A Roman Cabman

IT was in the vast, solemn precincts behind St. Peter’s that I saw him first. Coming out under the pale November sky after a morning in the Vatican sculpture gallery, I suddenly found the cabstand at its portal the most grateful sight in Rome. He stood third or fourth in the line, and he had neither moved nor spoken, though his eye caught mine with a sympathetic sparkle. I saw that his small, black horse was plump and glossy, that the whole equipage, from his own dress to the well-brushed cushions of the open victoria, looked scrupulously neat; and, bidding the man drive to the Piazza di Spagna, I sprang in, with no thought beyond that of making this last course in a busy morning as comfortable as circumstance permitted.

“ Your horse wastes no time,” I said, when we came out into the great square, and shot across it through the spray of the fountains toward the bridge of Sant’ Angelo.

“ No, signore ; the Moor is never lazy. That is his name, — the Moor, from the accident of his color, as one sees ; he eats well, sleeps well, and goes on all his four feet, —not so badly.”

“ And is treated not so badly, — as one also sees.”

The man laughed. “ Eh, signore, we have nothing to complain of, either of us. We understand each other, the Moor and I, and take the world lightly.”

“ ‘ A merry heart goes all the day ! ’” thought I, with Autolycus. “ What better motto for a cabman ? ” Then, thinking aloud, I added, “You are a very cheerful philosopher.”

He turned to look down at me, laughing louder than before. “ I am a man, like another. Che, che! After fifty years of life, one adjusts himself to the seat, — or Dio mio ! one gets down, signore ! ”

There was no more to be said, just then, for we had crossed the river, and our intricate way toward the Corso deeply engaged both the Moor and his master. Meanwhile, their cheery vigilance impressed me so favorably, that when I spoke again it was to secure them for the afternoon; and by the hearty wish for good appetite given me as I alighted at the hotel door, I was convinced that the master, at least, if not the Moor, still found cheer in the prospect.

I sat, smoking, near a window that overlooked the courtyard, when the man drove in at the appointed hour. And, waiting on to finish my cigar, I had for the first time a good look at him. In figure he was below the middle height, broad-shouldered, sturdy, and erect; naturally dark, he was bronzed by years of Roman sunshine ; his cheeks were deeply furrowed, his features large and clumsy, plain indisputably; so that his face would have been heavy, dull even, but for the smile that seemed always to lurk under his gray mustache, and the responsive light in his sharp, black eyes. The soul of good-humored jollity illuminated him now, as he stood chatting with the portier ; the horse put up his nose for a caress, and he turned in his talk to stroke his Moorship’s neck affectionately. The hint thus given of their pleasant comradeship suggested a familiar horsedealing phrase, which, mentally, I applied to both. “ Sound and kind ! ” I thought; and found no occasion to qualify that first judgment through any after knowledge. In all my travels along the world’s highways a sounder and kinder pair than this, most assuredly, I have never known.

That afternoon, we drove far out upon the Campagna, where my tired brain sought rest and rumination from the morning’s labors. The sky had clouded over, and in the mild, gray light the softened plain, stretching hazily off to the Alban hills, brought to eyes overoccupied with artistic detail their natural refreshment. We followed the old Via Latina, at first, toward the arches of the Claudian Aqueduct, by grass-grown walls and crumbling tombs ; then, turning from the straight road, we took a winding cartpath through open meadows and rough pasture-land, into the heart of the wilderness ; until, nearer than Rome itself, stood out the white villages of the snowcapped hills, — Genzano, Ariccia, Rocca di Papa, — my companion identified them, one and all, — and the wine of Genzano was not so bad! At a sharp turn of the road we drew up on a bit of rising ground, to consider the strange, sombre landscape; and, looking back upon the city walls and towers, I asked my genial guide where he lived. Pointing with his whip, he explained that he lodged in the Trastevere, close under the Janiculan Hill; as we looked, in line with the cathedral dome. Then I inquired his name, and learned that he was called Bianchi Andrea, — the surname coming first, in the usual Italian fashion. And when I commented upon this custom, “Why not?” said he, “since every one calls me Bianchi, — except my wife.” Ah, he was married, then ? “ Oh yes, signore.” And he had children ? “No, signore; there was a child once, — a daughter, — but, alas! . . . there is a grandchild, signore, — a boy, who lives with me, — very quick and capable, — Hector is his name.”

