THE VILLA BELCASTRO.
"Where is the path? It seems lost in the wilderness hereabout," said I, when my communicative friend had concluded.
"Yonder woman at the fountain will perhaps show us the way to the gate. Permit me to pass," replied the cavalier, as he spurred his horse to the front, and galloped before me: his tall military figure, and peculiar garb and equipment, with the solitary wild around us—the castellated villa, and the lonely hills—had an air of romance with which my red coat, jack-boots, and most unchivalric cocked-hat, but ill consorted.
The country through which we had travelled was of the most picturesque character: lofty mountains rose up against the blue vault, which they seemed to sustain; they were covered to their summits with the light foliage of the olive, the heavy branches of the sombre pine, the broad masses of the glossy-leaved ilex, fragrant myrtle, rich arbutus, orange and lemon groves, all flourishing in the wildest luxuriance; while the aloe, the cactus, and date-palm, grew among the ferruginous rocks in profusion. Little hamlets, inhabited only by charcoal-burners, nestled in lonely nooks; solitary chapels, old crosses marking deeds of blood or piety, and the mouldering ruins of long-departed races—the Calabri or the Locri—appeared half-hidden amid the long reedy grass, in the flat alluvial vales through which the roadway wound.
But on nearing the Villa Belcastro a change came over the scenery: the country seemed deserted, or inhabited only by the lynx, the wolf, and wild boar; muddy cascades roared down over the red scaurs of the mountains; and a wide pathless wood of dark Italian pines and tall cypresses, sombre and gloomy, surrounded the ancient edifice. The picturesque towers of the villa were perched on the summit of a rock that reared up its jagged front immediately before us; but we were unable to penetrate the tangled growth of underwood that intervened, so thickly interwoven with creeping wild plants that it seemed like an Indian jungle. Buffaloes—a species of cattle introduced into Italy during the seventh, century—browsed in the marshy places, and at times a lynx or polecat shot through the forest, or an eagle screamed from the rocks.
The white walls and striking façade of the villa shone in the warm light of the western sky, and from one of the four turrets at the angles of the edifice, which were covered with elaborate stonework projecting like a heavy cornice, we saw a standard slowly hoisted and unfurled to the breeze. Our scarlet uniforms had probably led the inmates to suppose that British troops were in the valley below.
"Basta!" exclaimed Castelermo, "'tis the veritable castle of an ogre this! Cavaliere Galdino must be seldom troubled with visitors. I see not a trace of road or pathway to his hermitage on the cliffs yonder."
"I trust we shall reach it before nightfall: a ride in the dark through such a wilderness would not be very pleasant, and evening is closing fast."
While I was speaking, the last segment of the sun's crimson disk sank behind the green ridge of hills from which we had descended; the long, dark shadow cast by the villa-crowned rock across the wooded valley faded away; the Apennines grew dark, and the sombre tints of evening deepened rapidly.
"Signora," said Castelermo to an old woman who was filling a jar at a fountain, and whose grim aspect declared her to be the spouse of a charcoal-burner, "is there any path to the villa on this side of the mountains?"
"Through the woods there is a way, signor cavaliere," said the woman, setting down her jar, and endeavouring to hide her bare bosom; for her attire was of the most wretched description. "But it is a troublesome road, and perilous too; and you will only lose your labour—for none get entrance there. The sbirri keep guard day and night with their rifles loaded; and more than one poor peasant has been shot—mistaken for a Frenchman, perhaps.
"So the cavaliere yet contrives to maintain his quota of sbirri in arms?" said Marco.
"Yes, signor illustrissimo," replied the poor woman, glancing furtively round her; "but, ahimé! such ruffians! They are slaves who have escaped, bravoes, banditti, and the worst malefactors of Naples, who wear his livery; and, bearing arms in his name, they commit such outrages that the very relation would make you shudder, cavalieri!"
"A droll country gentleman!" I exclaimed. "And he will not admit any one, say you?"
"None save the accursed witches who come all the way from the peak of Fiesole to hold their Sabbath with him."
