Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  He went to the other side of the dim chapel and rested his dark forehead against the mouldering wall. It was as though he were going mad then and there. He drew himself up and said, almost aloud, that he was a man and must act like a man. No one had ever accused him of being unmanly, and he could not tamely bear the accusation from himself.

  All the old hackneyed phrases of cynical people he had known came back to him. ‘Only one woman, and the world was full of them’ — and much to that same effect. And all the time he knew that such words could never fit his lips, and that though the world was full of women, there was only one for him, and between her and him lay the barrier of her own brother’s blood.

  He turned as he stood, and saw the straight, dark figure, with its folded hands, lying on the steps of the altar opposite — the outward fact, as his love for Vittoria was the inward truth.

  The horror of it all came over him again like a surging wave, roaring in his ears and deafening him. It could have been but one degree worse if Vittoria’s brother had been his friend, instead of his enemy, and if he had killed him in anger.

  He remembered that he had expected to send his mother a long and reassuring telegram on this day, and that he had told Vittoria that she should go to the Palazzo Saracinesca and hear news of him. There was a telegraph station at Santa Vittoria, three-quarters of a mile from Camaldoli, but he was confronted by the difficulty of sending any clear message which should not contain an allusion to Ferdinando Pagliuca’s death, since the carabineers would be obliged to report the fact at once, and it would be in the Roman papers on the following morning.

  That was a new and terrible thought. There would be the short telegraphic account of how Don Orsino Saracinesca had been attacked by brigands in a narrow road and had shot one of the number, who turned out to be Ferdinando Corleone. Her mother, who always read the papers, would read that too. Then her brothers — then Vittoria. And his own mother would see it — his head seemed bursting. And there lay the fact, the source of these inevitable things, cold and calm, with the death smile already stealing over its white face.

  San Giacinto stalked in, looking about him, and the sound of his tread roused Orsino.

  ‘Come,’ he said, rather sternly. ‘There is much to be done. I could not find you. The man is dead; you did right in killing him, and we must think of our own safety.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Orsino, in a dull voice. ‘We are safe enough, it seems to me.’

  ‘The sergeant does not seem to think so,’ answered San Giacinto. ‘Before night it will be known that Ferdinando Pagliuca is dead, and we may have half the population of Santa Vittoria about our ears. Fortunately this place will stand a siege. Two of the troopers have gone to the village to try and get a reinforcement, and to bring the doctor to report the death, so that we can bury the man. Come — come with me! We will shut the church up till the doctor comes, and think no more about it.’

  He saw that Orsino was strangely moved by what had happened, and he drew him out into the air. The carriage was being unloaded by Tatò and the notary’s man, and the horses had all disappeared. The sergeant and the two remaining troopers were busy clearing out a big room which opened upon the court, with the intention of turning it into a guardroom. Orsino looked at them indifferently. A renewed danger would have roused him, but nothing else could. San Giacinto led him away to show him the buildings.

  ‘Your nerves have been shaken,’ said the older man. ‘But you will soon get over that. I remember once upon a time being a good deal upset myself, when a man whom I had caught in mischief suddenly killed himself almost in my hands.’

  ‘I shall get over it, as you say,’ answered Orsino. ‘Give me one of those strong cigars of yours, will you?’

  He would have given a good deal to have been able to confide in San Giacinto and tell him the real trouble. Had he been sure that any immediate good could come of it, he would have spoken; but it seemed to him, on the contrary, that to speak of Vittoria might make matters worse. They wandered over the dark old place for half an hour. At the back, over the torrent, there was one long wall with a rampart, terminating in the evil-looking Druse’s tower. The trees grew thick over the stream, and there was only one opening in the wall, closed by double low doors with heavy bolts. The whole building was, in reality, a tolerably strong fortress, built round the four sides of a single great courtyard, to which there was but one entrance, — besides the little postern over the river.

  ‘I should like to send a telegram to Rome,’ said Orsino, suddenly. ‘It is not too late for them to get it to-night.’

  ‘You can send it to Santa Vittoria by the doctor, when he goes back.’

  Orsino went down into the court and got a writing-case out of his bag. It seemed convenient to write on the seat of the carriage, but just as he was going to place his writing things there, he saw that there were dark wet spots on the cushions. He shuddered, and turned away in disgust, and wrote his message, leaning on the stone brink of the well.

  He telegraphed that San Giacinto and he had arrived and were well, that they had met with an attack, and that he himself had killed a man. But he did not write Ferdinando’s name. That seemed useless.

  The doctor arrived, and the carabineers brought a couple of men of the foot brigade to strengthen the little garrison. As they entered, San Giacinto saw that four rough-looking peasants were standing outside the gate, conversing and looking up to the windows; grim, clean-shaven, black-browed men of the poorer class, for they had no guns and wore battered hats and threadbare blue cloaks. San Giacinto handed the doctor over to the sergeant and went outside at once. The men stared in silence at the gigantic figure that faced them. In his rough dark clothes and big soft hat, San Giacinto looked more vast than ever, and his bold and sombre features and stern black eyes completed the impression he made on the hill men. He looked as though he might have been the chief of all the outlaws in Sicily.

