In Direst Peril - David Christie Murray

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am not so sure of that,” I cried. “I shall live to see the Italians a free people yet!”

      “You are one of the enthusiasts,” said Brunow, laughing. “And I suppose that if you got an opportunity you'd lend the cause a hand.” I said “Assuredly,” and Brunow laughed again. “Well, to keep to the story,” he went on, “the count saw Miss Rawlings, and fell head over ears in love with her at first sight. He was young, he was handsome; he had spent years in England, and spoke the language like a native. He made love like Romeo, but the young lady at first would not listen to him. He followed the party to England, stuck to his cause like a man, and finally won it. The only objection anybody had to urge against him was that he was hand in glove with the conspirators against Austrian rule. The Austrian's were just as much a fixture in Italy as they are at this day; the Italians were just as hotly bent as they are now on getting rid of them, and Sir Arthur, who was an old diplomat, was afraid of the prospective son-in-law's political ideas. He tried at first to make marriage a question of surrender of the cause, but the count was ultra-romantic, ultra-patriotic, ultra-Italian all over in point of fact. Not even for love's sake would he throw over his country, and, oddly enough, it was this bit of romanticism which clinched the lady's affection.”

      “And why oddly?” I asked him.

      “My dear fellow,” said Brunow, “why should I characterize or analyze a woman's whims. The story is the main point. Miss Rawlings married the count. Within three months of their marriage the count went back to Italy to assist in the stirring up of some confounded Italian hot-pot or other, and was never heard of again. Seven or eight months after, the girl you met to-night was born. Her mother died a few months later. The count's estates were confiscated by the Austrian government, and the little orphan was bred by her grandparents. They are dead now, and Miss Rossano is chaperoned by her aunt, Lady Rollinson, and lives with her. When she is two-and-twenty she will come in for her dead mother's money, some forty or maybe fifty thousand pounds. In the meantime she inherits some two thousand a year from her grandfather. There are better things in the marriage market, but—”

      There he stopped and sipped at his tumbler, and I sat thinking for a while. Barring that one little point in the story at which Brunow introduced himself, I was disposed to give the history entire credence. But that Brunow should have seen the mournful hero of the tale within the last six weeks was altogether too like Brunow to be believed without some confirmation. One rarely tells even the most practised romancer outright and in so many words that he is not telling the truth, but I fenced for a time.

      “And the count's alive, you say?”

      “Alive? I saw him barely six weeks ago. I'll tell you all about it.” He leaned forward in his chair, and I would have sworn that he was inventing as he went on. “I was at a little place called Itzia, in the Tyrol, when by pure chance I stumbled on a fellow I had known in Paris and Vienna—a fellow named Reschia, Lieutenant Reschia. He was on General Radetsky's staff when I knew him first—an empty-headed fellow rather; but a man's glad to meet anybody in a place like Itzia; and when he asked me to dine with him at the fortress, I was jolly glad to go. 'We've got an old file here,' he told me, 'the Italians would give anything to get hold of if they only knew where he was. I believe they'd tear the place down with their nails to get at him.' It was after dinner, and he was ridiculously confidential. He pledged me to secrecy of course, and of course I told him that I should respect any confidence he reposed in me. Of course I did, out there; and equally, of course, I'm not bound here. It came out they'd got the Conte di Rossano there, and when I heard the name I jumped. Reschia didn't take notice of my surprise, and after a time I said I should like to see the fellow. He pointed him out to me next day, taking exercise in the court-yard.”

      “The count,” I said, still less than doubtful of the truth of Brunow's story—“the count must have been a man of unusual importance to the political party to be remembered with such a passionate devotion after so many years.”

      “God bless your soul,” cried Brunow, “it was devotion! Those Austrian fellows are as cunning as the devil. The Italians have been made to believe these twenty years that the count was playing fast and loose with both parties. His jailers made out that he had been a paid spy in their service, and pretended that he had been killed by one of the Nationalist party, whom they hanged.”

      “Of course you made no effort to release him?”

      “How the deuce could I? Release him! If you knew the fortress at Itzia you'd think twice before trying that. Besides—hang it all, man!—I was Reschia's guest; and he told me the story under the seal of confession.”

      I spoke unguardedly, but I was not allowed to go far.

      “If your story is true, Brunow—”

      “What do you mean by that?” he asked, with sudden anger. Everybody knew how utterly irresponsible he was, but nothing made him so angry as to be doubted. “The story's true; and if proof were wanted, here is proof enough.”

      He rose with unusual vivacity, and, throwing open an escritoire, took from it a disorderly little pile of papers. He searched this through, muttering in a wounded tone meanwhile. “True? If the story's true? I'll show you whether it's true or not! No! By George, it isn't here! Now where on earth can I have put that paper?”

      Just as I was laughing inwardly to think how well he thought it worth while to pretend, he slapped his forehead with a sudden air of recollection, turned again to the escritoire, drew from it a crumpled dirty scrap of paper, and striding over to me thrust it into my hand. “Read that,” he said.

      “These lines,” I read, “are written by the Conte di Rossano, for more than twenty years a prisoner in the fortress of Itzia. They are carried at grave danger to himself by an attendant whose pity has been moved by the contemplation of a life of great misery. Should they reach the hands of the English stranger for whom they are intended, he is besought, for the love of God, to convey them to the Contessa di Rossano, daughter of Sir Arthur Rawlings, of Barston Manor, Warwickshire, who must long have mourned the writer as dead.”

      “That was slipped into my hand as I was leaving the village,” said Brunow. “If the countess had been living—unless she had been married again—I should have thought it my duty to let her know the truth. But Miss Rossano knows nothing—guesses nothing. Why should I wound her with a piece of news like this?”

      We did not talk much more that night, but I had plenty to think about as I walked home to my hotel.

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      If I had never seen that pencilled scrap of paper, I should have had no belief in Brunow's story. But though he was a romancer to his finger tips, and as irresponsible as a baby, I had never known him to take the least trouble to bolster up any of his inventions, or to show the least shame when he was discovered in a lie. I am told that people who suffer from kleptomania cannot be taught to be ashamed of stealing, though even a dog has grace enough to be abashed if you catch him in an act of dishonesty. I have met in my lifetime two or three men like Brunow, who lie without temptation, and who do not feel disgraced when detected.

      For once I could not help believing him, and his story stuck in my mind in a very disagreeable way, for Miss Rossano fairly haunted me, and anything which was associated with her had an importance in my eyes. It was a hard thing to think that such a living tragedy should be so close to a creature so young and bright and happy. I praised Brunow in my own mind for his sensible resolution to keep the secret of her father's existence from her, but I was constantly thinking whether there might not be some possibility of setting the prisoner free. If I had been a rich man I could see quite enough chance of adventure to tempt me to the enterprise. I hated the Austrian rule with all my heart and soul, as at that time the Austrian rule deserved that every freeborn Englishman should hate it. The thought of Italian independence set my blood on fire, and I would as soon have fought for that cause as for any in the world.

      I

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