"Ay! and devils from the Val di Demona, to bring distempers on our blessed infants!" cried another hag, starting up from behind the fountain, where she had shrunk down to conceal the scantiness of her attire, which consisted only of a red sottana, or coarse petticoat, and leather sandals; "and to blast our crops and herds, and make the fiends who dwell in the bowels of the mountains rend the solid earth, and shake our huts to pieces."
"Madonna! speak lower! he is told whatever is said of him by the sybil of Norcia, who made him proof against fire and steel and water."
"I care not. I am alone in the world now: my husband died on Regnier's gibbet at Monteleone, and my sons have perished fighting under the chiefs of the Masse, Gésu Cristo! I am old, lonely, and very miserable!"
"Proof against steel did you say, signora?" said I, addressing the first gossip; "we may test that, if he plays any of his pranks with us."
"Signor, heard you ever such stuff?" exclaimed Castelermo, while our horses drank of the well, and we enjoyed a hearty laugh at the excessive credulity of the Calabrians; to whose wild superstitions, I was by that time no stranger. "Old gossips," he continued, putting some silver into their attenuated hands to quicken their apprehension: "for what reason does this terrible Feudatory keep garrison so closely? Nay, speak one at a time, but as quickly as you please: our time is short."
"You must have come from a distant country, illustrissimi signori, that you have not heard of the poor Cavalieressa Belcastro," said one of the old women, taking her jar from her head, on which she had poised it, and replacing it on the margin of the well, to point the periods with her fingers while speaking. "There is not a child on this side of La Syla, but knows her story. Some people say her husband stole her from a convent; others that she left a noble signor whom she loved better, and married the Cavaliere Belcastro for the sake of his rank."
"His rank!" reiterated Marco contemptuously, his brows contracting: "Yet, I may mistake—proceed."
"After marriage came repentance, and the Signor Belcastro was tormented by jealousy; believing that a woman who was false to another could never be very true to himself. And truly he had proof of her light carriage with a handsome young captain, who was carried away to the Val di Demona by those imps who are always at the signor's elbow awaiting his commands. Since then he has kept the poor lady locked up in a dreary chamber of the Villa, from which he brings her forth but once a week to go to mass on horseback; and she is so strictly watched that, notwithstanding three attempts made by the brave capobandito, Scarolla, she yet remains a captive."
"Watched by a spirit, who will never leave her till the cavalier dies and Satan claims his own," added the other woman.
"Malediction on such husbands!" exclaimed the first gossip; "if my Maso treated me so, I would put a dose of aquetta in his soup—I would! He was jealous once; but we were young then, and I soon soothed him."
"How the terror of this man's name has besotted these poor simpletons," said Marco, as we rode through the wood along a narrow path they had pointed out. "He is said to be a dark and curious being; and, leaving out the sorcery, their relation is almost word for word what I have heard at Naples and Palermo. I would stake a thousand ducats to a bajoccho, we shall have an unseemly brawl with this melancholy Castellano; unless his character is much exaggerated."
"Indeed! For my own part I would willingly stake a cool hundred, if I could serve the poor lady."
"Of the signora, the less we say perhaps the better; though I feel some curiosity to know her maiden name and family, and a great deal to see the inside of this place: to which we are venturing, like two rash knights, after the solemn warnings of yonder Cumæan sybils. I perceive them still watching our route, as if it was beset with as many perils as any in the 'Hundred ancient Tales.'
"By Jove, sir, they are not much mistaken!" I exclaimed, as a musket flashed from a loophole in the outer wall, and the shot whistled over my shoulder.
"May I perish if this shall pass unrevenged!" exclaimed the cavalier. "Basta! let us forward, and at full gallop!"
In a minute we were close under the walls, the outer windows of which were all barred and far from the ground. An iron gate closed the portal, or archway; and beyond it we saw ten or twelve sinister-looking ruffians, clad in a sort of livery, and armed with black cross belts, musquetoons and bayonets.
"Rascals!" exclaimed my companion; "are ye Italians, true catholics, and yet ignorant that it is sacrilege to molest one of the Sangiovanni? In the days of the holy office, this must have been settled otherwise; even in Calabria. But open the barrier and give us instant admission, or it may fare the worse with your lord; to whom we must speak, and without delay."
