present hour, saw it go by. He saw his promise broken, as he sat there alone with the lady and the little black eyed villain of a doctor, whom they had called in as the only person present bearing the name of doctor, and watched with the little unconscious child whose life flickered like a dying lamp on the edge of eternity, and did not speak of Annette even to himself.

The little sufferer sat up in the morning and spoke to its mother. The danger was over, and the little doctor once more, in the good favour m which his skill had placed him, tried to approach Murietta on a subject uppermost in his mind.

Italians advance directly upon nothing. If they wish to talk about paradise they begin about purgatory.

The doctor stood before Murietta washing his hands in the morning sunlight on the little balcony before the lady's parlour.

*'The old gentleman, her father," he began, "will not stop long in Milan. It is too hot. Besides he is dying, and dying men are never satisfied anywhere. If he lives he will push on to England at once. But then he will die when he comes to the end of the journey by the great sea, for the excitement of travel will be over. There will be a reaction, and then the man will die."

He stopped talking, stopped washing his hands, and waited for the artist to answer. But he did not answer. He lifted his face up towards the little pine topped mountain and a house there with a balcony looking down on the two lakes, but did not speak.

The low browed, black eyed Italian doctor began again to wash his hands, and to wag his tongue. This time he moved a little nearer to the subject of his thoughts.

"The admiral wishes to get out of Italy, I think," said the doctor cautiously, and washing his hands very slowly. "You see he has got all the money and he intends to keep it. He got at least a hundred thousand francs from the countess when she left Rome; and here! just look at my clothes. Not a centime! No, sir! not a sou did I get out of all that sum! I have followed him, sir. He intends to try to cross the border. He lingers about the edge of Italy with the pretence that he must follow the countess, and keep her from revealing the secrets of the order of the Brothers of the Altar."

"Well! well!" said Murietta sharply as he turned upon the man, for he was not in a mood for diplomacy, "come to the point. What do you propose? What do you want?"

"Signor, I want money. If I cannot get what is really mine from the admiral; if he persists in keeping me in rags and wretchedness, I shall enter the service of some one who will be more just and generous. Aye! even enter the service of the State of Italy!"

"Very well, I certainly have no use for knaves. Enter the service of the state, or the state prisons for aught I care;" and Murietta turned back to the countess who had just re-entered the saloon.

"I have just dismissed Giuseppe and my maid," she began. "I have paid them off and paid their wages to Rome, They were in a league against me, and I am certain were in the pay of the old admiral. Now I am a little more free," she said, coming forward and half smiling at some remark of the little invalid, who was sitting up in bed and playing with a lot of toys.

"Dismissed them both? And how, then, do you expect to get on your journey?" exclaimed Murietta, for he knew full well that these dismissed servants would now make mischief.

"Well!" exclaimed the lady sharply, "I could not get on my journey with them, and if I cannot get on my journey without them, I shall certainly be no worse off, and possibly a great deal better. At all events I cannot afford to have thieves and spies and kidnappers about me longer. It is done; they are gone, and thank God for it."

"Yes, if they only are gone," answered Murietta.

"Do not frighten me. Pray do not frighten me," pleaded the countess, leaning her head in her little baby hands as she sank upon the sofa. "I am not strong, and I must keep up."

"No, no, you are not to break down now. Do not fear. It is but a little way to Milan. There you can get other servants, and put yourself under the protection of the American consul," said Murietta cheerfully, and again stepped out in the fresh morning air on the balcony.

A servant entered bearing a letter on a great silver plate. It was a large square envelope bearing the arms of the City of Belaggio, and was otherwise embellished. There was an officer of the city just visible at the head of the stairs in the great hall.

This letter was addressed to Murietta, and he hastened to break the seal.

He started back. It was a summons from the syndicate to appear and answer, and show cause why Giuseppe, the courier, should not carry the child to Rome, as he had been engaged and employed to do by its father.

"Now what upon earth does all this mean?" said the man to himself. "What have I to do with the coming or going of this party, or the aflfairs of this family in any respect? And so I am to go into court and have the rabble at my heels, and be the talk of the little town! And Annette!"

He went in and spoke kindly to the countess, who was still bowing under the weight of her troubles. The man was in earnest now, and serene. He was gentle, but it was a sort of iron gentleness. He did not hint to her of this new trouble; but said he was going out for a moment, and would return as soon as possible. He left her alone, with the little black eyed doctor hovering around like a hawk, and hastened out at the head of the stairs. for he knew the polite officer was not over patient at his delay.

