Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part three, chapter 3

English

The two black shadows, removed with Violent weight, fell off the ladder, one after the other cautiously, holding the fainted maiden. At the foot of the ladder, they freed that body from the blankets that surrounded it, fearing that they would suffocate it.

"Are there no capes?..."

They walked through the garden without making a noise, they came out of a goddess, out of which other men, black and unrecognizable, were waiting around a sedan. One of them covered the maiden with a cloak, threw her into the sedan by tying her with a leather strap, as was the case with the corpses. As a precaution, they tied her hands and gagged her.

The porter was lifted up; the men surrounded her and moved quickly. Through some dark, narrow and winding alleys, they appeared in the Chancellor's plan; a few minutes later they resonated the first bell strokes.

"Come on, hurry up.. Those fools are gonna make the city sound."

They walked the plan in less than one says, climbed up the way of Celso, and through the ascent of S. Agata and other alleys they succeeded in the road of the Incoronata next to the cathedral. There they stopped for a moment. Violante had gradually returned to himself, opened his terrified eyes, believing he almost had to see around himself demons, vampires and frightening monsters, and he saw himself alone, tied up, inside that big box that he did not recognize at first. He felt the rhythmic movement of the pass of the porters and a different fear took hold of her. Something clogged her mouth. He tried to get up and couldn't. He waved; he writhed to get rid of all those impediments shaking for all the members.

Where was he? Who was he with? Was that hell? Did the demons bring her?...

A threatening voice said to her from the door:

"Look carefully at you from moving and shouting, otherwise we'll kill you."

In fact, he saw something flashing that could be the blade of a dagger or the barrel of a gun. Then he started crying. Why did they want to kill her? What did he do? Where were they taking her? So not demons; magicians, perhaps? She didn't know the stories of wizards who kidnapped the girls and cut them into pieces. They put in barrels? A more vivid terror, like that which was born of an almost invisible danger, invaded it; the sense of reality raised from that voice and from that whale, frozen her blood, petrified it. What could he do? How could he oppose it? How to get rid of it? She was bound in that sedan and the men who took her away were many. Were they magicians? Were the "Greeks of the East" who, with their recklessness, put so much fear on the people? Were the barbaric corsairs stealing children and bringing them slaves to Muhammad?

Mentally she began to recite prayers and to recommend herself to Our Lady and as she prayed her heart would dissolve, the sobbings would go up to her mouth, they would break into suffocated groans.

The same voice as before tried to chetat her, but in such a threatening tone, it did not reassure her.

"Shut up, we're not gonna hurt you! Shut up... don't be afraid!"

But if she died of fear!...

The sedan resumed the journey, passed before the church of the hospital of the Priests, and through an alley, now closed, it fell into the floor of the Royal Palace, dark, silent, in whose vast shadow it was lost.

Where were you going? Now he entered into the streets where the footsteps that trampled on the pavement did not resonate as before, and where the sound of the bells came weaker: Then suddenly Violante felt a funny colder air hit her face and penetrate them between her legs.

Meanwhile, the gag choked her: At least they freed her from that torment She groaned louder and wandered inside the porterina. The same voice said harshly:

"So you don't want to understand that we're not gonna do anything to you? Stay calm."

But Violante continued to struggle and to moan louder and to step on the bottom of the sedan. The voice ordered:

"Stop."

Violante then saw the curtain open and a masked man looking out. Who, raising a lantern above her, asked her:

"What's wrong with you? Why don't you want to be calm? Take care of yourself!..."

But the face of the maiden had to express such suffering, it had to look so upset and almost congested, that man understood.

"Does the gag bother you?... Well, I'll take it off; but watch out for yourself!... If you scream, I'll go through your throat with this."

To the words he added the act; with the shining tip of the dagger touched her throat.

"Do you promise to shut up?" the man asked her.

Violant showed yes: And he took away her gag, and the maiden breathed with violence, and as if a leash had been taken away from her sobbing, they burst out of her breast, irrepressible and convulsive.

"Don't be scared, damn it! We're not gonna eat you."

