In my young days malefactors were malefactors and were treated accordingly, and nobody thought a traitor any better than a thief.
But it's the fashion to be seditious nowadays; and His Eminence seems inclined to encourage all the scoundrels in the country."
"I don't see what business he has got to interfere at all," the adjutant remarked. "He is not a Legate and has no authority in civil and military affairs.
By law------"
"What is the use of talking about law?
You can't expect anyone to respect laws after the Holy Father has opened the prisons and turned the whole crew of Liberal scamps loose on us!
It's a positive infatuation!
Of course Monsignor Montanelli will give himself airs; he was quiet enough under His Holiness the late Pope, but he's cock of the walk now.
He has jumped into favour all at once and can do as he pleases.
How am I to oppose him?
He may have secret authorization from the Vatican, for all I know.
Everything's topsy-turvy now; you can't tell from day to day what may happen next.
In the good old times one knew what to be at, but nowadays------"
The Governor shook his head ruefully.
A world in which Cardinals troubled themselves over trifles of prison discipline and talked about the "rights" of political offenders was a world that was growing too complex for him.
The Gadfly, for his part, had returned to the fortress in a state of nervous excitement bordering on hysteria.
The meeting with Montanelli had strained his endurance almost to breaking-point; and his final brutality about the variety show had been uttered in sheer desperation, merely to cut short an interview which, in another five minutes, would have ended in tears.
Called up for interrogation in the afternoon of the same day, he did nothing but go into convulsions of laughter at every question put to him; and when the Governor, worried out of all patience, lost his temper and began to swear, he only laughed more immoderately than ever.
The unlucky Governor fumed and stormed and threatened his refractory prisoner with impossible punishments; but finally came, as James Burton had come long ago, to the conclusion that it was mere waste of breath and temper to argue with a person in so unreasonable a state of mind.
The Gadfly was once more taken back to his cell; and there lay down upon the pallet, in the mood of black and hopeless depression which always succeeded to his boisterous fits.
He lay till evening without moving, without even thinking; he had passed, after the vehement emotion of the morning, into a strange, half-apathetic state, in which his own misery was hardly more to him than a dull and mechanical weight, pressing on some wooden thing that had forgotten to be a soul.
In truth, it was of little consequence how all ended; the one thing that mattered to any sentient being was to be spared unbearable pain, and whether the relief came from altered conditions or from the deadening of the power to feel, was a question of no moment.
Perhaps he would succeed in escaping; perhaps they would kill him; in any case he should never see the Padre again, and it was all vanity and vexation of spirit.
One of the warders brought in supper, and the Gadfly looked up with heavy-eyed indifference.
"What time is it?"
"Six o'clock.
Your supper, sir."
He looked with disgust at the stale, foul-smelling, half-cold mess, and turned his head away.
He was feeling bodily ill as well as depressed; and the sight of the food sickened him.
"You will be ill if you don't eat," said the soldier hurriedly. "Take a bit of bread, anyway; it'll do you good."
The man spoke with a curious earnestness of tone, lifting a piece of sodden bread from the plate and putting it down again.
All the conspirator awoke in the Gadfly; he had guessed at once that there was something hidden in the bread.
"You can leave it; I'll eat a bit by and by," he said carelessly. The door was open, and he knew that the sergeant on the stairs could hear every word spoken between them.
When the door was locked on him again, and he had satisfied himself that no one was watching at the spy-hole, he took up the piece of bread and carefully crumbled it away.
In the middle was the thing he had expected, a bundle of small files.
It was wrapped in a bit of paper, on which a few words were written.
He smoothed the paper out carefully and carried it to what little light there was.
The writing was crowded into so narrow a space, and on such thin paper, that it was very difficult to read.
"The door is unlocked, and there is no moon.
Get the filing done as fast as possible, and come by the passage between two and three.
We are quite ready and may not have another chance."
He crushed the paper feverishly in his hand.
All the preparations were ready, then, and he had only to file the window bars; how lucky it was that the chains were off!
He need not stop about filing them.
How many bars were there?
Two, four; and each must be filed in two places: eight.
Oh, he could manage that in the course of the night if he made haste---- How had Gemma and Martini contrived to get everything ready so quickly--disguises, passports, hiding-places?
They must have worked like cart-horses to do it---- And it was her plan that had been adopted after all.
He laughed a little to himself at his own foolishness; as if it mattered whether the plan was hers or not, once it was a good one!
And yet he could not help being glad that it was she who had struck on the idea of his utilizing the subterranean passage, instead of letting himself down by a rope-ladder, as the smugglers had at first suggested.