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And when Maurice went away with Gaspare in the night towards the white road where Tito, tied to a stake, was waiting to carry the empty pannier that had contained a supper up the mountain to the house of the priest, Salvatore stood handling his money, and murmuring: "Maledetto straniero! Madonna! Ma io sono più birbante di Lei, mille volte più birbante, Dio mio!"
He bent forward to grasp the rising body, but it never returned to the surface, being entangled in the cords, or, what was equally probable, retained by the frantic grasp of the student, whose mind had yielded to the awful character of the night. The life of Il Maledetto had been one of great vicissitudes and peril.
One evening I saw a man in well-known livery, walking through the streets: his uncertain gait, his gloomy appearance, and the muttered 'Santo sacramento, and 'Maledetto diavolo, soon made me recognise old Pietro, a servant of the Florentine, whom I had formerly known in Alexandria. There was no doubt but that he was in a passion with his master, and I resolved to turn his humor to my advantage.
Il Maledetto smiled grimly, and muttered a sentence between his teeth; for, in perfect consonance with the frank lawlessness of his own life, there was a reckless honesty in his nature, which caused him to despise hypocrisy as unworthy of the bold attributes of manhood. "Have it as thou wilt, pious Conrad," he said sneeringly, "so there be peace between us.
In a few minutes he turned the brow of a beetling rock, and was lost to view. This was the last that was known of Il Maledetto. At Genoa, the Doge secretly received the confirmation of all that he had heard, and Sigismund was legally placed in possession of his birth-right. The latter made many generous but useless efforts to discover and to reclaim his brother.
"Has there not been some fraud art thou not the dupe of some conspiracy of which money has been the object?" The Doge shook his head, in a way to prove that he could not possibly flatter himself with such a hope. "Never: my offers of money have always been rejected." "Why should I take the gold of my father?" added Il Maledetto; "my own skill and courage more than suffice for my wants."
The unknown animal, which the reader, however, will not be slow in recognizing to be the water-dog of Il Maledetto, received these unusual visitations with some surprise, and rather awkwardly; for, in his proper sphere, Nettuno had been quite as much accustomed to meet with demonstrations of friendship from the race he so faithfully served, as any of the far-famed and petted mastiffs of the convent.
"But this is believing that to be true, Signor Bailiff, which is only yet supposed," interrupted Il Maledetto; "I left the path to give Nettuno his charge apart from curious eyes; and, as for the gold of which you speak, would the owner of a necklace of that price be apt to barter his soul against a booty like this which comes of Jacques Colis!"
They followed the speaker in silence, however, to the point where the path makes its first sudden descent. The spot was favorable to the purpose of Il Maledetto. Though still on the level of the lake, the convent, the Col, and all it contained, with the exception of a short line of its stony path, were shut from their view, by the barrier of intervening rock.
With this general tendency to bully and intimidate, the wary patron had, however, made a silent exception in favor of the Italian, who has introduced himself to the reader by the ill-omened name of Il Maledetto, or the accursed. This formidable personage had enjoyed a perfect immunity from the effects of Baptiste's tyranny, which he had been able to establish by a very simple and quiet process.
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