  ‘Listen!’ he said, stepping up to them. ‘This place is mine now, for I have bought it and paid for it, and I mean to keep it. Your friend Ferdinando Pagliuca is dead. After consenting to the sale, he dug a pitfall in the carriage road to stop us, and he and a friend of his attacked us. We shot him, and you can go and look at his body in the chapel, in there, if you have curiosity about him. There are eleven men of us here, seven being carabineers, and we have plenty of ammunition, so that it will not be well for anyone who troubles us. Tell your friends so. This is going to be a barrack, and there will be a company of infantry here before long, and there will be a railway before two years. Tell your friends that also. I suppose you are men from the Camaldoli farms.’

  Two of the peasants nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘If you want work, begin and clear away those bushes. You will know where there are tools. Here is money, if you will begin at once. If you do not want money, say what you do want. But if you want nothing, go, or I shall shoot you.’

  He suddenly had a big army revolver in one hand, and he pulled out a loose bank note with the other.

  ‘But I prefer that we should be good friends,’ he concluded, ‘for I have much work for everybody, and plenty of money to pay for it.’

  The men were not cowards, but they were taken unawares by San Giacinto’s singular speech. They looked at each other, and at the bushes. One of them threw his head back a little, thrusting out his chin, which signifies a negation. The shortest of the four, a broad-shouldered, tough-looking fellow stepped before the rest.

  ‘We will work for you, but we will not cut down the bushes. We will do any other work than that. You will not find anybody here who will cut down the bushes.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked San Giacinto.

  ‘Eh — it is so,’ said the man, with a peculiar expression.

  The other three shrugged their shoulders and nodded silently, but kept their eyes on San Giacinto’s revolver.

  ‘We are good people,’ continued the man. ‘We wish to be friends with every one, and since you have bought t
he estate, and own the land on which we live, we shall pay our rent, when we have anything wherewith to pay, and when we have not, God will provide. But as for the bushes, we cannot cut them down. We wish to be friends with every one. But as for that, signore, if you have no axes nor hedging knives, we have them. We will bring them, and then we will go away and do any other work for you. Thus we shall not cut down the bushes, but perhaps the bushes will be cut down.’

  San Giacinto laughed a little, and the big revolver went back into his pocket.

  ‘I see that we shall be friends, then,’ he said. ‘When you have brought the hatchets, then you can come inside and help to clean the house. Then I will give you this money for your work this evening and to-morrow.’

  The men spoke rapidly together in dialect, so that San Giacinto could not understand them. Then the spokesman addressed him again.

  ‘Signore,’ he said, ‘we will bring the hatchets to the door, but it is late to clean the house this evening. We do not want the money to-night. We will return in the morning and work for you.’

  ‘There are three hours of daylight yet,’ observed San Giacinto. ‘You could do something in that time, I should think.’

  ‘An hour and a half,’ replied the man. ‘It is late,’ he added. ‘It is very late.’

  The other three nodded. San Giacinto understood perfectly that there was some other reason, but did not insist. He fancied that they were suspicious of his own intentions with regard to them, and he let them go without further words.

  As he turned back, the village doctor appeared under the arch, leading his mule. He was a pale young fellow from Messina, who had been three or four years at Santa Vittoria. San Giacinto offered him an escort back to the village, but he refused.

  ‘If I could not go about alone, my usefulness would be over,’ he said. ‘It is quite safe now. They will probably kill me the next time there is a cholera season.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They are convinced that the government sends them the cholera through the doctors, to thin the population,’ answered the young man, with a dreary smile.

  ‘What a country! It is worse than Naples.’

  ‘In some ways, far worse. In others, much better.’

  ‘In what way is it better?’ asked San Giacinto, with some curiosity.

  ‘They are terrible enemies,’ said the doctor, ‘but they can be very devoted friends, too.’

  ‘Oh — we have had a taste of their enmity first. I hope we may see something of their friendship before long.’

  ‘I doubt it, Signor Marchese. You will have the people against you from first to last, and your position is dangerous. Ferdinando Corleone was popular, and he had the outlaws on his side. I have no doubt that many of the band have been hidden here. It is a lonely and desolate house, full of queer hiding-places. By the bye, are you going to bury that poor man here? Shall I send people down from Santa Vittoria with a coffin, to carry him up to the cemetery?’

  ‘You know the country. What should you advise me to do? We must give him Christian burial, I suppose.’

  ‘I should be inclined to lift up the slab in the church and quietly drop him down among the monks,’ said the doctor. ‘That would be Christian burial enough for him. But you had better consult the sergeant about it. If he is taken up to Santa Vittoria, there will be a great public funeral, and all the population will follow, as though he were a martyr. If you bury him without a priest, they will say that you not only murdered him treacherously, but got rid of his body by stealth. Consult the sergeant, Signor Marchese. That is best.’

