And now Romola could see that the horseman was her husband, who had been sent to Pisa a few days before on a private embassy. The recognition brought no new flash of joy into her eyes. She had checked her first impulsive attitude of expectation; but her governing anxiety was still to know what news of relief had come for Florence.
“Good news!”
“Best news!”
“News to be paid with hose!” (novelle da calze) were the vague answers with which Tito met the importunities of the crowd, until he had succeeded in pushing on his horse to the spot at the meeting of the ways where the Gonfaloniere and the Priors were awaiting him. There he paused, and, bowing low, said—
“Magnificent Signori! I have to deliver to you the joyful news that the galleys from France, laden with corn and men, have arrived safely in the port of Leghorn, by favour of a strong wind, which kept the enemy’s fleet at a distance.”
The words had no sooner left Tito’s lips than they seemed to vibrate up the streets. A great shout rang through the air, and rushed along the river; and then another, and another; and the shouts were heard spreading along the line of the procession towards the Duomo; and then there were fainter answering shouts, like the intermediate plash of distant waves in a great lake whose waters obey one impulse.
For some minutes there was no attempt to speak further: the Signoria themselves lifted up their caps, and stood bareheaded in the presence of a rescue which had come from outside the limit of their own power—from that region of trust and resignation which has been in all ages called divine.
At last, as the signal was given to move forward, Tito said, with a smile—
“I ought to say, that any hose to be bestowed by the Magnificent Signoria in reward of these tidings are due, not to me, but to another man who had ridden hard to bring them, and would have been here in my place if his horse had not broken down just before he reached Signa. Meo di Sasso will doubtless be here in an hour or two, and may all the more justly claim the glory of the messenger, because he has had the chief labour and has lost the chief delight.”
It was a graceful way of putting a necessary statement, and after a word of reply from the Proposto, or spokesman of the Signoria, this dignified extremity of the procession passed on, and Tito turned his horse’s head to follow in its train, while the great bell of the Palazzo Vecchio was already beginning to swing, and give a louder voice to the people’s joy in that moment, when Tito’s attention had ceased to be imperatively directed, it might have been expected that he would look round and recognise Romola; but he was apparently engaged with his cap, which, now the eager people were leading his horse, he was able to seize and place on his head, while his right-hand was still encumbered by the olive-branch. He had a becoming air of lassitude after his exertions; and Romola, instead of making any effort to be recognised by him, threw her black drapery over her head again, and remained perfectly quiet. Yet she felt almost sure that Tito had seen her; he had the power of seeing everything without seeming to see it.
XLIV
The Visible Madonna
The crowd had no sooner passed onward than Romola descended to the street, and hastened to the steps of San Stefano. Cecco had been attracted with the rest towards the Piazza, and she found Baldassarre standing alone against the church-door, with the horn-cup in his hand, waiting for her. There was a striking change in him: the blank, dreamy glance of a half-returned consciousness had given place to a fierceness which, as she advanced and spoke to him, flashed upon her as if she had been its object. It was the glance of caged fury that sees its prey passing safe beyond the bars.
Romola started as the glance was turned on her, but her immediate thought was that he had seen Tito. And as she felt the look of hatred grating on her, something like a hope arose that this man might be the criminal, and that her husband might not have been guilty towards him. If she could learn that now, by bringing Tito face to face with him, and have her mind set at rest!
“If you will come with me,” she said, “I can give you shelter and food until you are quite rested and strong. Will you come?”
“Yes,” said Baldassarre, “I shall be glad to get my strength. I want to get my strength,” he repeated, as if he were muttering to himself, rather than speaking to her.
“Come!” she said, inviting him to walk by her side, and taking the way by the Arno towards the Ponte Rubaconte as the more private road.
“I think you are not a Florentine,” she said, presently, as they turned on to the bridge.
He looked round at her without speaking. His suspicious caution was more strongly upon him than usual, just now that the fog of confusion and oblivion was made denser by bodily feebleness. But she was looking at him too, and there was something in her gentle eyes which at last compelled him to answer her. But he answered cautiously—
“No, I am no Florentine; I am a lonely man.”
She observed his reluctance to speak to her, and dared not question him further, lest he should desire to quit her. As she glanced at him from time to time, her mind was busy with thoughts which quenched the faint hope that
