“This is the eve
of a festival, Signora,” replied Maddelina; “and the peasants then
amuse themselves with all kinds of sports.”

“But they talked of a sea-nymph,” said Emily: “how came these good
people to think of a sea-nymph?”

“O, Signora,” rejoined Maddelina, mistaking the reason of Emily’s
surprise, “nobody _believes_ in such things, but our old songs tell of
them, and, when we are at our sports, we sometimes sing to them, and
throw garlands into the sea.”

Emily had been early taught to venerate Florence as the seat of
literature and of the fine arts; but, that its taste for classic story
should descend to the peasants of the country, occasioned her both
surprise and admiration. The Arcadian air of the girls next attracted
her attention. Their dress was a very short full petticoat of light
green, with a boddice of white silk; the sleeves loose, and tied up at
the shoulders with ribbons and bunches of flowers. Their hair, falling
in ringlets on their necks, was also ornamented with flowers, and with
a small straw hat, which, set rather backward and on one side of the
head, gave an expression of gaiety and smartness to the whole figure. When the song had concluded, several of these girls approached Emily,
and, inviting her to sit down among them, offered her, and Maddelina,
whom they knew, grapes and figs. Emily accepted their courtesy, much pleased with the gentleness and
grace of their manners, which appeared to be perfectly natural to them;
and when Bertrand, soon after, approached, and was hastily drawing her
away, a peasant, holding up a flask, invited him to drink; a
temptation, which Bertrand was seldom very valiant in resisting. “Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,” said the peasant,
“while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike
up! my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!”

They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a
circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in
unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly, and
Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her
misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive
melancholy of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the
company, listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it
bore it away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over
the waves and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along
these Tuscan shores. Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he
very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before
Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage. After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never
unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as
the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which
she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent
hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that
Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have
wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of
returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni’s motive for
sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could
she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on
this occasion. She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in
the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed to
her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though
this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,
that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would
escape the detection of Montoni. CHAPTER VIII

My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say. I play the torturer, by small and small,
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken. RICHARD II


We now return, for a moment, to Venice, where Count Morano was
suffering under an accumulation of misfortunes. Soon after his arrival
in that city, he had been arrested by order of the Senate, and, without
knowing of what he was suspected, was conveyed to a place of
confinement, whither the most strenuous enquiries of his friends had
been unable to trace him. Who the enemy was, that had occasioned him
this calamity, he had not been able to guess, unless, indeed, it was
Montoni, on whom his suspicions rested, and not only with much apparent
probability, but with justice. In the affair of the poisoned cup, Montoni had suspected Morano; but,
being unable to obtain the degree of proof, which was necessary to
convict him of a guilty intention, he had recourse to means of other
revenge, than he could hope to obtain by prosecution. He employed a
person, in whom he believed he might confide, to drop a letter of
accusation into the _Denunzie secrete_, or lions’ mouths, which are
fixed in a gallery of the Doge’s palace, as receptacles for anonymous
information, concerning persons, who may be disaffected towards the
state. As, on these occasions, the accuser is not confronted with the
accused, a man may falsely impeach his enemy, and accomplish an unjust
revenge, without fear of punishment, or detection. That Montoni should
have recourse to these diabolical means of ruining a person, whom he
suspected of having attempted his life, is not in the least surprising. In the letter, which he had employed as the instrument of his revenge,
he accused Morano of designs against the state, which he attempted to
prove, with all the plausible simplicity of which he was master; and
the Senate, with whom a suspicion was, at that time, almost equal to a
proof, arrested the Count, in consequence of this accusation; and,
without even hinting to him his crime, threw him into one of those
secret prisons, which were the terror of the Venetians, and in which
persons often languished, and sometimes died, without being discovered
by their friends. Morano had incurred the personal resentment of many members of the
state; his habits of life had rendered him obnoxious to some; and his
ambition, and the bold rivalship, which he discovered, on several
public occasions,—to others; and it was not to be expected, that mercy
would soften the rigour of a law, which was to be dispensed from the
hands of his enemies. Montoni, meantime, was beset by dangers of another kind. His castle was
besieged by troops, who seemed willing to dare everything, and to
suffer patiently any hardships in pursuit of victory. The strength of
the fortress, however, withstood their attack, and this, with the
vigorous defence of the garrison and the scarcity of provision on these
wild mountains, soon compelled the assailants to raise the siege.