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The Cardinal bent his head twice in approval.

‘All these things, however, combine to show that we must be up and stirring. Many who would be with us, if they were sure of our going forward, will take service with Tone and his party, if we delay. Carrol himself was pledged to report in person to the secret committee at Waterford by the eighth of the month, and we are now at the seventeenth. These delays are serious! This letter from Hussey, which only reached me last night, will show your Eminence how eagerly our answer is awaited.’

The Cardinal made a gesture of impatience, as he declined the proffered letter.

‘It is not,’ said he, ‘by such considerations we are to be swayed, Massoni.’

‘Hussey insists on knowing whether or not your Eminence is with them,’ said the Père boldly, ‘and if you have recognised the young Prince.’

‘So, then, he knows of your secret,’ said the Cardinal with a sly malice.

‘He knew of this youth’s birth and station ere I did myself: he was the confessor of the Fitzgerald family, and attended Grace on her deathbed.’

‘Hussey, then, believes this story?’

‘He would swear to its truth, your Eminence.’

‘He is a crafty fellow, and one not easily to be deceived,’ said Caraffa, musing. ‘Let me see his letter.’

He took the letter from the Père, and perused it carefully.

‘I see little in this,’ said he, handing it back, ‘that you have not already told me.’

‘I have endeavoured to make your Eminence acquainted with everything that occurred,’ said Massoni with downcast eyes, but yet contriving to watch the countenance of the other attentively.

‘Monsignor Hussey, then, recommends in case of any backwardness – such is his phrase – that you yourself should reveal to this youth the story of his descent. Have you thought over this counsel?’

‘I have, your Eminence.’

‘Well, and to what conclusion has it led you?’

‘That there was no other course open to me,’ said Massoni firmly.

The Cardinal’s brow darkened, and he turned upon the Père a look of insolent defiance.

‘So, then, Père Massoni, this is to be a trial of skill between us; but I will not accept the challenge, sir. It is without shame that I confess myself unequal to a Jesuit in craftiness.’

The Père never spoke, but stood with arms crossed and bent-down head as if in thought.

‘It must be owned, sir,’ continued Caraffa scoffingly, ‘that you have no craven spirit. Most men, situated as you are, would have hesitated ere they selected for their adversary a Prince of the Church.’

Still was Massoni silent.

‘While, as to your protégé, with one word of mine to the Minister of Police, he would be driven out of Rome – out of the States of the Church – as a vagabond.’

The word had scarcely been uttered, when the door opened, and Gerald stood before them. For an instant he hesitated, abashed at his intrusion; but Massoni stepped hastily forward, and taking his hand, said —

‘Your Eminence, this is the Chevalier!’

Caraffa, who had known Charles Edward in his early life, stood actually like one thunderstruck before the youth, so exactly was he his counterpart. His full and soft blue eyes, the long silky hair of a rich brown colour, falling heavily on his neck, the mouth, half pouting and half proud, and the full chin, roundly moulded as a woman’s, were all there; while in his air and mien a resemblance no less striking was apparent. By artful thoughtfulness of the Jesuit father, the youth’s dress was made to assist the schemes, for it was a suit of black velvet, such as Charles Edward used to wear when a young man; a blue silk under-vest, barely appearing, gave the impression that it was the ribbon of the garter, which the young Prince rarely laid aside.

Not all the eloquence and all the subtlety of Massoni could have accomplished the result which was in a moment effected by that apparition; and as Gerald stood half timidly, half haughtily there, Caraffa bowed low, and with all the deference he would have accorded to superior rank. For a second the dark eyes of the Jesuit flashed a gleam of triumph, but the next moment his look was calm and composed. The crafty Père saw that the battle was won if the struggle could be but concluded at once, and so, addressing Gerald in a tone of marked deference, he said —

‘I have long wished for the day when I should see this meeting; that its confidence may be unbroken and undisturbed, I will withdraw,’ and with a separate reverence to each, the Père backed to the door and retired.

Whatever suspicions might have occurred to the Cardinal’s mind had he but time for reflection, there was now no opportunity to indulge. All had happened so rapidly, and above all there was still the spell over him of that resemblance, which seemed every moment to increase; such indeed was its influence, that it at once routed all the considerations of his prudent reserve, and made him forget everything save that he stood in the presence of a Stuart.

