University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
TOMASO THE BRIGAND.

The same morning sun that was shining in
upon the cottage of Nicolo, falling over the dead
man's rigid form, and on the faces of the fearful
villagers who crowded the apartment—the same
golden rays that disclosed this awful spectacle—
penetrated at the same hour a narrow, low-roofed
room in the osteria of Bacco, on the lonely
mulepath, and revealed a scene likewise of sorrow
and suffering.

The room itself, though small and confined,
with but one window, looking out through a long
glen, which formed a vista far in the heart of the
hills, was yet extremely neat, and adorned with
many little ornaments, displayed in such a manner
as denoted the presence and care of a woman.
Upon its walls, concealing in a measure the unsightly
rafters which protruded, hung several
colored pictures, chiefly of a religious cast, being
generally the figures of kneeling nuns or saints
of the church. An ivory crucifix was fixed near
the window, and near it that indispensable article
of furniture in a lady's apartment, a mirror.
Various articles of female apparel, interspersed
with several weapons, that seemed much out of
place—a silver-stocked carabine, a brace of pistols,
and two murderous-looking daggers, without
scabbards—depended from other portions of
the whitewashed walls.

A narrow bed stood in a corner, spread with a
richly-worked silken coverlid, under the ample
proportions of which lay a man, whose forehead
was bound with a kerchief, while his eyes were
closed, as if in slumber. Evidently, however,
he rested not, for ever and anon the muscles of
his face worked with convulsive motions, and his
teeth grated harshly against each other. It was
easy to perceive that either troubled thoughts, or
some harassing dream disturbed the man's mind.

The sun's rays, as we have said, entered the
narrow apartment. They lightened somewhat
the dark features of the old brigand captain,
Tomaso, for it was he who lay so unquietly upon
the bed. Tomaso, the father of the young girl
Francesca, whose graceful figure now appeared
at the door, advancing noiselessly into the room.

The expression of the maiden's face, as she
came towards the couch, was very mournful. A
deep sorrow seemed to look forth from the dark
eyes, and rest upon the pale, arched forehead.
She moved silently forward, and knelt at the
bedside, clasping her hands, and gazing fixedly
upon the writhing lineaments of her father. Bitter
were her reflections as she thus regarded him,
as might be seen in her quivering lips, and in
the tears that slowly dropped from her cheek
upon the silken coverlid. A lifetime of mental
suffering, fear, and foreboding, seemed to reveal
itself in her attitude and looks.

Old Tomaso started nervously, and opened
his eyes. Francesca's soft hand was in a moment
pressed to his cheek, and her face approached
his own. “Father!” she murmured.

A wild stare, as of doubt or distrust, at first
answered her from Tomaso's eyes. But the
gaze of deep affection which met it appeared to
have a sudden influence upon the brigand. The
hard expression of his features relaxed, the eyes
drooped, and something akin to a smile illumined
the close-set lips, which a moment afterwards,
opened painfully, feebly murmuring:

“My child! raise me!”

Francesca wound her arm tenderly about the
old man's neck, lifting his head, and pillowing
it upon her bosom. Thus supported, the brigand's
scarred and weather-beaten countenance,
half turned toward the casement, was bathed in
the morning sunbeams, which likewise encircled,
as with a halo, the luxuriant curls that clustered
over Francesca's finely-moulded head.

“Francesca! I have had—a—terrible—night!”
murmured the old brigand, pausing to gather
breath between each word he uttered, feebly, and
with great effort.

“O, my father—you are very weak! Do not
strive to talk!”

“No—no—Francesca—I am better—now!
The wine, good girl!”

Francesca could reach, with her disengaged
arm, a small table standing near the bed, whereon
were a flask and glass filled with wine.
Placing the latter to the parched mouth of her
father, who eagerly swallowed the wine at a
gulp, the maiden saw with satisfaction that it
appeared to strengthen the old man at once, and
she remarked, with still greater pleasure, that a
slight perspiration was moistening his previously
dry and fevered flesh. She contemplated silently
this favorable symptom, until, after a brief
pause, the old brigand again spoke:

“Francesca! I have seen death rioting on
the battle-field, and lingering on the scaffold,
and struggling on the bed of unshriven remorse!
—but never did I behold it in so fearful and sudden
a guise as that in which it appeared last
night.”

