Ruggiero

“ The giant got the better of the knight; and having cast him on the ground, unloosed his helmet for the purpose of slaying him, when Ruggiero, to his horror, beheld in the youth's face that of his unworthily-treated mistress Bradamante. He rushed to assault her enemy; but the giant, seizing her in his arms, took to his heels; and the penitent lover followed him with all his might, but in vain. The wretch was hidden from his eyes by the trees. At length Ruggiero, incessantly pursuing him, issued forth into a great meadow, containing a noble mansion ”

“ Ruggiero's had been better, as a little true steel is better than much iron at certain moments in life. It succeeded very well at the moment, but its ultimate success would have been surer if it had reached no ears but Beatrice's. Neither she nor San Miniato were aware that a few feet below them a man was lying on his back, with white face and clenched hands, staring at the pale moonlit sky above him, and listening in stony despair to every word that was spoken. ”

“ Ruggiero is not a great signore like the Count of San Miniato, but he is a man. And he has two arms which are good, and two fists as hard as an ox's hoofs, and he can break horse-shoes with his hands. ”

“ He looked steadily at the dancing waves to windward, and set his lips tightly together.
"I would like to ask that sailor what he thinks of love and charm, and all the rest of it," said Beatrice. "His ideas would be interesting."
Ruggiero's blue eyes turned slowly upon her, with an odd expression.
Then he looked away again.
"I will ask him," said San Miniato in a low voice. "Ruggiero!"
"Excellency!"
"We want to know what you think about love. What is the best quality a woman can have?"
"To be honest," answered Ruggiero promptly. ”

“ Nor did it strike Ruggiero as at all improbable that Beatrice might some day wish to be rid of the Conte di San Miniato, and might express such a wish, ever so vaguely, within Ruggiero's hearing. He had the bad taste to judge her by himself, and of course if she really hated her betrothed she would wish him to die. It was a sin, doubtless, to wish anybody dead, and it was a greater sin to put out one's hands and kill the person in question. ”

“ One would tire of camelias, but one would never be tired of violets. They have something—who knows?"
"That is it, Ruggiero," said San Miniato, delighted with the result of his experiment. "And charm is the same thing in a woman. One is never tired of it, and yet it is not honesty, nor beauty, nor economy."
"I understand, Excellency—è la femmina—it is the womanly."
"Bravo, Ruggiero!" exclaimed Beatrice again. "You are a man of heart. And if you found a woman who was honest and beautiful and economical and 'femmina,' as you say, would you love her?" ”

“ How could she love a common man like himself? But she did not love San Miniato either, and unless something were done quickly she would be forced into marrying him. Of course a mother could make her daughter marry whom she pleased. Ruggiero knew that. The only way of saving Beatrice was to make an end of San Miniato, and that was a very simple matter indeed. San Miniato would be but a poor thing in those great hands of Ruggiero's, though he was a well grown man and still young and certainly stronger than the average of fine gentlemen. ”

“ The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men.
Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. ”

“ The night breeze was blowing in gusts off the shore, as it always does after a hot day in the summer, and Ruggiero took advantage of every puff of wind, while the men pulled in the intervals of calm. The starlight was very bright and the air so clear that the lights of Naples shone out distinctly, the beginning of the chain of sparks that lies like a necklace round the sea from Posilippo to Castellamare. The air was soft and dry, so that there was not the least moisture on the gunwale of the boat. Every one was silent. ”

“ So I have told my tale, such as it is, how Ruggiero of the Children of the King gave himself body and soul to free Beatrice Granmichele from a life's bondage. She wore mourning a whole year for her affianced husband, but the mourning in her heart was for the strong, brave, unreasoning man, who, utterly unloved, had given all for her sake, in this world and the next. ”

“ Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy brass tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master's skull. Once would be enough.
"Whose love?" asked Beatrice innocently.
San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly.
"Well?" asked Beatrice. "Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place—Timbuctoo, for instance—a heaven for you?"
"Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance," said San Miniato. ”

“ Ruggiero nodded carelessly.
"A Sicilian lady who has a cutter?"
"Yes."
"Her daughter is going to marry a certain Conte di San Miniato—a great signore—of those without soldi."
The sailor coiled the plaited sinnet neatly over his bare arm, but looked up as Ruggiero uttered an exclamation.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked.
Ruggiero's face was quite red and his broad chest heaved as he bit his lip and thrust his hands into his pockets. His companion repeated his question.
"Nothing is the matter," answered Ruggiero. "Wake up the Cripple and see if there is everything for rigging the boat. ”

“ It is easy when a woman is sitting apart and a man brings her good food and wine—you could have spoken a word into her ear."
Ruggiero was silent, but he slowly nodded twice, then shook his head.
"You do not say anything," continued Bastianello, "and you do wrong. What I tell you is true, and you cannot deny it. After all, we are men and they are women. Are they to speak first?" ”

“ CHAPTER IV. Ruggiero found out before long that his master for the summer was eccentric in his habits, judging from the Sorrentine point of view in regard to order and punctuality. Ruggiero's experience of fine gentlemen was limited indeed, but he could not believe that they all behaved like San Miniato, whose temper was apparently as changeable as his tastes. ”