‘If I am confused, sir, and agitated,’ began he, ‘at this our first meeting, lay it to the account of the marvellous resemblance by which you recall my recollection of the Prince, your father. I knew him when he was about your own age, and when he graciously distinguished me by many marks of his favour.’

‘My father!’ said Gerald, over whose face a deep crimson blush first spread, and then a pallor equally great succeeded – ‘did you say my father?’

‘Yes, sir. It was my fortune to be associated closely with his Royal Highness at St. Germains and afterward in Auvergne.’

Overcome by his feeling of amazement at what he heard, and yet unable to summon calmness to inquire further, Gerald sank into a chair, vainly trying to collect his faculties. Meanwhile Caraffa continued —

‘As an old man and a priest I may be forgiven for yielding slowly to convictions, and for what almost would seem a reluctance to accept as fact the evidence of your birth and station; but your presence, sir – your features as you sit there, the image of your father – appeal to something more subtle than my reason, and I feel that I am in the presence of a Stuart. Let me, then, be the first to offer the homage that is, or at least one day will be, your right’; and so saying, the Cardinal took Gerald’s hand and pressed it to his lips.

‘Is this a dream?’ muttered Gerald, half aloud – ‘is my brain wandering?’

‘No, sir, you are awake; the past has been the dream – the long years of sorrow and poverty – the trials and perils of your life of accident and adventure – this has been the dream; but you are now awake to learn that you are the true-born descendant of a Royal House – a Prince of the Stuarts – the legitimate heir to a great throne!’

‘I beseech you, sir,’ cried Gerald, in a voice broken by emotion, while the tears filled his eyes, ‘I beseech you, sir, not to trifle with the feelings of one whose heart has been so long the sport of fortune, that any, even the slightest shock, may prove too powerful for his strength.’

‘You are, sir, all that I have said. My age and the dress I wear may be my guarantees that I do not speak idly nor rashly.’

A long-drawn sigh burst from the youth, and with it he fainted.

CHAPTER XIII. THE PÈRE MASSONI’S MISGIVINGS

It was late at night, and all quiet and still in the Eternal City, as the Père Massoni sat in his little study intent upon a large map which occupied the whole table before him. Strange blotches of colour marked in various places, patches of blue and deep red, with outlines the most irregular appeared here and there, leaving very little of the surface without some tint. It was a map of Ireland, on which the successive confiscations were marked, and the various changes of proprietorship indicated by different colours; a curious document, carefully drawn up, and which had cost the labour of some years. Massoni studied it with such deep intensity that he had not noticed the entrance of a servant, who now stood waiting to deliver a letter which he held in his hand. At last he perceived the man, and, hastily snatching the note, read to himself the following few lines —

‘She will come to-morrow at noon. Give orders to admit her at once to him; but do not yourself be there.’

This was signed ‘D’ and carefully folded and sealed.

‘That will do; you need not wait, said the Père, and again he was alone. For several minutes he continued to ponder over the scenes before him, and then, throwing them on the table, exclaimed aloud, ‘And this is the boasted science of medicine! Here is the most learned physician of all Rome – the trusted of Popes and Cardinals – confessing that there are phases of human malady to which, while his art gives no clue – a certain mysterious agency – a something compounded of imposture and fanaticism, can read and decipher. What an ignoble avowal is this, and what a sarcasm upon all intellect and its labours! And what will be said of me,’ cried he, in a louder voice, ‘if it be known that I have lent my credence to such a doctrine; that I, the head and leader of a great association, should stoop to take counsel from those who, if they be not cheats and impostors, must needs be worse! And, if worse, what then?’ muttered he, as he drew his hand across his brow as though to clear away some difficult and distressing thought. ‘Ay, what then? Are there really diabolic agencies at work in those ministrations? Are these miraculous revelations that we hear of ascribable to evil influences? What if it were not trick and legerdemain? What if Satan had really seized upon these passers of base money to mingle his own coinage with theirs? If every imposture be his work, why should he not act through those who have contrived it? Oh, if we could but know what are the truthful suggestions of inspirations, and what the crafty devices of an erring brain! If, for instance, I could now see how far the great cause to which my life is devoted should be served or thwarted by the enterprise.’

He walked the room for nigh an hour in deep and silent meditation.

‘I will see her myself,’ cried he at length. ‘All her stage tricks and cunning will avail her little with me; and if she really have high powers, why should they not be turned to our use? When Satan piled evil upon evil to show his strength, St. Francis made of the mass an altar? Well, now, Giacomo, what is it?’ asked he suddenly, as his servant entered.