The porter, an old Albanian Greek, who trembled between fear of disobeying his master's orders and offending a knight of Malta—an order lately so formidable—slowly undid the bolts and chains; imploring, in his curious dialect, that we would soften the wrath of the Cavalier Galdino, and save his shoulders from the scurlada. Until the French invasion, the resident Feudatories of Calabria, Apulia, &c. maintained the feudal system with all its iron tyranny; but since the frightful war of extermination, waged in these provinces by General Manhes, and the peace of 1815, it does not exist in any of the Italian states: except, I believe, the island of Sardinia. Between the tyranny and oppression of the barons and their armed followers—with whom on various pleas they garrisoned their castles and villas—the dues or tithes of the numerous priesthood and the outrages of the brigands, the situation of the peaceful portion of the mountaineers was not very enviable.
"Which of ye dared to fire upon us? and by whose order?" asked Castelermo, laying his hand on his sword, and surveying the culprits with a stern eye. There was no reply. "Cowards! do you hear me?"
"Cavaliero Marco," said one fellow coming forward hat in hand, after a long pause, "I trust we know our creed better than to molest any man who wears upon his breast the cross of Malta. But, indeed, it was no other than excellenza himself who fired the shot; and let him answer for it."
"The villain!" I exclaimed, leaping from my horse.
"Dio mi guardi! the deed was none of ours, Signor Marco."
"Who are you, that seem so well acquainted with my name?"
"A poor rogue of Amendolia, signor, by name Baptistello Varro. I cannot presume to think you can recollect me, though I had the honour to serve with you, under your uncle the Cardinal Huffo, while his eminence was yet a true man to Italy and the Holy Faith. You remember the siege of Altamurra on the plains of Apulia: you saved my life there. Ah! what a leaguer that was! His eminence built altars where other men would have had batteries, and besprinkled our cannon so plentifully with holy water that they often hung fire. I owe you a life, signor; and an Italian never forgets either a friend or a foe."
"Well, Master Baptistello, although I have no remembrance of those things, I doubt not you are an honest fellow; but the sooner you change leaders the better. Quit this inhospitable den to-morrow, and join the corps of the Free Calabri at Crotona. But, meanwhile, lead us to this ungracious lord of yours. The shot he fired shall cost him dear, or I am not—lead on, Basta!" and with his usual exclamation, he cut short what he meant to have said.
On being ushered up a spacious staircase of white marble, the stained glass windows of which were faintly lighted by the lingering flush of the departed sun, we found ourselves in an ancient hall, decorated in a quaint style of architecture, neither Norman nor Saracenic, but a mixture of both; and a relic perhaps of the days of those invaders. Lighted by four large windows which overlooked the vale and forest, now dimly illumined by the rising moon, its roof was arched with stone profusely carved, and supported by twelve antique figures, or caryatides, which supplied the place of pillars: they were sculptured out of the sonorous marble of Campanini, which when struck is said to resound like a bell; and their time-worn mutilated forms glimmered like pale spectres amid the gloom of evening and the shadows of the darkening hall. By the light of the stars and the moon's wan crescent, we could discern sylvan trophies, sombre paintings from which grim faces of old Italian knights and older saints looked forth, and numerous weapons of various dates which adorned the lofty walls.
"'T is long since I stood in such a noble old hall as this," said Marco, casting himself languidly into a gilt fauteuil. "General Regnier, applying the forcible argument of gunpowder, has done more, perhaps, than the march of civilization, towards destroying the feudal system; and the ancient strongholds and palazzi of our noblesse are now somewhat scarce even in the lower province. We must be on our guard with this signor of Belcastro," he added in a whisper. "I have often heard of him at Palermo, as being a sullen, subtle, and ferocious man,—a ruined gamester and half desperado—cunning as a lynx, and treacherous as Cesare Borgia. Heaven help the unhappy woman whom fate has tied to him! But, ha! what have we here?" he exclaimed aloud, snatching from a marble slab the long envelope of some official communication, which just then caught his eye, "See you this, Signor Claude? Our villain host has been in correspondence with the enemy."
