CHAPTER LIV

A BOAT-RACE ON LAKE COMO

These men, whoever they may be, who float that barge and fly that banner, must now assist this woman. I have done all I can do. I have sacrificed everything, and achieved nothing. I am not a patient man. I shall now go to older and abler heads, and tell them just how this lady is situated. I will get up a feeling among her countrymen in her favour that will bear her right along lightly and safely over all this sea of trouble." So musing, the man passed through the gate, stepped into a boat, and drove with double oarsmen across the lake to Menagio.

He met a party of young Americans under the trees before the half primitive house known, as the Victoria Hotel. He told them at once the story of this unfortunate lady, and, all the time leaving his own name out, asked them what should be done.

"Wal," answered the Yankee spokesman, "send for her husband, let her send for her husband. Or else go down to Rome with the courier. If she has been with him through all the Alps she can certainly go the two days' ride to Rome with him, and not hurt herself. As for her father, I reckon the old man is of age, and can take care of himself."

"Yes," said another sovereign from the great Republic, "let her go down to Rome, where her home is. Let her go to her husband if he won't come to her. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, let Mahomet go to the mountain. They say she's about half crazy any how, and a fellow don't like to get mixed up with a crazy woman; bad enough when they are in their senses."

"And so you have heard something about this poor lady already?" inquired Murietta.

"Heard about her! Wall now, I reckon we have: guess everybody has. It's the talk all over the lake. You see she's got a fellow with her that's about as crazy as she is, and that makes the thing a great deal worse. If she'd pitch him into the lake, and give some other fellow the full swing she might get on. But I guess she'd better go back to her husband, the Italian count."

"Why, what do you mean, sir? Do you know this lady?" said Murietta excitedly, as he rose up from the iron seat under the pine tree.

"No, no, not at all," answered the other quietly. "Only I've heard a great deal about her today, and they say she's got a sort of a painter, or a fiddler, or something of that kind."

Murietta had stepped rapidly down into his boat as the man began to drawl out this speech and reveal to him the current stories that the cunning Italians had set afloat and made the gossip of the lake, and lifting his hat did not wish to hear the conclusion.

His boat touched at Cadenabbia as the craft with the broad canvas and canopies, with its bands of music and pleasure party drew in to the shore. He had resolved to make one more appeal to simple manhood.

As the gay party stepped ashore he was delighted to see a friend here that he had met in Rome. It was that of McCreavy, the Irish porter of San Francisco and the millionaire, who had purchased the new antiquities in Rome.

The Irishman extended his hand with a voluble welcome to Como, and a pressing invitation to the artist to remain and make one of his party at dinner.

"Yis, yis, ye must remain wid me and dine, and meet the Prince of Lodi. That is the Prince of Lodi, a walking wid me wife into me hotel."

The Irishman pointed with his thumb over his shoulder and stooped his back as he did so, as if he was bearing a trunk on his back upstairs.

And then he went on to talk about this wonderful Prince of Lodi in the most garrulous way, and about every other word was sandwiched in between "the Prince of Lodi."

A wonderful boy was this young Prince of Lodi. The Irishman was full of anecdotes and adventures of and concerning this Prince of Lodi. Not that he had ever been in war, or even in the saddle or out of Italy, or even long out of the hands of his nurse, but still a wonderful man was this Prince of Lodi.

"I will present ye."

"No, do not disturb him."

"But he will not mind" urged the Irishman, who perhaps for the first time had found himself the companion of a prince, and was quite carried away, "he will not mind it in the least."

"Look here! Mr. McCreavy, I am busy," said Murietta nervously. "I have a matter on my mind and hand, and have come to see you about it, and at once. Hang your prince! What harm have I done that I must be bored by this idiotic and stripling prince? What good has he done that he has a right to my time? Why, he is a helpless toy. I am weary with toil in the world. I am covered with the scars of battle, and yet you would make this man my companion and my equal, and condemn me to tolerate him. Now, come! Here is a matter worthy of the attention and the strong arm of a prince of nature. Will you assist me?"

"Wid all me heart, barrin' your poor opinion o' the Prince of Lodi."

"Spoken like a brave, warm hearted Irishman," cried the artist, reaching his hand. "Now, sir, here is a work that the most chivalrous knight ought to be proud to strike a blow to promote."

