The Finger of Fate: A Romance

About the opportunity there was not much left to conjecture. It appeared like a sheep-fold without either watch-dog or shepherd. The behaviour of the bandits, while occupying the town, told that they could re-occupy it at any moment they had the mind. They might not be allowed long to remain there; but the shortest flying visit would be sufficient for a purpose like that. Such razzia and rapine were but the ordinary incidents of their life, the tactics of their calling, and they were accustomed to execute them with the most subtle skill and celerity. Corvino and his band could at any moment carry off Lucetta Torreani with half the damsels of Val di Orno – the captive artist now knew this to be the name of the village – without danger of either resistance or interruption. After such an outrage they might be pursued by the Papal gendarmes or soldiery, and they might not. That would depend upon circumstances – or whether the manutangoli willed it. There would be a show of pursuit, perhaps; and perhaps with this it would end.

In his own land the young Englishman would not have given credit to such a state of things. He could not, nor would his country men until a late period, when it was brought home to them by testimony too substantial to be discredited. Besides, since his arrival in Rome he had become better informed about the status of Italian social life and the behaviour of these banditti. He had no doubt, therefore, about the danger in which stood the sister of Luigi Torreani. There seemed but one who could save her from the fearful fate that hung over her head, and that one a woman – if this word can be used in speaking of such a creature as Cara Popetta.

To the brigand’s wife, companion, or whatever she was, the thoughts of the captive turned as he sat reflecting, and devising schemes for the protection of Lucetta Torreani. If he were only free himself, knowing what he now did, the thing might have been easy enough, without appealing to such a protector. But his freedom was now out of the question. He felt convinced that from that prison he would never go forth, but to be carried to one equally secure – until the messenger should return from England bearing the ransom for which he had written. And now, for the first time, did he feel satisfied at having written as he had done. Had he known what he now knew, it would have needed no dictation of the bandit chief to strengthen that appeal to his father. He earnestly hoped that the appeal he had made would receive a favourable response, and the money arrive in time to make liberty worth regaining. He had fixed upon the purpose to which he would devote it.

What if it came not at all? There was too much probability in this. Formerly he had felt reckless, from the curse that had been resting upon him; that is, the remembrance of Belle Mainwaring, and the disinheritance he had deemed so cruel. And there was the still later act of paternal harshness, in his father’s refusal to advance the inconsiderable legacy he had promised to leave him. In like manner his father might refuse to pay the ransom demanded by the brigands.

All that night the captive remained in his cell without sleep. Now and then he paced the fern-covered floor, by the movement hoping to stimulate his thoughts into the conception of some plan that would ensure, less his own safety than that of Lucetta Torreani. But daylight glimmered through the little window, and he was still without any feasible scheme. He had only the slender hope, that the ransom might arrive in time; this and the equally slender expectation of assistance from “Cara Popetta.”

Chapter Thirty

Brigandage and its Cause

Brigandage, as it exists in the southern countries of Europe, is only beginning to receive its full measure of credence. There was always a knowledge, or supposition, that there were robbers in Spain, Italy, and Greece, who went in bands, and now and then attacked travellers, plundering them of their purses, and occasionally committing outrages on their persons. People, however, supposed these cases to be exceptional, and that the stage representations of brigand life to which in Transpontine theatres we are treated, were exaggerations, both, as regards the power and picturesqueness of these banded outlaws. There were banditti, of course, conceded every one; but these were few and far between, confined to the fastnesses of the mountains, or concealed in some pathless forest – only showing themselves by stealth and on rare occasions upon the public highways, or in the inhabited districts of the country.

Unhappily, this view of the case is not the correct one. At present, and for a long time past, the brigands of Italy, so far from skulking in mountain caves or forest lairs, openly disport themselves in the plains, even where thickly peopled; not unfrequently making themselves masters of a village, and retaining possession of it for days at a time. You may wonder at the weakness of the Italian governments, that permit such a state of things to exist. But it does exist, sometimes in spite of the governments, but sometimes also with their secret support and connivance – notably in the territories of Rome and Naples. To explain why they connive at it would be to enter upon a religio-political question which we do not care to discuss – since it might be deemed out of place in the pages of a mere romantic tale.

The motive of these governments for permitting brigandage was similar to that which elsewhere gives “comfort and support” to many an association almost as despicable as brigandage. It is the old story of despotism all over the world, Divide et impera; and prince or priest, if they cannot govern a people otherwise, will even rule them through the scourge of the robber.

