The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

“You’ll do,” he said. “This way, and don’t make a noise.” Arthur, carrying his discarded clothes, followed him through a labyrinth of winding canals and dark narrow alleys; the medieval slum quarter which the people of Leghorn call “New Venice.” Here and there a gloomy old palace, solitary among the squalid houses and filthy courts, stood between two noisome ditches, with a forlorn air of trying to preserve its ancient dignity and yet of knowing the effort to be a hopeless one. Some of the alleys, he knew, were notorious dens of thieves, cutthroats, and smugglers; others were merely wretched and poverty-stricken.

Beside one of the little bridges the sailor stopped, and, looking round to see that they were not observed, descended a flight of stone steps to a narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply ordering Arthur to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the boat and began rowing towards the harbour’s mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and leaky planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had thrown over him, and peeping out from under them at the familiar streets and houses.

Presently they passed under a bridge and entered that part of the canal which forms a moat for the fortress. The massive walls rose out of the water, broad at the base and narrowing upward to the frowning turrets. How strong, how threatening they had seemed to him a few hours ago! And now⁠—

He laughed softly as he lay in the bottom of the boat.

“Hold your noise,” the sailor whispered, “and keep your head covered! We’re close to the custom house.”

Arthur drew the clothes over his head. A few yards further on the boat stopped before a row of masts chained together, which lay across the surface of the canal, blocking the narrow waterway between the custom house and the fortress wall. A sleepy official came out yawning and bent over the water’s edge with a lantern in his hand.

“Passports, please.”

The sailor handed up his official papers. Arthur, half stifled under the clothes, held his breath, listening.

“A nice time of night to come back to your ship!” grumbled the customs official. “Been out on the spree, I suppose. What’s in your boat?”

“Old clothes. Got them cheap.” He held up the waistcoat for inspection. The official, lowering his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.

“It’s all right, I suppose. You can pass.”

He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly out into the dark, heaving water. At a little distance Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.

“Here she is,” the sailor whispered, after rowing for some time in silence. “Keep close behind me and hold your tongue.”

He clambered up the side of a huge black monster, swearing under his breath at the clumsiness of the landsman, though Arthur’s natural agility rendered him less awkward than most people would have been in his place. Once safely on board, they crept cautiously between dark masses of rigging and machinery, and came at last to a hatchway, which the sailor softly raised.

“Down here!” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably foul. At first Arthur instinctively drew back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and rancid oil. Then he remembered the “punishment cell,” and descended the ladder, shrugging his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same everywhere, it seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with vermin, full of shameful secrets and dark corners. Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.

In a few minutes the sailor came back with something in his hands which Arthur could not distinctly see for the darkness.

“Now, give me the watch and money. Make haste!”

Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded in keeping back a few coins.

“You must get me something to eat,” he said; “I am half starved.”

“I’ve brought it. Here you are.” The sailor handed him a pitcher, some hard biscuit, and a piece of salt pork. “Now mind, you must hide in this empty barrel, here, when the customs officers come to examine tomorrow morning. Keep as still as a mouse till we’re right out at sea. I’ll let you know when to come out. And won’t you just catch it when the captain sees you⁠—that’s all! Got the drink safe? Good night!”

The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the precious “drink” in a safe place, climbed on to an oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the first time since his babyhood, settled himself to sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round him in the darkness; but neither their persistent noise nor the swaying of the ship, nor the nauseating stench of oil, nor the prospect of tomorrow’s seasickness, could keep him awake. He cared no more for them all than for the broken and dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been the gods of his adoration.

Thirteen years later.

One evening in July, 1846, a few acquaintances met at Professor Fabrizi’s house in Florence to discuss plans for future political work.

Several of them belonged to the Mazzinian party and would have been satisfied with nothing less than a democratic Republic and a United Italy. Others were Constitutional Monarchists and Liberals of various shades. On one point, however, they were all agreed; that of dissatisfaction with the Tuscan censorship; and the popular professor had called the meeting in the hope that, on this one subject at least, the representatives of the dissentient parties would be able to get through an hour’s discussion without quarrelling.

Only a fortnight had elapsed since the famous amnesty which Pius IX had granted, on his accession, to political offenders in the Papal States; but the wave of liberal enthusiasm caused by it was already spreading over Italy. In Tuscany even the government appeared to have been affected by