The Gadfly Part 50

He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes and set his mouth in a smile.

Montanelli looked up from his papers.

"You can wait in the hall," he said to the guards.

"May it please Your Eminence," began the sergeant, in a lowered voice and with evident nervousness, "the colonel thinks that this prisoner is dangerous and that it would be better------"

A sudden flash came into Montanelli's eyes.

"You can wait in the hall," he repeated quietly; and the sergeant, saluting and stammering excuses with a frightened face, left the room with his men.

"Sit down, please," said the Cardinal, when the door was shut. The Gadfly obeyed in silence.

"Signor Rivarez," Montanelli began after a pause, "I wish to ask you a few questions, and shall be very much obliged to you if you will answer them."

The Gadfly smiled. "My ch-ch-chief occupation at p-p-present is to be asked questions."

"And--not to answer them? So I have heard; but these questions are put by officials who are investigating your case and whose duty is to use your answers as evidence."

"And th-those of Your Eminence?" There was a covert insult in the tone more than in the words, and the Cardinal understood it at once; but his face did not lose its grave sweetness of expression.

"Mine," he said, "whether you answer them or not, will remain between you and me. If they should trench upon your political secrets, of course you will not answer. Otherwise, though we are complete strangers to each other, I hope that you will do so, as a personal favour to me."

"I am ent-t-tirely at the service of Your Eminence." He said it with a little bow, and a face that would have taken the heart to ask favours out of the daughters of the horse-leech.

"First, then, you are said to have been smuggling firearms into this district. What are they wanted for?"

"T-t-to k-k-kill rats with."

"That is a terrible answer. Are all your fellow-men rats in your eyes if they cannot think as you do?"

"S-s-some of them."

Montanelli leaned back in his chair and looked at him in silence for a little while.

"What is that on your hand?" he asked suddenly.

The Gadfly glanced at his left hand. "Old m-m-marks from the teeth of some of the rats."

"Excuse me; I was speaking of the other hand. That is a fresh hurt."

The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut and grazed. The Gadfly held it up. The wrist was swollen, and across it ran a deep and long black bruise.

"It is a m-m-mere trifle, as you see," he said. "When I was arrested the other day,--thanks to Your Eminence,"--he made another little bow,--"one of the soldiers stamped on it."

Montanelli took the wrist and examined it closely. "How does it come to be in such a state now, after three weeks?" he asked. "It is all inflamed."

"Possibly the p-p-pressure of the iron has not done it much good."

The Cardinal looked up with a frown.

"Have they been putting irons on a fresh wound?"

"N-n-naturally, Your Eminence; that is what fresh wounds are for. Old wounds are not much use. They will only ache; you c-c-can't make them burn properly."

Montanelli looked at him again in the same close, scrutinizing way; then rose and opened a drawer full of surgical appliances.

"Give me the hand," he said.

The Gadfly, with a face as hard as beaten iron, held out the hand, and Montanelli, after bathing the injured place, gently bandaged it.

Evidently he was accustomed to such work.

"I will speak about the irons," he said. "And now I want to ask you another question: What do you propose to do?"

"Th-th-that is very simply answered, Your Eminence. To escape if I can, and if I can't, to die."

"Why 'to die'?"

"Because if the Governor doesn't succeed in getting me shot, I shall be sent to the galleys, and for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have not got the health to live through it."

Montanelli rested his arm on the table and pondered silently. The Gadfly did not disturb him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes, lazily enjoying the delicious physical sensation of relief from the chains.

"Supposing," Montanelli began again, "that you were to succeed in escaping; what should you do with your life?"

"I have already told Your Eminence; I should k-k-kill rats."

"You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I were to let you escape from here now,--supposing I had the power to do so,--you would use your freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead of preventing them?"

The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the wall. "'Not peace, but a sword';--at l-least I should be in good company. For my own part, though, I prefer pistols."

"Signor Rivarez," said the Cardinal with unruffled composure, "I have not insulted you as yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends. May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or do you wish me to suppose that an atheist cannot be a gentleman?"

"Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places courtesy high among the Christian virtues. I remember your sermon in Florence, on the occasion of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender."

"That is one of the subjects about which I wished to speak to you. Would you mind explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness you seem to feel against me? If you have simply picked me out as a convenient target, that is another matter. Your methods of political controversy are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics now. But I fancied at the time that there was some personal animosity towards me; and if so, I should be glad to know whether I have ever done you wrong or in any way given you cause for such a feeling."

Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the bandaged hand to his throat.

"I must refer Your Eminence to Shakspere," he said with a little laugh.

"It's as with the man who can't endure a harmless, necessary cat. My antipathy is a priest. The sight of the ca.s.sock makes my t-t-teeth ache."

"Oh, if it is only that----" Montanelli dismissed the subject with an indifferent gesture.

"Still," he added, "abuse is one thing and perversion of fact is another. When you stated, in answer to my sermon, that I knew the ident.i.ty of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake,--I do not accuse you of wilful falsehood,--and stated what was untrue. I am to this day quite ignorant of his name."

The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an intelligent robin, looked at him for a moment gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and burst into a peal of laughter.

"S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent, Arcadian people--and you never guessed! You n-never saw the cloven hoof?"