"No matter; tell him to come and speak to me, and if he is an honest lad, I promise you, my child, that I will do anything in the world to promote your happiness."Nisida embraced her father effusively, and was beside herself with joy all day, waiting impatiently for the evening in order to give the young man such splendid news.Eligi Brancaleone was but moderately flattered, as you will easily believe, by the fisherman's magnanimous intentions towards him; but like the finished seducer that he was, he appeared enchanted at them.Recollecting his character as a fantastical student and an out-at-elbows poet, he fell upon his knees and shouted a thanksgiving to the planet Venus; then, addressing the young girl, he added, in a calmer voice, that he was going to write immediately to his own father, who in a week's time would come to make his formal proposal; until then, he begged, as a favour, that he might not present himself to Solomon nor to any person at all in the island, and assigned as a pretext a certain degree of shame which he felt on account of his old clothes, assuring his beloved that his father would bring him a complete outfit for the wedding-day.
While the ill-starred girl was thus walking in terrifying security at the edge of the precipice, Trespolo, following his master's wishes, had established himself in the island as a pilgrim from Jerusalem.
Playing his part and sprinkling his conversation with biblical phrases, which came to him readily, in his character of ex-sacristan, he distributed abundance of charms, wood of the true Cross and milk of the Blessed Virgin, and all those other inexhaustible treasures on which the eager devotion of worthy people daily feeds.His relics were the more evidently authentic in that he did not sell any of them, and, bearing his poverty in a holy manner, thanked the faithful and declined their alms.Only, out of regard for the established virtue of Solomon, he had consented to break bread with the fisherman, and went to take meals with him with the regularity of a cenobite.His abstinence aroused universal surprise: a crust dipped in water, a few nuts or figs sufficed to keep this holy man alive--to prevent him, that is to say, from dying.Furthermore, he entertained Nisida by his tales of his travels and by his mysterious predictions.
Unfortunately, he only appeared towards evening; for he spent the rest of the day in austerities and in prayers--in other words, in drinking like a Turk and snoring like a buffalo.
On the morning of the seventh day, after the promise given by the prince to the fisherman's daughter, Brancaleone came into his servant's room, and, shaking hint roughly, cried in his ear, "Up, odious marmot!"Trespolo, awakened suddenly, rubbed his eyes in alarm.The dead, sleeping peacefully at the bottom of their coffins, will be less annoyed at the last day when the trump of Judgment comes to drag them from their slumbers.Fear having, however, immediately dispersed the dark clouds that overspread his countenance, he sat up, and asked with an appearance of bewilderment--"What is the matter, your excellency?"
"The matter is that I will have you flayed alive a little if you do not leave off that execrable habit of sleeping twenty hours in the day.""I was not asleep, prince!" cried the servant boldly, as he sprang out of bed; "I was reflecting---""Listen to me," said the prince in a severe tone; "you were once employed, I believe, in a chemist's shop?""Yes, my lord, and I left because my employer had the scandalous barbarity to make me pound drugs, which tired my arms horribly.""Here is a phial containing a solution of opium.""Mercy!" cried Trespolo, falling on his knees.
"Get up, idiot, and pay great attention to what I am going to say to you.This little fool of a Nisida persists in wanting me to speak to her father.I made her believe that I was going away this evening to fetch my papers.There is no time to lose.They know you very well at the fisherman's.You will pour this liquid into their wine; your life will answer for your not giving them a larger dose than enough to produce a deep sleep.You will take care to prepare me a good ladder for to-night; after which you will go and wait for me in my boat, where you will find Numa and Bonaroux.They have my orders.
I shall not want you in scaling the fortress; I have my Campo Basso dagger.""But, my lord---" stammered Trespolo, astounded.
"No difficulties!" cried the prince, stamping his foot furiously, "or, by my father's death, I will cure you, once for all, of your scruples." And he turned on his heel with the air of a man who is certain that people will be very careful not to disobey his orders.
The unhappy Trespolo fulfilled his master's injunctions punctually.
With him fear was the guiding principle.That evening the fisherman's supper table was hopelessly dull, and the sham pilgrim tried in vain to enliven it by factitious cheerfulness.Nisida was preoccupied by her lover's departure, and Solomon, sharing unconsciously in his daughter's grief, swallowed but a drop or two of wine, to avoid resisting the repeated urgency of his guest.Gabriel had set out in the morning for Sorrento and was not to return for two or three days; his absence tended to increase the old man's melancholy.As soon as Trespolo had retired, the fisherman yielded to his fatigue.Nisida, with her arms hanging by her sides, her head heavy and her heart oppressed by a sad presentiment, had scarcely strength to go up to her room, and after having mechanically trimmed the lamp, sank on her bed as pale and stiff as a corpse.