"And ez it a Californy gold mine, or an oil well?" asked the shrewd exporter.

"It is a lady in trouble," replied Murietta solemnly. And then he proceeded to tell the whole story of the day and the day before to the Irishman, as they sat on an iron seat under the shade of the great sycamore trees by the lake.

"Come now," said Murietta as he concluded, "you sail the largest craft on this lake that carries the American colours."

"Yis, yis, I carries the flag o' me country, but what has that to do wi' the countess?"

"Only this. She is an American, you are an American. Since these Italians are so clannish against strangers in the land, let Americans be a little clannish, too, and stand by each other. This woman will have her child taken from her tomorrow morning. That child will not be taken to Rome, I am certain, but will be carried off to some hiding place by these brigands in disguise, and kept there till ransomed by her money. Now, sir, what I ask is this. Send your boat and your men under your flag, and take that lady and her child to Como tonight."

The Irishman rose up, stooped, picked up a pebble, pitched it into the lake, and then turned to the artist and laughed in his face.

"Take her to Como," pleaded Murietta. "From Como to Milan — it is but one hour; and at Milan she will be under the protection of the American consul, and even the British vice-consul will not see her separated from her child. Nay, there is not one Englishman in ten outside of a shopkeeper but would put his shoulder to the wheel and see her through it all, if he saw this case and understood it as I see and understand it."

"The Prince of Lodi," began the Irish- man.

"Will you, can you assist the countess to get to Milan tonight?"

"The Prmce of Lodi— "

"Hang the Prince of Lodi!" cried the artist, furious at the thought of having to entreat this vulgar fellow to do the simplest service for a lady in trouble, "will you do this or not?"

The Irishman shook his head, stooped, picked up another pebble, tossed it into the lake, and then said he thought it would hardly pay.

"No. You are right, it will not pay," answered Murietta as he entered his boat in despair, and now pushed off with the prow toward the Grand Hotel Bellagio. "I forgot," he continued, talking to himself, "it really will not pay him. He is only a porter still; I mistook him for a gentleman."

"You have left me alone all day. You knew how lonely I was here, and yet here I have been left without a fidend, left with that terrible little monster of a doctor, who would poison us all for a penny." The countess was bitter in her reproaches. The poor spoilt child! She had never been so alone before. She did not even have her keepers about her now.

"I have got another doctor," she said, leaning over the balcony and looking down at a fine young fellow leading the little child in a walk slowly up and down the avenue of trees by the lake. "Here, take this roll of money and go find the other doctor and pay him off."

The beautiful woman was severe and imperious, but Murietta had too much on his mind to heed anything she said or did. He had resolved now to see her through this peril at every hazard. The insinuations, the sneers, and the cold caution of those to whom he had appealed had maddened him. He was now desperate with this re solution, and heeded nothing but that which either facilitated or retarded his contemplated enterprise. He therefore took the money as if he had been a courier or sort of upper servant, and went down, found the doctor, paid him liberally, and came back.

The lady had just received a telegram from her father. He was at the Royal Hotel, Milan.

Poor lady! She walked the floor, half wild again. Yet she did not dream of the greater trouble that now encotnpassed her, and Murietta did not dare tell her. He feared she would break quite down under it, and he did not see the good that would come of reciting the unpleasant truths,

Giuseppe did not put in an appearance at the Grand Hotel that day. He was a coward, every inch of him, and the recollection of the little encounter in the ante camera of the palace in Rome no doubt had something to do with keeping him aloof from the presence of Murietta.

"I like the looks of that new doctor," said Murietta to the countess, attempting to divert her thoughts.

"He is a gentleman," she answered as she came up and looked down and threw a kiss to the little one at his side; "he is a born gentleman, the only one I have seen in all this place. I should have died but for him today."

The artist felt the bitter taunt, but only went down and joined the little party in the walk. Then the countess came down, and as they stood there by the lake, the boat from up at Colico with the travellers from the Alps and the Tyrol came and discharged her load of tourists for Bellagio, and took in her load for France, England, and America.

"Oh, why can I not go too?" cried the countess as she saw the boat push off. "Why did you not tell me to get ready to go? I could get into the boat, go to Como, drive to the station, take a ticket, and be in Milan with my father before morning. I can do it. I will go on the very next —"

The old admiral was walking up and down through the cypress avenue on the hill side above them, and as the lady saw him she stopped suddenly and bowed her head, and hid her face in her hands and trembling sank into a seat.

