CHAPTER LVII

VIS-A-VIS WITH TWO MONKS.

There was not the least ripple of trouble, as the little party took their seats in the express train for Paris.

The countess had received a telegram from England. Her father had reached the shore of the great sea that lay between him and his home.

"For the first time in five years" said the lady, as the train shot away over the fertile fields of Lombardy, and over the great battlefield of Magenta, "for the first time in five years I feel like a free woman. I am no longer watched."

She did not know the fate of the old admiral. She still fancied he might be at the bottom of Lake Como, and thought all their troubles over. Yet she was not cheerful, but unusually sad.

As they neared Turin, and looked up at the little Campo Santo on the hill, with its tombstones and monuments shining in the setting sun, she suddenly turned to Murietta and said, "It seems to me, if Count Edna, my husband, were here, and going home with me, I should be almost perfectly happy."

Murietta looked out at the white tombstones, as they shot past, tapped the butt of a pistol, just visible under his waistcoat, and said to himself, wondering, "And still she loves him! She is certainly past finding out."

It was raining at Turin, and dark, as they changed cars for the Mont Cenis Tunnel.

"You will remain here in this coupe, you and your little boy together, and you will remain locked up. It is just big enough for you two. I will have a seat in the car adjoining. I entreat you, do not move," said Murietta; "we may have trouble yet."

He turned, and two monks with immense cowls were looking over his shoulder at the countess and her little boy.

He stepped into his adjoining car, after handing the conductor a liberal present, and took his seat. The monks instantly followed and sat together opposite.

Around the rocky spurs of the Alps,under arches, over bridges that those perfect Italian engineers have made for the world to wonder at, and the line of France was near at hand.

The monks whispered together. In half an hour they would be at the station where you are expected to show your passport, or bribe the officer. This latter is, perhaps, the most common, as well as the most convenient way. The little boy had no passport. As the monks whispered together, one of the cowls was brushed by a sudden lurch of the car, and the large red ears of the wearer were uncovered.

Murietta caught his breath, but said nothing. By a sort of inspiration he then at once knew that these monks were Prince Trawaska and the courier Giuseppe, and he knew that the last struggle would be made at the little mountain town where you are expected to pay or show a passport.

"I am sick of this pistol practice; it is getting monotonous. But come, my little iron bull dogs, you may have to bark at these men, and bite and bite even to the death"

He cautiously drew his hands under his cloak, and drew his pistols around where they could be pulled in a flash.

"Trawaska!"

The man in the monk's cowl and gown sprung up, only to find a pistol pointed into his face.

"Sit down, sir. There, that will do. Your hands behind your head. There, fasten them there. Lock your fingers in together behind the back of your neck. There! so! The moment a hand comes down, you die!

"Giuseppe!"

Giuseppe did the same without being told in words. He understood the signs.

"There I you will both keep your hands in that position till we pass this station. I will see about your passports. Fifty francs will settle the whole matter. No, no! Take care; take care there! You see I should be perfectly delighted to kill you both. It would sound so well to have the name of a Polish prince and an Italian colonel mixed up in a matter of this kind. Child stealing, eh! A valiant business, indeed! And then, an Italian colonel to be found in the car in monk's clothes with a bullet through Jih head. How would it sound, Trawaska? Just let me kill you to sec what a sensation it would produce. Or even let me just mention the matter to the next officer we meet, either civil or military. Let me turn you over to him in your monk's clothes! Bah! my brave men! An Italian colonel and a Polish prince have obtained leave of absence to go child stealing in monk's clothes. Soft there!"

The men were trembling in their seats, and suffering from their painful positions.

"Come, we will vary this a little. Here is another pistol; one for each of you. Yes, it hurts you, I know, to hold your hands there; it affects the spine finally, and stupefies you. If you were to take down your hands now you would find them helpless; the blood and the strength is gone out of them. Take down your hands and try them, Giuseppe, if you like; you will find them as useless as the hands of the dead man you hid away in the dark vault at Rome."

The train stopped for an instant, and a man ran along on the rail at the side of the cars, taking money and glancing up at passports, or old letters and the like which men saw fit to hold up for a second, still folded, before his face.

Murietta stood at the window, looking back over his shoulder at the two motionless men. A pistol was in his right hand, and held down behind him.

He drew a fifty franc note from his vest pocket with his left hand and held it out to the officer.

"These good fathers do not need passports. The lady and the little boy are my friends, and go to England in my charge. Take this, and drink our healths and a happy voyage."

The officer was profuse in his thanks, and hurried on.

In less than an hour they crossed the line and were in France. The two men were pale and overcome.

"Now you can get out and go about your business; or would you prefer to be handed over to these French gentlemen in this garb?"

Murietta stepped out on the platform as the train was about to move off, and the two men with great effort followed him. Then, turning about, he returned to the car and took his seat alone as it shot out of the station, and left the two men standing there, helpless and stupefied.