“I carried it behind the signore all the way,” he murmured with an air of secrecy; and Cosmo was moved to say: “You ought to have brought it to me at Cantelucci’s inn,” in a significant tone. The man made a deprecatory gesture and said in a low voice: “The signore may want it tonight.”
He was young. His eyes met Cosmo’s without flinching.
“I see,” whispered Cosmo. “What is going to be done with me?” The man looked away indifferently and said: “I am new at this work; but there is a post of royal gendarmerie on the other side of the harbour.”
He threw himself on the bench by Cosmo’s side, stretched his legs out, folded his arms across his breast, and yawned unconcernedly.
“Can I trust him?” Cosmo asked himself. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to him. The sbirro in the hat bustled out of the guardroom in great haste; the other two remained on guard; the sergeant sitting astride the chair folded his arms on the back of it and stared at the night through the open door. The sbirro by Cosmo’s side muttered, looking up at the ceiling: “I think Barbone is gone to find a boatman.” From this Cosmo understood that he was going to be taken across the harbour and given up to the gendarmes. He thought, “If they insist upon searching me I would have to submit and in any case a hat is not a hiding-place. I may just as well hand the packet over without a struggle.” A bright idea struck him. “If those fellows take me over there in a boat to save themselves the trouble of walking round the harbour I will simply contrive to drop my hat overboard—even if they do hold my arms during the passage.” He was now convinced that Attilio belonged to some secret society. He certainly was no common fellow. He wondered what had happened to him. Was he slinking and dodging about the low parts of the town on his way to some refuge; or had he really found the excitable man and the grumpy man still waiting under the tower with a boat? Most unlikely after such an alarming commotion of yells and shots. He feared that Attilio, unable to get away, could hardly avoid being caught tomorrow, or at the furthest next day. He himself obviously did not expect anything better; or else he would not have been so anxious to get rid of those papers. Cosmo concluded that conspirators were perfectly absurd with their passion for documents, which were invariably found at a critical time and sent them all to the gallows.
He noticed the eyes of the sergeant, a Croat, with pendent black moustaches, fixed on his hat, and at once felt uneasy as if he had belonged to a secret society himself. His hat was the latest thing in men’s round hats which he had bought in Paris. But, almost directly, the sergeant’s eyes wandered off to the doorway and resumed their stare. Cosmo was relieved. He decided, however, to attempt no communication with the young police fellow whose lounging attitude, abandoned and drowsy, and almost touching elbows with him, seemed to Cosmo too suggestive to be trustworthy. And indeed, he reflected, what could he do for him?
His excitement about this adventure was combined in a strange way with a state of inward peace which he had not known for hours. He wondered at his loyalty to the astute Attilio. He would have been justified in regarding the transaction as a scurvy trick; whereas he found that he could not help contemplating it as a matter of trust. He went on exercising his wits upon the problem of those documents (he was sure those were papers of some kind) which he had been asked to give to Cantelucci (how surprised he would be), since apparently the innkeeper was a conspirator too. Yet, he thought, it would be better to destroy them than to let them fall into the hands of the Piedmontese justice, or the Austrian military command. “I must contrive,” he thought, “to get rid of them in the boat. I can always shake my hat overboard accidentally.” But the packet would float and some boatman would be sure to find it during the day. On the other hand, by the time daylight came the handwriting would probably have become illegible. Or perhaps not? Fire, not water, was what he needed. If there had been a fire in that inexpressibly dirty guardroom he would have made use of it at once under the very noses of those wild-looking Croats. But would that have been the proper thing to do in such a hurry?
He had not come to any conclusion before Barbone returned, accompanied by a silver-haired, meek old fellow, with a nut-brown face, barefooted and bare-armed, and carrying a pair of sculls over his shoulder, whom Barbone pushed in front of the sergeant. The latter took his short pipe out of his mouth, spat on one side, looked at the old man with a fixed savage stare, and finally nodded. At Cosmo he did not look at all, but to Barbone he handed a key with the words, “Bring it back.” The sbirri closed