It was addressed to the "Cavaliere Galdino di Belcastro," and endorsed in the corner "Regnier, General de Division."
"Now, I would give a thousand ducats to know what this contained!" said my companion, as he thrust it into his long glove. "'T is sealed with the crest of the iron crown, and—but Basta! here he comes."
As he spoke, there entered the hall a tall man of powerful frame and most forbidding aspect, attired in the full dress of the old school: his hair powdered and tied with a white riband, his shirt ruffled at the wrists and bosom, a wide skirted coat and black satin knee breeches with buckles. The courtly air which this costume usually imparts to the wearer, rather heightened than diminished the repulsive manner of this tyrannical feudatory.
"Lights here! Olà, Baptistello! a light, you loitering whelp," he cried with the voice of one in no pleasant mood. In less than a minute, servants had lighted the wax candles of three gigantic girandoles, and we had a better view of our host. He was past the meridian of life, and his countenance, which I have already characterized as forbidding, was rendered yet more so by a hideous cicatrix, as from the gash of a sword-cut, which grew purple and black alternately. He bowed to us with frigid hauteur, and then surveyed with a peculiar glance the tall and noble figure of Castelermo. The latter changed colour on beholding the scar, but said with a stern aspect, after a pause,—
"How now, Signor Galdino! do you take me for a lynx, a torpedo, the devil, or what, that you look on me thus?"
"For none of these," he answered, coldly; "but say who are ye, signori, that force yourselves upon my privacy uninvited?"
"I am an officer of his Britannic Majesty's service—Luogoteniente di Fanteria nel servizio Britanica—and a bearer of despatches." The cavaliere bowed.
"And I the Cavaliere di Castelermo, Knight Commander of Malta, and an officer of the Free Calabri: as such, I demand your reasons for firing upon us like some base brigand, thus committing both treason and sacrilege."
"By the ancient customs of Calabria, common to the land since the days of Count Roger the First, I may defend my residence against the intrusion of all men. As for the treason, cospetto! I care little whether Buonaparte or Ferdinand is our ruler; and as for the sacrilege, I can answer for that where, when, and how you will!" His fingers played convulsively with a little stiletto, which hung half concealed beneath the lapelle of his embroidered vest.
"Rest assured, Signor Galdino, that I am not slow in literally translating the hint; but recollect that, as a cavaliere of birth and honour, I would scorn to put my life in the scale with a traitor's!"
"How?" exclaimed Belcastro, starting forward with rage.
Castelermo held before his eyes the paper he had picked up, and our host changed colour beneath the cold, sarcastic smile of the knight. He started as if to summon his people, but paused—a sudden thought seemed to occur to him; he gulped down his fury, his brows became smooth, and a ghastly smile curled his sinister lip.
"Eh, via signori! you are now under my roof; the ways are dangerous hereabout; you cannot proceed; and I must not forget that hospitality which courtesy renders imperative. Let us say no more of that unlucky wall-piece, which in a moment of irritation I discharged. My residence is seldom favoured by peaceful visitors. But are any more of King Ferdinand's people—troops, I mean—likely to pass this way soon?"
"A brigade of British are entering the valley, and will probably arrive here after midnight." Our host looked displeased, and turned to one of the windows, while I glanced inquiringly at Castelermo, who whispered—
"I deemed it politic to say so, for he has some dark end in view. I did not like the sudden and sinister smile which replaced the gloom of his sullen visage. You observed it? By St. John of Malta! were our cattle not tired with these rugged mountain roads, I would rather have passed the night in my saddle than under his roof. A few miles further would have brought us to the town of Belcastro: but there is no help for it now."
My companion was not deceived. Animated by a fear that we had discovered his correspondence with the French leader, and by a wish to possess himself of my despatches to transmit them to the same personage; eager, also, to gratify the deep-rooted hatred he bore to Castelermo, he secretly determined to murder us both, and in cold blood. The bullet or poniard had been his first resolve; but dreading discovery, and the arrival of the supposed brigade, poison became his next resource. But I am anticipating. The change in his manner was too abrupt and bare-faced to pass without exciting our suspicions.