They walked through the hotel together on their way to the open street, and Murietta smiled bitterly at the perfect refinement of the manner of making an arrest in Italy.

"Ha, ha!" he thought to himself, as they drew near the open gate that led into the street, "I suppose if a man was to be sentenced to death in Italy, they would send him the sentence in a sweetly perfumed envelope, borne on a silver plate by a beautiful page."

Sure enough, and just as the nervous and now half wild artist had feared, the mob of fishermen and old women and other idlers, who knew the officer, fell in and followed to the office of the mayor, where they stood outside tiptoeing up, peeping over and under, and passing their rough, humorous remarks on the appearance and bearing of the prisoner.

Giuseppe stood up in the midst of his cunning countrymen and tolda terrible story about how this artist had beaten his master, a devout Catholic, in Rome. He told that this lad's Protestant mother was trying to take the child away from its Catholic father and escape from Italy to England, where it would be brought up a heretic, contrary to its father's expressed wish.

How the revengeful Italian did gloat over the agony of Murietta as he stood up there and had the ears of the syndicate and the sympathy of the mob. How he did lie about his mistress as he stood there with his hand on the Holy Cross. He was having his revenge for being dismissed and disgraced. Then he showed certificates of his unimpeachable character, from Italian priests down to Italian princes, and the syndicate was perfectly satisfied.

Murietta was called upon to answer. He replied that it did not concern him in the least, any more than it should concern any gentleman who saw a countrywoman in trouble in a strange land; that he was not on trial for striking the count in Rome; that he had not interfered with the affairs of either the count or the countess; that he thought the lady had a right to be allowed to join her father at once, or go out of or enter into free Italy without let or hindrance, and without regard to the question whether she was a Catholic or a Protestant; and finally, he bluntly stated that he believed this Giuseppe to be a villain whom no lady could trust.

As he stood there a carriage that was passing became blocked and interrupted by the mob which filled the narrow street at the door.

As the carriage stopped before the door the occupant, with a woman's curiosity, looked in. It was Annette. She had seen Murietta standing in the prisoner's stall, and on trial.

The syndicate, in a very graceful speech, summed up the case, and decided very promptly that Giuseppe had been employed by the child's father to take it on a tour through the Alps, and then back to Rome, and that he must do this whether the mother willed it or not; that this man represented the father, and the mother could not, or any one else, take the child from his charge without the father's consent.

As for Murietta — and he was profuse here in his flowing apologies— he was very sorry that he had been brought to answer, but Justice was blind, and could not always see clearly without first hearing the evidence. But since he found that he had nothing to do with the matter, the court was very happy to say that he had nothing to answer for.

Giuseppe was radiant with his triumph. He dispensed speeches in the noisy court room right and left; he pulled his moustache and puffed his cheeks, and leered in the face of Murietta with an audacity that meant more than words could express.

The artist did not even thank the magistrate. He did not look right or left, or lift his head. His soul was filling with a stubborn strength, the strength of the lion or the bull; a sort of mad strength that is blind and dangerous to deal with.

The syndicate spoke to Giuseppe, and Murietta looked back over his shoulder as he was trying to elbow his way through the crowd to the door.

"You have no right [undecipherable]missed from the service of the countess, therefore you cannot serve her, but must return at once to the count. You will take the child and set out for Rome on the steamer to-morrow morning. That is the judgment of the court."

Giuseppe bowed almost to the stone floor. As Murietta passed out of the door a man with a very coarse voice, said to him with an oath, "What did I tell you? There! do you not see that the. countess cannot leave Italy or join her father again without my consent? See what you have done for her! Now, sir, if you are her friend, go and tell her to take me for her courier. And if she is her father's friend, and wishes to see him again, she will take me for her lover."

This was the admiral. He followed Murietta, and hissed this proposition in his ears, for the artist would not stop or listen or look back, for fear he should be forced to knock the man's teeth down his throat, and so find himself again before the syndicate. He went back at once to the countess.

woman had arrayed herself in pink and rose. Her hair of gold was down about her shoulders, and there were roses in her hair. She was playing gaily at the piano, and singing a merry song. The little child sat in bed still playing with the toys, and pale and silent. The countess sang louder and heartier than before when she saw the artist enter, and smiled at him with her pretty baby face turned half around over her shoulder. Her mind was surely shaken by her troubles.

The artist wanted a moment to reflect. He went down, stood under the shady trees, and leaning over the wall, watched the shining fishes come, and listened to the music floating on the waters from under the great canvas canopies out there in the middle of the lake, with the American Stars and Stripes floating from the masts of the pleasure boat.