Beati Paoli

by Luigi Natoli

part three, chapter 22

English

Antonino Bucolaro had jumped the Rubicone that evening; compromised by Matteo Lo Vecchio in the eyes of the Duke of Motta, pushed by him, he had placed himself entirely in the service of justice and had instructed the city captain. Shortly before dawn, half a dozen soldiers flattened themselves in the house of Judge Baldi; others flattened themselves in the church of the Canceddi; more hid themselves in the neighboring convent of St. Cosmos, and another half a dozen, disguised, occupied an empty house in the courtyard of Ecce Homo next to the alley of the Orphans. And they stood there all day, without being seen as a living soul, waiting for the night, when another half company would come in order of battle.

Rare and almost new case in the traditions of justice, these appiating operations had succeeded without raising any suspicion, with the utmost circumspection, so that the two outlets of the alley of Orphans, and the two entrances to the underground of the Beati Paoli were guarded by a true invisible army.

Midnight had been spent for more than an hour, when these soldiers began to leave the hiding places and to order themselves, concentrating in the places assigned to them, and meanwhile a half company came silently from the Papiret.

Cautiously they formed a circle, which came to close: Two great drafts advanced from the two heads of the alley of the Orphans; another occupied the courtyard of the House Baldi; some reserves were staggered in the square St. Cosmos, at the Cape, and before the house Baldi.

The two lookouts of the Beati Paoli, placed at the outlets of the alley, were thus caught by surprise: One fell into the hands of the soldiers, the other managed to gain the basement door, pulling a gun and giving the alarm cry.

That cry, struck between the vaults of the basement, produced a moment of confusion and almost of confusion, but Don Raimondo could not contain his joy and cried out:

"Finally!"

But that cry was a revelation.

"Put out the baby!" cried the boss.

Some Beati Paoli leaped on Don Raimondo, landed him, bound him by his arms and feet in a moment and with such skill, that the duke had not recovered from the surprise and was already tied like a salami.

Meanwhile they heard at the door at the bottom of the vestibule, at the door of the alley of the Orphans of the vigorous blows, perhaps of dark or of poles, which resonated gloomily in the underground cable; and other blows resonated simultaneously from the bottom of the corridor that he put in the court of the house Baldi.

The chief ordered:

"Cover the red and leave an eye."

They put out the torches leaving only one. The shots doubled. Don Raimondo waited with anxious hope, spying on the moves of those who held him. Every blow to the two doors made his heart leap into his chest; he thought: "Now they land them; now they enter, and take them all." The creaking of the wood, the squeaking of the hinges filled him with joy, as steps towards liberation.

"Squeeze the blowers: And ye shall release the smoky, and roll it in the pipes.

Some of the Beati Paoli bowed down and below the seats pulled the carabines, others from some niches hollowed out charms, firewood and piled it at the bottom of the corridors, near the door where the blows were heard. The chief ordered:

"Follow me."

He turned to a corner of the hall, and threw himself into a niche, and pushed back with both hands a boulder. A large compartment capable of letting a person pass opened, at the same time that one of the two doors fell under the blows of the dark ones.

"Vampa" ordered the boss.

Two men ran to set fire to the charms: At once large clouds of smoke and tongues of flames arose, and they raised a barrier of fire between the door and the hallway. Of the shotgun they echoed, and the balls were crushed by splintering the walls; the halls, the hall began to fill themselves with thick and suffocating smoke.

A man, of whom no one had noticed, began to groan strongly: The chief turned round, and saw the notary, who had been seized with terror at the shots, and kneeling begged that they might save him. One man with a flashlight passed through the hole, and another followed him, and they pushed the notary:

"Don't weep, damn it, and go through..." they said.

One by one, the Beati Paoli hunted themselves in the hole and disappeared, while the shots on the wood to disperse the flames were screaming:

Surrender!

Don Raimondo, made immobile by the rope, devoured by anger and at the same time anxious, looking and waiting, at those cries resumed his heart, tried to draw attention to himself:

"Help! Help!..."

"Shut him up!" said the chief.

There was a ruin in the other door; other shouts, other shots echoed. Don Raimondo had a thrill of joy and exclaimed:

"You're trapped!..."

"Not yet," the boss calmly said, throwing the bag and pulling two guns out of his belt. He made a sign to his men:

"Sauce this salami!" he ordered.

Don Raimondo saw himself suddenly lifted up in the air, thrown by the feet inside the hole, pushed, pulled, before he could oppose, protest, call rescue.