‘He has fallen asleep at last, reverend father,’ answered he, ‘and is breathing softly as a child. He cannot fail to be better for this repose, for it is now five days and nights since he has closed an eye.’

‘Never since the night of the reception at Cardinal Abbezi’s.’

‘That was a fatal experiment, I much fear,’ muttered Giacomo.

‘It may have been so. Who knows – who ever did or could know with certainty the one true path out of difficulty?’

‘When he came back on that night,’ continued Giacomo, ‘he would not suffer me to undress him, but threw himself down on the bed as he was, saying, “Leave me to myself; I would be alone.”

‘I offered to take off his sword and the golden collar of his order, but he bade me angrily to desist, and said —

‘"These are all that remind me of what I am, and you would rob me of them.’”

‘True enough; the pageantry was a brief dream! And what said he next?’

‘He talked wildly about his cruel fortunes, and the false friends who had misguided him in his youth, saying —

‘"These things never came of blind chance; the destinies of princes are written in letters of gold, and not traced in the sands of the sea. They who betrayed my father have misled me.”’

‘How like his house,’ exclaimed the Père; ‘arrogant in the very hour of their destitution!’

‘He then went on to rave about the Scottish wars, speaking of places and people I had never before heard of. After lamenting the duplicity of Spain, and declaring that French treachery had been their ruin, “and now,” cried he, “the game is to be played over again, as though it were in the day of general demolition men would struggle to restore a worn-out dynasty.”’

‘Did he speak thus?’ cried Massoni eagerly.

‘Yes, he said the words over and over, adding, “I am but the ‘figurino,’ to be laid aside when the procession is over,” and he wept bitterly.’

‘The Stuarts could always find comfort in tears; they could draw upon their own sympathies unfailingly. What said he of me?’ asked he, with sudden eagerness.

Giacomo was silent, and folding his arms within his robe of serge, cast his eyes downward.

‘Speak out, and frankly – what said he?’ repeated the Père.

‘That you were ambitious – one whose heart yearned after worldly elevation and power.’

‘Power – yes!’ muttered the Père.

‘That once engaged in a cause, your energies would be wholly with it, so long as you directed and guided it; that he had known men of your stamp in France during the Revolution, and that the strength of their convictions was more often a source of weakness than of power.’

‘It was from Gabriel Riquetti that he stole the remark. It was even thus Mirabeau spoke of our order.’

‘You must be right, reverend father, for he continued to talk much of this same Riquetti, saying that he alone, of all Europe, could have restored the Stuarts to England. “Had we one such man as that,” said he, “I now had been lying in Holy rood Palace.”’

‘He was mistaken there,’ muttered Massoni half aloud. ‘The men who are without faith raise no lasting edifices. How strange,’ added he aloud, ‘that the Prince should have spoken in this wise. When I have been with him he was ever wandering, uncertain, incoherent.’

‘And into this state he gradually lapsed, singing snatches of peasant songs to himself, and mingling Scottish rhymes with Alfieri’s verses; sometimes fancying himself in all the wild conflict of a street-fight in Paris, and then thinking that he was strolling along a river’s bank with some one that he loved.’

‘Has he then loved?’ asked Massoni in a low, distinct voice.

‘From chance words that have escaped him in his wanderings I have gathered as much, though who she was and whence, or what her station in life, I cannot guess.’

‘She will tell us this,’ muttered the Père to himself; and then turning to Giacomo said, ‘To-morrow, at noon, that woman they call the Egyptian Princess is to be here; she is to come in secret to see him. The Prince of Piombino has arranged it all, and says that her marvellous gift is never in fault, all hearts being open to her as a printed page, and men’s inmost thoughts as legible as their features.’

‘Is it an evil possession?’ asked Giacomo tremblingly.

‘Who can dare to say so? Let us wait and watch. Take care that the small door that opens from the garden upon the Pincian be left ajar, as she will come by that way; and let there be none to observe or note her coming. You will yourself meet her at the gate, and conduct her to his chamber – where leave her.’

‘If Rome should hear that we have accepted such aid – ’

A gesture of haughty contempt from the Père interrupted the speech, and Massoni said —

‘Are not they with troubled consciences frequent visitors at our shrines? Might not this woman come, as thousands have come, to have a doubt removed; a case of conscience satisfied; a heresy arrested? Besides, she is a Pagan,’ added he suddenly; ‘may she not be one eager to seek the truth?’ The cold derision of his look, as he spoke, awed the simple servitor, who, meekly bending his head, retired.

