CHAPTER VIII.

A DASH FOR FREEDOM.

The summer morning had dawned, and though no direct ray could ever enter the inner cave, Horace could see the reflection of pure rosy light tinging the rugged stone, hundreds of feet above him, through a cleft in the rocky roof, which appeared as if it had been rent asunder by the shock of an earthquake. Most refreshing to the captive's eye was even that reflected gleam, which showed that the sun was shining upon earth, though not upon him: and he longed for wings to fly upwards through that lofty cleft to the glorious daylight beyond.

Horace half raised himself on his elbow and looked around him. Not two yards from the spot on which he rested, he saw the kneeling form of Raphael, who was evidently engaged in prayer. The sight of him was to Horace like the sight of the sun-lit rocks;—something to witness to the existence of Heaven's light even in this abode of darkness. On the other side lay Enrico asleep, and the quiet which prevailed through the cave showed that the day wag but little advanced.

After a brief space of time Raphael arose from his knees, and turning towards Horace, perceived by the dim light that the captive was awake.

"How have you slept?" he asked in Italian, addressing Horace in the third person singular, which, in that language, is a token of respect.

Even this trifling mark of courtesy was grateful to the unfortunate youth.

"I slept but ill," replied Horace; "how could I look for pleasant slumbers here?"

"The bed is but a hard one," said the Rossignol, "to one who has been accustomed to a softer pillow, though custom has made its roughness no hardship to us. Yonder, where the water drips, Nature has formed a simple basin, where you may find refreshment in bathing your weary limbs."

Horace attempted to rise, but the clambering of the previous night had made his fetters gall him so severely, that every movement was pain.

Raphael saw his distress. "I know too well what it is to wear such anklets," said he.

"Can you not free me from them?" exclaimed Horace.

The Rossignol shook his head. "I cannot free you from them," he said, "but I can render their effects less painful;" and he drew from a little hole in the side of the rock some lint and ointment, which, kneeling down, he at once began to apply to the captive's swollen ankles. The touch of his hand was gentle as a woman's, and Horace felt grateful for the relief imparted.

"I regret that I spoke of you as I did yesterday," said the youth, remembering his insulting manner and the words at the door of the inn.

"It is not at once that we know either our friends or our foes," replied Raphael.

"But you will be my friend—I know it—I can trust you!" exclaimed Horace, an eager hope arising in his heart; and, speaking in English, in a low, rapid tone, he offered the Italian a large reward—a thousand ducats—two—three—if he would aid him in effecting his escape, and so restore him to freedom and safety.

Raphael knitted his brows, and shook his head sadly in reply.

"It would be a noble deed—it would be to rescue a fellow-creature from danger—"

"And to deliver my only brother to death," interrupted Raphael, pointing to the sleeper at his side.

"Matteo would never—"

"Matteo has vowed that Enrico shall answer for your safe keeping with his life: Matteo never breaks such a vow," said Raphael, speaking in imperfect English.

"But he cannot be such a ruffian as to murder his own follower," pursued Horace, who was unwilling to let go his only hope of escape.

"He would do it—nor would it be for the first time," said Raphael, his face darkening with some recollection of horror; "it was not by the hand of soldier or executioner that Carlo perished in the wood!"

Horace felt the blood run cold in his veins, yet his intense desire for freedom made him once more return to the subject. "If Matteo be so merciless," he said, "how dared you provoke his anger last night?"

"I had my message to give, and I gave it," replied the improvisatore; "he who builds on the brink of a volcano does so with the knowledge that the lava may one day overflow. Yet do I stand on vantage ground, and Matteo would bear from me what he would bear from no one beside."

"Why so?" inquired young Cleveland.

"He has an old wound in his thigh, which, having been imperfectly healed, has broken out afresh. Having gained, when I was very young, some slight knowledge of surgery from my grandfather, I am able to afford him such aid as the chief would be loath to lose. Besides," continued Raphael, "Matteo has a passionate love for melody, the one softening quality yet left him; and words are endured when clothed in music which, without it, would be perilous in the utterance. I must now depart; the band usually pursue their work at dusk, but mine requires the daylight." Raphael now spoke in his native tongue, being so little conversant with English that he was obliged, when using that language, to interpolate many words from his own.

"Do not leave me!" exclaimed Horace, who already looked upon the Rossignol as his only earthly protector.

"There is a villager sick, perhaps dying, whom I must see, and others who must not vainly expect me. I will, please Heaven, return before dark; and will, ere I go, bring you food to supply the wants of the day."

So saying, Raphael with a light step descended the rude steps which led to the body of the cave, and soon returned with a plentiful supply of better fare than Horace would have expected to find in such a place. His appetite was now keen, as he had eaten nothing since he had left the inn on the mountain.

"How shall I ever repay you for your kindness to a prisoner?" he said to Raphael.

"I shall ask a favor of you this evening," replied the Rossignol, "which, if granted, will richly repay any slight services which I can render. I must go now—the day advances—but I leave you with little anxiety; while Otto lives, your life is perfectly safe from any deed of violence. Annoyance or insult you may have to endure, but a brave youth, as I doubt not that you are, can endure hardness like a good soldier of the cross."

The last words, and the glance which accompanied them, acted on the spirit of Horace like the sound of a trumpet. Refreshed by his morning ablutions and the food of which he had partaken, not only the youth's bodily frame felt invigorated, but his mind rebounded from its late depression with all the elasticity of hope. There were a thousand chances, Horace thought, in his favor. His mother might—would succeed in her efforts to effect his exchange with the bandit's son, or the government would be roused to send an overwhelming force to crush the robbers. Even failing this, Matteo himself might be bribed to release his captive, or Raphael, moved by generous compassion, aid him to effect his escape.

