drawing tranquilly his pencil, he began to transfer the outlines of the brigand to his album, when the stranger, coming a few paces nearer to him, said, in a rough voice, —
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“Well, my good fellow, I come to take your portrait, if you’ll hold still a bit,” responded the painter.
“Ah, you jest with me! Have a care,” said the other, coming still nearer.
“No,” replied Salvator, seriously; “I am a painter; and I wander over these mountains with no other purpose but to admire these beautiful landscapes, and to sketch the most picturesque objects.”
“To sketch!” cried the brigand, with evident anger, hardly knowing what the word meant. “Do you not know that these mountains belong to us? Why do you come here to spy us out?”
At these words he gave a shrill whistle, and three other men, clothed like himself, came towards the spot from different directions.
“Seize this man!” he said to his companions; “he comes to observe us.”
All resistance was useless. And so, after having tried in vain to prove his innocence, the young man was surrounded and seized.
“March!” cried the man who had first met him. “You must talk with our chief.”
The leader of these brigands was a man about forty years of age, named Pietratesta. His great physical strength, his courage, and, more than all the rest, his energy, had made him a favorite among his companions, and given him authority over them. Famous among the mountains for his audacious crimes, condemned many times to an outlaw’s death, pursued in vain by the officers of the law, habituated for years to a life of adventure, pillage, and murder, he treated his prisoners without pity or mercy. All who were unable to purchase their liberty by paying whatever ransom he fixed, were put to death. He looked upon civilized people not as men, but as prizes.
As he saw the captive approach, he asked the usual question, —
“Who are you?”
“Salvator Rosa, a Neapolitan painter, now resident of Florence.”
“O, a painter! A poor prize, generally. But you are famous, I hear; the prince is your friend. Your pictures sell for very large prices. You must pay us ten thousand ducats.”
“Ten thousand ducats, indeed! Where do you suppose I can get so much?”
“Well, as for that, if you haven’t got the money, your friends must get it for you.”
“But my friends are not rich.”
“Ah, excuse me!” said the chief, smiling. “When one has a prince for a protector, he is always rich.”
“It is true that the prince is my patron; but he owes me nothing.”
“No matter if he don’t. He would not be deprived of such an artist as you for a paltry ten thousand ducats.”
“He pays me for my pictures; but he will not pay my ransom.”
“He must,” said the robber, emphatically; “so no more words. Ask your friends, if you prefer, or whoever you will; but bring me ten thousand ducats, and that within a month; otherwise you must die.”
As the chief uttered these words, he walked away, leaving Salvator in the middle of the ground which formed the camp.
During the short conversation two children came from one of the tents, being attracted by the noise. Their little blond heads, curiously turned towards the captive, their faces, tanned by the sun, but animated by the crimson of health and youth, and their picturesque costume had attracted the attention of the painter. When the chief had gone away, he approached them, and smiled. The children drew away abashed; then, reassured by the air of goodness which the young man wore, they came nearer, and permitted him to embrace them.
“Are you going to live with us?” said the eldest, who was about eight years of age.
“I don’t know, my little friend.”
“O, I wish you would! It is so nice to stop in these mountains. There are plenty of beautiful flowers, and birds’ nests, too. I have three already; I will show them to you, and then we will go and find some more. But what is that you have got under your arm?”
“It is my sketch-book.”
“A sketch-book? What is a sketch-book?”
“It is what I carry my pictures in.”
“Pictures? O, do let me see them!”
“Yes, indeed; here they are.”
“What pretty pictures! O, mother, come and see! Here are mountains, and men, and goats. Did you make them all?”
Attracted by the call of the child, a lady came out of the principal tent. She was yet young, tall, and covered with a medley of garments from various costumes. Her face sparkled with energy, and might have been called beautiful. She threw a sad glance at Salvator, and approached him haughtily, as if to give an order. But seeing the two children busily looking over the sketch-book, and observing the familiar way with which both treated their new acquaintance, she appeared to change her manner somewhat, and began to look at the pictures herself, and to admire them. At the end of half an hour the mother and the children seemed like old friends of Salvator Rosa.
The woman was the wife of the chief. A daughter of an honorable family, she married a young man at Pisa, her native city, who proved to be captain of this band of robbers. She could not well leave the company into which she had been betrayed; and so, with a noble self-denial, she became resigned to her hard lot. An unwilling witness of the many crimes of her husband and his companions, she suffered cruelly in her resignation. Yet her fidelity, her virtue, – things rarely known, but sometimes respected among these mountain brigands, – had given her a moral power over the men as well as over her husband. More than once she had used this means to temper their ferocity, and obtain pardon for their unfortunate prisoners.
Just then one of the brigands came and brought to the prisoner the order from the chief that he should write to his friends to obtain money for his ransom. The man was going, under a disguise, to the city of Florence; and he offered to deliver any letters intrusted to his care. He indicated the place where the ten thousand ducats must be left, so that Salvator might inform his correspondent.
Our hero had many devoted friends; but nearly all were artists like himself, and without fortune. Nevertheless, he decided to write to one of them. He gave orders that all the pictures in his studio should be sold. He hoped that the money which they would bring, together with what his friends could advance to him, would amount to the sum demanded by the chief.
This done, Salvator easily persuaded himself that he should soon be set at liberty, and the artist recovered his unconcern, and almost his usual good spirits. The country around him was full of romantic studies for his pencil. He had, besides, found in the society of the children of Pietratesta two charming companions. He instructed them in the elements of his art; and his pupils, to both of whom the study was quite new, seemed never to grow tired of their task.
In a moment of good humor, he drew caricatures of each member of the band, which created a great deal of amusement. Then he drew, with great care, the portraits of the two children. This attention profoundly touched the heart of the mother, and her tender sympathy, almost wasting among these unfeeling men, found a secret pleasure in rendering the captivity of the young painter less unhappy and less hard. She conversed with him familiarly, and it gave her great pleasure to see the care which he took to instruct her children.
So Salvator Rosa, to whom the band gave quite a considerable degree of liberty, never dreamed of taking improper advantage of it. Thanks to his fancy and his recklessness as an artist, he almost forgot that he was the prisoner of a cruel master, and that his life was in peril.
But the ransom, which he had sent for, came not. Whether the letters he had written failed to reach their destination, or whether his friends were deaf to his request for assistance, he received no answer. He wrote repeatedly, but always with the same result.
And