“O, my father! And Heaven, in its mercy,
preserved your life alone!”

“Mine only—worthless as it is!” replied
Tomaso. “O, Francesca!”

The brigand closed his eyes, as if to shut out
the memory of the awful scene he had witnessed.
But, presently, he asked:

“How bears Bacco the loss of his sons?”

“Alas, he has been insensible since daybreak!
Such draughts of wine as he swallowed, he may
never recover from. He is now lying stupified
in his great chair.”

“And—Brigita!—”

“Poor Brigita!” replied the maiden. “She
will not be comforted.”

“Comforted!” echoed a shrill voice at the
door, and turning her head, Francesca saw the
ostessa standing near the threshold. The thin
frame of the woman was bent, and her head
bowed upon her breast. The saturnine expression
which her features usually wore had given
place to a look of utter dejection. She leaned
totteringly against the rough, upright post of
the door.

“Comforted!” repeated Brigita, fixing her
sharp gaze upon Tomaso. “Let him who led
my poor boys to the path of the avalanche—let
him from whom their blood will be demanded at
the great reckoning day—let Tomaso speak
comfort to me—if he can!”

“O, Brigita! Brigita! I implore you—go
now away! Leave my father now!”

“No, Francesca!—let her speak—let her curse
me!” said the brigand captain, in tones almost
as heart-broken as those of Brigita. “It is just!
On me lies the guilt of all!”

It must have been a fearful night indeed that
had so changed and subdued the fierce soul of
Tomaso, “the Terrible!” as in his earlier days
he had been surnamed by the band which he
commanded. It must have been a mighty up-ploughing
of the old hard nature, a tearing open
of the ancient sutures of wounds long cicatrized
by customary crime and violence, that could
alone have wrung from the brigand's lips such
words as those he now murmured faintly, or
brought to his cold, dry eye the unusual tears
which now fell slowly, one by one, upon the
white hand of Francesca.

“Brigita, curse me!” continued the old man,
as the ostessa, advancing to the bedside, folded
her arms across her breast, and sternly regarded
the speaker. “On me let the anger of God fall,
for I am the chief of sinners!”

Thus spoke Tomaso the brigand, and the
broken accents of his voice so startled the old
woman that the vindictive words she was about
to speak died away upon her lips. The self-accusing
humility of the robber-captain appalled
her more than the most violent burst of anger
could have done. It seemed to reveal the working

of a higher power in the man's heart than
her own sinful nature could comprehend.

“Do you not curse me, Brigita?” murmured
the brigand, his voice fainter even than before.

The ostessa fixed her steadfast glance upon the
old man's face, but not with the angry gleam
that lately proceeded from it. It seemed that
some feeling akin to that which worked in Tomaso's
heart, was exerting its mysterious influence
upon her harsh spirit, subduing its revengeful
vehemence.

“Poor man! I do not curse you!” cried the
ostessa, turning from the bed. “May God forgive
you for leaving me a childless mother!”

With these words, Brigita departed from the
room without another look at the brigand or his
daughter, whose forehead had drooped upon the
pillow beside his, while tears gushed hot and
fast from her eyes.

Francesca remained in this position for some
moments after the ostessa had gone, while her
father kept silent, but apparently agitated with
conflicting thoughts. At last Tomaso said, in a
low tone:

“My child! Think you I dare pray to God?”

“Pray, my father!” exclaimed the girl, a flush
of joy suddenly irradiating her countenance. “O,
indeed! Why should you fear to do that?
Pray—pray, my father, to the saints, and our
holy mother!”

As she hurriedly spoke these words, Francesca
took from her bosom a little volume with a cross
gilded upon its sides, to which, likewise, was
fastened a small rosary of silver beads.

“Here, my father! 'Tis a book which the
padre has blessed! And these beads—do you
not remember that you gave them to me—long
ago, when I was a little child? Dear father!
May I not pray with you?”

The maiden's fine eyes, suffused with tears,
were raised full of earnest affection to her father's
face. The pleading beauty of her glance
seemed to reach the heart of Tomaso, and to
soothe him with its influence. He raised both
his hands, and placed them on his daughter's
forehead, then suffered them to fall, clasped together
upon the bed.

“Pray for me!”