'To whom is your letter addressed, my son?' said the Fra, in a more gentle voice.

With difficulty did Gerald repress the sharp reply that was on his lips, and say--

'It is for one that neither you nor I know much of--Il Pastore.'

'I know him well,' said the friar boldly; 'and say it without fear of contradiction, I am the only one he makes a shrift to--ay, that does he, ill as you think of him,' added he, as if answering the half-contemptuous smile on Gerald's face. 'Let's see your letter.'

With an awkward reluctance Gerald drew forth the letter and showed it.

'Ah!' cried the Fra eagerly, 'he had been looking for that letter this many a day back; but it comes too late now.'

As he said this he pressed eagerly forward and whispered to the nun who was walking at the side of the mule. She looked back hurriedly for an instant, and then as rapidly turned her head again. They continued now to converse eagerly for some time, and seemed totally to have forgotten Gerald, as he walked on after them; when the Fra turned suddenly round and said--

'I 'll take charge of your letter, my son, while you guide our sister down to Cheatstone, a little cl.u.s.ter of houses you 'll see at the foot of the mountain; and if there be an answer I 'll fetch it to-morrow, ere daybreak.'

'Nay, Fra, I promised that I would deliver this with my own hands, and I mean to be no worse than my word.' 'You 'll have to be at least less than your word,' said the friar, 'for the Pastore would not see you.

These are his days of penance and mortification, and I am the only one who dares to approach him.'

'I am pledged to deliver this into his own hand,' said Gerald calmly.

'You may have said many a rash thing in your life, but never a rasher than that,' said the Fra sternly. 'I tell you again, he 'll not see you.

At all events, you 'll have to find the road by your own good wits, and it is a path that has puzzled shrewder heads.'

With this rude speech, uttered in the rudest way, the Fra moved hastily on till he overtook his companion, leaving Gerald to follow how he pleased.

For some time he continued on after the others, vainly straining his eyes on every side for any signs of a. pathway upward. The way which he had trod before, with hope to cheer him, became now wearisome and sad.

He was sick of his adventure, out of temper with his want of success, and dissatisfied with himself. He at last resolved that he would go no farther on his track than a certain little olive copse which nestled in a cleft of the mountain, reaching which he would repose for a while, and then retrace his steps.

The sun was strong and the heat oppressive, insomuch that when at length he gained the copse, he was well pleased to throw himself down beneath the shade and take his rest. He had already forgotten the Franciscan and his fellow-traveller, and was deeply musing over his own fortunes, when suddenly he heard their voices, and, creeping noiselessly to the edge of the cliff, he saw them seated at a little well, beside which their breakfast was spread out. The woman had thrown back her hood and showed now a beautiful head, whose long black hair fell heavily on either shoulder, while her taper fingers, covered with many a splendid ring, plainly showed that her conventual dress was only a disguise. Nor was this the only sign that surprised him, for now he saw that a short bra.s.s blunderbuss, the regular weapon of the brigand, lay close to the friar's hand.

'It is the Pastore himself,' thought Gerald, as he gazed down at the brawny limbs and well-knit proportions of the stranger. 'How could I ever have mistaken him for a friar?' The more he thought over the friar's manner--his eagerness to get the letter, and the careless indifference afterward with which he suffered Gerald to leave him--the more he felt a.s.sured that this was no other than the celebrated chief himself.

'At least, I have succeeded in seeing him, thought he; 'and why should I not go boldly forward and speak to him? 'The resolve was no sooner formed than he proceeded to execute it. In a moment after he had descended the cliff, and, making his way through the brushwood, stood before them.

'So, then, you _will_ track me, youngster,' said the friar angrily.

'Once--twice--to-day the road was open to you to seek your own way, and you would not take it. How bent you must be to do yourself an ill turn!'

'You are "II Pastore,"' said Gerald boldly.

'And thou art _Gherardi mio!'_ cried the woman, as she rushed wildly toward him and clasped him in her arms. It was Marietta herself who spoke.

How tell the glorious outburst of Gerald's joy, as he overpowered her with questions--whence she came, whither going, how and why, and wherefore there? Was she really and truly the Egyptian who had visited him on his sick-bed, and not a mere vision?

'And was it from thy lips, then,' cried he, 'that I learned that all this ambition was but a snare--that I was destined to be only the tool of crafty men, deep in their own designss? At times the revelation seemed to come from thee, and at times a burst of heart-felt conviction.

Which was it, Marietta _mia_?'

'Who is he?' cried the Fra eagerly. 'This surely cannot be--ay, but it is the Prince--the son of my old lord and master!' and he knelt and kissed Gerald's hands over and over again. 'He knows me not--at least as I once was--the friend, the boon companion of a king's son,' continued he pa.s.sionately.

'Were you, then, one of his old Scottish followers--one of those faithful men who clung so devotedly to his cause?'

'No, no; but I was one that he loved better than them all.'

'And you, Marietta, dearest, how is it that I see you here?' cried Gerald, again turning to her.

'I came many a weary mile after you, _mio caro_,' said she. 'I knew of these men's designs long, long ago, and I determined to save you from them. I believed I could have secured Ma.s.soni as your friend; but I was wrong--the Jesuit was stronger in him than the man. I remained at St.