CHAPTER XIV. THE EGYPTIAN

Our reader is already fully aware of the reasons which influenced the Père Massoni to adopt the cause of young Fitzgerald. It was not any romantic attachment to an ancient and illustrious house; as little was it any conviction of a right. It was simply an expedient which seemed to promise largely for the one cause which the Jesuit father deemed worthy of a man’s life-long devotion – the Church. To impart to the terrible struggle which in turn ravaged every country in Europe a royalist feature, seemed, to his thoughtful mind, the one sole issue of present calamity. His theory was: after the homage to the throne will come back reverence to the altar.

For a while the Père suffered himself to indulge in the most sanguine hopes of success. Throughout Europe generally men were wearied of that chaotic condition which the French Revolution had introduced, and already longed for the reconstruction of society in some shape or other. By the influence of able agents, the Church had contrived to make her interest in the cause of order perceptible, and artfully suggested the pleasant contrast of a society based on peace and harmony, with the violence and excess of a revolutionary struggle.

Had the personal character of young Gerald been equal, in Massoni’s estimation, to the emergency, the enterprise might have been deemed most hopeful. If the youth had been daring, venturous, and enthusiastic, heedless of consequences and an implicit follower of the Church, much might have been made of him; out of his sentiment of religious devotion would have sprung a deference and a trustfulness which would have rendered him manageable. But, though he was all these, at times, he was fifty other things as well.

There was not a mood of the human mind that did not visit him in turns, and while one day would see him grave, earnest, and thoughtful, dignified in manner, and graceful in address, on the next he would appear reckless and indifferent, a scoffer, and a sceptic. The old poisons of his life at the Tana still lingered in his system and corrupted his blood; and if, for a moment, some high-hearted ambition would move him – some chivalrous desire for great things – so surely would come back the terrible lesson of Mirabeau to his mind, and distrust darken, with its ill-omened frown, all that had seemed bright and glorious.

After the first burst of proud elation on discovering his birth and lineage, he became thoughtful and serious, and at times sad. He dwelt frequently and painfully upon the injustice with which his early youth was treated, and seemed fully to feel that, if some political necessity – of what kind he could not guess – had not rendered the acknowledgment convenient, his claims might still have slept on, unrecognised and unknown. Among his first lessons in life Mirabeau had instilled into him a haughty defiance of all who would endeavour to use him as a tool.

‘Remember,’ he would say, ‘that the men who achieve success in life the oftenest, are they who trade upon the faculties of others. Beware of these men; for their friendship is nothing less than a servitude.’

‘To what end, for what object, am I now withdrawn from obscurity?’ were his constant questions to himself. The priest and his craft were objects of his greatest suspicion, and the thought of being a mere instrument to their ends was a downright outrage. In this way, Massoni was regarded by him with intense distrust; nor could even his gratitude surmount the dread he felt for the Jesuit father. These sentiments deepened, as he lay, hours long, awake at night till, at length, a low fever seized him, and long intervals of dreary incoherency would break the tenor of his sounder thoughts. It had been deemed expedient by the Cardinal York and his other friends that young Gerald should continue to reside at the Jesuit College till some definite steps were taken to declare his rank to the world, and the very delay in this announcement was another reason of suspicion.

‘If I be the prince you call me, why am I detained in this imprisonment? Why am I not among my equals; why not confronted with some future that I can look boldly in the face? Would they make a priest of me, as they have done with my uncle? Where are the noble-hearted followers who rallied around my father? Where the brave adherents who never deserted even his exile? Are they all gone, or have they died, and, if so, is not the cause itself dead?’

These and suchlike were the harassing doubts that troubled him, until eventually his mind balanced between a morbid irritability and an intense apathy. The most learned physicians of Rome had been called to see him, but, though in a great measure agreeing in the nature of his case, none succeeded in suggesting any remedy for it. Some advised society, travelling, amusement, and so on. Others were disposed to recommend rest and quietude; others, again, deemed that he should be engaged in some scheme or enterprise likely to awaken his ambition; but all these plans had soon to give place to immediate cares for his condition, for his strength was perceived to be daily declining, and his energy of body as well as of mind giving way. For some days back the Père had debated with himself whether he would not unfold to him the grand enterprise which he meditated; point out to the youth the glorious opportunity of future distinction, and the splendid prize which should reward success. He would have revealed the whole plot long before had he not been under a pledge to the Cardinal Caraffa not to divulge it without his sanction, and in his presence; and now came the question of Gerald’s life, and whether he would survive till the return of his Eminence from Paris, whither he had gone to fetch back his niece. Such was the state of things when Doctor Danizetti declared that medicine had exhausted its resources in the youth’s behalf, and suggested, as a last resource, that a certain Egyptian lady, whose marvellous powers had attracted all the attention of Rome, should be called in to see him, and declare what she thought of his case.

