The Hostage (1914)

A deformed person with nervous anxiety is looking out to sea, evidently awaiting the arrival of someone. He is a cripple, and presently we become aware that he is the despised member of a band of brigands, and is watching for their return. They arrive in their boats headed by their dreaded chieftain, Beppo. They are in a bad humor, and the unfortunate cripple is kicked and cuffed for no reason, except that he cannot return the blows of his tormentors. The reason is that one of the band has been captured, an insult and indignity that Beppo cannot and will not permit. He determines to rescue his man. Bernardi, the chief of police, is a man of strong will power and determination; he has made up his mind to rid the country of the gang of thieves and malefactors, of which Beppo is the chief. But they are elusive, nobody knows where their haunts and huts are. They disappear like magic at the slightest alarm. Bernardi sends out his scouts, and turns from the weary, disappointing details of his official duties to the society of his beautiful, loving wife and joyous play of their little golden-haired daughter. The latter is scarcely more than a baby, but her intelligence is far beyond her years, and it is evident that she is the apple of her father's eye, and that her mother worships the very ground on which she treads. While standing at the gate, the brigand prisoner is brought along the road, under strong escort. Appealingly he raises his handcuffed hands to Bernardi, who turns away in contemptuous disgust and hurries his dear ones away from the brigand. That night Beppo and his band make an attempt to rescue him. In a human pyramid they form themselves against the prison wall beneath their comrade's cell. A rope is passed from hand to hand, and the attempt is almost successful when they are heard. They are seen and they flee in dismay, leaving their comrade in the hands of the police. There is a fresh pursuit, and again it proves futile. Beppo escapes. He escapes to return to the house of his arch-enemy, Bernardi. A rope is thrown over the balcony and an agile brigand climbs it in a twinkling. He enters the child's bedroom. The mother shrieks and stands paralyzed with terror. She cannot move a muscle. The child is snatched away, and the gang retreats to their island. From there a message is dispatched and delivered to Bernardi by a blind child, a messenger who cannot describe the features of his instructor; if the prisoner is not released in three days then the child shall die, grinds his teeth in impotent rage and instructs his men to make fresh efforts. Time drags on, and Madame Bernardi reaches the limit of her endurance. Having procured the keys, she enters the prison intending to release the prisoner, thereby saving her child's life. Her husband interferes and reproachfully leads her away. The three days are passed. The unhappy mother lies on a bed of sickness, and the brigands cast lots to select the man who shall take the life of the sweet little girl. The cripple draws the fatal lot, and is left to seek his victim and do the deed. The cripple enraged because of his ill-treatment at the hands of Beppo and his crew, resolves on a very different course of action. He hides the child in a part of the rocky cliff that surrounds the island, a part inaccessible except by means of a rope, and makes his way to Bernardi, to whom he offers to deliver his daughter on receipt of $2,000. Bernardi takes valuable securities, hastens to the bank, draws the money, hands it to the cripple and in an incredibly short space of time is seen clambering up the face of the cliff with his beloved child in his arms. Father and daughter lie concealed on the island, while the cripple sends a telegram to the police. They come in force and kill and capture most of the gang. Beppo escapes, but comes to grief with his cripple-enemy. The two roll, twist, turn, clutch at each other's throats and plunge over the precipice to the sea and rocks below. While Bernardi takes his child home to the mother, whose grief is soon changed to rapture, as she clasps her treasure to her breast.