Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

Cosmo disregarded the question. “You will be caught if you linger here,” he whispered.

The other, as though he had not heard the warning, insisted: “How could they have mentioned my name to you?”

“They mentioned no names…. Run.”

“I don’t think they are there now,” said the fugitive.

“Yes. There was noise enough to scare anybody away,” commented Cosmo. “What have you done?”

The other made no answer, and in the pause both men listened intently. The night remained dark. Cosmo thought: “Some smuggling affair,” and the other muttered to himself: “I have misled them.” He sat up by the side of Cosmo, and put Cosmo’s hat, which he had been apparently holding all the time, on the ground between them.

“You are a cool hand,” said Cosmo. “The soldiers … ”

“Who cares for the soldiers? They can’t run.”

“They have muskets though.”

“Oh, yes. I heard the shots and wondered at whom they were fired.”

“At me. That’s why I have got in here. There is one of them who can see in the dark,” explained Cosmo, who had been very much impressed. His friend of the tower emitted a little chuckle.

“And so you have hidden yourself in here. Soldiers, water and fire soon make room for themselves. But they did not know what they were after. They got the alarm from that beast.”

He paused suddenly, and Cosmo asked: “Who was after you?”

“One traitor and God knows how many sbirri . If they had been only ten minutes later they would have never set eyes on me.”

“I wonder they didn’t manage to cut you off, if they were so many,” said Cosmo.

“They didn’t know. Look! Even now I have deceived them by doubling back. You see I was in a house.” He seemed to hesitate.

“Oh, yes,” said Cosmo. “Saying good–bye.”

The man by his side made a slight movement and preserved a profound silence for a time.

“As I have no demon,” he began slowly, “to keep me informed about other people’s affairs, I must ask you what you were doing here?”

“Why, taking the air like that other evening. But why don’t you try to get away while there is time?”

“Yes, but where?”

“You were going to leave Genoa,” said Cosmo. “Either on a very long or a very deadly journey.”

Again the man by his side made a movement of surprise and remained silent for a while. This was very extraordinary, as though some devil having his own means to obtain knowledge had taken on himself for a disguise the body of an Englishman of the kind that travels and stays in inns. The acquaintance of Cosmo’s almost first hour in Genoa was very much puzzled and a little suspicious, not as before something dangerous but as before something inexplicable, obscure to his mind like the instruments that fate makes use of sometimes in the affairs of men.

“So you did see two men a little while ago waiting for me?”

“I did not see them. They seemed to think you were late,” was the surprising answer.

“And how do you know they were waiting for me?”

“I didn’t,” said Cosmo naturally. And the other muttered a remark that he was glad to hear of something that Cosmo did not know. But Cosmo continued: “Of course I didn’t, not till you jumped in here.”

The other made a gesture requesting silence, and lent his ear to the unbroken stillness of the surroundings.

“Signore,” he said suddenly, in a very quiet and distinct whisper, “it may be true that I was about to leave this town, but I never thought of leaving it by swimming. No doubt the noise was enough to frighten anybody away, but it has been quiet enough now for a long time, and I think that I will crawl on as far as the tower to see whether perchance they didn’t think it worth while to bring their boat back to the foot of the tower. I have put my enemies off the track, and I fancy they are looking for me in very distant places from here. The treachery, signore, was not in the telling them where I was. Anybody with eyes could have seen me walking about Genoa. No, it was in the telling them who I was.”

He paused again to listen, and suddenly changed his position, drawing in his legs.

“Well,” said Cosmo, “I myself wonder who you are.” He noticed the other’s eyes rolling, and the whisper came out of his lips much faster, and as it were, more confidential.

“Attilio, at your service,” the mocking whisper fell into Cosmo’s ear. “I see the signore is not so much of a wizard as I thought.” Then with great rapidity: “Should the signore find something, one never knows. Cantelucci would be the man to give it to.”

And suddenly with a half–turn he ran off on all–fours, looking for an instant monstrous, and vanishing so suddenly that Cosmo remained confounded. He was trying to think what all this might mean, when his ears were invaded by the sound of many footsteps, and before he could make a move to get up he found himself surrounded by quite a number of men. As a matter of fact there were only four; but they stood close over him as he sat on the ground, their dark figures blotting all view, with an overpowering effect. Very prudently Cosmo did not attempt to rise; he only picked up his hat, and as he did so it seemed to him that there was something strange about the feel of it. When he put it on his head, some object neither very hard nor very heavy fell on the top of his head. He repressed the impulse to have a look at once. “What on earth can it be?” he thought. It felt like a parcel of papers. It was certainly flat. An awestruck voice said: “That’s a foreigner.” Another muttered: “What’s this deviltry?” As Cosmo made an attempt to rise with what dignity he might, the nearest of the band stooped with alacrity and caught hold of his arm above the elbow as if to help him up, with a muttered “ Permesso , signore.” And as soon as he regained his feet his other arm was seized from behind by someone else without any ceremony. A slight attempt to shake himself free convinced Cosmo that they meant to stick on.

“Would it be an accomplice?” wondered a voice.

“No. Look at his hat. That’s an Englishman.”

“So much the worse. They are very troublesome. Authority is nothing to them.”

All this time one or another would take a turn to peer closely into Cosmo’s face, in a way which struck him as offensive. Cosmo had not the slightest doubt that he was in the hands of the municipal sbirri . That strange Attilio had detected their approach from afar. “He might have given me a warning,” he thought. His annoyance with the fugitive did not last long, but he began to be angry with his captors, of whom everyone, he noticed, carried a cudgel.

“What authority have you to interfere with me?” he asked haughtily. The wretch who was holding his right arm murmured judicially: “An Inglese, without a doubt.” A stout man in a wide–brimmed hat, who was standing in front of him, grunted: “The authority of four against one,” then addressed his companions to the general effect that “he didn’t know what the world was coming to if foreigners were allowed to mix themselves up with conspirators.” It looked as if they had been at a loss what to do with their captive. One of them insinuated: “I don’t know. Those foreigners have plenty of money and are impatient of restraint. A poor man may get a chance.”

Cosmo thought that probably each of them was provided with a stiletto. Nothing prevented them from stabbing him in several places, weighting his body with some stones from the seashore and throwing it into the water. What an unlucky reputation to have. He remembered that he had no money on him. The few coins he used to carry in his pocket were lying on his mantel–piece in the bedroom at the inn. This would have made no difference if those men had been bandits, since they would not be aware of the emptiness of his pockets. “I could have probably bribed them to let me go,” he thought, after he had heard the same man add with a little laugh: “I mean obliging poor men. Those English signori are rich and harmless.”