The sedan resumed the journey. In the opening of the tent, at the reflection of the lantern, Violante saw a country wall gaze from which branches hung. So he was in the country. Then she seemed to understand and a new fear caused her to beat her teeth and shake the person. In those days there were many tales of people seized by criminals who imposed large sums for the ransom, who did not doubt to be the victim of one of those wicked crimes. - Oh, Lord, help me you!... - Why take her, who was poor girl without defense? Where were they taking her? Perhaps in a cave, in a frightening cave where wolves and snakes entered. Oh, better die! Better die!

He tried the ways of mercy.

"Lord, my good lord..." he murmured with a tearful voice.

"What do you want?"

"Have mercy on me!... Take me home!... I beg you! I didn't do anything. Why do you want to kill me?"

"Don't be silly!"

"If I have offended you I ask forgiveness; I ask you on your knees... I will kiss your feet!... But let me go!"

"Don't be silly!"

"I don't know you, I don't know who you are... but I know you have children... if I was your daughter..."

"Don't be silly!" replied the masked man for the third time harshly.

"Oh, God! God!... have mercy on me!..."

She was crying desperately. The man did not listen to her and let her weep, but suddenly, he shook the curtain, stuck his face inside the carrier and said to her with his teeth closed:

"Shut up, for Christ, or I'll beat you!"

She was terrified and suffocated a hiccup. At that moment of silence she heard the scalpitio of a horse resonating over the silciato and a sustained hope was born in her heart. He noticed that the sedan had stopped, pulling from one side, as if to leave the step or not to meet. The scalpitium came closer: He wouldn't resonate like he used to, but he'd feel it almost next to him: The horse nittered and puffed. Then Violante gathered up all his might and cried out,

"Help!"

But the man fell down on the door, cast his arm into it, threw his mouth violently, accompanying the act with a blasphemy.

"Oh!" shouted a strong and male voice. "What's the cost?"

The sedan, out of the city from the gate of Montalto, now destroyed, by country roads had arrived at the end of the bridge of the Admiral, at the same time that on the opposite side a man to horse gained the vertex and descended towards it. He had watched with amazement and curiosity in the shadow of the night that strange procession, composed of four men and two pedestals, in that hour and in that site. It was not viaticus, because it was not accompanied by torches and lanterns; it was not a doctor or midwife, because there were too many people: Not an inmate, because he didn't go, but he walked away from the city and there were no prisons in the country: So either it was a gentleman who went to his own farm, in that way and in that hour, and certainly it could only be a madman, or there was something suspicious and irregular. The cry of help, sent by a trembling voice of a woman, made him stop and apostrophate in that way:

"Who's the cost?" he repeated pushing the horse.

But the men barred his footsteps, and from under the robes in which they were wrapped, drew carabines; and one of them threatened:

"Go for your own business, or for Our Lady!..."

"Oh! oh! oh!" answered the voice; "damn! mischievous gentlemen, you are giving yourselves too much trouble... and at the same time the wrong address, if you think that these tools scare me!"

Violent was fighting to free his mouth and shout; the man who closed it to him, shouted underneath:

"Shut up, shut up, or I'll kill you!"

The sedan vibrated. The knight was only eight or ten palms away from the group. What did he do? His horse trembled and trembled nervously. He seemed to want to be a Member of Parliament.

"My question," continued the knight, "may be an indiscretion, but it is not an offense."

"Stop it! and go away!" cried one of those men.

The man who prevented Violante from crying out exclaimed:

"But hurry up, for God's sake!... Hunt him!..."

He had not finished speaking, that in a flash the horse gave a drizzle, and jumped upon men, who, dismayed, to hide themselves from that sudden fury they tried to wander from here and there; and they had not gotten back, neither had they resumed the offensive, which they heard come upon formidable sledgehammers. The knight, in fact, wielded by the barrel the poppo that he held across the arch, and handling it like a bat of war, had struck the two closest.