This Egyptian Princess, as report called her, had taken up her abode at a small deserted convent near Albano, living a life of strict retirement, and known only to the peasants of the neighbourhood by the extraordinary cures she had performed, and the wonderful recoveries which her instrumentality had effected. The secrecy of her mode of life, and the impossibility of learning any details of her history, added to the fact that no one had yet seen her unveiled, gave a romantic interest to her which soon spread into a sort of fame. Besides these, the most astonishing tales were told of epileptic cases cured, deaf and dumb men restored to hearing and speech, even instances of insanity successfully treated, so that, at length, the little shrines of patron saints, once so devoutly sought after by worshipping believers, praying that St. Agatha or St. Nasala might intercede on their behalf, were now forsaken, and crowds gathered in the little court of the convent eagerly entreating the Princess to look favourably on their sufferings. These facts – at first only whispered – at length gained the ears of Rome, and priests and cardinals began to feel that out of this trifling incident grave consequences might arise, and counsel was held among them whether this dangerous foreigner should not be summarily sent out of the State.

The decision would, doubtless, have been quickly come to had it not been that at the very moment an infant child of the Prince Altieri owed its life to a suggestion made by the Egyptian, to whom a mere lock of the child’s hair was given. Sorcery or not, here was a service that could not be overlooked; and, as the Prince Altieri was one whose influence spread widely, the thought of banishment was abandoned.

The Père Massoni, who paid at first but little attention to the stories of her wondrous powers, was at length astonished on hearing from the Professor Danizetti some striking instances of her skill, which seemed, however, less that of a consummate physician than of one who had studied the mysterious influences of the moral oyer the material part of our nature. It was in estimating how far the mind swayed and controlled the nervous system, whether they acted in harmony or discordance, seemed her great gift; and to such a degree of perfection had she brought her powers in this respect, that the tones of a voice, the expression of an eye, and the texture of the hair, appeared often sufficient to intimate the fate of the sick man. Danizetti confessed, that, though long a sceptic as to her powers, he could no longer resist the force of what he witnessed, and owned that in her art were secrets unrevealed to science.

He had made great efforts to see and to know her, but in vain; indeed she did not scruple to confess, that for medicine and its regular followers, she had slight respect. She deemed them as walkers in the dark, and utterly lost to the only lights which could elucidate disease. Through the Prince Altieri’s intervention, for he had met her in the East, she consented to visit the Jesuit College, somewhat proud, it must be owned, to storm, as it were, the very stronghold of that incredulity which priestcraft professed for her abilities. For this reason was it she insisted that her visit should be paid in open day – at noon. ‘I will see none but the sick man.’ said she, ‘and yet all shall mark my coming, and perceive that even these great and learned fathers have condescended to ask for my presence and my aid. I would that the world should see how even these holy men can worship an unknown God!’

Nor did the Père Massoni resent this pride; on the contrary, he felt disposed to respect it. It was a bold assumption that well pleased him.

As the hour of her visit drew nigh, Massoni having given all the directions necessary to ensure secrecy, repaired himself to the little tower from which a view extended over the vast campagna. A solitary carriage traversed it on the road from Albano, and this he watched with unbroken anxiety, till he saw it enter the gate of Rome, and gradually ascend the Pincian hill.

‘The Egyptian has come to her time,’ said he to Giacomo: ‘yonder is her carriage at the gate; and the youth, is he still sleeping?’

‘Yes, he has not stirred for hours; he breathes so lightly that he scarcely seems alive, and his cheeks are colourless as death.’

‘There, yonder she comes; she walks like one in the prime of life. She is evidently not old, Giacomo.’

From the window where they stood, they could mark a tall, commanding figure moving slowly along the garden walk, and stopping at moments to gather flowers. A thick black veil concealed in some degree her form, but could not altogether hide the graceful motion with which she advanced.