But why should he wait for Raphael?—The thought darted into the mind of Horace as he concluded his substantial meal. Could he not, without any assistance, recover the freedom which he had lost?

Young Cleveland glanced eagerly around—below—his heart throbbing high at the idea of such a feat as would establish his reputation as a hero for the rest of his days. The cavern was still perfectly quiet—the very bats had retired to rest—there was nothing but the sleeping figure of Enrico to betoken that the place was inhabited by any living creature but himself. The entrance was not bolted or barred, when Raphael had departed through the aperture, which was only distinguishable from the walls of the cave by its more intense blackness, no sentinel had challenged him for a pass-word.

Horace recollected, indeed, with uneasiness, that a robber had kept guard on the ledge of rock; but he hoped that at an hour so early as the present, no such precaution might be deemed needful. There must be danger, indeed, in an attempt to escape, but had not the peril in itself a certain indefinable charm? Horace had often longed for an adventure—here was one which had in it enough of romance to satisfy the most chivalrous spirit.

The only thing which presented any real difficulty to the boy's sanguine mind, was the bondage of his fetters; they not only cruelly impeded his movements, but made such a clanking as he walked, that it was certain to rouse the robbers. If Horace were once beyond the cave, the noise would signify less, but in that vaulted, echoing chamber, every sound was trebled. As his only resource, the youth half reclined on the rock and holding up the chain with one hand, so that the iron should not touch the stone, with the other, he helped to propel himself along in a slow and most uncomfortable manner.

Tedious and awkward as was this method of progression, it had at least the merit of being noiseless, and every yard crept over seemed to Horace to be a gigantic stride towards freedom. But oh, how distant seemed that yawning chasm through which the fugitive must make his way! How often he stopped in breathless anxiety to listen for sounds of pursuit!

At length the nearer end of the rocky passage was gained, and still perfect quiet reigned around; after their midnight revel, the bandits' slumbers were heavy and long. Horace had not crept far through the passage when the increasing light and the freshening air told of his approach to the outer world. He was so eager and impatient to reach it that the crouching position and slow progress to which he was confined became almost intolerably irksome. Horace had a vivid recollection of Enrico's threat; and the idea of being struck down like a rat in its hole, or shot in the back without the possibility of flight or resistance, increased the intensity of his desire to get beyond the perilous passage.

Horace reached the outer cave, which was light in comparison to that which he had quitted, though the entrance was much overgrown with plants. It opened upon the radiant east, and vivid though broken rays of sunshine were streaking with bright lines the rugged pavement and walls. "O blessed sunlight!" exclaimed the prisoner with transport, as, pushing the mantling foliage aside, he made his way into the open air, and sprang to his feet, feeling in the action as though he already were almost free!

Bright was the morning, splendid the view which the rocky platform without the cave commanded! An ocean of waving forest spread downwards—almond, olive, and palm, with a thick growth of underwood between, a wilderness of foliage, a labyrinth of wood, clothing the mountain-side, more than half-way up which the robber's den was situated. Horace had, however, no time now to indulge in admiration, or even to enjoy the sensation caused by the delicious air, and the knowledge that one great difficulty had been surmounted; he began at once to search anxiously for a downward path. The platform in front of the cave could only be quitted by descending such a rough, precipitous wall of rock, that a false step must have been fraught danger. Horace, twelve hours before, might with have gone down rapidly enough, but what was practicable to unfettered limbs was utterly impracticable to him now.

"I should but break a limb by attempting to get down!" exclaimed the almost despairing youth, after surveying again and again the rugged steep. "I cannot conceive how I ever mounted these rocks. Enrico dragged me up by sheer strength, or even his benevolent hint as to the quickening power of Matteo's stiletto would never have enabled me to climb. And even were I unshackled, and able to spring from rock to rock, by what clue could I find my way through that dense woodland before me? It shuts me in as effectually as bars and bolts could do. Oh, misery, to be thus mocked with the hope of freedom, only to find that, after all my exertions, it is impossible to escape!"

Horace was startled by a rough grasp on his shoulder. Turning sharply round, he beheld Enrico.

"So you thought to give us the slip!" exclaimed the bandit, significantly pointing to a pistol he carried in his belt. "Think you that if there had been a chance of our bird's escaping, we should not have clipped his wings more closely?"

"O Enrico!" exclaimed Horace with passionate earnestness, "you can help me—you can set me free. A file would be worth its weight in gold! Strike off my fetters—guide me through the wood, and the richest reward—"

"Name it again and I'll strike you dead!" cried Enrico, his sallow countenance assuming almost a livid hue.

"You are miserable here—your life is—"

Enrico gnashed his teeth with passion. "Whatever my life here may be," he exclaimed, "I am not going to fling it away in a mad attempt to rescue a stranger. Miserable I may be, but not insane enough to draw down upon my head the vengeance of a man who never forgives, and who, when he singles out a foe, never fails to make him a victim. Have I not seen Carlo lying in his blood? There is not one man in the band who would aid you to baffle Matteo, though you should promise him to fill that cave to the roof with silver and gold."

And with these words on his lips, the robber turned, and retired into the darkness of the cavern, leaving Horace to meditate on the desperate character of his own situation.