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THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO

by

ANTHONY HOPE

Author of The Prisoner of Zenda, etc.

With Photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick







New York
D. Appleton and Company
1895

Copyright, 1895,
By Anthony Hope.

Copyright, 1895,
By D. Appleton and Company.




    _TO THE HONOURABLE SIR HENRY HAWKINS._


    _MY DEAR SIR HENRY_:

    _It gives me very great pleasure to be allowed to dedicate this book
    to you. I hope you will accept it as a token of thanks for much
    kindness, of your former Marshal's pleasant memory of his service,
    and of sincere respect for a clear-sighted, firm, and compassionate
    Judge._

    _Your affectionate cousin,_

    _A. H. H._

_London, August, 1895._




[Illustration: _Behold! She is free._ (Chapter V.)]




CONTENTS.



    CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

        I.--HOW COUNT ANTONIO TOOK TO THE HILLS                      1

       II.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE TRAITOR PRINCE                    39

      III.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE PRINCE OF MANTIVOGLIA             71

       IV.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE WIZARD'S DRUG                    116

        V.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE SACRED BONES                     158

       VI.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE HERMIT OF THE VAULT              202

      VII.--COUNT ANTONIO AND THE LADY OF RILANO                   245

     VIII.--THE MANNER OF COUNT ANTONIO'S RETURN                   290




THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO.




CHAPTER I.

HOW COUNT ANTONIO TOOK TO THE HILLS.


Countless are the stories told of the sayings that Count Antonio spoke
and of the deeds that he did when he dwelt an outlaw in the hills. For
tales and legends gather round his name thick as the berries hang on a
bush, and with the passage of every succeeding year it grows harder to
discern where truth lies and where the love of wonder, working together
with the sway of a great man's memory, has wrought the embroidery of its
fancy on the plain robe of fact. Yet, amid all that is of uncertain
knowledge and so must rest, this much at least should be known and
remembered for the honour of a noble family, how it fell out that Count
Antonio, a man of high lineage, forsook the service of his Prince,
disdained the obligation of his rank, set law at naught, and did what
seemed indeed in his own eyes to be good but was held by many to be
nothing other than the work of a rebel and a brigand. Yet, although it
is by these names that men often speak of him, they love his memory; and
I also, Ambrose the Franciscan, having gathered diligently all that I
could come by in the archives of the city or from the lips of aged folk,
have learned to love it in some sort. Thus I am minded to write, before
the time that I must carry what I know with me to the grave, the full
and whole truth concerning Antonio's flight from the city and the Court,
seeking in my heart, as I write, excuse for him, and finding in the
record, if little else, yet a tale that lovers must read in pride and
sorrow, and, if this be not too high a hope, that princes may study for
profit and for warning.

Now it was in the tenth year of the reign of Duke Valentine over the
city of Firmola, its territories and dependent towns, that Count Antonio
of Monte Velluto--having with him a youthful cousin of his, whom he
loved greatly, and whom, by reason of his small stature and of a boyish
gaiety he had, men called Tommasino--came from his own house on the hill
that fronts the great gate of the city, to the palace of the Duke, with
intent to ask His Highness's sanction for his marriage with the Lady
Lucia. This lady, being then seventeen years of age, loved Antonio, and
he her, and troth had been privily plighted between them for many
months; and such was the strength and power of the love they bore the
one to the other, that even to this day the old mock at young lovers who
show themselves overfond, crying, "'Tis Lucia and Antonio!"

But since the Lady Lucia was an orphan, Antonio came now to the Duke,
who enjoyed ward-ship