The next time he opened his eyes he fancied he had dropped into the vaults of the cathedral.  His sensation of sinking was so vivid that he feared lest he should be going still further below.  There was a lamp in the chamber, and a young man sat reading by the light of the lamp.  Vision danced fantastically on Wilfrid’s brain.  He saw that he rocked as in a ship, yet there was no noise of the sea; nothing save the remote thunder haunting empty ears at strain for sound.  He looked again; the young man was gone, the lamp was flickering.  Then he became conscious of a strong ray on his eyelids; he beheld his enemy gazing down on him and swooned.  It was with joy, that when his wits returned, he found himself looking on the young man by the lamp.  “That other face was a dream,” he thought, and studied the aspect of the young man with the unwearied attentiveness of partial stupor, that can note accurately, but cannot deduce from its noting, and is inveterate in patience because it is unideaed.  Memory wakened first.

“Guidascarpi!” he said to himself.

The name was uttered half aloud.  The young man started and closed his book.

“You know me?” he asked.

“You are Guidascarpi?”

“I am.”

“Guidascarpi, I think I helped to save your life in Meran.”

The young man stooped over him.  “You speak of my brother Angelo.  I am
Rinaldo.  My debt to you is the same, if you have served him.”

“Is he safe?”

“He is in Lugano.”

“The signorina Vittoria?”

“In Turin.”

“Where am I?”

The reply came from another mouth than Rinaldo’s.

“You are in the poor lodging of the shoemaker, whose shoes, if you had thought fit to wear them, would have conducted you anywhere but to this place.”

“Who are you?” Wilfrid moaned.

“You ask who I am.  I am the Eye of Italy.  I am the Cat who sees in the dark.”  Barto Rizzo raised the lamp and stood at his feet.  “Look straight.  You know me, I think.”

Wilfrid sighed, “Yes, I know you; do your worst.”

His head throbbed with the hearing of a heavy laugh, as if a hammer had knocked it.  What ensued he knew not; he was left to his rest.  He lay there many days and nights, that were marked by no change of light; the lamp burned unwearyingly.  Rinaldo and a woman tended him.  The sign of his reviving strength was shown by a complaint he launched at the earthy smell of the place.

“It is like death,” said Rinaldo, coming to his side.  “I am used to it, and familiar with death too,” he added in a musical undertone.

“Are you also a prisoner here?” Wilfrid questioned him.

“I am.”

“The brute does not kill, then?”

“No; he saves.  I owe my life to him.  He has rescued yours.”

“Mine?” said Wilfrid.

“You would have been torn to pieces in the streets but for Barto Rizzo.”