In front of the niche there were only two, the head and another, also without the sack and armed. Through the holes of the mask they looked in silence for a moment; then the head said:

"Pass over!"

"After you!..."

"Pass on, there's no time to waste..."

Among the clouds of smoke that had already filled the basement, the flames paled, scattered and thinned: From the bottom of the halls was heard the passage of the soldiers who came in shooting.

"I'm staying."

"Do you want me to force you through, Blasco?" said the boss.

"Don't touch me, Coriolano, don't touch me!..."

A voice rebuked from the bottom:

"Abandon yourselves!..."

Coriolano moved one step forward and dropped the two guns, so with a quick gesture he pushed Blasco towards the hole murmuring:

"You don't want to be caught!"

He also passed by and put in the hole the rock he had pushed. It was a narrow, low, humid corridor; a gut that seemed to sink into the infinity in which the lantern was darkened did not shed any light, but seemed to be a small red spot.

The Beati Paoli waited, in a row; the notary, trembling, Don Raimondo, bruised, dumb and unbridled. Coriolano ordered: "Next."

All those people, preceded by the lantern, walked silently through that corridor, wrapped in shadow and mystery; the last came Blasco, with his head bowed, his chest full of anger, spite, pain; fought by a hundred thoughts, by a hundred different feelings. They went on for a while, following the corridor, which suddenly seemed to be wider: For there was a crucifix.

"Alt!" cried Coriolano. And he called to himself the lantern, made light one of the arms of the crucichio. There was a ladder dug into the tuff. He called two companions:

"Get the notary upstairs and accompany him. You'll see where this ladder leads... Go, sir; your services will be greatly rewarded."

The notary followed the Beati Paoli up the steep and difficult ladder, which penetrated the vault and disappeared from sight. The procession resumed its journey. The corridor was now wider, flanked by niches; it was some branch of the ancient catacombs, of which the cave of the Beati Paoli was but a stretch.

After about forty steps, again, a circular hall with grommy walls opened: There were pools of water on the ground, a sign of infiltrations raining from above.

Coriolano ordered everyone to stop: Don Raimondo looked; he did not yet know what his fate was, but he had lost all hope; fear now made him vile; he had hoped in the surprise of justice, and when he had heard the doors yield, he had believed that no one could escape; but here they were all saved, and he in them was full nurse. What soldiers were those who were afraid of a little fire and two gunshots? So the state was served? The expected death made him furious against the captain of justice, against the soldiers, against the Viceroy himself, accusing everyone in his heart of his next end.

"Vili! vili! forsake me like this!" he thought by hammering his brain; but his voice said nothing; his lips were tightened, his throat was narrowed by a knot. When the Beati Paoli, with a sign, laid him, standing, his legs bent and fell into the mud, like a twig, beating his teeth.

Terror made him even more miserable.

Around him a circle was made; the lantern held high by one of the Beati Paoli - it was Andrea throwing a poor and bloody light that lit sometimes here and there some chin, was lost on the black masks; between the brown clothes, and in the dark space, those minds glimpsed in the soft reddish seemed cut off, and made the scene monstrously fantastic.

In the deep silence, in which the gnashing of Don Raimondo's teeth was heard, Coriolano slowly and gloomily said:

"Don Raimondo Albamonte, you have prepared an ambush to catch us! You who so far have spared infamy, and who a few moments ago, generously, wanted to keep to your rank and your name, you were counting on bringing our heads to justice!... Raimondo Albamonte, you have lost all right to forgiveness and mercy!..."

"Piety!... mercy on me!..." stuttered the wretch.

"Do you know where we are? Up here, above our heads, is the palace of Motta; we have brought you back to your home, because it is not right for your peers to die elsewhere. You will die here and the palace of which you had so much greed and that embodied with blood and mourning, will grave you on the head, wide and unmovable lid to the grave that welcomes you alive!..."

Don Raimondo still did not mean what kind of death he was reserved for; he had understood nothing and looked outcast, with the air of those who want to surprise a word, a nod, a gesture. But under the masks, the faces were impenetrable and in his ear resonated confusedly those words: death, palace, greed, blood, mourning, grave.

Coriolano gave a key to Don Girolamo Admired that he was next to him, saying:

"Scoff; plant your eye; the bouquets of the rota are squirming."

Most of those men moved, Starting ahead, led by Don Girolamo.

Coriolano warned them:

"Smell right away."