We drove on, encountering no living creature but a shaggy dog, left on guard over his herd that grazed in a neighboring field. An inquisitive pair of crows circled lazily above our heads ; then, with croaks of disapproval, flew off to join their flock hovering over the great sepulchral tower on the Appian Way. Between us and that noted landmark of the Campagna stood a solitary farmhouse to which my vetturino drew attention. One could find fresh eggs there at a bargain; we must pass its door; might he have the signore’s permission to buy the raw material for an omelet, to celebrate his name-day, which fell upon the morrow ? To wait for a little moment only ?

Of course this favor was granted him ; and as we approached the farm I looked at it curiously. Never had I seen a drearier dwelling-place. The stucco of its walls was stained and weather-beaten ; the outbuildings were ruinous; all seemed deserted as well as neglected, for no one stirred to question us. A whistle from Bianchi was unanswered. “ Agostino ! ” he called; then, muttering, “The boy sleeps, lazy hound! ” he handed me the reins, with a “permesso, signore ? ” and went off upon his errand.

The haze was fast turning into mist, through which I heard the sound of wheels. It came from a peasant’s cart, rude and cumbersome, with the customary wisp of hay attached to a forked stick projecting from one of the shafts. At this primitive lure, just out of his reach, the horse, as he labored toward me, made ineffectual plunges. I watched his slow advance with a smile, suddenly discovering that I was watched in my turn by the man and woman who sat behind him. They wore peasant costume ; the man, gray, uncouth, listless, held the reins loosely, as if he were half asleep ; but his lack-lustre eyes fixed themselves upon me with a vacant look, strangely forbidding. The woman at his side, though by no means old, had faded early, after the manner of her countrywomen. Yet her face showed signs of former beauty ; and she had in her bright colors an air of self-conscious picturesqueness that suggested a posing contadina from the Spanish Steps, rather than a toiling one. As if she fancied that my smile was meant for her, she leaned forward to return it, and seemed about to speak a friendly word. But either her intent changed, or I deceived myself; for she drew back without the greeting, and to my good-day only muttered a forced reply. “ He is a foreigner,” I heard her say to her companion, as they passed. Then, at a little distance, both turned to stare again intently ; I looked away ; looked back, to find them still staring. So they moved out of sight mysteriously, like spectres of the mist, leaving a chill behind them.

The sinister effect, however, was only of the moment. In the next, out came Bianchi, with the farm-hand whom he had called Agostino, — a shy, sickly boy, who turned from me with a smile to wish his compatriot a merry night of feasting. At this word, Bianchi pointed to his small purchase of eggs, wrapped in a red handkerchief. “ Ecco, signore ! Per la festa di Sant’ Andrea ! ” Chuckling, he stowed them carefully away under the box-seat, and we drove off; slowly, at first, for the road was heavy and steep. As we climbed up from the hollow, the sun burst through the clouds, glorifying the ruined farm buildings, when I turned for a last look at them, with a shaft of golden light. But now before the door, where I had waited, stood the cart which had passed me by ; two peasant figures, descending from it, entered the house; they were gone in a flash; yet, clearly enough, they were the figures that I had seen,—the man and woman whom my presence for some reason had disconcerted.

The sunlight faded, the mist shut down. Consultation with Bianchi shed no gleam upon my small adventure. He had not seen the uncouth wayfarers, nor could he recognize them by my description. The farm was leased to a shepherd, who acted as agent, or fattore ; honest, as men went, — we were none of us saints, nowadays; he was absent in the pastures, as the boy had stated; if one chaffered well, having the wit to invent a “ combination ” and to make the most of it, he sold his eggs at a fair price. Perhaps the strangers had come to drive a bargain ; they, too, perhaps, kept the feast of Sant’ Andrea ! Why not ?

We drove back to Rome in the twilight ; and long before reaching the city gate I had dismissed the intruders from my mind. But to dismiss is one thing, to forget is another. Who shall say that the brain really loses the vaguest impression which it has once recorded ? In my dreams, that night, the two sinister shapes of the Campagna passed before me again, with threatening looks like harbingers of evil. I woke, and they were gone, — I laughed at them. These disturbers of my peace clung to me, nevertheless, dogging my steps in the form of a recurrent nightmare. Often, that winter, I saw them, — at Cairo, at Luxor, at Damascus, at Constantinople; whenever, for any cause, my sleep was oppressed, the oppression always resolved itself into that prospect of the wide and desolate Campagna, with the same grim peasant figures moving toward me in the gathering twilight. They never spoke, they threatened only with their eyes.