Were there two forms of religion in Italy, as in Ireland, there would be no brigands. Then there would be no need of them: since in aspiring to political liberty the two parties would satisfactorily checkmate one another, as they have done and still do in Ireland – each preferring serfdom for itself rather than to share freedom with its hated rival.

Since in Italy there is but one religion, some other means was required to check and counteract the political liberty of the people. Despotism had hit upon the device of brigandage, and this is the explanation of its existence.

The nature of this hideous social sore is but imperfectly understood outside Italy. It might be supposed an irksome state of existence to dwell in a country where robbers can ramble about at will, and do pretty much as they please. And so it would be to any one of sensitive mind or educated intelligence; but where the bandits dwell, there are few of this class, the districts infected with them having been long since surrendered to small tenant-farmers and peasantry. A landed proprietor does not think of residing on his own estate. If he did, he would be in danger every day of his life – not of being assassinated, for that would be a simple act of folly on the part of the brigands – but hurried away from his home to some rendezvous in the mountains, and there held captive till his friends could raise a ransom sufficient to satisfy the cupidity of his captors. This refused – supposing it possible of being obtained – then he would certainly be assassinated – hanged or shot – without further hesitancy or equivocation.

Knowing this, from either his own or his neighbour’s experience, the owner of an Italian estate takes the precaution to reside in the towns, where there is a garrison of regular soldiers, or some other form of protection for his person. And only inside such a town is he safe. A single mile beyond the boundary of their suburbs, sometimes even within them, he runs the risk of getting picked up and carried off, before the very faces of his friends and fellow-citizens. To deny this would be to contradict facts of continual occurrence. Scores of such instances are annually reported, both in the Roman States and in the late Neapolitan territory – now happily included in a safer and better régime, though still suffering from this chronic curse.

But it may be asked of the peasantry themselves – the small farmers, shopkeepers, artificers, labourers, shepherds, and the like – how they live under such an abnormal condition of things?

That is what the world wonders at, more especially the public of England; which is not very intelligent on any foreign matter, and dull at comprehending even that which concerns itself. Have we ever heard of one of our own farmers raising his voice against a war, however cruel or unjust, against the people of another country, provided it increased the price of bacon in his own? And in this we have the explanation why the peasant people of Italy bear up so bravely against brigandage. When a village baker gets a pezzo (in value something more than a dollar) for a loaf of bread weighing less than three pounds, the real price in the nearest town being only threepence; when a labourer gets a similar sum for his brown bannock of like weight; when his wife has another pezzo for washing a brigand’s shirt – the brigandesses being above such work; when the shepherd asks and obtains a triple price for his goat, kid, or sheep; and when every other article of bandit clothing or consumption is paid for at a proportionate famine rate, one need no longer be astonished at the tolerance of the Italian peasantry towards such generous customers.

But how about the insults, the annoyances, the dangers to which they are subject at the hands of these outlaws?

All nonsense. They are not in any danger. They have little to lose, but their lives; and these the brigands do not care to take. It would be to kill the goose, and get no more eggs. In the way of annoyances the English labourer has to submit to quite as many, if not more, in the shape of heavy taxation, or the interference of a prying policeman; and when it comes to the question of insult, supposing it to be offered to a wife or pretty daughter, the Italian peasant is in this respect not much worse off than the tradesman of many an English town annually abandoned to the tender mercies of a maudlin militia.

Brigandage, therefore, in the belief of the Italian peasant, is not, at all times, so very unendurable.

Notwithstanding, there are occasions when it is so, and people suffer from it grievously. Scenes of cruelty are often witnessed – episodes and incidents absolutely agonising. These usually occur in places that have either hitherto escaped the curse of brigandage, or have been for a long time relieved from it; where owners of estates, deeming themselves safe, have ventured to reside on their properties, in hopes of realising an income – more than a moiety of which, under the robber régime, goes into the pockets of their tenantry, the peasant cultivators. And to prevent this residence of the proprietors on their estates is the very thing desired by their proletarian retainers, who benefit by their absence – this begetting another motive, perhaps the strongest of all, for the toleration of the bandits.

When, in districts for a time abandoned by them, the brigands once more make appearance, either on a running raid or for permanent occupation, then scenes are enacted that are truly deplorable. Owners for a time remain, either hating to break up their households, or unable to dispose of the property in hand, such as stock or chattels, without ruinous sacrifice. They live on, trusting to chance, sometimes to favour, and not unfrequently to a periodical bleeding by black mail, that gains them the simple indulgence of non-molestation. It is at best but a precarious position, painful as uncertain.