They stayed in the roundabout Andrea with the lantern, two Beati Paoli, Coriolano and Blasco and in the middle of them, with their arms tied, crouched on the ground, immobile in terror, Don Raimondo.

Coriolano said to Blasco, dryly:

"Why did you stay? Go, you go!..."

"I won't go, except with you... You know..."

"Your place is not here..."

"Tell me what you intend to do with this man..."

"What justice commands!..."

"Beware!... I will not let any violence be done over him!..."

Coriolano squeezed his jaws to contain himself, the other three Beati Paoli murmured hostilely. Blasco repeated what he had said.

"Do you want to strike a man, tied up in that way, unable to defend himself, destroyed by terror?... Oh no, I can't give my consent to a murder!..."

Don Raimondo felt enlightened by a thread of hope; he looked with amazement at the man who suddenly stood up to defend him. It was the same voice in the courtroom that Blasco had in the name of giving up Violante's hand. Who, then, was it? Was it for the bastard that he had, unjustly, tried to kill? He trembled, longing, staring with eyes barred, overwhelmed by a thousand feelings that were tumultuous to him in the lost soul. Coriolano had intertwined his hands on his chest with a gesture full of anger.

"Do you, then, want to prevent the course of justice?..."

"I want to prevent a cowardice!..."

"Beware!... We will strike you, too, inexorably!"

"Try it! but I won't let you kill this man, who fear makes him vile like a trash trash!..."

He threw himself back and tore off the mask and threw it on the ground, cried out:

"So, openly, and without mask!..."

"Blasco!" stuttered Don Raimondo.

There was a moment of silence; Andrew, who had laid the lantern in a small niche, stripped himself of the sack and drew a long dagger from his waist; the other two Beati Paoli imitated him; the blades, in that gesture flashed bloodily. Coriolano made a nod to stop them, and turned to Blasco; in his voice he felt the effort to dominate himself:

"Do not waste your generosity, sir; it is not worth it... You wouldn't save him, and his life doesn't matter as much as his victims. Justice will have its course, even passing over you. Serve your life for more generous causes, Blasco da Castiglione... And you perform your work!"

The two Beati Paoli marched towards Don Raimondo, but Blasco threw himself between them and the victim and, spreading his guns, cried out: "One step, and I'll kill you!"

Then Coriolano broke into a roar that looked like a beast, and in turn stood between the Beati Paoli and Blasco, shouting: "Oh, for God's sake! Now it's too much!..."

He climbed over Blasco. One blow reambored; one voice said in the smoke:

"And nothing!...."

He heard the sound of a brief but furious struggle. At the faint glow of the lantern, when the smoke was thinned, two tangled bodies and the hands they sought and beat fiercely. Those two men so close seemed now changed into two furies. Coriolano had diverted the gunshot, but not to the point that the ball did not touch his shoulder and had come to grab Blasco's wrist, to disarm him; the young man, recognizing the muscular strength of his opponent, had jumped on him and had hugged him by his neck, twisting his legs to overthrow him on the ground. They were fighting angryly, panting, with guttural exclamations, with roaring hubs, almost rattling.

"Do your duty!" cried Coriolano, as he tried to imprison Blasco in his arms and prevent any movement.

"No!... No!..." cried Blasco desperately.

But at that moment there was a cry, a groan, a thunder.

Andrea said: "It's done."

Then Coriolano made an effort, and shook Blasco with all his strength, and folded him in two, and called his companions: "Help me take him away."

They held him tight; one of them threw a rope into his arms and prevented him from reacting; and so they lifted him up and took him away.

Passing by, Blasco, who had eyes full of tears of anger, saw in the glimmer on the ground, folded over himself like an abandoned burden, the body of Don Raimondo. He saw, or seemed to see, that a guizzo stirred up that body, and went out: And the indignation arose upon his face, and gathered all his might in one last curse, and spit it vigorously upon his neighbour:

"Vili! vili! vili."

They didn't answer him. They set out, by the light of the lantern, for that mysterious basement, leaving that groaning body on the ground. After about two hundred steps they climbed a ladder; Blasco no longer reacted, abandoning himself to his pain; he felt that they were opening a door, and a funny fresh air struck him the face.

"Let me go!" he said, "Let me go!... I have nothing in common with you anymore!..."

They didn't listen to him. He looked around and in the night darkness seemed to him to be in the countryside. Where, then, was he? He finally felt that they were laying him on the ground.

"Leave him there," said Coriolano, "and wind!"

Blasco looked around: He was alone.