To estimate at its full value the heroic courage of this unhappy father, one must take a general view of the whole extent of his misfortune.Overwhelmed by age and grief, he looked forward with solemn calmness to the terrible moment which would bear his son, a few days before him, to the grave.His sharpest agony was the thought of the shame that would envelop his family.The first scaffold erected in that gently mannered island would arise for Gabriel, and that ignominious punishment tarnish the whole population and imprint upon it the first brand of disgrace.By a sad transition, which yet comes so easily in the destiny of man, the poor father grew to long for those moments of danger at which he had formerly trembled, those moments in which his son might have died nobly.And now all was lost: a long life of work, of abnegation, and of good deeds, a pure and stainless reputation that had extended beyond the gulf into distant countries, and the traditional admiration, rising almost to worship, of several generations; all these things only served to deepen the pit into which the fisherman had fallen, at one blow, from his kingly height.Good fame, that divine halo without which nothing here on earth is sacred, had disappeared.Men no longer dared to defend the poor wretch, they pitied him.His name would soon carry horror with it, and Nisida, poor orphan, would be nothing to anyone but the sister of a man who had been condemned to death.Even Bastiano turned away his face and wept.Thus, when every respite was over, when poor Solomon's every attempt had failed, people in the town who saw him smile strangely, as though under the obsession of some fixed idea, said to one another that the old man had lost his reason.
Gabriel saw his last day dawn, serenely and calmly.His sleep had been deep; he awoke full of unknown joy; a cheerful ray of sunlight, falling through the loophole, wavered over the fine golden straw in his cell; an autumn breeze playing around him, brought an agreeable coolness to his brow, and stirred in his long hair.The gaoler, who while he had had him in his charge had always behaved humanely, struck by his happy looks, hesitated to announce the priest's visit, in fear of calling the poor prisoner from his dream.Gabriel received the news with pleasure; he conversed for two hours with the good priest, and shed sweet tears on receiving the last absolution.
The priest left the prison with tears in his eyes, declaring aloud that he had never in his life met with a more beautiful, pure, resigned, and courageous spirit.
The fisherman was still under the influence of this consoling emotion when his sister entered.Since the day when she had been carried, fainting, from the room where her brother had just been arrested, the poor girl, sheltered under the roof of an aunt, and accusing herself of all the evil that had befallen, had done nothing but weep at the feet of her holy protectress.Bowed by grief like a young lily before the storm, she would spend whole hours, pale, motionless, detached from earthly things, her tears flowing silently upon her beautiful clasped hands.When the moment came to go and embrace her brother for the last time, Nisida arose with the courage of a saint.
She wiped away the traces of her tears, smoothed her beautiful black hair, and put on her best white dress.Poor child, she tried to hide her grief by an angelic deception.She had the strength to smile!
At the sight of her alarming pallor Gabriel felt his heart wrung, a cloud passed over his eyes; he would have run to meet her, but, held back by the chain which fettered him to a pillar of his prison, stepped back sharply and stumbled.Nisida flew to her brother and upheld him in her arms.The young girl had understood him; she assured him that she was well.Fearing to remind him of his terrible position, she spoke volubly of all manner of things--her aunt, the weather, the Madonna.Then she stopped suddenly, frightened at her own words, frightened at her own silence; she fixed her burning gaze upon her brother's brow as though to fascinate him.Little by little animation returned to her; a faint colour tinted her hollowed cheeks, and Gabriel, deceived by the maiden's super human efforts, thought her still beautiful, and thanked God in his heart for having spared this tender creature.Nisida, as though she had followed her brother's secret thoughts, came close to him, pressed his hand with an air of understanding, and murmured low in his ear, "Fortunately our father has been away for two days; he sent me word that he would be detained in town.For us, it is different; we are young, we have courage!"The poor young girl was trembling like a leaf.
"What will become of you, my poor Nisida?""Bah! I will pray to the Madonna.Does she not watch over us?" The girl stopped, struck by the sound of her own words, which the circumstances so cruelly contradicted.But looking at her brother, she went on in a low tone: "Assuredly she does watch over us.She appeared to me last night in a dream.She held her child Jesus on her arm, and looked at me with a mother's tenderness.She wishes to make saints of us, for she loves us; and to be a saint, you see, Gabriel, one must suffer.""Well, go and pray for me, my kind sister; go away from the view of this sad place, which will eventually shake your firmness, and perhaps mine.Go; we shall see each other again in heaven above, where our mother is waiting for us--our mother whom you have not known, and to whom I shall often speak of you.Farewell, my sister, until we meet again!"And he kissed her on the forehead.
The young girl called up all her strength into her heart for this supreme moment; she walked with a firm step; having reached the threshold, she turned round and waved him a farewell, preventing herself by a nervous contraction from bursting into tears, but as soon as she was in the corridor, a sob broke from her bosom, and Gabriel, who heard it echo from the vaulted roof, thought that his heart would break.