In just such a dilemma was the father of Luigi Torreani, sindico, or chief magistrate, of the town in which he dwelt, owning considerable property in the district. Up to a late period he had felt secure from the incursions of the bandits. He had even gone so far as to gain ill-will from these outlaws, by the prosecution of two of their number at a time when there was some safety in the just administration of the laws. But times had changed. The Pope, occupied with his heretical enemies outside his sacred dominions, gave little heed to interior disturbances; and as for Cardinal Antonelli, what cared he for complaints of brigand outrages daily poured into his ears? Rather, had he reason for encouraging them – this true descendant of the Caesars and type of the Caesar Borgias.

It was to this peril in which his father was placed that the paragraph in Luigi’s letter referred. Henry Harding, reflecting within his prison cell, had hit upon its correct interpretation.

Chapter Thirty One

The Torreanis

On that same night in which the brigands had strayed into the town of Val di Orno, the sindico had learned something which caused him more than ever to fear for the future. The bold, bullying behaviour of the men was itself sufficient to tell him of his own impotence, in case they had chosen to violate the laws of hospitality. But he had been told of something more, something personal to himself, or rather to his family – that family consisting solely of his daughter Lucetta. She and Luigi were his only children, and they had been motherless for many years.

What he had learned is already known to the reader – that Corvino had been seen to cast longing looks upon his child. This is the Italian parlance when speaking of a preference of the kind supposed to exist in the bosom of a brigand. Francesco Torreani knew its significance. He was well aware of the personal attractions possessed by his daughter. Her great beauty had long been the theme, not only of the village of Val di Orno, but of the surrounding country. Even in the city itself had she been spoken of; and once, while on a visit there with her father, she had been beset by blandishments in which counts and cardinals had taken part; for these red-legged gentry of the Church are not callous to the smiles of witching woman.

It was the second time Corvino had seen Lucetta Torreani; and her father was admonished that he had perhaps seen her twice too often, as that once more he might bring misery to his house, leaving it with a desolate hearth. There was no insinuation against the girl – no hint that she had in any way encouraged the bold advances of the brigand chief. On the contrary, it was known that she hated the sight of him, as she should do. It had been simply a warning, whispered in the father’s ear, that it would be well for her to be kept out of Corvino’s way. But how was this to be done?

On the day after the visit of the band, Francesco Torreani noticed something strange in his daughter’s manner. There was an air of dejection not usual to her, for the pretty Lucetta was not given to gravity. Why should she be low-spirited at such a crisis? Her father inquired the cause.

“You are not yourself to-day, my child,” he said, observing her dejected air.

“I am not, papa; I confess it.”

“Has anything occurred to vex you?”

“To vex me! No, not quite that. It is thinking of another that gives me unhappiness.”

“Of another! Who, cara figlia?”

“Well, papa, I’ve been thinking of that poor young Inglese, who was carried away by those infamous men. Suppose it had been brother Luigi?”

“Ay, indeed!”

“What do you think they will do with him? Is his life in danger?”

“No, not his life – that is, if his friends will only send the money that will be demanded for his ransom.”

“But if he have no friends? He might not. His dress was not rich; and yet for all that he looked a galantuomo. Did he not?”

“I did not take much notice of him, my child. I was too busy with the affairs of the town while the ruffians were here.”

“Do you know, papa, what our girl Annetta has heard? Some one told her this morning.”

“What?”

“That the young Inglese is an artist, just like our Luigi. How strange if it be so?”

“’Tis probable enough. Many of these English residents in Rome are artists by profession. They come here to study our old paintings and sculptures. He may be one, and very likely is. ’Tis a pity, poor fellow, but it can’t be helped. Perhaps if he were a great milord it would be all the worse for him. His captors would require a much larger sum for his ransom. If they find he can’t pay, they’ll be likely to let him go.”

“I do hope they will; I do indeed.”

“But why, child? Why are you so much interested in this young man? There have been others. Corvino’s band took three with them, the last time they passed through. You said nothing about them.”

“I did not notice them, papa: and he – think of his being a pittore! Suppose brother Luigi was treated so in his country?”

“There is no danger of that. I wish we had such a country to live in; under a government where everything is secure, life, property, and – ”

The sindico did not say what besides. He was thinking of the admonition he had recently received.

“And why should we not go to England? Go there and live with Luigi. He said in his last letter, he has been successful in his profession, and would like to have us with him. Perhaps this young Inglese on his return may stop at the inn; and, if you would question him, he could tell us all about his country. If it be true what you say of it, why should we not go there to live?”