They flashed two shots of rifle; one ball took away the knight's hat, another crashed on the metal plate of the bandoliera to which the knight suspended the giberna. All this happened so quickly, that the man who held Violante could not immediately realize it. But it came to pass, when he saw that two of his men lay on the ground, and that the horseman threw himself vigorously with the sword drawn upon the other three, that he loosed the straps that held the maiden, and took it into his arms, crying out,

"To me, Andrea!" and he drove towards the river.

One of the men ran after him.

Violante cried out: "Help! Help!..."

The knight heard the cry, saw that escape, and then, pressed the two who stood before them, storming them with blows, forced them to flee, turned the horse behind the kidnappers of the maiden, who had entered the river.

The Oretus is not! It is at that point so under that a man cannot gain it, neither had the rains fallen to enlarge it. Those two men, holding the maiden firmly on their shoulders, cut off the current to gain the other side with a prodigious speed, but the rider had the advantage of the horse.

"Forgive me! You will not escape me!" cried the knight, who was already on them.

Then one of those men lifted up his arm with a dagger, and threatened the maiden, and said,

"One step you take and I'll beat you here, like a lamb!..."

It did not end the word that the rider, stretching on the protruding neck of the horse, carried a violent blow with the sword on his fist, which caused him to jump away the dagger.

"Damn it!" shouted the shot, looking for something to defend himself.

The companion quickly suggested to him:

"You bring the maiden, I'll look after him."

He drew a gun, while the first one loaded the maiden on his neck, but Violante, whom that unexpected help had infused hope and courage, began to wriggle, as if to dince, embarrassing his kidnapper and hindering his speed. The gun, perhaps because it got wet, did not fire: Then the man embraced the bridles of the horse, endeavoring to dip his head into the water, but the rider laid on his fingers a series of blows, some of which were muttered in the water; others wounded. The man had to leave his bridle blaspheming. The knight took advantage of it: And he took him by the breast, and brake him terribly, and cast him back; and he lost his balance, and fell, and sprinkled under the water.

"Arrì, Biondello!" cried the knight, pushing the horse on the man who ran away with Violante.

He came to scare the maiden with broken and dissolved hair, while a blow of the sword vibrated to his kidnapper, who sent a cry of desperate sorrow and dropped his load. The knight had time to pick up the maiden and pull her over the arch. The horse, as if he had sensed that it was necessary to hurry, gave two vigorous zappas and reached the shore.

"Come on, go!" said the knight, urging him.

The horse shook the croup to remove the water, nitrò, and pushed up the grassy slope of the bank. Violent had eyes full of tears and knew nothing to say; the knight did not yet look at her: He had turned back to see the two kidnappers who took heart again also rushed behind him, to reach him. He excited, incited the beast, who, having gained his eye, went to the trot.

"Ah! here we are free!" said the knight, and this time he looked at the maiden, amazed at seeing her so beautiful, though still frightened and tearful. And he loosed her arms, and laid her on the saddle before him, and said, "We're as soft as two chicks in the oil! We need to find a place to dry ourselves."

She realized that the girl was badly covered with a cloak and that she had bare feet and said:

"And then... Why are you almost naked?"

And he looked at her face with a curiosity full of interest and with an increasing amazement.

Violante also looked at him, but on his face there was a great joy: Then he murmured with an inexpressible accent:

"Mr. Don Blasco!"

And the young man went out, and looked at the maiden, and said with a deep concussion, "Oh, those eyes! Who are you? How do you know me?"

"I'm Violante... Violante della Motta... I've seen you many times at the monastery!..."

"You?... The monachella? You're educating her? You! What about those men? Ah!"

The truth had suddenly revealed itself to his mind, and then overwhelmed by an almost superstitious fear, he shoved his spurs into the horse's belly and pushed him to gallop.

"Hold on to me and don't be afraid," she said to the girl.

She girded his neck with both arms, holding to his chest with the confidant abandonment of innocence and did not notice the tremor that crossed the horseman's flesh. He murmured with firm conviction:

"Oh no, I'm not scared now!"