Gradually the visitations became more infrequent, less vivid ; and they might have ceased altogether, fading even from my remembrance, but for the accident of my return to Rome, where, in the spring, as I journeyed back from the East, my stay was unexpectedly prolonged. So improbable had seemed this change of plan, that I had neglected to obtain the address of my good vetturino ; and an hour after my arrival, as I walked up the Corso, I found that I missed him sorely. Rome was a strange, unfriendly city without his thoughtful assiduities. By what steps could I regain them ? I had taken hardly ten steps more, when lo ! they were mine again ; for the man drove toward me along the crowded pavement. Upon the instant our pleasant relations were resumed.

These were the early days of April, and I was to remain until after Easter, which, that year, fell late. Winter had melted away at a breath; the grayness was all gone ; and under soft white clouds, which only deepened the blue beyond them, Rome kept holiday, for the most part, in dazzling sunshine. The roses were coming on; and when we drove now over the Campagna, which no longer was desolate, but gay with nodding wild-flowers, we often started up a lark, whose flight was only to be traced by the sweetest of all bird-songs borne far above our heads straight into the sun’s eye. The days passed all too swiftly, like the song ; even though, recognizing them as rare ones, I clung to each tenaciously, avoiding my kind, and keeping, so far as was possible, to myself.

One evening (that of Easter Monday, to be exact) after my coffee and cognac at the big café in the Piazza Colonna, much frequented by chattering soldiers, I grew tired of their noisy argument, and broke away from it. Having, as usual, dismissed Bianchi at sundown, I was unattached ; on foot, therefore, I made my way into the Via Nazionale. Glancing up, I saw that the stars were obscured, and felt that a shower threatened. I had no umbrella; but as I carried over my arm a waterproof coat of well-tested infallibility, rain, more or less, would be nothing. A moment later, when I was halfway up the hill within a stone’s throw of the theatre, the first drops fell. I stepped aside into a doorway to put on the coat, which was of that sleeveless, enveloping sort known to Anglo-Saxons as an Inverness cape, dark gray in color ; pleasantly inconspicuous, it looked by night, at least, not unlike the loose cloak so often worn by Italian men.

As I stood in shelter, muffling myself about the throat, I started in surprise at seeing what appeared to be my own likeness passing swiftly along on the other side of the way. At home, it is no uncommon thing for the man of average height and figure to be taken for some one else. We are not all, unfortunately, of a type so distinguished as to induce the belief that Nature, after our satisfactory development, destroyed the mould. Yet rarely, at home or abroad, does one, unprompted, detect a close resemblance to himself. This, certainly, was the first accident of the kind in my own experience ; and it proved so startling that I shrank from the impression. I watched the man disappear in the uncertain light, and thought of old, uncanny tales with fatal issues. Then I shrugged my shoulders, and, laughing at my own credulity, turned the other way.

Evidently, it was a gala night at the Teatro Nazionale. There were many signs of that besides the highly colored poster announcing a special performance of Hamlet, with a famous young actor in the title part. The bait lured me into a demand for any vacant place obtainable. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was the first answer. Stay ! One of the posti distinti had just been returned by the purchaser at the last moment, — far from the stage it was, to be sure, but still worth having, even at the advanced price. I closed the bargain quickly, hurrying on to grope my way with difficulty ; for the lights were down, the ghostly revelations upon the platform at Elsinore already in progress. They seemed a long way off, as I settled into my seat, which proved to be in the right-hand curve of the great horseshoe, directly under the boxes. The proscenium arch slowly detached itself from the gloom, until I saw its principal box on the left of the grand tier, still vacant, elaborately draped with flags and garlands, — the royal box, decked for the King and Queen ! The audience, ever on the alert, awaited their arrival with an indifference to the mimic court of Denmark which even the anguish of the Ghost could not dispel. The prevailing restlessness soon infected me, and I congratulated myself upon my point of view, which, though distant, was not unfavorable.

The curtain fell upon the first act tamely enough ; the lights went up, making the whole place resplendent; while the row of chairs in the royal box stood out conspicuously, still unoccupied. During the long wait, I observed with a stranger’s interest alien details, — the shrill hawkers of books and papers, the persistent, sharp-eyed flower-girls, brazen in their assurance. Then came the signal from the stage, the hush of anticipation ; and at that moment something struck my shoulder, darting from it into my hand, — a little bunch of white flowers, such as the women had been pressing upon us. But this had dropped from one of the boxes, surely. I glanced up, and saw in the third tier, almost overhead, a woman’s face peering down at me. She drew back, but not before I recognized the fact that our eyes had met before; though when, I failed to recollect. Where could I have encountered those worn, gaunt features, that keen scrutiny which seemed at once to warn and threaten me ? “ Grim as fate ! ” I muttered ; “they fade early, these Italians ! ” I had thought precisely this before of the same face, and knew it now. She was my evil spirit of the Campagna, who had passed me by on that chill November afternoon, haunting my dreams long afterward. Then she had worn peasant garb, now she was in lace and jewels: yet there could be no question of identity. It was she, beyond a doubt. I turned from the stage, and, leaning forward in my place, fixed my eyes upon the box from which the flowers had fallen. The lights were down again, however ; I strained my muscles until they ached, — in vain.

