Out with Garibaldi: A story of the liberation of Italy

CHAPTER V

ON THE WAY

AFTER posting the letter, Frank made several small purchases, and was more than an hour away. On his return he saw a cab standing at the door. As he approached, Beppo came out with a portmanteau, handed it up to the driver, jumped in, and was driven off.

“So Beppo has gone, mother,” he said, as he joined her in the drawing-room.

“Yes. He came in directly you had left. He said that his feelings had been outraged by a servant being placed at the door. He could not say why she was there, but thought it seemed as if he was doubted. He could not but entertain a suspicion that she was placed there to prevent any one listening at the keyhole; after such an insult as that he could not remain any longer in the house. I said that he was at liberty to leave instantly, as his wages had been paid only three days ago. He made no reply, but bowed and left. Mary came up and told me ten minutes later that he had brought his portmanteau down, left it in the hall, and gone out, she supposed, to fetch a cab. I heard the vehicle drive up just now, and the front door closed half a minute ago.”

Signora Forli came into the room as she was speaking. “Mary tells me that Beppo has gone. It is a comfort that he is out of the house. When you once begin to suspect a man, the sooner he is away the better. At the same time, Frank, there can be no doubt that his going will not increase your chances of reaching Genoa without being searched. I should say that he had made up his mind to leave before you did, and he was glad that the fact of Mary being at the door gave him a pretext for his sudden departure. In the first place, he could conduct the affair better than any one else could do, as he knows your face and figure so well. Then, too, he would naturally wish to get the credit of the matter himself, after being so long engaged in it. Of course, you may as well carry out the plan we arranged, to start in the morning; but you may feel absolutely certain that, whatever you may do, you will not throw him off your track. He must know now that he is suspected of being a Neapolitan agent, and that you will very likely change your route and your time of starting.

“I regard it as certain that the house will be watched night and day, beginning from to-morrow morning, an hour or so before the trains leave. There will be a vehicle with a fast horse close at hand, possibly two, so that one will follow your cab, and the other drive at once to some place where Beppo is waiting. As likely as not he will go viâ Calais. If you go that way, so much the better; if not, he will only have to post himself at the station at Paris. It is likely enough that during the last day or two he has had one or two men hanging about here to watch you going in and out, and so to get to know you well, and will have one at each of the railway stations. He may also have written to the agents in Paris to have a look-out kept for you there.”

“But how could they know me?”

“He would describe you closely enough for that; possibly he may have sent them over a photograph.”

Frank got up and went to a side table, on which a framed photograph that had been taken when he was at home at Christmas, usually stood. “You are right,” he said; “it has gone.” Then he opened an album. “The one here has gone, too, mother. Are there any more of them about?”

“There is one in my bedroom; you know where it hangs. It was there this morning.”

“That has gone, too, mother,” he said, when he returned to the room.

“So you see, Muriel, I was right. The one from the album may have been taken yesterday, and a dozen copies made of it; so that, even if you give them the slip here, Frank, you will be recognised as soon as you reach Paris.”

“Well, mother, it is of no use bothering any more about it. I have only to travel in carriages with other people, and they cannot molest me; at worst they can but search me, and they will find nothing. They cannot even feel sure that I have anything on me; for now that Beppo knows he is suspected of listening at doors, he will consider it possible that we may have changed our plans about where we shall hide the money. It is not as if they wanted to put me out of the way, you know; you and the signora agreed that that is certainly the last thing they would do, because there would be a tremendous row about it, and they would gain no advantage by it; so I should not worry any further, mother. I do not think there is the slightest occasion for uneasiness. I will just go by Calais, as I had intended, and by the train I had fixed on; that in itself will shake Beppo’s belief that I have the money with me, for he would think that if I had it I should naturally try some other way.”

“At any rate,” Mrs. Percival said, “you shall not go by the line that we had intended. You would be obliged to travel by diligence from Dole to Geneva, thence to Chambery, and again by the same method over the Alps to Susa. You shall go straight from Paris to Marseilles; boats go from there every two or three days to Genoa.”

“Very well, mother; I don’t care which it is. Certainly there are far fewer changes by that line; and to make your mind easy, I will promise you that at Marseilles, if I have to stop there a night, I will keep my bedroom door locked, and shove something heavy against it; in that way I can’t be caught asleep.”

“Well, I shall certainly feel more comfortable, my dear boy, than I should if you were going over the Alps. Of course, the diligence stops sometimes and the people get out, and there would be many opportunities for your being suddenly seized and gagged and carried off.”