The young doctor was greatly affected. He saw that something was certainly wrong here, and he, though a Frenchman just from school, had lived long enough in Italy to make a pretty shrewd guess at the cause of the trouble.

"I must get away from here, and soon, or I shall go mad," said the countess, lifting up her face and looking through the cypress avenue for the cause of her terror as a woman always will when she has been frightened.

"Lady, I am arranging to go tonight," said the artist.

"Tonight! Can we go tonight? Oh, let us go tonight, now! Come, let us go!"

"Soft, soft, mind what you say. These very trees have ears. The old admiral is on the watch. He has sworn that you shall not go without taking him."

The lady looked at him with her great eyes wide open, and helpless as any babe. He had seen fit to tell her this much in order to put her on her guard, and make her the more cautious in getting away. But more than this he did not tell her.

The sun went down, and the party retired to prepare for dinner. The young doctor kept the child constantly by his side, for he had been engaged by the countess to remain with her, unless called away by a case of most urgent necessity. As he was a young man and a stranger, it was not likely that that event would happen for a long time.

It was ten o'clock at night. Fire rockets and Roman candles were going off in every direction. It was like a great battle field. These vulgar hotel keepers, forgetting that people came there for peace and rest, took this means of advertising their respective houses. There were persons who remonstrated with the long nosed Swiss Italian who kept the Grand Bellagio, but it did no good. Every evening at eight, and from eight to ten, the whole garden and mound and hill side was ablaze with these unpleasant fireworks.

"I wish to take the countess and her child out of this noise for an hour," said Murietta to the proprietor. "Is there not a place around the forks of the lake on the other side of the little pine-topped mountain where there are no hotels with rockets and fireworks?"

The man answered that there was, and also told the artist, that on the other side of the little mountain there was a famous echo that the countess would certainly be pleased to hear.

"Give me a boat with four oarsmen, and the best young men to be found, for the countess has been sorely tried, and must have some diversion."

The man promised the boat should soon be ready, and also that he should have the best men in Bellagio to pull him and his party around the mountain; and the artist withdrew to his room.

He rolled up a picture that was there, with his face averted. He did not look at it. He did not dare to. He rolled it up tight, tied it, and then taking up his brush wrote the one word "Rubicon."

Then he went down and stood by the side of the countess, on the balcony. The doctor and his little charge were watching the lights with great pleasure and interest from another balcony within call. The artist left the countess a moment, stepped to the doctor, whispered in his ear, after making sure that no spies were at that moment watching them, and then went back to the countess.

"It is all right. He will be with us as far as Como. He does not know all the trouble that surrounds us, you do not know, perhaps I do not know, and after all it is not beat to know. But we are off in half an hour, and you must not say one word till safe away on the water."

"Safe away! God! And you will see me through it all?"

"I will see you through it all, God helping me," the man said with a trembling voice, for his face was lifted to the hill and the house in the pines where his heart should be left for ever behind him.

"Murietta," said the lady, "I know what it costs you to go away with me to Milan."

"Do you know?" he asked, looking in her beautiful childish and helpless face. "Do you know what it costs me?"

"Ah, yes. I know what it costs you to leave here and go with me down to hot and dusty Milan. I know you want to stay Cromo for a month still, and to rest here instead of that you must go down just in the flush of the season to dull, dusty Milan, and all only to oblige me. You see I know what it costs you. I appreciate what you are about to do, and Heaven will reward you, for I cannot."

"woman! woman! woman!" sighed Murietta, as he once more, and for the last time, lifted his face to the house hidden away among the pines and ruins on the woody little mountain.

"All ready, signor."

"Very good. Say that we will be there presently," said Murietta to the man. And the man bowed low and withdrew.

"No, no; leave that," whispered the artist to the countess, as she began to throw her shawl over her shoulders. "Leave everything just as it is in the room. Touch nothing. Take nothing with you. It is too sultry at this hour for shawls and wraps, and however much you may need them tonight, they must be left behind. This is a desperate game, and it must be played reckless of cost."