Ursula months after I might have left it, just to see the Pere--to watch his game--and, if possible, attach him to me; but I failed--utterly failed. He was true to his cause, and would not accept my love. More fortunate, however, was I with the Cardinal--even, perhaps, that I wished or cared for--His Eminence was my slave. There was not a secret of the Vatican I did not learn. I read the correspondence with the Spanish minister, Arazara; I suggested the replies; I heard the whole plan for your expedition--how you were to be secretly married to the Countess Ridolfi, and the marriage only avowed when your success was a.s.sured.'

She paused, and the Fra broke in--'Tell all--everything--the mine has exploded now, and none are the worse for it Go on with your confession.'

'It is of the other alternative he speaks,' said she, dropping her voice to a faint whisper. 'Had you failed----'

'And then--what then, Marietta?'

'You were in that case to have been betrayed into the hands of the English, or poisoned! The scheme to accomplish the first was already planned. I have here the letters which are to accredit me to see and converse with Sir Horace Mann, at Florence; and which I mean to deliver too. I am resolved to trace out to the very last who are the accomplices in this guilt. The world is well edified by tales of mob violence and bloodshed. Even genius seeks its inspiration in inveighing against popular excesses. It is time to show that crimes lurk under purple as well as rags, and that the deadliest vengeances are often devised beneath gilded ceilings. We knew of one once, Gherardi, who could have told men these truths--one who carried from this world with him the "funeral trappings of the monarchy" and the wail of the people.

'Of whom did she speak?' asked the friar.

'Of Gabriel Riquetti, whom she loved,' and the last words were whispered by Gerald in her ear.

Marietta held down her head, and as she covered her face with her hands muttered--'But who loved not her!'

'Gabriel Riquetti,' broke in the friar, 'had more of good and bad in him than all the saints and all the devils that ever warred. He had the best of principles and the worst of practices, and never did a wicked thing but he could show you a virtuous reason for it.'

Struck by the contemptuous glance of Marietta, Gerald followed the look she gave, and saw that the friar's eyes were bloodshot, and his face purple with excess.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE END

From Marietta Gerald heard how, with that strange fatality of inconsistency which ever seemed to accompany the fortunes of the Stuarts, none proved faithful followers save those whose lives of excess or debauchery rendered them valueless; and thus the drunken Fra, whose wild s.n.a.t.c.hes of song and ribaldry now broke in upon the colloquy, was no other than the Carmelite, Kelly, the once a.s.sociate and corrupter of his father.

In a half-mad enthusiasm to engage men in the cause of his Prince he had begun a sort of recruitment of a legion who were to land in Scotland or Ireland. The means by which he at first operated were somewhat liberally contributed to him by a secret emissary of the family, whom Kelly at length discovered to be the private secretary of Miss Walsingham, the former mistress of Charles Edward. Later on, however, he found out that this lady herself was actually a pensioner of the English government, and in secret correspondence with Mr. Pitt, who, through her instrumentality, was in possession of every plan of the Pretender, and knew of his daily movements. This treacherous intercourse had begun several years before the death of Charles Edward, and lasted for some years after that event.

Stung by the consciousness of being duped, as well as maddened by having been rendered an enemy to the cause he sought to serve, Kelly disbanded his followers, and took to the mountains as a brigand. With years he had grown only more abandoned to excess of every kind. All his experiences of life had shown little beyond baseness and corruption, and he had grown to care for nothing beyond the enjoyment of the pa.s.sing hour, except when the possibility of a vengeance on those who had betrayed him might momentarily awake his pa.s.sion, and excite him to some effort of vindictive anger.

In his hours of mad debauchery he would rave about landing in England, and a plan he had conceived for a.s.sa.s.sinating the king; then it was his scheme to murder Mr. Pitt, and sometimes all these were abandoned for the desire to make Miss Walsingham herself pay the penalty of her base and unwomanly treachery.

'He came to our convent gate in his garb of a friar to beg,' said Marietta. 'I saw him but for an instant, and I knew him at once. He was one of those who, in the "red days" of the Revolution, mocked the order he belonged to by wearing a rosary of playing-dice! and he recognised me as one who had even more shamelessly exposed herself.' A deep crimson flush covered her face and neck as she spoke, and as quickly fled, to leave her as pale as a corpse. 'Oh, _mio caro_,' cried she, 'there are intoxications more maddening to the senses than those of drinking; there are wild fevers of the mind, when degradation seems a sort of martyrdom; and in the very depth of our infamy and shame we appear to ourselves to have attained to something superhuman in self-denial. It was my fate to live with one who inspired these sentiments.' She paused for a few seconds, and then, trembling on every accent, she said: 'To win his love, to conquer the heart that would not yield to me, I dared more than ever woman, far more than ever man, dared.'

'Here's to the king's buffoon, and a b.u.mper toast it shall be,' burst in the friar, with a drunken ribaldry; 'and if there are any will not drink it, let him drink to the Minister's mistress!'

To the sudden gesture which Gerald's anger evoked, Marietta quickly interposed her hand, and, in a low, soft voice, besought him to remain quiet.

'If the cause were up, or the cause were down, What matter to you or to me; For though the Prince had played his crown, _Our_ stake was a bare bawbee!'

sang out Kelly l.u.s.tily. 'Who'll deny it? Who'll say there wasn't sound reason and philosophy in that sentiment? None knew it better than Prince Charlie himself.'