The second act ended, and still royalty did not appear. There was manifest impatience everywhere, and a general outward movement for the interval. I followed, mainly to get a better view of that box in the third tier, which now was empty. Going on into the foyer, I stood in ambush there to watch the faces. All were unfamiliar. The fateful presence, having fulfilled its purpose, if such purpose existed, apparently had left the theatre. I looked at the flowers in my hand, and wondered whether they had been dropped by accident, or whether, like the eyes that seemed to guide them, they conveyed some message capable of interpretation into threat or warning.

The sprays of jasmine were still fresh and sweet. The better to slip into an unguarded buttonhole, they were bound to a long, straight twig from which the waxed thread had loosened. As I prepared to re-wind it, a gleam of white underneath resolved itself, upon reversal of the thread, into a narrow strip of paper tightly curled about the twig. Unrolling this, I found scrawled upon it in pencil these words: —

“ He will not come.”

This, then, was her message. Though without date or signature, the cramped irregular handwriting had a feminine cast; not for the fraction of an instant could I doubt that it was hers. But the purport of it ? Who would not come ? What was his coming or not coming to me ? Why, of all men, had I been selected at the moment for this covert notification ?

I stuffed the flowers and the paper into my pocket, and went back to my place at the sound of the signal-bell, noting by the way that the occupant of the third-tier box had not returned. The act began ; and it was well advanced when, suddenly, at a word of command the lights flashed up. At once, the voice of Denmark died away in a broken period, while all action upon the stage came to a standstill. With one impulse the spectators, high and low, rose at the entrance of the Court, which was accomplished swiftly and silently. Almost in the same instant the Queen was seated in the place of honor, bowing and smiling an acknowledgment of the applause which welcomed her, while the household grouped itself in the background. Then the lights were turned down, the motionless actors woke to life, the tragedy resumed its course.

My republican eyes found in the small ceremonial but one cause for disappointment, — the absence of the King. I had assumed, not unnaturally, that he would be there with the others; and I was not the only one to assume it, as much whispered comment about me clearly proved. But the subject was soon dismissed, and the whole house became absorbed in the question of the play, which now swept on superbly into a triumph for its chief interpreter. At the end, following the audience out at leisure, I found the better part of it drawn up in the halls and corridors as if for a supplementary pageant. What ceremony else ? I wondered, and was not long in doubt. Down the wide sweep of staircase, which seemed built for the purpose, came the Court, preceded by footmen in scarlet livery ; there was a glitter of gold lace, a rustle of silken fabrics, a gleaming of jewels, while the crowd looked on in solemn silence, with heads uncovered. All eyes were bent upon the Queen’s face, which now was sad and preoccupied, deepening by its look the reverence they paid. I stood at the foot of the stairs, and could have touched her as she passed. This unlooked-for epilogue, at once so stately and so simple, impressed me profoundly. Yet it oppressed me, too ; when it was over, and the last carriage had driven off, I breathed more freely. Graceful as the expression of faith in the people had been, I doubted its worth in view of the attendant risk. In these perilous days of death-dealing inventive power, of fanatical crimes committed in the name of liberty, was it well wholly to unhedge the King of his divinity and leave humanity unbridled ?

“ After all, the King was not there,” I argued, as I walked to my hotel through the drenched, deserted streets ; “ he did not come.” A weak, inconsequent conclusion, yet it haunted me all the way like a refrain, and, seated by the fire, I found myself reiterating it. “ He did not come.” The bit of staircase etiquette with its dangerous possibilities had given me a new sensation, which stood foremost in my thoughts. By way of diverting them, I pulled out the crushed flowers, the enigmatic message which read now like the echo of my own persistent burden. “ He will not come, — he did not come! ” Were the two one and the same ? Was it the King to whom the woman’s word had reference ? For the moment I seemed to have solved the riddle. But why should she desire to furnish me — a stranger — with that information ? Why, unless she mistook me for some one else? No ; I must still be wide of the mark, for that was inconceivable ; such a mistake would imply a very close resemblance ; surely, in Rome I had no double —

