Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

almost immediately he returned, accompanied by Von Zoesch, to whom Brand was introduced.

"I am honored in making your acquaintance," the tall soldier said, in a pleasant way. "I have heard much of you; you are a good worker; likewise you do not flinch when a duty is demanded of you. Perhaps, if you would only condescend to re-enforce the treasury sometimes, the Council would be still further grateful to you. However, we are not to become beggars at a first interview--and that a short one, necessarily--for to-day we start for Genoa."

"I am sorry for that," Brand said, simply. "There were some representations I wished to lay before the Council--some very serious representations."

"Perhaps some other time, then. In the meanwhile, our hands are full. And that reminds me that the news you bring makes one of my tasks to-day a pleasant one. Yes, I remember something of that maniac-fellow babbling about a saint and an angel--I heard of it. So it was your beautiful Miss Lind who was the saint and the angel? Well, do you know that I was about to give that young lady a very good scolding to-day?"

Brand flushed quickly. The authority of the Council had no terrors for him where Natalie was concerned.

"I beg to remind you," he said, respectfully but firmly, "that the fact of Miss Lind's father being connected with the Society gives no one the right to intermeddle in her private affairs--"

"Oh, but, my dear sir," said Von Zoesch laughing. "I have ample right. Her mother Natalie and I are very old friends indeed. You have not seen the charming young lady, then, since your arrival?"

"No."

"Excellent--excellent! You shall come and hear the scolding I have to give her. Oh, I assure you it will not harm her much. Calabressa will bring you along to the Villa Odelschalchi, eleven sharp. We must not keep a lady--two ladies, indeed--waiting, after making an appointment."

He rose from the plain wooden chair on which he had been sitting; and his visitor had to rise also. But Brand stood reluctant to go, and his brows were drawn down.

"I beg your pardon," said he, "but if you are so busy, why not depute some friend of the young lady to carry her a message? A girl is easily frightened."

"No, no, my dear sir; having made an appointment, must we not keep it? Come, I shall expect you to make one of the party; it will be a pleasant little comedy before we go to more serious matters. Au revoir!" He bowed slightly, and withdrew.

Some little time afterward Brand, Evelyn, and Calabressa were driving along the rough streets in an open carriage. The presence of Lord Evelyn had been a last concession obtained from General von Zoesch by Calabressa.

"Why not?" Von Zoesch had said, good-naturedly; "he is one of us. Besides, there is nothing of importance at Portici. It is a little family party; it is a little comedy before we go to Genoa."

As they rattled along, Lord Evelyn was very talkative and joyous. He had seen Natalie the evening before, within an hour after his arrival. He was laughing at Brand for fearing she might have been induced to go to some wretched inn.

"I myself, did I not say to you it was a beautiful hotel?" said Calabressa, with a hurt air. "The most beautiful view in Naples."

"I think, after what she will hear to-day," said Evelyn, "she ought to ask us to dine there. That would be an English way of finishing up all her trials and troubles." But he turned to Calabressa with a graver look. "What about Lind? Will they reinstate him now? Will they send him back to England?"

"Reinstate him in office?" said Calabressa, with a scornful smile. "My faith, no! Neither him nor Beratinsky. They will give them letters to Montenegro: isn't it enough?"

"Well, I think so. And Reitzei?"

"Reitzei has been stationed at Brindisi--one of our moral police; and lucky for him also."

When they arrived at the Villa Odelschalchi they were shown into a little anteroom where they found Granaglia, and he was introduced to the two strangers.

"Who have come?" Calabressa said, in a low voice.

The little sallow-faced Secretary smiled.

"Several Brothers of the Council," he said. "They wish to see this young lady who has turned so many heads. You, for example, my Calabressa, are mad with regard to her. Well, they pay her a compliment. It is the first time any woman has been in the presence of the Council."

At this moment Von Zoesch came in, and hastily threw aside his travelling-cloak.

"Come, my friends," said he, and he took them with him, leaving Granaglia to receive the ladies when they should arrive.

The lofty and spacious apartment they now entered, on the other side of the corridor, was apparently one of a suite of rooms facing the sea. Its walls were decorated in Pompeian fashion, with simulated trellis-work, and plenty of birds, beasts, and fishes about; but the massive curtains and spreading chandeliers were all covered over as if the house had not been inhabited for some time. All that was displayed of the furniture of the chambers were some chairs of blue satin, with white and gold backs and legs; and these looked strange enough, seeing that they were placed irregularly round an oblong, rough deal table, which looked as if it had just come from the workshop of some neighboring carpenter. At or near this table several men, nearly all elderly, were sitting, talking carelessly to each other; one of them, indeed, at the farthermost corner, was a venerable patriarch, who wore a large soft wide-awake over his snow-white hair. At the head of the table sat the handsome, pale-faced, Greek-looking man who has been mentioned as one Conventz. He was writing a letter, but stopped when Brand and Evelyn were introduced to him. Then Calabressa drew in some more of the gilt and blue chairs, and they sat down close by.

