Claudia sighed. But her brother laughed. "Posterity!" he cried. "In imperishable verse I have enshrined your name." He pushed forward as he spoke. "Figlio d'Apollo! I had wellnigh forgotten the existence of my poem." The multitude swayed up and down delightedly. "The poem! The poem! Long life to Il Signore!" Salvator Rosa grasped me by the waist with a rough violence which deserved a protest. "Plots may end in confusion, conspiracies in failure. It is Art. alone which may survive a revolution." "If it be but Art," said Claudia wickedly. "I am Salvator Rosa," he answered, still gripping me until I winced. "Will you hear the ode, most puissant and most valiant fisherman? And you, most noble and most odorous people, is it your will that I declaim the masterpiece in which the memory of Naples' hero the uncrowned king to whom long clothes are so abhorrent-shall live as an example to your children's children? - The harangue was hardly at an end ere Masaniello had risen to his feet. With finger to his lip he bade the crowd keep silence. "My dear companions and my countrymen, let us give thanks to God and to Our Lady of the Carmine that the hour of our redemption and deliverance has dawned." With sparkling eyes he turned to Il Signore. "This humble fisherman-I, who barefooted like yourselves address you-shall be remembered through the ages as another Moses who delivered the Israelites from the cruel rod of Pharaoh." In a voice like thunder Salvator Rosa bellowed "Moses!" He was shaking with merriment. "We are no Jews that you should be our Moses. Nay, nay, good citizens, attune your thoughts to other things than Moses." He struck a majestic attitude and looked at Claudia. She smiled and spoke to Maso. He sat down heavily upon the chair; Claudia and I took up our places on each side of him. The crowd stood silent and expectant. Salvator Rosa moved to the right of us, pulled at his beard, and quietly surveyed the people. His tones were low at first, then swelling, rising to fortissimo. "Yes, think of him "-the words were but a whisper, yet they thrilled the multitude: "Yes, think of him who undismayed by death When a poor fisherman dictates to kings!" He paused, and, whipping his sword from his side, held it aloft to heaven. Slowly it sank to the salute, and rested motionless. "Mira in basso natale alma sublime Che per serbar della sua Patria i fregi His foot caught in his discarded mantle and he stopped abruptly. "Viva la Libertà!" he shouted. The crowd responded with tumultuous acclamation. He turned to Claudia. "I have surpassed myself," he said. "Let us depart and leave the Captain-General to his judgments." There was a shrill, hysterical cry from the lips of Masaniello. "My citizens, my people!" He swept to where a secretary sat below him. "Write, Marco Vitale, write. I command that the ode of Il Signore be printed forthwith as a broadside, that it be publicly displayed in every street in Naples. Holy Sant' Agnello! so shall the fame of a poor fisherman be cherished in eternal honour. He freed the helpless, he put down injustice, he dictated to kings! Write, Marco Vitale, write. I, Masaniello, have commanded it." Salvator Rosa flung a glowering glance back at the platform. "I am a poet," he said savagely; "a poet has no place in your conspiracies." We waited upon the outskirts of the crowd for but a moment. Then Claudia laughed mirthlessly. "Pray tell me, brother, who was Codrus and who Ancus?" And suddenly old Muzio peered in between us. Violenta," he croaked out cheerfully, "Violenta nemo imperia continuit diu ; He went with us, still chuckling, to the tavern. CHAPTER XXVI LORDS OF MISRULE LOOKING back, as I now do, with all the added experience of forty eventful years to guide me, I no longer wonder that the revolt of 1647 should have been destined to failure at the very moment when success attended it. The unexpected conduct of the CaptainGeneral was, I need scarcely say, a factor of the first importance in the matter. But I suspect upon reflection, and duly weighing all the circumstances, that in any case the enterprise was one which, however laudable in its motives and inception, could never have been engineered to a conclusion by those who were responsible for its control and management. Conspirators, in a word, need to be made of sterner stuff than is commonly to be found amid the ranks of an artistic brotherhood. When I recall the characters of the painters of the Neapolitan School during the first half of the present century, I am not surprised that a prospect of rebellion should have proved so attractive to men of their profession. It remains as true and as self-evident that no class of individual could well have been less fitted for the continuous and severely practical performance of the duties which they had voluntarily assumed in their excitable enthusiasm. Just as Salvator Rosa himself in the very hour of crisis would turn aside to indite an ode or to complete a study, so did the mercurial temperament of the Compagnia della Morte display itself in ways which still arouse in me the liveliest astonishment. Conspirators they might be while the mood sat on them; the duration of that mood depended on a variety of considerations which, with the gradual slackening of discipline, took little heed of public urgency. I do not exaggerate when I affirm that with my own eyes I have seen these men, returning after a day of reckless enforcement of order in the city, yawn, shrug their shoulders, and with an air of relief seek out some nook or cranny where by the dismal glimmer of a guttering torch they would devote the hours of the night-hours maybe in which our hopes hung in the balance to the almost frenzied execution of sensational barbaric paintings, which they invariably declared would bring within their grasp the elusive fame they coveted. Nay, further, to such a pitch did not a few of my fantastic comrades carry this wholly superfluous energy that, for the sake of transferring a transient and not always accurate impression to their canvas, they would, in a moment of necessity, plead the wildest excuses for the non-performance of their duties. Some were poor and must earn bread, yet I confess that I have never known who bought their pictures; others- But it were profitless to dwell at further length upon their subterfuges. Let me be satisfied to say that to his nocturnal labours during those few days Carlo Coppola was indebted for the first beginnings of that blindness which so shortly put an end to his career of promise. I yield to no man in my loyalty to Salvator Rosa. The fact does not prevent me from stating these things as I saw them. Distracted between Art and Politics, the Company of Death, even did we leave upon one side the incipient madness of the Captain-General, was foredoomed to failure. I speak as an experienced campaigner. Warfare becomes hopeless when erratic genius is the main and only qualification of those whose responsibility it is to guide such matters to an issue. I remember a subordinate of my own, a Captain Bardeleben, who by his partiality for composing verses-verses which I cheerfully admit secured for him the not unmerited approval of good judges-came perilously near on one occasion, in an ill-timed flash of poetic inspiration, to sacrificing at the altar of his muse |