“They would have to be very sudden about it,” Frank laughed. “I do think, mother, that you have been building mountains out of molehills. Beppo may not be a spy, after all; he may have heard you talking of this ten thousand pounds, and the temptation of trying to get it may be too much for him. He will know now that I shall be on my guard, and that, even if I have the money on my person, his chance of getting it is small indeed. I believe that you and the signora have talked the matter over till you have frightened yourselves, and built up a wonderful story, based only on the fact that Mary thought that she caught Beppo listening at the door.”

“How about the photographs?” Mrs. Percival asked.

“Possibly he has a hidden affection for me,” Frank laughed, “and has taken these as mementos of his stay here. Well, don’t say anything more about it, mother; I am not in the least nervous, and with a brace of loaded pistols in my pocket and the fair warning that I have had, I do not think I need be afraid of two or three of these miserable Neapolitan spies.”

Accordingly, Frank started by the morning mail, as they had arranged. The carriage was full to Dover; and at Calais he waited on the platform until he saw an English gentleman with two ladies enter a compartment, and in this he took a vacant corner seat. On his arrival at Paris he drove across at once to the terminus of the railway to Marseilles, breakfasted there, and sat in the waiting-room reading till the door on to the platform opened, and an official shouted, “Passengers for Melun, Sens, Dijon, Macon, Lyons, and Marseilles.” There was a general movement among those in the waiting-room. Frank found that there was no fear of his being in a compartment by himself, for only one carriage door was opened at a time, and not until the compartment was full was the next unlocked. He waited until he saw his opportunity, and was the first to enter and secure a corner seat. In a short time it filled up.

He had slept most of the way between Calais and Paris, feeling absolutely certain that he would not be interfered with in a carriage with three English fellow-passengers. It was twelve o’clock now, and he would not arrive at Marseilles until seven the next morning, and he wondered where all his fellow-passengers, who were packed as closely as possible, were going, for although he did not wish to be alone, it was not a pleasant prospect to be for eighteen hours wedged in so tightly that he could scarcely move. Then he wondered whether any of the men who might be following were also in the train. He had quite come to the conclusion that his mother and grandmother had frightened themselves most unnecessarily; but he admitted that this was natural enough, after the losses they had had. At Dijon several passengers got out, but others took their places; and so the journey continued throughout the day. The carriage was generally full, though once or twice there were for a time but five besides himself. He read most of the way, for although he spoke Italian as fluently as English, he could not converse in French. When tired of reading he had several times dozed off to sleep, though he had determined that he would keep awake all night.

At ten o’clock in the evening the train arrived at Lyons. Here there was a stop of twenty minutes, and he got out and ate a hearty meal, and drank two or three cups of strong coffee. He was not surprised to find, on returning to his carriage, that all the passengers with two exceptions had left it. These had got in at Macon, and were evidently men of good circumstances and intimate with each other; he had no suspicions whatever of them, for it was certain that men who had any intention of attacking him would appear as strangers to each other. At Vienne both left the carriage. Frank was not sorry to see them do so.

“If there are really fellows watching me,” he said to himself, “the sooner they show themselves and get it over the better; it is a nuisance to keep on expecting something to take place when as likely as not nothing will happen at all.” He examined his pistols. They were loaded but not capped, and he now put caps on the nipples, and replaced them in his pocket.

Just before they had left Vienne a man had come to the window as if intending to enter, but after glancing in for a moment had gone to another carriage.

“That is rather queer,” Frank thought. “As I am alone here, there was plenty of room for him. Perhaps he had made a mistake in the carriage. At any rate, they won’t catch me napping.”

The strong coffee that he had taken at Lyons had sharpened his faculties, and he never felt more awake than he did after leaving Vienne. He sat with his eyes apparently closed, as if asleep, with a warm rug wrapped round his legs. An hour later he saw a face appear at the opposite window. At first it was but for an instant; a few seconds later it appeared again and watched him steadily; then the man moved along to the door and another joined him. Frank without moving cocked the pistol in his right-hand pocket, and took a firm hold of the butt with his finger on the trigger. The door opened noiselessly, and the second man thrust in an arm holding a pistol; so it remained for half a minute. Frank was convinced that there was no intention of shooting if it could be avoided, and remained perfectly still; then the arm was withdrawn, and another man, holding a knife in one hand and a roll of something in the other, entered. In a moment Frank’s right arm flew up and his pistol cracked out: his assailant fell back and disappeared through the open door. Frank sprang to his feet as he fired, and stood with his pistol levelled towards the window, where the head of the second man had disappeared as his comrade fell backwards.

“He knows I have the best of him now,” Frank muttered to himself; “I don’t think that he will have another try.”

Advancing cautiously, he pulled the door to, lowered the window, and putting a hand out without exposing his head, turned the handle, and then drew up the window again. His foot struck against something as he backed to his seat in the corner. As he still kept his eyes fixed on the window, he paid no attention to this for a minute or two; then he became conscious of a faint odour.

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