IX

PYLADES FINDS HIS ORESTES

"Silvestro," he called softly, without moving from his ambush or turning his eyes from those he watched, "Silvestro, come here!"

The obedient stripling came eagerly, and knelt as close to his master as he dared--just so as to touch him.

"Eccomi, Pilade," says he.

"Get back over the brow as fast as you can," said his friend, "and hide in the cave. Wait there till I come. Go now; do as I bid you."

Silvestro went at once.

Castracane squared his jaw and waited. Every now and then he muttered to himself, with lazy lifted eyebrows. It was too much trouble to shrug.

"Poor little devil--it would be a shame! And I knocked him down for nothing. And he loves me, per Bacco! Certainly, I have never been loved before--by a man, I mean--except by my big old mother out yonder, and she is a woman. She'll be sorry--she's old--eh, she's horribly old!

Accursed, most rotten a.s.s, Andrea! The whole story out of him--and a lie at that. Cospetto! I can't let the poor lad swing. And I did knock him down--and he cried like a girl; but not because I gra.s.sed him. By my soul, I'll do it--there, then!" Then he mortised his chin in his brown hands and blinked while he waited.

He had not so very long; but you might have given him an hour, it would have made no difference to Castracane then. The guard came reeking to the brow of the hill; Andrea, haltered, was with them. Alessandro, mopping his head and cursing the flies, came last.

"Look yonder, Marco," said one. The other said "Ha!" and pounced upon his treasure. He had him by the ear and was p.r.i.c.king him with his sabre in the fleshy parts.

"Easy, friend," said Castracane; "I'm not running away."

He went like a sheep to the Sub-Prefect. Andrea watched him twittering.

"What is your name, fellow?" said that heated officer.

Andrea's eyes yearned for his mate's. Castracane gave him a terrible look.

"Silvestro is my name, Signore," says he; and Andrea knew his game.

"We have found our bird, I think," said Alessandro, turning to his men.

"Yes, Excellency, this is the lad we want. There was another of them--Castracane they call him."

"Ah, yes. Where is Castracane, fellow?"

"He is over Venda. Gone to Noventa, to his mother," replied Castracane.

"Well, we don't want him so far as I know. Now, attend to me. You are suspected of that business in the Via della Gatta."

Castracane shrugged. "Chi lo sa?" says he.

"We shall see about that. Meantime, what have you to urge?"

Castracane scratched his head. "What would you have me say, Messere? I am a poor lad. You are many, and I am one."

Alessandro turned to his archers. "Bring him down to the hermitage," he said. "I am going to eat something. Tie him up and wait for me there.

You can let the other go. This is the lad, fast enough. Avanti!"

So the shackles were taken off Andrea's raw wrists, and transferred to Castracane's; the neck halter was shifted; Castracane was bond, Andrea free. Then Messer Alessandro went down the hill to what supper the hermit could afford.

In about half an hour Silvestro, who had been fidgeting in the cave, came out, restless to have stayed so long beyond sight or hearing of his Pilade. His reception by Andrea was shocking. The gaping boy sprang forward with his arms out.

"Ha! Here is a terrible affair," he wailed.

"Our Castracane is taken, and for your fault; he will be hanged, and for you! Make your supper of it, you Jew-jerker. What sacrifice, Dio mio!

There has been nothing like it, I suppose, since Giulio Cesare kissed Brutus, or Judas Gesu Cristo. You kissed him this morning; you know you did! You always do, you blush-faced sneak! And for that kiss he has taken your sins upon him, and is to be hanged. Fie, Judas, fie! Oh, Madonna Maria, the terrible affair!"

So ending as he began, he danced about the hill-top, wringing his hands.

But Silvestro, very pale, came quickly up, and laid hold of him.

"Tell me all, Andrea," says he; "for I know nothing except that I love Castracane and will save him. Who has taken him?"

"It is a lord--the Sotto-Prefetto--the hook-nosed gentleman with thin eyebrows; him they call Messer Alessandro. Castracane is tied like a netted calf--his hands behind him, and them to his neck. What's the good of his strength? He is as strong as the town bull; but if he writhes his hands he strangles, and if he thrusts his neck he chokes. Ecco!"

Silvestro was staring down into the valley. "Where is Messer Alessandro, Andrea? Tell me quickly, for I can save Castracane."

"He is eating with the hermit in the wood. But what can you do?"

"You stay here," said Silvestro with decision; "that's what you can do.

I'll go down."

The sound of breaking through undergrowth was followed by rapping at the hermit's door.

"What do you want, boy?" said the pious man to the ragged figure in the dark.

"Messer Alessandro, my reverend--Messer Alessandro at once."

"Are you come about the Jew? He will bear no more. He is eating. He tells me he knows more about the Jew than he does about our holy religion--which is a dangerous state of things, except that he is sick to death of him."

"It is not about the Jew, father," said Silvestro, out of breath. "Tell him it is about--Ippolita."

"Va bene," said the hermit. "Stay where you are."

Messer Alessandro dropped his tools with a clatter, wiped his mouth, beat his breast, and began to walk up and down the cell.

"Send him in, hermit, send him in! Forty ducats if he has any news, ten ducats in any case for bringing my thoughts from Jews on earth to Ippolita in Paradise. Despatch, despatch, send me the goatherd."

The pale apparition of a fair-haired boy, timid in rags, cloaked in rusty black, with bandaged legs, and his old felt hat crushed against his breast, stood in the doorway.

"Oh, boy!" cried Alessandro, gesticulating with one hand, "may you be my Hermes, my swiftfoot messenger. Tell me what you know of the divine Ippolita."

"I know where she is, Signor Sotto-Prefetto," says Silvestro huskily.

"Tell me, by Venus and all her doves!"