They passed through miserable and scattered villages on which the moon poured out a merciful light, raising the barking of dogs, which spread from villa to villa, increasingly weak: They were alone, in the night, in the countryside flanked by the mountain, which rises dark, throwing great shadows from the protruding cliffs, black as abysses on the valleys and on the slopes. So high, so dark, so full of shadows and mysteries, the mountain had a sacred and religious horror.

They did not speak: The horse was now running smoothly as one could no longer be afraid of being chased. Where were they going?

He didn't know: Now that they were safe, he was looking for a house, a shelter: It was also necessary for the maiden to be able to refresh herself. Where was a house?

He saw by the moonlight, among the foliage of the trees, one of those country buildings, between the house and the tower, as still found in the farms of the ancient noble families. There was probably the "curatolo" there that would not disdain hospitality, and would find itself a convenient room for the maiden.

He turned the horse and drove him down a path, at the bottom of which, between two crude pillars, was a wrought iron gate. Blasco took Violante on the saddle and disassembled. The gate was closed: And he brought his hand into the bars, and searched for the lock, and drew it. Dogs, furiously barking down the avenue ran to the gate. Blasco threatened them, but in order not to expose himself to the teeth of those watchmen, he beat himself with a stone on the gate and shouted:

"Olà!... Oh!..."

A few moments later, a voice from the bottom of the boulevard answered:

"Who is it?..."

"Recall the dogs... I'm a friend!"

"What friend?"

"I'm a knight! I need a favor... please come and open me up!..."

A lantern zigzaged through the boulevard; a man armed with archibugio became more visible by approaching. And he stood at a certain distance, and lifted up the lantern, to illuminate the face of Blascus fully, and laid it on the ground, and said,

"What do you want?"

"Nothing but the favor of giving us shelter for a few hours until morning... I'll be able to reward you. Are you the "curatolo"?"

"Yes, sir. Pass away!..."

He chased the dogs that were growling and barking and approached the gate to look better, suspicious yet. Blasco told him:

"Listen, man, if you have any doubt, say so; I won't bother you, and I'll find some good people around here. I hit here because I saw a decent mansion to make the young lady rest. You see we're soaked. And because I suppose you're "Christian."

And he saw the horse, and saw the maiden, and knew that he had to do with men of quality, and opened the gate, and said,

"Vessignoria favor. This farm belongs to the Prince of Trabia."

"Don Ottavio?" said Blasco. "Better than that, he's my friend."

Blasco took the horse by the reins and drew it behind the boulevard; he helped Violante to disassemble and, holding it in his arms, wrapping it better than he could, brought it inside, in a room, saying to the curate:

"Now, my friend, we must provide for this poor girl who is saved by God's miracle. As you can see, it is barefoot and soft."

He briefly told him what had happened, keeping his name and that of the maiden. The curate listened astonished, but with a slight mischievous suspicion in his heart.

"I'm sorry," he said, "that we don't have women in the house; but we'll settle. Above is the room of his excellence... for when he comes to the farm... and there is a good bed."

He drove with the lantern the two young men into a beautiful room; he drew from a carved chest of linens, and settled the bed of wrought iron with foliage and painted in red and turquoise, with gilded: one of those magnificent beds of the village industry, which are no longer found, but which in the museums of Germany and England marvel at the exquisiteness of the work and the drawings.

"Stay in bed and rest quietly," said Blasco to the maiden, who was now shy and shameful, "I will stay there."

But Violante, caught by a sudden terror, stuck to his neck, saying:

"No, no; don't leave me, Mr. Don Blasco; don't leave me... I'm afraid!. I don't want to be alone."

Blasco fell short, and stuttered:

"But yes, my daughter; I will not leave you.. Just the time to lie down... you need it... you need to shave your shirt too..."

The curate seemed embarrassed.

"And where will I get a woman's shirt?..."

"You don't have to be a woman... there'll be a few men..."

Soon after, Violante infamous in a big canvas shirt, but fresh in laundry, chased himself under the blankets, smiling of his disguise, and called:

"Mr. Don Blasco, Mr. Don Blasco!"