The party entered the boat and pushed off and drove hard for half an hour up the lake and around the little high pine topped mountain with its nose pushed into the forks.

"What a beautiful night for a ride to Como," exclaimed the countess, as if in a spirit of banter.

"Beautiful!" answered Murietta; "but you would get very weary of it before you rode that distance."

"Would I, though! Not half so weary as you, my dear artist."

"Try it and see."

"Try it and see! Do you dare me?"

"Well, I think I can endure almost as much boat riding on Lake Como as the fair countess — that is all."

"Captain, how much to Como and back, and without touching land all the way down, or stopping to rest, or doing anything by which my friend the artist can find other diversion than sitting in the boat?"

It was indeed a dangerous enterprise. Two people of this party were attempting to deceive Italians.

The captain of the boat spoke to his fellows in the patois of the country, and then he answered politely, "Fifty francs, Senora Countess, at night with four oars."

"But you would get out as we neared the hotel, would you not?" she said, turning to Murietta with a well-assumed air of banter.

"Try me, and see. I think I can sit here certainly as long as your ladyship."

"Oh! I will not give you a chance to leave us. You shall not even be in hail of Bellagio again till we return from Como."

"Captain! Como!" cried the beautiful woman, half rising with excitement, and acting her part with a skill that amazed Murietta.

"It will be fifty francs, Senora Countess, and the sum that we were to have for the excursion besides."

"You shall have it; and bono mana besides."

The Italian boatman bowed and smiled in acknowledgment, and the little craft spun around and the prow was pointed down the water toward the plains of Lombardy.

It was a moment of intense anxiety as they came opposite Bellagio on their way down the still, warm water. What if the wily Italians suspected something, and should make some excuse to pull in — to get their coats, a little wine, anything?

No! the boat did not veer from its course. Not an oar lost a note. The tall, handsome, half Greek fellows kept time, and they shot ahead with a speed that was surprising.

The artist sat silent, and with folded hands. He had not slept for the past two nights, but even now his brain was at work, and he was wide awake and watchful: he had done what he knew to be his duty. Yet, sitting there, he knew that on the morrow men and women would couple his name with that of the countess in a way that would cover his head with shame. He had sacrificed all, everything. He had sacrificed more to serve this woman by his side, to help her through a trouble, than most men ever possess. He had counted down his good name, broken his idol, left his heart with all his broken hopes on the pine and vine clad hill at Bellagio.

Yet for all this that he had done, he- sitting there with folded hands — knew perfectly well there could, among men, be but one reward — the reward of a ruined name. He was not regretting anything now: he was simply sitting there looking back at the ugly fact, and sometimes asking himself if he could not have done otherwise, and all the time answering that he could not have done otherwise and had his own respect.

This, then, was the outlook: he had lost the world's good opinion, but had retained his own. After all, if he had been compelled, at any time of his stormy and troubled life from the date of his discretion, to choose which should be sacrificed and which retained, the world's good will or his own, he never would have hesitated or had two opinions for a moment. He had been driven to the wall here, and had been compelled to choose: he had made his choice and did not regret it. Yet it was so hard, so very hard, to leave her, and disgraced. He was thinking that if he had died then it had been so very much better. She then would perhaps have thought of him at least with respect: now, she would never think of him but with shame,

"And this is the woman — the One Fair Woman — of my life! the light that I have followed, the lady I saw on the mountain of fire, and in whose path I strewed roses. This boat is bearing me from her presence, and in eternal disgrace."

It was a sultry evening. Away down the long narrow lake there was a great water fall plunging down from the high savage mountain into a little bay by the left of the weary oarsmen.

They asked permission to rest a moment in the cooling spray; and the kind countess, who was now light-hearted and full of hope, cheerfully allowed the boat to lie still and rock and rest at will.

The bold, strong fellows soon pushed on again, for a wind was springing up ahead, and the fair face of the lake began to grow wrinkled, as if getting up a storm.

The air was chill now as the wind blew in, and the doctor took off his cloak and folded it around the countess and her child.

Murietta sat there silent and still. His pliable and easy nature had at last been intensified, and now he was as a man of iron.

There was a sound of oars. A man leaned over the boat and listened. The artist drew a pistol, cocked it, and said, "Pull! pull for your lives! Double pay if you reach Como before them!" And then he lifted the shining steel in the moon, "Death if you do not!"

