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

“I shall take good care he doesn’t,” the Governor muttered to himself as he went out. “His Eminence can go hang with his sentimental scruples for all I care. Rivarez is chained pretty tight now, and is going to stop so, ill or not.”

“But how can it have happened? To faint away at the last moment, when everything was ready; when he was at the very gate! It’s like some hideous joke.”

“I tell you,” Martini answered, “the only thing I can think of is that one of these attacks must have come on, and that he must have struggled against it as long as his strength lasted and have fainted from sheer exhaustion when he got down into the courtyard.”

Marcone knocked the ashes savagely from his pipe.

“Well, anyhow, that’s the end of it; we can’t do anything for him now, poor fellow.”

“Poor fellow!” Martini echoed, under his breath. He was beginning to realise that to him, too, the world would look empty and dismal without the Gadfly.

“What does she think?” the smuggler asked, glancing towards the other end of the room, where Gemma sat alone, her hands lying idly in her lap, her eyes looking straight before her into blank nothingness.

“I have not asked her; she has not spoken since I brought her the news. We had best not disturb her just yet.”

She did not appear to be conscious of their presence, but they both spoke with lowered voices, as though they were looking at a corpse. After a dreary little pause, Marcone rose and put away his pipe.

“I will come back this evening,” he said; but Martini stopped him with a gesture.

“Don’t go yet; I want to speak to you.” He dropped his voice still lower and continued in almost a whisper:

“Do you believe there is really no hope?”

“I don’t see what hope there can be now. We can’t attempt it again. Even if he were well enough to manage his part of the thing, we couldn’t do our share. The sentinels are all being changed, on suspicion. The Cricket won’t get another chance, you may be sure.”

“Don’t you think,” Martini asked suddenly; “that, when he recovers, something might be done by calling off the sentinels?”

“Calling off the sentinels? What do you mean?”

“Well, it has occurred to me that if I were to get in the Governor’s way when the procession passes close by the fortress on Corpus Domini day and fire in his face, all the sentinels would come rushing to get hold of me, and some of you fellows could perhaps help Rivarez out in the confusion. It really hardly amounts to a plan; it only came into my head.”

“I doubt whether it could be managed,” Marcone answered with a very grave face. “Certainly it would want a lot of thinking out for anything to come of it. But”⁠—he stopped and looked at Martini⁠—“if it should be possible⁠—would you do it?”

Martini was a reserved man at ordinary times; but this was not an ordinary time. He looked straight into the smuggler’s face.

“Would I do it?” he repeated. “Look at her!”

There was no need for further explanations; in saying that he had said all. Marcone turned and looked across the room.

She had not moved since their conversation began. There was no doubt, no fear, even no grief in her face; there was nothing in it but the shadow of death. The smuggler’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at her.

“Make haste, Michele!” he said, throwing open the verandah door and looking out. “Aren’t you nearly done, you two? There are a hundred and fifty things to do!”

Michele, followed by Gino, came in from the verandah.

“I am ready now,” he said. “I only want to ask the signora⁠—”

He was moving towards her when Martini caught him by the arm.

“Don’t disturb her; she’s better alone.”

“Let her be!” Marcone added. “We shan’t do any good by meddling. God knows, it’s hard enough on all of us; but it’s worse for her, poor soul!”

For a week the Gadfly lay in a fearful state. The attack was a violent one, and the Governor, rendered brutal by fear and perplexity, had not only chained him hand and foot, but had insisted on his being bound to his pallet with leather straps, drawn so tight that he could not move without their cutting into the flesh. He endured everything with his dogged, bitter stoicism till the end of the sixth day. Then his pride broke down, and he piteously entreated the prison doctor for a dose of opium. The doctor was quite willing to give it; but the Governor, hearing of the request, sharply forbade “any such foolery.”

“How do you know what he wants it for?” he said. “It’s just as likely as not that he’s shamming all the time and wants to drug the sentinel, or some such devilry. Rivarez is cunning enough for anything.”

“My giving him a dose would hardly help him to drug the sentinel,” replied the doctor, unable to suppress a smile. “And as for shamming⁠—there’s not much fear of that. He is as likely as not to die.”

“Anyway, I won’t have it given. If a man wants to be tenderly treated, he should behave accordingly. He has thoroughly deserved a little sharp discipline. Perhaps it will be a lesson to him not to play tricks with the window-bars again.”

“The law does not admit of torture, though,” the doctor ventured to say; “and this is coming perilously near it.”

“The law says nothing about opium, I think,” said the Governor snappishly.

“It is for you to decide, of course, colonel; but I hope you will let the straps be taken off at any rate. They are a needless aggravation of his misery. There’s no fear of his escaping now. He couldn’t stand if you let him go free.”

“My good sir, a doctor may make a mistake like other people, I suppose. I have got him safe strapped now, and