"Perdition!" cried Stephano, "what can this mean?"

Nisida advanced toward the robbers in a manner so calm, so dignified, so imperious, and so totally undaunted by their presence, that they were for a moment paralyzed and rooted to the spot as if they were confronted by a specter.

But at the next instant Stephano uttered an exclamation of mingled surprise and joy, adding, "By my patron saint! Lomellino, this is the very lady of whom I spoke to you the other evening!"

"What, the one who did the business so well in----"

"Yes, yes," cried Stephano hastily; "you know what I mean--in Wagner's garden! But----"

Nisida had in the meantime drawn from her bosom one of the slips of paper before alluded to; and, handing it to the bandit-chief, she made a hasty and imperious motion for him to read it.

He obeyed her with the mechanical submission produced by astonishment and curiosity, mingled with admiration for that bold and daring woman, whom he already loved and resolved to win: but his surprise was increased a hundred-fold, when he perused these lines:--"I am the Lady Nisida of Riverola. Your design is known to me; it matters not how.

Rumor has doubtless told you that I am deaf and dumb; hence this mode of communicating with you. You have been deluded by an idle knave--for there is no treasure in the closet yonder. Even if there had been, I should have removed it the moment your intended predatory visit was made known to me. But you can serve me; and I will reward you well for your present disappointment."

"What does the paper say?" demanded Lomellino and Piero, the captain's two companions, almost in the same breath.

"It says just this much," returned Stephano--and he read the writing aloud.

"The Lady Nisida!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lomellino. "Then it is she who used her dagger so well in Wagner's garden."

"Peace, silly fool!" cried Stephano. "You have now let out the secret to Piero. True, 'tis no matter, as he is as stanch to me as you are; and therefore he may as well know that this lady here was the murderess of the young female in Wagner's garden: for I saw her do the deed when I was concealed among the evergreens there. She is as much in our power as we are in hers, and we will let her know it if she means any treachery."

"But how could she have discovered that we meant to come here to-night, and what our object was?" asked Piero.

"Antonio must have peached, that's clear!" returned Stephano; "and therefore he did not join us, as agreed, in the hall down-stairs. But no matter. It seems there's gold to be earned in this lady's service: and even if there wasn't I have such an affection for her I would cut the throat of the duke or the cardinal archbishop himself merely to give her pleasure."

Then turning toward Nisida, whose courage seemed partially to have abandoned her, for her countenance was ghastly pale, and her hand trembled so that it could scarcely hold the lamp, Stephano made a low bow, as much as to imply that he was entirely at her service.

Nisida made a powerful effort to subdue the emotions that were agitating her: and, advancing toward the door, she made a sign for the banditti to follow her.

She led them to her own suit of apartments, and to the innermost room--her own bed-chamber--having carefully secured the several doors through which they pa.s.sed.

The banditti stood round the table, their eyes wandering from the six tempting-looking money-bags to the countenance of Nisida, and then back to the little sacks; but Stephano studied more the countenance than the other objects of attraction; for Nisida's face once more expressed firm resolution and her haughty, imperious, determined aspect, combined with her extraordinary beauty, fired the robber-chieftain's heart.

Taking from her bosom another slip of paper, she pa.s.sed it to Stephano, who read its contents aloud for the benefit of his companions--"The trial of Fernand Wagner will take place this day week. If he be acquitted, your services will not be required. If he be condemned, are ye valiant and daring enough (sufficiently numerous ye are, being upward of fifty in all) to rescue him on his way back from the judgment-hall to the prison of the ducal palace? The six bags of gold now upon the table are yours, as an earnest of reward, if ye a.s.sent. Double that amount shall be yours if ye succeed."

"It is a generous proposition," observed Lomellino.

"But a dangerous one," said Piero.

"Nevertheless, it shall be accepted, if only for her fair self's sake,"

exclaimed Stephano, completely dazzled by Nisida's surpa.s.sing majesty of loveliness; then, with a low bow, he intimated his readiness to undertake the enterprise.

Nisida handed him a third paper, on which the following lines were written:--"Take the gold with you, as a proof of the confidence I place in you. See that you deceive me not; for I have the power to avenge as well as to reward. On Sunday evening next let one of you meet me, at ten o'clock, near the princ.i.p.al entrance of the Cathedral of St. Mary, and I will deliver the written instructions of the mode of proceeding which circ.u.mstances may render necessary."

"I shall keep the appointment myself," said Stephano to his companions; and another obsequious but somewhat coa.r.s.e bow denoted full compliance with all that Nisida had required through the medium of the slips of paper.

She made a sign for the banditti to take the bags of gold from the table, an intimation which Piero and Lomellino did not hesitate to obey.

