"Where did you pick him up, Croppo?" she asked, carelessly. "He ought to be worth something.""Just twelve bajocchi," he answered, with a sneering laugh. "Come,/amico mio/, you will have to give us the names of some of your friends." "I am tolerably intimate with his Holiness the Pope, and I have abowing acquaintance with the King of Naples, whom may God speedily restore to his own," I replied, in a light and airy fashion, which seemed exceedingly to exasperate the man called Croppo.
"Oh, yes, we know all about that; we never catch a man who does not profess to be a Nero of the deepest dye in order to conciliate oursympathies. It is just as well that you should understand, my friend, that all are fish who come into our net. The money of the pope's friends is quite as good as the money of Garibaldi's. You need not hope to put us off with your Italian friends of any colour; what we want is English gold--good, solid English gold, and plenty of it.""Ah," said I, with a laugh, "if you did but know, my friend, how long I have wanted it too! If you could only suggest an Englishman who would pay you for my life, I would write to him immediately, and we would go halves in the ransom. Hold!" I said, a bright idea suddenly striking me. "Suppose I were to write to my government--how would that do?"Croppo was evidently puzzled; my cheerful and unembarrassed manner apparently perplexed him. He had a suspicion that I was even capable of the audacity of making a fool of him, and yet that proposition about the government rather staggered him; there might be something in it. "Don't you think," he remarked, grimly, "it would add to the effect of your communication if you were to enclose your own ears in your letter? I can easily supply them; and if you are not a little more guarded in your speech you may possibly have to add your tongue.""It would not have the slightest effect," I replied, paying no heed to his threat; "you don't know Palmerston as I do. If you wish to get anything out of him you must be excessively civil. What does he care about my ears?" And I laughed with such scornful contempt that Croppo this time felt that he had made a fool of himself, and I observed the lovely girl behind, while the corners of her mouth twitched with suppressed laughter, make a sign of caution.
"/Per Dio!/" he exclaimed, jumping up with fury. "Understand, Signor Inglese, that Croppo is not to be trifled with. I have a summary way of treating disrespect," and he drew a long and exceedingly sharp- looking two-edged knife.
"So you would kill the goose" ("and I certainly am a goose," I reflected) "that may lay a golden egg." But my allusion was lost upon him, and I saw my charmer touch her forehead significantly, as though to imply to Croppo that I was weak in the upper story.
"An imbecile without friends and twelve bajocchi in his pocket," hemuttered, savagely. "Perhaps the night without food will restore his senses. Come, fool!" and he roughly pushed me into a dark little chamber adjoining. "Here, Valeria, hold the light."So Valeria was the name of the heroine of the donkey episode. As she held a small oil-lamp aloft I perceived that the room in which I was to spend the night had more the appearance of a cellar than a chamber; it had been excavated on two sides from the bank; on the third there was a small hole about six inches square, apparently communicating with another room, and on the fourth was the door by which I had entered, and which opened into the kitchen and general living-room of the inhabitants. There was a heap of onions running to seed, the fagots of fire-wood which Valeria had brought that afternoon, and an old cask or two.
"Won't you give him some kind of a bed?" she asked Croppo.
"Bah! he can sleep on the onions," responded that worthy. "If he had been more civil and intelligent he should have had something to eat. You three," he went on, turning to the other men, "sleep in the kitchen, and watch that the prisoner does not escape. The door has a strong bolt besides. Come, Valeria."And the pair disappeared, leaving me in a dense gloom, strongly pervaded by an ordour of fungus and decaying onions. Groping into one of the casks, I found some straw, and spreading it on a piece of plank, I prepared to pass the night sitting with my back to the driest piece of wall I could find, which happened to be immediately under the air-hole--a fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. I had probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I felt something tickle the top of my head. The idea that it might be a large spider caused me to start, when, stretching up my hand, it came in contact with what seemed to be a rag, which I had not observed. Getting carefully up, I perceived a faint light gleaming through the aperture, and then saw that a hand was protruded through it, apparently waving the rag. As I felt instinctively that the hand was Valeria's, I seized the finger-tips, which was all I could get hold of, and pressed them to my lips. They were quickly drawn away, and then the whisper reached my ears:
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Then eat this," and she passed me a tin pannikin full of cold macaroni, which would just go through the opening.
"Dear Valeria," I said, with my mouth full, "how good and thoughtful you are!""Hush! he'll hear." "Who?"
"Croppo." "Where is he?"
"Asleep in the bed just behind me."
"How do you come to be in his bedroom?" "Because I'm his wife.""Oh!" A long pause, during which I collapsed upon my straw seat, and swallowed macaroni thoughtfully. As the result of my meditations, "Valeria, /carissima/!""Hush! Yes."
