The Sword of Wealth by Henry Wilton Thomas - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXIV
 A CHASE IN THE MOONLIGHT

HERA asked if the automobiles, too, were gone. The excited servants told her the garage had been attacked and everything smashed. Had any one seen Sandro? Yes; he was there looking through the ruins. She ran to the door of the place, and called the name of the chauffeur. From amid the wreckage he answered her, and came forth, cap in hand.

“Are all the machines damaged?” she asked.

“All but one, your Excellency. The thirty-horse touring car is far back in the house, and the devils did not get to it.”

“Can it be used at once?”

“Oh, yes, your Excellency. There is not so much as a scratch upon it.”

“I wish to go to Villa Barbiondi as swiftly as you can make it carry us.”

“The moon is bright, and if the road is half clear,” he said, delighted with the hazardous mission, “we can do it in thirty minutes.”

Then he called to the hostlers and other servants to come and clear away the useless cars, for Donna Hera was going to make a dash in the night. With a will they fell to, and one wreck after another was dragged out of the garage. Sandro touched something in the surviving machine, and smiled to hear it respond with coughs and sobs. He took a minute to crawl under it, measure things with critical eye by the light of an electric lantern, and was on his feet again throwing in lap cloths and handing a mask to Hera. He sprang in, pulled the lever and shot the machine out to the court. Once or twice he ran it back and forth, cutting figures after the manner of fancy skaters, and with a satisfied “All right” he descended again and opened the door for Hera. When she had her seat it was touch and go. With the hostlers standing wide-eyed, and Beppe, no longer tipsy, running from the portico big with the news of what he had found in the library, the car swung out of the court, headed for the Venetian Gate.

“I wish you to make the best speed that you can,” Hera said, when they were bumping over the cobbles of Via Borghetto.

He patted the air reassuringly as he glanced back at her. “Your Excellency need have no anxiety,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

As he spoke they leaped into a swifter pace, and this was held in the Corso and through the streets beyond the walls; but when the crowds of soldiers and civilians were behind them, and Hera sighted once more the far horizon, set with stars, he sent the speed lever home and, like a spurred horse, the machine plunged out upon the wide, white road. In the suburb of Villacosa she received an impression of dimly-lighted street, carbineers and gesturing workmen, bare heads at windows, barking dogs, and a thumping rise and fall over a cobbled bridge.

A few seconds and all this was far at their back, and they were spinning over plains that stretched in the silver night for miles on either hand, level as a table. Now and then they came upon a market wagon labouring along, but the way was wide, and they curved around it like a shooting star.

The wind had swept all the clouds from heaven; only a few vapours thin as the moonlight flitted across the stars; to footfarers the wind did no more than whisper; for Hera and Sandro it was a gale that whipped around them with a high, thin yell and caught up the powder of the road and smote them with it in clouds that must have blinded but for their masks.

They swerved northward into a narrow byway that was a short crossing to the road that followed Adda’s margin. It was a precipitate dive into the woods. There was no light save that cast by the car’s lamps, and the course was difficult with many a sharp crook. Every minute they were on the point of vaulting into the thicket or trying conclusions with a sturdy oak. They rocked and swayed at times as if their carrier was a boat in a choppy sea. Hera was occupied in holding fast, but Sandro seemed not to know that the experience was at all unusual. Forgetting himself and all the world except the road and the dangers that the lamps revealed, he became a part of the dodging, spinning thing, meeting emergencies with a passive certainty that was more automatic than human. He had seen in Hera’s eye that more than a lady’s caprice had inspired this nocturnal flight, and he had prayed that none of his steed’s airy feet might know puncture, or heart-failure attack it through the carbureter.

When they had struck again into a straight run, and through the vista of foliage could see the river’s sheening face, Sandro shouted, in an access of pride for his achievement:

“It was very amusing, that little bit there! I know my trade, do I not, your Excellency?”

Hera gave him an appreciative smile and a nod, although he had not made his words carry above the roar and yell that were with them always.

The wheels on one side clear of the earth, they rounded a corner and darted forth on the fine river road. Now the way was as level as a plank. Sandro moved the speed lever, and the file of poplars, yards apart, chased away like giants close upon one another’s heels. Houses on the passing hillside, with lighted windows, winked at them and were gone. All the details of the landscape were on the move. Villages streamed by in jumbled masses of low masonry.

The bridge of Speranza swept past to join other landmarks, and Hera caught sight of a horseman, so far ahead as to be beyond the range of the lamps but showing distinctly in the paleness of the night. Standing up and leaning forward so that she might pour all the power of her voice against Sandro’s ear-drum, she told him to “Stop!” It was two miles yet to Villa Barbiondi, and he answered her with only an assurance that there was no danger. And not until she had shaken him by the shoulder and pointed to the figure now in the lamp glare did he shut off speed and set his brake down.

The rider had gone from the highway into the little road that ran uphill to the monastery ruins. Within a few feet of the turning Sandro brought the car to a halt. He looked around for the lady, but she had disengaged herself from the lap covering, thrown off the mask, and was on the ground, running toward the horseman. With all her strength she called his name, and the grove of maples into whose darkness he had passed gave back her voice.

“Mario, Mario! It is I, Hera!”

He heard, and his horse, checked violently, reared and curvetted in turning, then came toward her at a gallop, out into the moonlight. Quickly she told him of the emancipating event in Milan and the dying words that had sent her to warn him; but there was no bitterness for any one now in either heart. All the world was love for the man and woman standing there beneath the stars, prisoners of honour and despair suddenly made free. The shadow of a solitary yew tree touched them—a symbol of what had been. The lonely cry of a bird sounded; somewhere in the distance a dog barked; and as they started for the highway a swishing of leafy bush drew their gaze toward a figure with loping carriage that slunk away toward the bridge of Speranza. He never looked back, but went like a panther balked of his prey.

When a year had passed they met once more in the cloister ruins, amid the sleeping fragrance of the wild flowers. As careless children they roamed in the age-old garden, thrilled with the thought of Love set free. The afternoon had faded far; the sun touched only the capitals of the low Doric columns, where ivy and honeysuckle cleaved and iridescent sun-birds dipped into flowery cups. The gentlest wind that ever tried its wings stole in by the clefts of grey wall and made the tiny white bells of the vale lilies tremble. Bees murmured over the tufts of fragrant thyme.

Once they wandered a little apart, she to cull the blooms of a strawberry plant, he to pluck white and pink and gold from the many grasses for the garland that she said she would make; and they called to one another over the bushes in sheer transport of joy. They came upon a bud of eglantine, called by them rosa salvatica, but for their garland they did not take it, because it was a symbol of love unfulfilled.

A while and they left the bright aspect of the cloister to enter the gloom of the chapel, he carrying the big cluster of blossoms. Suddenly she turned and looked back, and with a little cry ran to regain the hat she had tossed on a grassy bank; and the trifle was enough to set their laughter pealing again.

They moved to the window near the square of blank wall where Arvida’s portrait had been. For a space they stood there, while the west caught first the faint hue of rose, then flamed in ruby fire. His kiss was fresh upon her lips, and in their eyes the ardour of a passion no longer to be conquered. From a far-off hamlet, where a steeple rose out of the haze, the Angelus came to them; they watched the toilers bow their heads in reverence and plod their way homeward. The broad landscape lay in the mysterious hush of folding night, but they took no thought for time or circumstance. They seated themselves on a low stone bench of the pattern that mediæval builders were wont to carry around the interior walls of churches. He joined the ends of the garland to fashion a chaplet, and, placing it on her massing tresses, crowned her his queen forever.

THE END.