He took it without speaking, and for a moment he stood looking at the
soldiers as if he had been stunned. Then he opened the paper and read:
"Mandate di Cattura.... We ... order the arrest of David Leone,
commonly called David Rossi...."
A cold sweat burst in great beads from his forehead. Again he looked
into the faces of the soldiers. And then he laughed. It was a fearful
laugh--the laugh of a smitten soul.
The scene had been observed by passengers trooping to the Customs, and
a group of English and American tourists were making apposite comments
on the event.
"It's Rossi." "Rossi?" "The anarchist." "Travelled in our train?"
"Sure." "My!"
The marshal of Carabineers, a man with shrunken cheeks and the eyes of a
hawk, dressed in his little brief authority, strode with a lofty look
through the spectators to telegraph the arrest to Rome.
II
When the train started again, Rossi was a prisoner sitting between two
of the Carabineers with the marshal of Carabineers on the seat in front
of him. His heart felt cold and his chin buried itself in his breast. He
was asking himself how many persons knew of his identity with David
Leone, and could connect him with the trial of eighteen years ago.
There was but one.
Rossi leapt to his feet with a muttered oath on his lips. The thing that
had flashed through his mind was impossible, and he was himself the
traitor to think of it. But even when the imagined agony had passed
away, a hard lump lay at his heart and he felt sick and ashamed.
The marshal of Carabineers, who had mistaken Rossi's gesture, closed the
carriage window and stood with his back to it until the train arrived at
Milan. A police official was waiting for them there with the latest
instructions from Rome. In order to avoid the possibility of a public
disturbance in the capital on the day of the King's Jubilee, the
prisoner was to be detained in Milan until further notice.
"Seems you're to sleep here to-night, Honourable," said the soldier.
Remembering that it had been his intention to do so when he left Zürich,
Rossi laughed bitterly.
It was now dark. A prison van stood at the end of a line of hotel
omnibuses, and Rossi was marched to it between the measured steps of the
Carabineers. News of his arrest had already been published in Milan, and
crowds of spectators were gathered in the open space outside the
station. He tried to hold up his head when the people peered at him,
telling himself that the arrest of an innocent man was not his but the
law's disgrace; yet a sense of sickness surprised him again and he
dropped his head as he buried himself in the van.