United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Your ladyship," I said, with that odd sense of comedy still uppermost, "will regard this as rather a curious intrusion. You have forty thousand pounds belonging to Miss Rossano, and I am here to rob you of it. I propose to do it with all delicacy; but if your ladyship will be good enough to understand me, I mean to have the money."
When I told him, as I did, that he was a thick-skinned idiot and braggart, he looked amazed. But I left him to his surprise, and took what precautions I could against the newspaper falling into the hands of Miss Rossano.
The same answer was given me in regard to a valuable private library at Rossano, and annoying as it may be, one cannot severely blame such local gentlemen for keeping their collections to themselves. What have they to gain from the visits of inquisitive travellers?
I stood pledged to Miss Rossano to rescue her father from that horrible long-drawn imprisonment if the courage, or the wit, of man could compass it; and I meant, with all my heart and soul, to keep my word.
I thought it well, before starting on the enterprise I had in hand, to set down my purpose in writing, so that if it miscarried I might at least escape the mischief of misconstruction. So I sat down and wrote deliberately that it was my intention to rob Lady Rollinson of the sum of forty thousand pounds, intrusted to her by Miss Violet Rossano for transmission to her father.
Hinge was hard to pacify, for in his loyalty to me and the affection that had grown up between us, he was almost as much interested as I was, and he kept breaking in with a "Look 'ere, sir, this is Captain Fyffe, my master. It was him as rescued Count Rossano from the fortress of Itzia you must have seen it in the papers." The man was got rid of at last, and the promise was given.
Thus arrayed in snowy hue, like the lilies of the field, he perambulates during the hot season the wildest parts of South Italy, strangely unprejudiced, heedless of bugs and brigands a real danger in 1828: did he not find the large place Rossano actually blocked by them? sleeping in stables and execrable inns, viewing sites of antiquity and natural beauty, interrogating everybody about everything and, in general, "satisfying his curiosity."
I didn't want to take this, sir," Hinge continued, folding up the note and restoring it to his pocket; "but Miss Rossano she comes at me and shut it into my hand with both her own, whether I would or no, and all of a sudden, sir " He stopped with a gulp, and swallowed laboriously twice or thrice.
Her son, Jack, had inspired her with all manner of absurd beliefs about me, and she praised me to my face about my courage until I felt inclined to prove it by running away from an old woman. I ventured to hope that Miss Rossano was well. "I am very sorry to tell you," said Lady Rollinson, "that Miss Rossano is very unwell indeed. She has been greatly upset this morning.
"I think, ladies and gentlemen, you will agree with me that I do not exaggerate. Swerve an inch to right or left," he added, "and you lose your life." Roncivalli's flute-like voice followed the troubled grumble of the German's threat. "I know my business, Herr Sacovitch, as well as you know yours. I can serve your turn and I can serve my own. Give me what I ask, and you may have the Count Rossano.
Word Of The Day