The thought, the word, brought me to my feet with a sharp cry. No double ? I had one, and had seen him three hours ago, — there in the Via Nazionale, a few steps from the theatre. What if my seat there had been his, but just relinquished ? What if through a coincidence, strange indeed, yet not impossible, I, his counterpart, had acquired and occupied it ? Admitting this, the woman’s error was the most natural thing in the world. Moreover, this would explain, as nothing else could, her interest in me at our former meeting upon the Campagna. It had amounted almost to a recognition. She had been on the very point of speaking, and her changed purpose held in it a wonder ill concealed. Why ? Because it was my fortune or misfortune to be the living image of a man whom she knew well, whose presence at the theatre tonight she had confidently expected.

The more I thought of it, the more convinced I became that in this resemblance lay the clue to the enigma. But when, striving to follow the clue, I sought a definite solution, I was soon lost in pure conjecture. That my double in some way had gained in advance the information conveyed to me, and so absented himself from his post, was not improbable. But to what did the information tend ? to whom refer ? That it involved the King I had really not the smallest proof. I was, perhaps, merely entangled in the meshes of some vulgar intrigue, — some rendezvous, frustrated or postponed.

The next morning, for once, the faithful Bianchi failed me. When his hour came, I received word that he was kept at home by a slight cold, and that I might expect him on the morrow, if the day were fine. Perfect as that was otherwise, it brought no sign of him ; and fearing that he might be seriously ill, I went as soon as possible to his address in the Trastevere, which, this time, I had been careful to procure.

The street was a dark, narrow one, between the river and the Janiculan Hill. I found the house without difficulty, amid a long row of dingy tenements. The cabman’s rooms were at the top, up innumerable stairs. He lay in bed, restless and feverish, attended by his wife, a shy, gentle soul, prematurely old. The place was neat, but poorly furnished. On one bare, whitewashed wall hung a colored print of the Madonna ; on another, a crucifix above a shelf filled with tawdry ornaments. The woman, agitated by my visit, nervously dusted the one chair in the room, and, after drawing it for me to the bedside, fluttered away.

Bianchi was much distressed at the thought of putting me to inconvenience. He had tried to come, but the doctor’s order prevented that; and so he had written me a letter by the hand of his grandson. It was somewhere about, — on the shelf perhaps. I did my best to quiet him, begging him not to talk; then, as he insisted, to relieve his mind I looked for the letter, which lay, as he supposed, upon the shelf behind me. In taking it down I accidentally overturned a small unframed photograph that stood against a vase which held a spray of artificial flowers ; and when I picked up the card to replace it, I could scarcely suppress a startled cry. For the portrait, taken from life, was of the woman — my sibyl of the Campagna and the Teatro Nazionale — who had disturbed repeatedly my waking hours and my dreams.

After a second look, to make sure, — as if the face were one that I could forget ! — I put back the photograph, and a few moments later went away without gratifying or even betraying my curiosity concerning it. I had questions to ask, but poor Bianchi was in no state to answer them, and I let them all await his convalescence or recovery. Fortunately, for my peace of mind, I did not have to wait long. His malady with timely care was soon checked ; in a week he was on his box again. Then, catching him in a confidential mood on one of our long drives together, I soon discovered the surprising fact that the woman was none other than his own daughter. She had been well married in her own class to a skilled workman of the quarter; had borne him one child, the grandson, Hector, now an inmate of Bianchi’s house; but, developing ambitious tastes above her station, she had followed false standards which she was pleased to call advanced, — secretly, at first, until detection precipitated an end that from the first was inevitable. Then she had left all abruptly — home, husband, child—for a rich man, whose creature she had become. He was a brute, a barbarian, a social outcast, a skeptic, irreconcilable, irresponsible ; he had cast his evil eye upon her, and had enticed her away. It was believed that they were in foreign parts; just where, no one knew. The husband had died ; Bianchi had taken the boy to bring him up ; but as for the woman, once his daughter, he disowned her, — she was dead to him. It was his wife, poor, tender-hearted soul, who clung to that likeness of her, which he longed to tear into a thousand pieces. If the signore understood ! Santo nome di diavolo !

His story trailed off into a storm of oaths that grew inarticulate with tearless rage. I had no heart to torment him further by any detail of my own adventure. It could avail nothing to state upon the best of evidence that his degenerate daughter was a little nearer than he imagined. I let all go, and lapsed back into silence, while my good friend’s wrath slowly wore itself out. We were coming in from the Valle dell’ Inferno, and at the Ponte Molle, where the ways diverged, I chose the Flaminian one, for a turn in the Villa Borghese.