The private staircase leading into the garden then afforded them the means of an un.o.bserved departure; and Nisida felt rejoiced at the success of her midnight interview with the chiefs of the Florentine banditti.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

FLORA'S CAPTIVITY--A COMPANION--THE LIVING TOMB.

Six days had now elapsed since Flora Francatelli became an inmate of the Carmelite Convent.

During this period she was frequently visited in her cell by Sister Alba, the nun who had received her at the bottom of the pit or well into which she descended by means of the chair; and that recluse gradually prepared her to fix her mind upon the necessity of embracing a conventual life.

It was not, however, without feelings of the most intense--the most acute--the most bitter anguish, that the unhappy maiden received the announcement that she was to pa.s.s the remainder of her existence in that monastic inst.i.tution.

All the eloquence--all the sophistry--all the persuasion of Sister Alba, who presided over the department of the penitents, failed to make her believe that such a step was necessary for her eternal salvation.

"No," exclaimed Flora, "the good G.o.d has not formed this earth so fair that mortals should close their eyes upon its beauties. The flowers, the green trees, the smiling pastures, the cypress groves were not intended to be gazed upon from the barred windows of a prison-house."

Then the nun would reason with her on the necessity of self-denial and self-mortification; and Flora would listen attentively; but if she gave no reply, it was not because she was convinced.

When she was alone in her cell she sat upon her humble pallet, pondering upon her mournful condition, and sometimes giving way to all the anguish of her heart, or else remaining silent and still in the immovability of dumb despair.

Her suspicions often fell upon the Lady Nisida as the cause of her terrible immurement in that living tomb--especially when she remembered the coldness with which her mistress had treated her a day or two previous to her forced abduction from the Riverola Palace. Those suspicions seemed confirmed, too, by the nature of the discourse which Sister Alba had first addressed to her, when she upbraided her with having given way to "those carnal notions--those hopes--those fears--those dreams of happiness, which const.i.tute the pa.s.sion that the world calls love."

The reader will remember that Flora had suspected the coolness of Nisida to have risen from a knowledge of Francisco's love for the young maiden; and every word which Sister Alba had uttered in allusion to the pa.s.sion of love seemed to point to that same fact.

Thus was Flora convinced that it was this unfortunate attachment, in which for a moment she had felt herself so supremely blest, that was the source of her misfortunes. But then, how had Nisida discovered the secret? This was an enigma defying conjecture; for Francisco was too honorable to reveal his love to his sister, after having so earnestly enjoined Flora herself not to betray that secret.

At times a gleam of hope would dawn in upon her soul, even through the ma.s.sive walls of that living tomb to which she appeared to have been consigned. Would Francisco forget her? Oh! no, she felt certain that he would leave no measure untried to discover her fate, no means unessayed to effect her deliverance.

But, alas! then would come the maddening thought that he might be deceived with regard to her real position; that the same enemy or enemies who had persecuted her might invent some specious tale to account for her absence, and deter him from persevering in his inquiries concerning her.

Thus was the unhappy maiden a prey to a thousand conflicting sentiments; unable to settle her mind upon any conviction save the appalling one which made her feel the stern truth of her captivity.

Oh! to be condemned so young to perpetual prisonage, was indeed hard, too hard--enough to make reason totter on its throne and paralyze the powers of even the strongest intellect.

Sister Alba had sketched out to her the course of existence on which she must prepare to enter. Ten days of prayer and sorry food in her own cell were first enjoined as a preliminary, to be followed by admission into the number of penitents who lacerated their naked forms with scourges at the foot of the altar. Then the period of her penitence in this manner would be determined by the manifestations of contrition which she might evince, and which would be proved by the frequency of her self-flagellations, the severity with which the scourge was applied, and the anxiety which she might express to become a member of the holy sisterhood. When the term of penitence should arrive, the maiden would be removed to the department of the convent inhabited by the professed nuns; and then her flowing hair would be cut short, and she would enter on her novitiate previously to taking the veil, that last, last step in the conventual regime, which would forever raise up an insuperable barrier between herself and the great, the beautiful, the glorious world without!

Such was the picture spread for the contemplation of this charming, but hapless maiden.

Need we wonder if her glances recoiled from her prospects, as if from some loathsome specter, or from a hideous serpent preparing to dart from its coils and twine its slimy folds around her?

Nor was the place in which she was a prisoner calculated to dissipate her gloomy reflections.

It seemed a vast cavern hollowed out of the bowels of the earth, rendered solid by masonry and divided into various compartments. No windows were there to admit the pure light of day; an artificial l.u.s.ter, provided by lamps and tapers, prevailed eternally in that earthly purgatory.

Sometimes the stillness of death, the solemn silence of the tomb reigned throughout that place: then the awful tranquillity would be suddenly broken by the dreadful shrieks, the prayers, the lamentations, and the scourges of the penitents.