Brand kept anxiously looking toward the door. He had not long to wait. When it opened, Granaglia appeared, conducting into the room two figures dressed in black. These dark figures looked impressive in the great, white, empty room.

For a second Natalie stood bewildered and irresolute, seeing all these faces turned to her; and when her eyes fell on her lover, she turned deadly pale. But she went forward, along with her mother, to the two chairs brought for them by Granaglia, and they sat down. The mother was veiled. Natalie glanced at her lover again; there was a strange look in his face, but not of pain or fear.

"My dear young lady," said Von Zoesch, in his pleasantest way, "we have nothing but good news to communicate to you, so you must not be alarmed. You are among friends. We are going away to-day; we all wish to say good-bye to you, and wish you a happy journey back to England; that is all. But I will tell you that my first object in asking you to come here was to give you a good rating; when you and I should have been alone together I would have asked you if you had no consideration for old friends, that you should have turned away from my colleague, Calabressa, and wounded him grievously. I would have reminded you that it was not he, but you yourself, who put the machinery in motion which secured your father's righteous conviction."

"I ask you to spare me, signore," the girl said, in a low and trembling voice.

"Oh, I am not now going to scold you, my dear young lady. I intended to have done so. I intended to have shown you that you were wrong, and exceedingly ungrateful, and that you ought to ask pardon of my friend Calabressa. However, it is all changed. You need not fear him any more; you need not turn away from him. Your father is pardoned, and free!"

She looked up, uncertain, as if she had not heard aright.

"I repeat: your father is pardoned, and free. You shall learn how and why afterward. Meanwhile you have nothing before you, as I take it, but to reap the reward of your bravery."

She did not hear this last sentence. She had turned quickly to her mother.

"Mother, do you hear?" she said in a whisper.

"Yes, yes, child: thank God!"

"Now, you see, my dear young lady," Von Zoesch continued, "it is not a scolding, but good news I have given you; and nothing remains but that you should bid us good-bye, and say you are not sorry you appealed to us when you were in trouble, according to the advice of your good friend Calabressa. See, I have brought here with me a gentleman whom you know, and who will see you safe back to Naples, and to England; and another, his companion, who is also, I understand, an old friend of yours: you will have a pleasant party. Your father will be sent to join in a good cause, where he may retrieve his name if he chooses; you and your friends go back to England. So I may say that all your wishes are gratified at last, and we have nothing now but to say good-bye!"

The girl had been glancing timidly and nervously at the figures grouped round the table, and her breast was heaving. She rose; perhaps it was to enable herself to speak more freely; perhaps it was only out of deference to those seated there.

"No," she said, in a low voice, but it was heard clearly enough in the silence. "I--I would say a word to you--whom I may not see again. Yes, I thank you--from my heart; you have taken a great trouble away from my life. I--I thank you; but there is something I would say."

She paused for a second. She was very pale. She seemed to be nerving herself for some effort; and, strangely enough, her mother's hand, unseen, was stretched up to her, and she clasped it and held it tight. It gave her courage.

"It is true, I am only a girl; you are my elders, and you are men; but I have known good and brave men who were not ashamed to listen to what a woman thought was right; and it is as a woman that I speak to you," she said; and her voice, low and timid as it was, had a strange, pathetic vibration in it, that went to the heart. "I have suffered much of late. I hope no other woman will ever suffer in the same way."

Again she hesitated, but for the last time.

"Oh, gentlemen, you who are so powerful, you who profess to seek only mercy and justice and peace, why should you, also, follow the old, bad, cruel ways, and stain yourselves with blood? Surely it is not for you, the friends of the poor, the champions of the weak, the teachers of the people, to rely on the weapon of the assassin! When you go to the world, and seek for help and labor, surely you should go with clean hands--so that the wives and the sisters and the daughters of those who may join you may not have their lives made terrible to them. It is not a reign of terror you would establish on the earth! For the sake of those who have already joined you--for the sake of the far greater numbers who may yet be your associates--I implore you to abandon these secret and dreadful means. Surely, gentlemen, the