ni procession passed along
the fortress hill, Martini should step forward out of the crowd, draw a
pistol from his breast, and fire in the Governor's face. In the moment
of wild confusion which would follow twenty armed men were to make a
sudden rush at the gate, break into the tower, and, taking the turnkey
with them by force, to enter the prisoner's cell and carry him bodily
away, killing or overpowering everyone who interfered with them. From
the gate they were to retire fighting, and cover the retreat of a second
band of armed and mounted smugglers, who would carry him off into a safe
hiding-place in the hills. The only person in the little group who knew
nothing of the plan was Gemma; it had been kept from her at Martini's
special desire. "She will break her heart over it soon enough," he had
said.

As the smuggler came in at the garden gate Martini opened the glass door
and stepped out on to the verandah to meet him.

"Any news, Marcone? Ah!"

The smuggler had pushed back his broad-brimmed straw hat.

They sat down together on the verandah. Not a word was spoken on either
side. From the instant when Martini had caught sight of the face under
the hat-brim he had understood.

"When was it?" he asked after a long pause; and his own voice, in his
ears, was as dull and wearisome as everything else.

"This morning, at sunrise. The sergeant told me. He was there and saw
it."

Martini looked down and flicked a stray thread from his coat-sleeve.

Vanity of vanities; this also is vanity. He was to have died to-morrow.
And now the land of his heart's desire had vanished, like the fairyland
of golden sunset dreams that fades away when the darkness comes; and he
was driven back into the world of every day and every night--the
world of Grassini and Galli, of ciphering and pamphleteering, of party
squabbles between comrades and dreary intrigues among Austrian spies--of
the old revolutionary mill-round that maketh the heart sick. And
somewhere down at the bottom of his consciousness there was a great
empty place; a place that nothing and no one would fill any more, now
that the Gadfly was dead.

Someone was asking him a question, and he raised his head, wondering
what could be left that was worth the trouble of talking about.

"What did you say?"

"I was saying that of course you will break the news to her."

Life, and all the horror of life, came back into Martini's face.

"How can I tell her?" he cried out. "You