It was a perfect Roman afternoon. The old elms of the Villa avenues were in full leaf; the wide, grassy slopes gleamed with daisies, violets, and anemones ; the students of the Propaganda, in particolored gowns, played ball sedately on their green amphitheatre, around which a double line of carriages circled back and forth in continuous parade. All ranks were represented, all nationalities. We were democratic and informal. Yet we could be formal, too, upon occasion ; for when the Queen came by in state, we straightened in our seats and doffed our hats to her. And when the King followed, not in state at all, but driving, himself, in a high dogcart with an officer at his side, we did the same for him, even more punctiliously, if possible. Then we drove on among the moss-grown fountains, the gray marbles, the clumps of ilex, the long vistas of sun and shade ; until, meeting royalty again in another segment of the circle, we looked the opposite way, according to etiquette, in the proud consciousness of duty done, — as if such exalted personages could recall our humble features and the fact that we had paid our tribute loyally.

We passed the Queen for the second time with averted faces, and the King drew near. Close before him in the advancing line came a low, one-horse victoria of no richer appointments than our own. Almost abreast of us its horse reared and balked, — plunged, reared again, refused to go on. Instantly a space opened beside us, while all beyond stood still. The King’s way was blocked; general confusion threatened ; there were contradictory shouts, which only confirmed the brute in his obstinacy ; and the man on the box seemed to have lost control of him. The stolid fellow, with his hat pushed over his eyes to shield them from the setting sun, clutched the reins mechanically, incompetently. Bianchi hesitated for a moment. Then he pulled up the Moor, handed me the reins, and made a dash for the bridle of the unruly horse ; he caught it, dragged him down, was dragged along in his turn almost to the ground. The victoria swept past me with its occupants, a man and a woman whom I scarcely noticed, until the man leaped down almost at our wheel and disappeared among the carriages. But not before I had a good look at his face, — a startled look it must have been ; for I recognized in him my double of the Via Nazionale.

Bianchi had conquered. I glanced behind and saw that the horse was quieted. The victoria drove on without hindrance, smoothly enough. But as it passed my vetturino, he saw the woman, and a change came over him. His genial face grew white with anger, then flushed to the temples. “ Canaglia ! ” he hissed ; and, turning after her, repeated with a shout the obnoxious word, “ Canaglia! ” She paid no heed to it, — was gone. In rage ungovernable he stamped and spit upon the ground ; then, recovering himself, he rushed back, climbed to his box, seized the reins, and started forward without a word. The woman was veiled, as I remembered, and I had caught the merest glimpse of her ; yet I suspected instantly who she was ; before I could confirm the suspicion, however, a stir in front of us diverted my thought. I heard a scuffle in the crowd, a murmur of excitement. The King passed again,driving as before, unruffled, at the accustomed gait. A stern voice ordered us to move on quickly. As we obeyed, whirling by to join the fast receding line at its vanishing point, I saw a man, with his back toward me, led away by the police, and understood that within a few feet of us, for some indeterminate offense, an arrest had been made.

What had happened ? We wondered and demanded on all sides, but no one could enlighten us. When, fifteen minutes later, we returned to the scene of our adventure, the crowd had dispersed, the carriages were few and far between. Impending twilight marked the limit of the fashionable hour, and we turned the Moor’s head toward home. Bianchi’s low spirits were apparent; but I forbore to question him, until, as we crossed the Piazza del Popolo alone in the dim light, he gave me a sidelong look so mournful that it appealed for sympathy. Leaning forward, I whispered, “ It was she, then ! ” And he, through his clenched teeth, replied: “Yes, signore. Here in Rome, la malcreata ! Oh, the shame of it! ” with an amazing sequence of muttered imprecations. I let him alone ; but, later, at the hotel door, shook his hand and tried to cheer him, — wasting my words, for he would not be comforted.

The mystery of the arrest was cleared up in the next morning’s paper, where I read of a bold attempt to assassinate the King in the Villa Borghese. During a momentary halt in the line, a man had sprung— from the earth, as it seemed — to the carriage-step with a drawn knife in his hand. Providentially, at that instant the King’s horses had started up; the man’s foot had slipped ; and, falling, he had been easily disarmed, captured, dragged away to prison. There he bore himself with unexampled indifference, implicating no one else, refusing to explain his motive, or to make any statement whatever, beyond the simple fact that he was an Englishman ; a fact doubted by the authorities. Then followed a rough woodcut of the prisoner, who was described as well dressed and sufficiently presentable in appearance. The sketch hardly warranted even this craftily qualified clause about his looks. Yet with its help I promptly identified my enigmatic shadow, — run to earth, at last. The resemblance, now reduced to its lowest terms, was most unflattering. But I could only attribute that to the draughtsman’s lack of skill, and rejoice that things were no worse, — or no better.

