# Little Novels of Italy/The Judgment of Borso/Chapter 7

VII
THE CAPTAIN'S TREADINGS
While Angioletto and his Bellaroba dwelt in a paradise, none the less glorious for being as sooty as the darkness which veiled it, the estate of Captain Mosca, that hungry swordsman, was most unhappy. Divorced from bed and board, cast off by his mistress, and not yet adopted by his master, the poor man felt dimly about for supports, conscious that his treadings had well-nigh slipped. At such a time the gentle eyes of Bellaroba—nobody's enemy—courted him, like a beam of firelight on a rain-scoured street, with a smiling invitation to share the peace within doors. He hung uneasily about the gateways in these days, cold-elbowed by the lackeys, ignored by the higher sort, unseen by the quality; he burnished the lintels with his shoulder-blades, chewed many straws, counted the flagstones, knew the hours by the signals of his stomach. Then, if by hazard Bellaroba should come dancing by with a "Good morning, Signor Capitano," a "Come sta?" or, prettier still, a bright "Sta bene?" what wonder if the man of rage humbled himself before the little Maid of Honour? What wonder, again, if she, out of the overflowings of her happiness, should give him an alms?
No wonder at all, but pity there should be; for ​the Captain played an unworthy part. I suppose his standard was not very high. I know he was hungry; I know that nothing degrades a man so low as degradation—since what he believes himself, that he is; but I find it hard to excuse him for draining Bellaroba of her little secrets. Judas that he was, he took her sop, and then sold her for thirty pieces of silver.
The draining of a well so limpid was the easiest thing in the world. She was too absurdly happy, too triumphant altogether in the successful craft of her brilliant little lord, to be continent. She dealt in semi-transparent mystery with her manipulator from the moment he had won her compassion. Her secret was none from the first, or it was like the secret which a child will tell you, all the louder for being said in your ear.
"My dear little friend," said the smirking Captain, when he had it, "what you tell me there is as wine in my blood. I declare it sets me singing tunes."
"Ah, but he is wonderful, my Angioletto," said she, and her eyes grew larger for the thought of him.
"For a stripling of his inches he beats any cock that ever fought a main," Mosca declared; "blood of Blood, but he does! What and if he did square up to me—do I bear a grudge? Never, upon my body."
"You will not—you would not—ah, tell Olimpia of this, Signor Capitano?" she hazarded. The Captain stroked one eye with the back of his finger. He looked pityingly upon her with the other.
​"Ah, my dear soul," he said, sighing, "could you think it of old Mosca?"
Bellaroba hastened to disclaim. "No, no, no, I did not think it, Signor Capitano. But for a minute I had a little fear. Olimpia never loved Angioletto at all, and I don't think she loves me very much—now."
"To be plain with you, my lamb," said the Mosca, "she has no such vasty love for me. I have not set foot within her door since a certain day you may remember."
The girl shivered. "If I remember it! Ah, Madonna delle Grazie, she had a devil that day!"
"She had seven, I'm sure of it," cried the Captain. "So I leave you to judge how much of your story she may worm out of me."
He so beamed upon her, kissed her hands with such a lofty stoop, that she felt ashamed of herself, and begged his pardon.
This brought the Captain to his knees. "By the God who made the Jews," he swore, "I leave not this raw flagstone till you have unsaid those words!"
In the end, after a prodigious fuss, he drifted away down the corridor and left her to go about her business.
But he drifted not very far. He felt himself full of affairs which were as meat and drink to his spirit starved by neglect. It was so great a thing to have a pretext for approaching Count Guarini. That young lord had a way like a keen-edged knife. You might weave a whole vestment about your errand, fold upon fold of ingenious surmise, argument pro, argument con; Guarino Guarini ​would dart eyes upon you—slash! he had rent your fabric and discovered you naked underneath, a liar ready for the whip. Nor, to do him justice, did he ever fail to apply it. Truth was, indeed, the only key to Guarino's chamber.
Truth, and timely truth, was what the Captain felt he had at last. With it he braved the supercilious doorkeeper; with it he forced the fellow to lift his intolerable eyelids.
"By the powers of darkness, my friend," he said, "it will be a bad day's work for you if you deny me this time." So he won his admission and faced his master.
"Now, Mosca, your lie," said the Count, with his cold-steel delivery. Mosca did not stumble.
"Master," he said, "I can do you service."
"Do it then," whipped in the Count.
"I can tell your Excellence why he succeeds no better with La Bellaroba."
"Ah!" The Count was suspicious, but interested.
"The little lady has a lover."
"Body of a dog!"
"Body of Angioletto, Excellence."
"Angioletto? That spaniel? How many more laps will he cradle in? Cut his tongue out, my good fellow, and then come to me again."
"Excellence, may I speak?"
"I suppose so. Speak."
The Captain waited no further invitation, but told the whole story from the beginning. Guarino thought upon it for a moment.
"He will come to-night?" he asked.
​"Certain, Excellence."
"Then we have him. You have done well, Mosca—it was time, my friend, for you are an expensive hack to keep at grass. Now listen. Take Bellaroba away—command of the Contessa, of course. Take her to the little house in the Borgo. Make all fast, and return here in time for the steeple-jack. When you have him in the trap, run him through the body, raise the devil's uproar, and denounce him to the patrol. Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly, Excellence."
"Take my purse from the table and off with you then."
Captain Mosca bowed to the ground and backed out.