"Is it, oh, is it the admiral?" asked the countess.

The doctor looked terrified, and tapped the plank in the boat with his boot, and sat yery restless in his seat.

Singularly enough, the captain and his men only smiled with pleasure at the lifted pistol and the promised double pay. These fellows had seen runaway affairs before. They now leaned to their oars and entered into it with heart and soul. They thought this was a love affair, and laughed to see how cleverly it had been managed, for Como has long been famous for its many adventures in this field. These fellows supposed the artist was stealing the countess, and they liked his dash and daring, and particularly liked the promise of double pay.

Notwithstanding the promise of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel that the boat and the men should be the best on the lake, this was now doubtful, for the pursuers were gaining at every stroke. They were now almost within a pistol shot.

The doctor crouched down, so as not to catch the wind, and the countess, with her child in her arms, lay almost flat on the seat, while Murietta turned his face to the boat that followed, took another pistol from his side, and calmly waited results.

"You will take notice, captain, and all of you, that the doctor here and the countess have no hand in this matter. It is all my own affair. If any of these men are killed who come after me, remember it is I, and I alone, who do it," said the artist, with an iron expression in his voice, as he lifted a pistol towards the pursuers.

It was breaking day at last, and the boats began to leave the little towns along the edge of the water, and put out on the lake, for business or pleasure, and cross to other towns.

They were now nearing the city of Como, The boat that followed hailed, but had no answer. Murietta sat silent as a man of stone, waiting his opportunity to send the admiral into eternity. He had endured quite enough. He was now desperate. His heart was really set on the death of this man. His mind was full of murder.

It is a sad but a true confession, that this man — the artist — sitting there, with his menacing pistol, was really wishing that the boat was only a little closer, so that he could send the bullet to his heart with perfect precision. He had determined to kill him, and to kill him with his own hand. Having once made up his mind to this, he was impatient for the moment to come.

It was unfortunate that the doctor was in the boat. Every pound of weight was now telling against our party. The men were bold, strong fellows, and, no doubt, faithful enough, but they had been on the water at least an hour before the pursuers had taken their oars. Besides, when the admiral determined to make chase, he had the pick of the best and swiftest boat in Belaggio.

The Italians were pulling indeed for life. They had seen how settled and determined was the artist, and they knew that blood must flow if they were overtaken. For very good reasons they wished to avoid anything serious, and were therefore making the best possible use of their strength.

The pursuers were dangerously close. They could almost pierce the boat of the countess with a pike. The artist had been too anxious to kill this old admiral; his mind had been too determinedly set on murder to exhibit his pistol as he drew near. He even held it low down in the edge of the boat, as a sportsman holds his gun out of sight, when coy game is coming near. He was only waiting for a dead centre shot to the heart.

There was a boat putting sharp across the lake in front and at right angles. It was driving straight across their course. It whistled, but our boatmen did not heed. Closer and closer they drew together. The steamer and the little boat were closing in, bow to bow.

Once, twice, thrice, the steamer whistled, but the Italians were desperate. To stop then would be to give themselves over to the pursuers.

"Stop, in the name of the law!" cried an officer in the pursuer's boat, as he held up a paper.

Murietta lifted a pistol in each hand, and half arose. "I will shoot the first man who dares slacken for a second."

"But the boat! the boat! the steamer!" cried the terrified captain.

"On! and under her! On, I say!"

The men sprang to the work as if they had been springs of steel.

Right under the prow they shot, with barely room for their oars, and as they came out and darted on from the other side, and shot for the shore, there was a shout of admiration from the steamer's deck, and a waving of handkerchiefs from fair hands, that showed how the reckless deed had been appreciated, even by those who had been about to run them down.

As they touched the shore and climbed into a carriage, they looked back, but the boat of the pursuers was not to be distinguished. Other craft were crossing the i lake, and perhaps it was confounded with, them.

Then, as they drove further away, and up the hill toward Milan, they saw that the steamer had turned about on the lake and was lying there quite still. It was not yet fairly dawn, and they dashed away toward Milan in doubt of what had become of the admiral or his men. The countess wondered why the vessel had stopped in the middle of the lake and was resting there. Perhaps she was picking up the pursuers, who had fallen under her wheels.