Nothing in the printed report connected the assailant with the blockade in the line of carriages. The whole affair had been of a moment only ; and the man, worming his way in and out between the wheels, might well have seemed to spring from the earth. But for his familiar face, he would have slipped by me unnoticed. Now I perceived plainly that, in his deep-laid scheme to gain a sure foothold and possible escape, the halt and the small distraction occasioned by it were important factors. He had reckoned confidently upon both ; but he had reckoned without Bianchi. Through the vetturino’s quick wit and ready resource, unconsciously working to a purpose unforeseen, the scheme had miscarried. Thus did my spurred imagination, so long ineffective, suddenly begin to patch these shadowy proofs together into one clear, substantial whole.

Nor did imagination stop there. Its vivid light streamed backward, making significant my adventure at the theatre. The abortive attempt in the Villa Borghese seemed to me no sudden impulse, but the outcome of a deliberate plot, an organized conspiracy, in which several minds had long been actively engaged. The woman, surely, must be an accomplice ; so, likewise, the too incompetent driver of the victoria, who might or might not have been her former companion, the dull-eyed spectre of the Campagna. Intent upon the King’s murder, they had awaited a favorable opportunity, which almost offered itself on that gala night in the Teatro Nazionale. Had the King attended the performance, their attempt would have been made at its close, as he walked down the staircase, within reach of the assassin’s hand. But something had occurred to change his plan, and word of the change had been passed on to me, in mistake. The deed of yesterday proved the tardy dénouement to which these threads had tended.

For an hour or so I contemplated a descent upon the police, to put myself and all my theories at their disposal. But sober second thought reversed this rash intention. The ways of the police were inscrutable. My testimony, as I foresaw, would involve me in awkward, not to say vexatious delays, conflicting with all my plans, and of most unpleasant publicity ; when all was done, it might well be deemed too slight, and lead to nothing. The plot, if plot there were, had failed completely, yielding the law its victim. Here was a conclusion upon which I could rest comfortably. It was clear that in Bianchi’s mind the two incidents of the halt and the attack were unrelated. He had not seen his daughter again; he neither knew nor wished to know her whereabouts ; she had passed beyond the pale of his conjecture even. There I resolved to leave her. And when I said farewell to him and Rome a few days afterward, nothing had occurred to shake my resolution.

At the moment of departure, as a matter of course, I had tossed a soldo into the Fountain of Trevi to insure my return ; but with small faith in this traveler’s charm, which, indeed, failed to work for many a day. Ten years and more elapsed. Then, through a happy whirl of Fortune’s wheel, I found myself in Rome once more, with a whole month — the month of May — before me. Again, almost my first thought was of Bianchi. But, this time, no sudden stroke of good luck conjured him up. I had kept his old address, and wrote to him there, receiving no answer. I watched for him in the Corso, inspected cabstands, questioned porters, without result. At mention of his name all shook their heads. And, finally, I dropped the matter.

A Sunday came which was to be my last in Rome. As I returned on foot from St. Peter’s,in the afternoon, through the Via Condotti, the declining sunlight shone full upon the distant church of Santa Trinità de’ Monti rising above the vista of the Spanish Steps against a clear blue sky. I remembered opportunely that this was the hour for the fine choral service there, at which, on Sunday, the nuns of the adjoining convent assisted. Hurrying on, I was still in time for a portion of the office ; and pushing aside the leathern curtain, I went in.

The dim nave was crowded to the intersecting grate which defends the nuns and their sanctuary from the world. Through the bars, afar off, gleamed the candles of the altar, the vestments, the swinging censers ; the unseen choir sang, the organ boomed, the smoke curled upward in the encroaching darkness. I listened to the music, idly watching the beam of daylight that stretched across the nearer pavement when the curtain swung inward. Suddenly, revealed for the moment in its glow, stood the figure of an elderly man, shabbily dressed, broken with years and with illness too, perhaps, for his gait was uncertain. He limped forward into the shadow, and became immediately absorbed in his devotions. The picturesqueness of the man and his reverent attitude interested me, and I studied his face, which now was but just discernible. “He is a little like Bianchi,” I thought; “though much older.” Then, remembering that I had not seen my former friend for ten years, I began to wonder whether it could be he. “ No, impossible ! ” I soon decided ; yet I drew toward him for a better and more searching look. Just then, in the distance, came the elevation of the host, and the man knelt slowly and painfully. Turning his head for an instant, he caught my eye, but with no light of recognition. “ It is not he ! ” I sighed.

