Saracinesca eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 567 pages of information about Saracinesca.

Saracinesca eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 567 pages of information about Saracinesca.

Donna Tullia spent an anxious night.  She sent down to Del Ferice’s lodgings, as Temistocle had anticipated, and the servant brought back word that he had not seen the Neapolitan, and that the house was held in possession by strangers, who refused him admittance.  Madame Mayer understood well enough what had happened, and began to tremble for herself.  Indeed she began to think of packing together her own valuables, in case she should be ordered to leave Rome, for she did not doubt that the Holy Office was in pursuit of Del Ferice, in consequence of some discovery relating to her little club of malcontents.  She trembled for Ugo with an anxiety more genuine than any feeling of hers had been for many a day, not knowing whether he had escaped or not.  But on the following evening she was partially reassured by hearing from Valdarno that the police had offered a large reward for Del Ferice’s apprehension.  Valdarno declared his intention of leaving Rome at once.  His life, he said, was not safe for a moment.  That villain Gouache, who had turned Zouave, had betrayed them all, and they might be lodged in the Sant’ Uffizio any day.  As a matter of fact, after he discovered how egregiously he had been deceived by Del Ferice, the Cardinal grew more suspicious, and his emissaries were more busy than they had been before.  But Valdarno had never manifested enough wisdom, nor enough folly, to make him a cause of anxiety to the Prime Minister.  Nevertheless he actually left Rome and spent a long time in Paris before he was induced to believe that he might safely return to his home.

Roman society was shaken to its foundations by the news of the attempted arrest, and Donna Tullia found some slight compensation in becoming for a time the centre of interest.  She felt, indeed, great anxiety for the man she was engaged to marry; but for the first time in her life she felt also that she was living in an element of real romance, of which she had long dreamed, but of which she had never found the smallest realisation.  Society saw, and speculated, and gossiped, after its fashion; but its gossip was more subdued than of yore, for men began to ask who was safe, since the harmless Del Ferice had been proscribed.  Old Saracinesca said little.  He would have gone to see the Cardinal and to offer him his congratulations, since it would not be decent to offer his thanks; but the Cardinal was not in a position to be congratulated.  If he had caught Del Ferice he would have thanked the Prince instead of waiting for any expressions of gratitude; but he did not catch Del Ferice, for certain very good reasons which will appear in the last scene of this comedy.

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Saracinesca from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.