It is one hour or more from Como to Milan by rail; but you can drive it in three hours. The railroad is not so direct as the carriage road. It is a lonesome ride through a bare and a not over fertile land, considering that it is the plain of Lombardy.
You pass through a dozen or two poor tumble down towns, all with one long street and all paved with cobble stones, over which your carriage bumps and thumps in the most agonizing manner you can imagine.
The wondering doctor had been left with the dismissed boatmen, who were mad with delight at their accidental feat and their trebled pay; and the countess held her child in her lap and sat looking with her great brown eyes at Murietta, who scarcely spoke the whole weary way to the gates of the city of the plain.
There lay Milan. A wall of five miles girdle, and wide enough for a small army to march abreast upon. This wall is the great drive of the great city. It is called the Bastion, and is planted with double rows of great trees. This was built by the Spaniard.
In the centre of this city stands a little mountain of marble in a low and uncomely site. This mountain of marble is topped by a forest of barren and boughless pines, and all are as white as if wrapped in perpetual rime and snow.
If you wish to see and enjoy the great cathedral of Milan, keep away from it. At all events never enter it. It is a lonesome place inside. It is so large you may get lost. And the famous silver bishops and popes are not solid silver. Tap them with your fingers and you will find them hollow.
Down stairs, for five francs, they will show you the black and ugly bones of a good man, who deserves a better fate than this foul exhibition of his decaying corpse. And that is about all there is to be seen inside, save the cunning frescos away up in the arches overhead and some stained windows. There is nothing here to compensate yon for the disappointment you feel on entering, after you have contemplated the beauty and airy proportions from without.
Climb to the top of this awful edifice and you will find that the figure of a mountain with a forest is not altogether inappropriate. You will find a garden of flowers there, all of marble. In fact, every plant of Italy, even to the most common vegetable of the garden, is divided out and set up there for you to walk through and admire.
There is something more here on these little spires, and in this marble garden of plants and flowers, than all that. On one of these spires is a hen on her nest. It is made very beautiful, singular as it may seem, and is much admired.
Away yonder in an obscure corner, looking down into the crowded street, stands a statue of Adam. He is leaning on his mattock, and seems weary of life. His face is a blended face of Christ and Cain. It is the best of all the thousands of statues here.
Our little party of three reached the Hotel Royal, in the heart of Milan, at last, worn and exhausted.
The countess had been so overcome by the agony and intense excitement of the past few days, that she had to be borne from the carriage to her rooms.
There lay Milan in the middle of the great plain, teeming in yellow corn, covered with fruit and flowers and vines, and literally steaming in the intense heat. It was intolerable. The old father of the coimtess had pushed on the next day for England, leaving kind messages and most urgent letters for her to follow at once, for he was dying.
It was impossible for our party to move that evening, eager as they were to leave the burning town, Italy, everything, while all seemed clear and open for the flight. The countess was prostrated, and must remain till tomorrow.
They rested. Yet long before the countess had opened her eyes the artist was, next morning, down in the court of the old palace which was now converted into a hotel, quietly arranging for the departure. He somehow felt certain that the end was not yet. Where was the count? what had become of the doctor with the retreating moustache and the low brow? And had the admiral and his crew of followers really perished? Certainly not, else the event had been chronicled in the journals of Milan. The artist looked them eagerly through. He found no tidings there; nothing to tell him the fate of those who had followed that fearful night of the flight from Como.
Then if the old admiral was not dead he was alive. If alive he would be upon the track of the countess, and that soon, again. That big chin of his would brook no delay, or hesitate at nothing. It had the iron energy of an engine, and the man was now moved with a sort of desperation and hate that must find vent either in the capture of the countess or the death of Murietta.
The sun was just rising in sultry Milan. It was but a few minutes' walk to the great cathedral, where there was room and place to breathe in the great open space surrounding it.
The artist stood on the steps in the fresh morning shade cast by the great marble edifice, and had not yet entered the cathedral. The people were as thick in Milan, even at this early hour, as in a Roman carnival. You could hardly move along. Standing there on the marble steps, Murietta could scarcely see the ground for the moving masses of people. Italy is so very, very populous.
There was a heavy hand laid on his shoulder. The artist started, for he was still nervous from the excitement of the past few days, and backed against the wall.
"Shake hands. Come! let us be friends. I carry my heart in my hand. I am a rough but honest man, and you will yet live to see it. Take it! Take my hand, it is the olive branch of peace. I offer it to tou now for the last time. Will you not take my hand?"
Murietta had backed close against the wall, and the old admiral stood there reaching out his hand and offering him his friendship. The artist only shook his head, and looked the old monster hard in the face.
"Very well, very well. But you shall remember this. I will bring this back to your mind some day, and in a way and in a place that you little suspect."