None the less, when, a few moments later, the man rose, and, after dusting his knees carefully, moved toward the door, I followed him out, down the steps at his own slow pace, keeping close behind him. As he reached the Piazza, he turned with an air of mild surprise. “ Is your name Bianchi Andrea?” I asked.

At the sound of my voice he started, flashed upon me the old sparkling look, and knew me instantly. “ Dio mio, Dio mio, Dio mio ! ” he chattered, like a parrot ; “ what a combination, what a combination, caro signore! To think you should be there in the church! It was the Madonna that led me to it! ”

“ Bianchi! It is really you ! Still at your old trade ! ”

“ Of course ! ” he laughed, limping toward the vettura, which stood near by. “ See! Here is my horse. Alas, no longer the Moor! But what a combination ! Dio mio, Dio mio, Dio mio! ”

“ You have been ill? You are lame.”

“ Naturally, since I am old. It is nothing. My health is not so bad.”

“ And your wife ? She is well, too ? ”

“ Ah, signor mio! She is dead,— dead these two years. Yet I am not alone ; the boy is with me, and ” —

At that moment we were interrupted by the vetturino’s fare for the time being, — two elderly women, severe in aspect, evidently English and single. They had followed from the church, and now eyed us with impatient wonder. I could do no more than give Bianchi my address, bidding him come to me on the morrow. He clambered to the box and drove off; while I, left alone, slowly recovered from my astonishment at this happy chance which had reëstablished the old relationship, — with the Madonna’s help, as I, too, was half inclined to believe.

We made the most of the two days left me, with many a blessing for the belated favor. When the end drew near, I told him that I must see his grandson before going away, and begged him to drive at once to his lodging. It was not the old place, but a brighter and better one in a new quarter. My visit had been timed for the breakfast hour, when the youth, who was a laborer, would not fail to be at home. In a few moments he appeared, stalwart and unabashed, —a tall, manly fellow, who looked as if, upon occasion, he might prove as valiant as his namesake, the Trojan hero. While we talked together, a voice summoned him, and he excused himself. The meal was ready, he had a sharp appetite. “ Con permesso ! ” And he went out.

His keen, black eyes recalled others, still unforgotten, that I am not likely to forget. Upon my lips trembled a question, which I had been often tempted to ask during the previous forty-eight hours. Yet the subject was one that I wished to make Bianchi, himself, introduce, if that could be accomplished. He may have read my thought; for while he shifted his position uneasily, his eyes avoided mine. “ Let us go! ” I said ; and he sprang eagerly toward the door; but at the sound of a step on the landing outside, he drew back, as a woman stood before him in the doorway. Pale, worn, wasted by disease, in dress of the humblest sort, she would have been unrecognizable but for the eyes, which, shining with what now seemed unnatural brightness, betrayed her identity even through the transforming mask of years. She recoiled at sight of us; then with a murmured apology for her intrusion, shuffled hastily away. An inner door closed behind her. And when all was quiet, Bianchi silently led the way out. Not until we were in the open air did he meet my inquiring glance. Then there was no need of further question. At once he told me the little there was to tell, readily and volubly.

After that chance encounter in the Villa Borghese, his daughter did not cross his path again, and he heard nothing of her for a long time. All trace seemed lost forever. But his wife upon her death-bed, convinced that the daughter was still alive, had exacted from him a promise that if any appeal should be made, he would hearken to it. His wife died and was buried. Then, three months later, word came that his daughter had returned to Rome ill, if not dying, and in want. He had kept his promise faithfully, going to her relief, cancelling all the past, and bringing her home to die, as he believed. She was there ; she had recovered, in a measure; but there was no harm in her now, as one might see at a glance. She devoted herself to her boy, to him, to her mother’s memory. Oh, an angel of devotion! What would the signore have ? It had been a sad story, but it was well over. In this world, one must be a good father, or one was nothing.

Upon that word we parted company. And it is the last word of his that I remember. Our leave-taking of the next morning at the station, hurried and formal as it was, slips wholly from my recollection. The honest-hearted fellow turned back into the Roman streets, where still, perhaps, grown older and grayer, he pursues his calling. If so, at church, or Corso, or piazza, with the Madonna’s help, we shall surely meet again. If not: —

T. R. Sullivan.