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

He swayed in the saddle and sank back; the Gadfly had fired again with his deadly aim. A little stream of blood was trickling down the captain’s uniform; but he steadied himself with a violent effort, and, clutching at his horse’s mane, cried out fiercely:

“Kill that lame devil if you can’t take him alive! It’s Rivarez!”

“Another pistol, quick!” the Gadfly called to his men; “and go!”

He flung down his cap. It was only just in time, for the swords of the now infuriated soldiers were flashing close in front of him.

“Put down your weapons, all of you!”

Cardinal Montanelli had stepped suddenly between the combatants; and one of the soldiers cried out in a voice sharp with terror:

“Your Eminence! My God, you’ll be murdered!”

Montanelli only moved a step nearer, and faced the Gadfly’s pistol.

Five of the conspirators were already on horseback and dashing up the hilly street. Marcone sprang on to the back of his mare. In the moment of riding away, he glanced back to see whether his leader was in need of help. The roan was close at hand, and in another instant all would have been safe; but as the figure in the scarlet cassock stepped forward, the Gadfly suddenly wavered and the hand with the pistol sank down. The instant decided everything. Immediately he was surrounded and flung violently to the ground, and the weapon was dashed out of his hand by a blow from the flat of a soldier’s sword. Marcone struck his mare’s flank with the stirrup; the hoofs of the cavalry horses were thundering up the hill behind him; and it would have been worse than useless to stay and be taken too. Turning in the saddle as he galloped away, to fire a last shot in the teeth of the nearest pursuer, he saw the Gadfly, with blood on his face, trampled under the feet of horses and soldiers and spies; and heard the savage curses of the captors, the yells of triumph and rage.

Montanelli did not notice what had happened; he had moved away from the steps, and was trying to calm the terrified people. Presently, as he stooped over the wounded spy, a startled movement of the crowd made him look up. The soldiers were crossing the square, dragging their prisoner after them by the rope with which his hands were tied. His face was livid with pain and exhaustion, and he panted fearfully for breath; but he looked round at the Cardinal, smiling with white lips, and whispered:

“I c-cong-gratulate your Eminence.”

Five days later Martini reached Forli. He had received from Gemma by post a bundle of printed circulars, the signal agreed upon in case of his being needed in any special emergency; and, remembering the conversation on the terrace, he guessed the truth at once. All through the journey he kept repeating to himself that there was no reason for supposing anything to have happened to the Gadfly, and that it was absurd to attach any importance to the childish superstitions of so nervous and fanciful a person; but the more he reasoned with himself against the idea, the more firmly did it take possession of his mind.

“I have guessed what it is: Rivarez is taken, of course?” he said, as he came into Gemma’s room.

“He was arrested last Thursday, at Brisighella. He defended himself desperately and wounded the captain of the squadron and a spy.”

“Armed resistance; that’s bad!”

“It makes no difference; he was too deeply compromised already for a pistol-shot more or less to affect his position much.”

“What do you think they are going to do with him?”

She grew a shade paler even than before.

“I think,” she said; “that we must not wait to find out what they mean to do.”

“You think we shall be able to effect a rescue?”

“We must.”

He turned away and began to whistle, with his hands behind his back. Gemma let him think undisturbed. She was sitting still, leaning her head against the back of the chair, and looking out into vague distance with a fixed and tragic absorption. When her face wore that expression, it had a look of Durer’s Melancolia.

“Have you seen him?” Martini asked, stopping for a moment in his tramp.

“No; he was to have met me here the next morning.”

“Yes, I remember. Where is he?”

“In the fortress; very strictly guarded, and, they say, in chains.”

He made a gesture of indifference.

“Oh, that’s no matter; a good file will get rid of any number of chains. If only he isn’t wounded⁠—”

“He seems to have been slightly hurt, but exactly how much we don’t know. I think you had better hear the account of it from Michele himself; he was present at the arrest.”

“How does he come not to have been taken too? Did he run away and leave Rivarez in the lurch?”

“It’s not his fault; he fought as long as anybody did, and followed the directions given him to the letter. For that matter, so did they all. The only person who seems to have forgotten, or somehow made a mistake at the last minute, is Rivarez himself. There’s something inexplicable about it altogether. Wait a moment; I will call Michele.”

She went out of the room, and presently came back with Michele and a broad-shouldered mountaineer.

“This is Marco,” she said. “You have heard of him; he is one of the smugglers. He has just got here, and perhaps will be able to tell us more. Michele, this is Cesare Martini, that I spoke to you about. Will you tell him what happened, as far as you saw it?”

Michele gave a short account of the skirmish with the squadron.

“I can’t understand how it happened,” he concluded. “Not one of us would have left him if we had thought he would be taken; but his directions were quite precise, and it never occurred to us, when he threw down his cap, that he would wait to let them surround him. He was close beside the roan⁠—I saw him cut the tether⁠—and I handed