Then the old admiral, black with passion, pulled at his long grey moustache, and twirled it about hia finger.
At last he began again, standing all the time boldly before Murietta as if to prevent his escape, and pulling mercilessly at his long grey moustache with his stained fingers. "If I prove to you that 1 really want to leave Italy, and that it is necessary for me to leave Italy, and to leave in the company of the countess, and if I take the place of courier, or even of a common servant, will you not advise her to take me? Think, think, before you answer. She must get on if she ever sees her father alive again. You see what I have done, and you know what I can do. It was only an accident that pulled you through at Como. Now, sir, if you wish to serve this lady, if you really are the bold, chivalrous, and disinterested friend that you profess to be, take me with you. I will go as a common servant. Nay, more, I will pay you to let me go with you; to go in disguise. Come! I can prove to you that I am, at least, honest in this matter. I must leave Italy. I knew you would come to the cathedral. I have stood here all night waiting for you. I offer you my hand once more. Is it war or is it peace?"
Murietta was not the least part of a patient man. He had stood there pushed back against the wall with this old villain's vile breath in his face as long as he could bear it. He sprang forward, pushed him aside, and returned to the hotel.
All over the city were posted great red posters, headed with this tempting announcement: "Fifty thousand francs reward."People were reading these posters eagerly. They had just been put up. They were still wet and warped from the fresh paste. The artist stopped and read one of them at the portal of the hotel as he returned. It was a reward offered for the arrest and conviction of forgers of Italian currency.
"Ah," cried the English clerk of the hotel, who had seen the artist reading this bill, "they should have made the reward at least half a million. Italy is full of it. Look there! The prettiest forged paper you ever saw. It is really better than the original, finer than the genuine. That is the way we detect it."
"There is a gentleman waiting to see you, sir, and he says his business is urgent," said a boy with a silver plate in his hand to the artist as he passed on up to his rooms.
It was the black and low browed doctor. He was dressed up now, and looking very smart. His fee for healing had healed his threadbare dress, and but for his villainous face he might now have been quite presentable.
He stood bowing before the artist, twirling his hat in his hand, and looking nervously around him as if he half suspected he was watched.
"You wish to get rid of the admiral," began the visitor, twirling his hat faster than ever,
"And you propose to poison him for me, you dog; is that what you are here for this morning?"
"No, no, no. Really, signore, you do me a great wrong. Nothing of the kind. I told you I should leave the service of the admiral, and enter the service of my country."
"Well, go on, get done with what you have to say, and then get out of my sight, and soon."
"Well, signore. If I had the admiral locked up in the prison of Milan, so that he will never again be free, how much money will you pay me?"
"Not a sou. Is that all you have to say?"
"No, signore, not quite all." The hat twirled in the nervous hands faster than ever.
"Well, you had better go. If you must betray your friends you must take them to some other market. I am a poor man. Besides that, I would not bribe you; nor could I trust you if I should."
"But will signore listen one moment more? You hare seen the immense reward that is offered. Good! You have noticed the stained finger ends of the admiral. Good! Signore, listen to me. All the plates for printing Italian money were made in America, with a few exceptions. Why? because this new Italy could not trust her own men. She was afraid if these plates were made at home that there would be duplicates made also. Very good. These plates were made abroad, and duplicates were made notwithstanding the suspicious feeling of the new Italy."
"Well, this is very tiresome; and what has it all to do with locking up the admiral?" asked the artist impatiently.
"Ah, that now is the point, that is the pith of it. The admiral is a miser. He is worth a million. He has [undecipherable], and he has starved me for revenge. He pretends to despise me. I will show him! I will show him!"
"Come, fellow, come to this point you speak of. What is it you propose?"
"Signore, I come to you. I say, give me twenty — ten — five thousand francs. Give me that sum, and I will lock up the admiral, and you can go on your ways uninterrupted. You refuse. Very good. You will not give me money. No matter. I will have that which is dearer to an Italian than money, or fame, or estate. I will have revenge! Revenge, signore! Revenge! Revenge!"
Murietta beckoned the man to the door. He did not move, and the artist stepped to the bell.
"One moment, signore. The government offers fifty thousand francs. But I do not like the government. I therefore ask you but five thousand francs. You refuse a single sou.. Very good. I accept the offer of the governnent. I turn state's evidence. The admiral will follow you no further. Signore, I wish you a very good day."
The black eyed, narrow browed doctor bowed himself out, and the artist stood there alone wondering what the fellow really meant.
Fifty thousand francs reward! The old admiral worth a million! Counterfeit currency! The stains on the admiral's fingers! His eagerness to get away in the company of respectable travellers, if even in disguise! Putting this and that together, the artist began to feel pretty certain that there was really something in the wind, and that the mission of the dark browed doctor that morning meant something more than to beg for money.
Start reading Chapter 56 ofThe One Fair Lady