“ Ruggiero stared at him.
"Eh! A girl here and there—in Buenos Ayres, in New Orleans—what has that to do with it? You—what the malora—the plague—are you talking about? Eh? Explain a little."
"You had better go back to Buenos Ayres, or to some other place where you will not see the lady any more," said the chemist. "You are in love with her. That is all the matter."
"I, with a gran' signora, a great lady! You are crazy, Don Ciccio!"
"Crazy or not—tell me to-morrow whether your heart does not beat every time she looks at you. As for her being a great lady—we are men, and they are women." ”

“ Those rough southern sailors sometimes have a wonderful keenness in discovering the meaning of their masters' doings. Ruggiero held the key to the situation. He knew that San Miniato was poor and that the Marchesa was very rich. He knew very well that San Miniato was not at all in love, for he knew what love really meant, and he could see how the Count always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. ”

“ Ruggiero trimmed the sails to suit the course chosen by his master as well as possible, but straightway the boat was up in the wind again if she had been going free, or was falling off if the tacks were down and the sheets well aft. San Miniato was one of those men who seem quite incapable of doing anything sensible from the moment they leave the land till they touch it again, when their normal common sense returns, and they once more become human beings. ”

“ So the afternoon wore on, bright and cloudless, and when the air grew cool Beatrice and her mother drove out together along the Massa road, and far up the hill towards Sant' Agata. They talked little, for it is not easy to talk in the rattling little carriages which run so fast behind the young Turkish horses, and the roads are not always good, even in summer. But San Miniato was left to his own devices and went and bathed, walking out into the water as far as he could and then standing still to enjoy the coolness. Ruggiero saw him from the breakwater and watched him with evident interest. ”

“ It was splendid to think of your dashing up in your gondola, and carrying off my pretty cousins from the clutches of that villain, Ruggiero Mocenigo, just as he was about to lay his hands on them."
"Are you sure it was Ruggiero, Matteo?"
"Oh, there can't be any doubt about it. You know, he had asked for Maria's hand, and when Polani refused him, had gone off muttering threats. You know what his character is. He is capable of any evil action; besides, they say that he has dissipated his patrimony, in gaming and other extravagances at Constantinople, and is deep in the hands of the Jews. ”

“ He did not try to understand how it all was, but his instinct told him that she had been tricked into saying the words she had spoken to San Miniato at Tragara, and that she had never meant them. That at least was more comprehensible to him than it might have been to a man of Beatrice's own class. Her head had been turned for a moment, as Ruggiero would have said, and afterwards she had understood the truth. He had heard many stories of the kind from his companions. Women were changeable, of course. Every one knew that. ”

“ Ruggiero had never valued his life very highly, and since he had loved Beatrice he did not value it a straw. This state of mind can make a man an exceedingly dangerous person, especially when he is so endowed that he can tear a new horse shoe in two with his hands, and break a five franc piece with his thumbs and forefingers as another man breaks a biscuit. ”

“ He was smoking a clay pipe with a cane stem, and he was thinking vaguely of Teresina, wondering whether Ruggiero would never speak to her, and if he never did, whether he, Bastianello, might not at last have his turn.
A number of small boys were bathing in the bright sunshine, diving off the stones of the breakwater and running along the short pier, brown urchins with lithe thin limbs, matted black hair and beady eyes. Suddenly Bastianello was aware of a small dark face and two little hands holding upon the gunwale of his boat. ”

“ San Miniato bit his lip, for he was not pleased. Her answer augured ill for the success of the plan he meant to put into execution that very evening. He felt strongly incensed against Ruggiero, too, without in the least understanding the reason.
"You will find out some day, Donna Beatrice, that those who are most in earnest are not those who make the most passionate speeches."
"Ah! Is that true? How strange! I should have supposed that if a man said nothing it was because he had nothing to say. But you have such novel theories!" ”

“ Possibly he knew of reasons why it should be good to gamble on one day and not upon another. Then he had his fits of amateur seamanship, when he would insist upon taking the tiller from Ruggiero's hand. The latter, on such occasions, remained perched upon the stern in case of an emergency. San Miniato was a thorough landsman and never understood why the wind always seemed to change, or die away, or do something unexpected so soon as he began to steer the boat. From time to time Ruggiero, by way of a mild hint, held up his palm to the breeze, but San Miniato did not know what the action meant. ”

“ For it was as easy to say that the Count kissed her as to say that she would not let him, and he would have had the tobacco all the same."
"May he die of a stroke!" muttered Ruggiero.
"But if I were in your place," said his brother calmly, "I would not do anything to your padrone, because the girl is a good girl and gave him the good answer, and as for him—" Bastianello shrugged his shoulders.
"May the sharks get his body and the devil get his soul!"
"That will be as it shall be," answered Bastianello. "And it is sure that if God wills, the grampuses will eat him. But we do not know the end. ”

“ Certain curious antecedent facts justified the power which Ruggieri exerted over his mistress till her latest breath. One of the most learned men of the sixteenth century was beyond doubt the physician to Catherine's father, Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. This leech was known as Ruggiero the elder (vecchio Ruggier, and in French Roger l'Ancien, with authors who have written concerning alchemy) , to distinguish him from his two sons, Lorenzo Ruggiero, called the Great by writers on the Cabala, and Cosmo Ruggiero, Catherine's astrologer, also known as Roger by various French historians. ”

“ CHAPTER V. San Miniato did not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship.
"You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara," observed the Marchesa languidly. "But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. ”