Somerset Maugham - The Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (33 Works in One Edition)

'Be brave, Checco!' said Matteo.

'It is the highest thing of all that we ask you,' added Bartolomeo. 'Man can do nothing greater. We ask you to sacrifice yourself, even your soul, may be, for the good of us all.'

Checco buried his face in his hands and groaned,—

'Oh, God! Oh, God!'

Then, with a great sigh, he rose and said,—

'Be it as you will.... For the good of my country!'

'Ah, thanks, thanks!'

Bartolomeo took him in his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. Then suddenly Checco tore himself away.

'But listen to this, all of you. I have consented, and now you must let me speak. I swear that in this thing I have no thought of myself. If I alone were concerned I would not move; I would wait for the assassin's knife calmly. I would even sacrifice my wife and children, and God knows how dearly I love them! I would not stir a finger to save myself. And I swear, by all that is most holy to me, that I am actuated by no base motive, no ambition, no thought of self, no petty revenge. I would willingly forgive Girolamo everything. Believe me, my friends, I am honest. I swear to you that I am only doing this for the welfare of the men I love, for the sake of you all, and—for Liberty.'

They warmly pressed his hands.

'We know it, Checco, we believe it. You are a great and a good man.'

A little later we began to discuss the ways and means. Everyone had his plan, and to it the others had the most conclusive objections. We all talked together, each one rather annoyed at the unwillingness of the others to listen to him, and thinking how contemptible their ideas were beside his own. Checco sat silent. After a while Checco spoke,—

'Will you listen to me?'

We held our tongues.

'First of all,' he said, 'we must find out who is with us and who is against us.'

'Well,' interrupted Scipione, 'there are the two soldiers, Jacopo Ronchi and Lodovico Pansecchi; they are furious with the Count, and said to me a long while since that they would willingly kill him.'

'Our six selves and those two make eight.'

'Then there are Pietro Albanese, and Paglianino, and Marco Scorsacana.'

They were devoted adherents of the house of Orsi, and could be trusted to follow the head of the family to the bottomless pit.

'Eleven,' counted Bartolomeo.

'And then—'

Each mentioned a name till the total was brought to seventeen.

'Who else?' asked Matteo.

'That is enough,' said Checco. 'It is as foolish to have more than necessary as to have less. Now, once more, who are they?'

The names were repeated. They were all known enemies of the Count, and most of them related to the Orsi.

'We had better go to them separately and talk to them.'

'It will want care!' said Bartolomeo.

'Oh, they will not be backward. The first word will bring their adhesion.'

'Before that,' said Checco, 'we must make all arrangements. Every point of the execution must be arranged, and to them nothing left but the performance.'

'Well, my idea is—'

'Have the goodness to listen to me,' said Checco. 'You have been talking of committing the deed in church, or when he is out walking. Both of those ways are dangerous, for he is always well surrounded, and in the former, one has to remember the feeling of horror which the people have for sacrilege. Witness Galeazzo in Milan and the Medici in Florence. One is always wise to respect the prejudices of the mob....'

'What do you propose?'

'After the mid-day meal the—our friend is in the habit of retiring to a private room while his servants dine. He is then almost alone. I have often thought it would be an excellent opportunity for an assassin; I did not know it would be myself to take the opportunity.'

He paused and smiled at the pleasantness of the irony.

'Afterwards we shall raise the town, and it is well that as many of our partisans as possible be present. The best day for that is a market-day, when they will come in, and we shall have no need of specially summoning them, and thus giving rise to suspicion.'

Checco looked at us to see what we thought of his idea; then, as if from an after thought, he added,—

'Of course, this is all on the spur of the moment.'

It was well he said that, for I was thinking how elaborately everything was planned. I wondered how long he had the scheme in his head.

We found nothing to say against it.

'And who will do the actual deed?'

'I will!' answered Checco, quietly.

'You!'

'Yes, alone. I will tell you your parts later.'

'And when?'

'Next Saturday. That is the first market-day.'

'So soon.' We were all surprised; it was only five days off, it gave us very little time to think. It was terribly near. Alessandro voiced our feelings.

'Does that give us enough time? Why not Saturday week? There are many needful preparations.'

'There are no needful preparations. You have your swords ready; the others can be warned in a few hours. I wish it were to-morrow.'

'It is—it is very soon.'

'There is less danger of our courage failing meanwhile. We have our goal before us, and we must go to it straight, with clearness of mind and strength of will.'

There was nothing more to be said. As we separated, one of the Moratini asked,—

'About the others, shall we—'

'You can leave everything to me. I take all on my hands. Will you three come here to play a game of chess on Friday night at ten? Our affairs will occupy us so that we shall not meet in the interval. I recommend you to go about as much as possible, and let yourselves be seen in all assemblies and parties....'

Checco was taking his captaincy in earnest. He would allow no contradiction, and no swerving from the path he had marked out—on the spur of the moment.

We had four days in which to make merry and gather the roses; after that, who knows? We might be dangling from the Palace windows in an even line, suspended by elegant hempen ropes; or our heads might be decorating spear heads and our bodies God knows where. I suggested these thoughts to Matteo, but I found him singularly ungrateful. Still, he agreed with me that we had better make the most of our time, and as it accorded with Checco's wishes, we were able to go to the devil from a sense of duty. I am sure Claudia never had a lover more ardent than myself during these four days; but, added to my duties towards that beautiful creature, were routs and banquets, drinking-parties, gaming-parties, where I plunged heavily in my uncertainty of the future, and consequently won a fortune. Checco had taken on his own shoulders all preparations, so that Matteo and I had nothing to do but to enjoy ourselves; and that we did. The only sign I had that Checco had been working was a look of intelligence given me by one or two of those whose names had been mentioned in Checco's study. Jacopo Ronchi, taking leave of me on the Thursday night, said,—

'We shall meet to-morrow.'

'You are coming to play chess, I think,' I said, smiling.

When, at the appointed hour, Matteo and I found ourselves again in Checco's study, we were both rather anxious and nervous. My heart was beating quite painfully, and I could not restrain my impatience. I wished the others would come. Gradually they made their way in, and we shook hands quietly, rather mysteriously, with an air of schoolboys meeting together in the dark to eat stolen fruit. It might have been comic if our mind's eye had not presented us with so vivid a picture of a halter.

Checco began to speak in a low voice, slightly trembling; his emotion was real enough this time, and he did all he could to conceal it.

'My very dear and faithful fellow-citizens,' he began, 'it appears that to be born in Forli, and to live in it in our times, is the very greatest misfortune with which one can be born or with which one can live.'