  The doctor mounted his mule and rode away. San Giacinto closed and barred the great gate himself before he went back into the court. He found Orsino in the midst of a discussion with the sergeant, regarding the same question of the disposal of the body.

  ‘I know his family,’ Orsino was saying. ‘Some of them are friends of mine. He must be decently buried by a priest. I insist upon it.’

  The sergeant repeated what the doctor had said, namely, that a public funeral would produce something like a popular demonstration.

  ‘I should not care if it produced a revolution,’ answered Orsino. ‘I killed the man like a dog, not knowing who he was, but I will not have him buried like one. If you are afraid of the village, let them send their priest down here, dig a grave under the floor of the church, and bury him there. But he shall not be dropped into a hole like a dead rat without a blessing. Besides, it is not legal — there are all sorts of severe regulations—’

  ‘There is one against burying any one within a church,’ observed the sergeant. ‘But the worst that could happen would be that you might have to pay a fine. It shall be as you please, signore. In the morning we will get a priest and a coffin, and bury him under the church. I have the doctor’s certificate in my pocket.’

  Orsino was satisfied, and went away to be alone again, not caring where. But San Giacinto and the carabineers proceeded to turn the great court into something like a camp. There were all sorts of offices, kitchens, bake-houses, oil-presses, and storerooms, which opened directly upon the paved space. The men collected old wood and kindling stuff to make a fire, and prepared to cook some of the provisions which San Giacinto had brought for the night, while he and the sergeant determined on the best positions for sentries.

  Orsino wandered about the great rooms upstairs. They were half dismantled and much dilapidated, but not altogether unfurnished. Ferdinando had retired some days previously to the village and had taken what he needed for his own use, but had left the rest. There was a tolerably furnished room immediately above the great gate. Orsino opened the window wide, and leaned out, breathing the outer air with a certain sense of relief from oppression. Watching the swallows that darted down from under the eaves to the weed-grown lawn, and up again with meteor speed, and catching in his face the last reflections of the sun, which was sinking fast between two distant hills, he could almost believe that it had all been a bad dream. He could at least try to believe it for a little while.

  But the sun went down quickly, though it still blazed full on the enormous snowy dome of Etna, opposite the window; and the chill of evening came on while it was yet day, and with it came back the memory of the coldly smiling, handsome face of dead Ferdinando Pagliuca, and the terrible suggestion of a likeness to Vittoria, which had struck at Orsino’s heart when he had found him in the bushes, shot through the head. It all came back with a sudden, drowning rush that was overwhelming. He turned from the window, and, to occupy himself, he went and got his belongings and tried to make the room habitable. He knew that it was in a good position for the night, since it was not likely that he should sleep much, and he could watch the gate from the window, for his share of the defence.

  CHAPTER XII

  AS WAS PERHAPS to be expected, considering the precautions taken, the friends of Ferdinando Pagliuca gave no sign during the night. The carabineers, when they are actually present anywhere, impose respect, though their existence is forgotten as soon as they are obliged to move on.

  Orsino lay down upon a dusty mattress in the room he had chosen. He had been down to the court again, where San Giacinto ate his supper from the soldier’s improvised kitchen, by the light of a fire of brush and scraps of broken wood, which one of the men replenished from time to time. But Orsino was not hungry, and presently he had gone upstairs again. About the middle of the night, San Giacinto, carrying a lantern, opened his door, and found him reading by the light of a solitary candle.

  ‘Has all been quiet on this side?’ asked the big man.

  ‘All quiet,’ answered Orsino.

  San Giacinto nodded, shut the door, and went off, knowing that the young man would rather be alone. An hour later, Orsino’s book dropped from his hand, and he dozed a little, in a broken way. Outside, the waning moon had risen high above the shoulders of Etna, not a breath was stirring, and only the distant roar of the water came steadily up from the other side of the old monastery. Orsino dreamed strange, shapele
ss dreams of vast desolateness and empty darkness, in which he had no perception by sight, and heard only the unbroken rush of water far away. Then, in the extreme blackness of nothing, a dead face appeared, with wide and sightless eyes that stared at him, and he woke and turned upon his side with a shudder, to doze again and dream again, and wake again. It was a horrible night.

  Towards morning the dream changed. In the darkness, together with the sub-bass of the torrent, a voice came to him, in a low, long-drawn lamentation. It was Vittoria’s voice, and yet unlike hers. He could hear the words:

  ‘Me l’hanno ammazzato! Me l’hanno ammazzato!’

  It was Vittoria d’Oriani wailing over her brother’s body. Orsino heard the words and the voice distinctly. She was outside his door. She had dragged the corpse up from the church in the dark, all the long, winding way, to bring it to him and reproach him, and to weep over it. He refused to allow himself to awake, as one sometimes can in a dream, for he knew, somehow, that he was not altogether dreaming. There was an element of reality in the two sounds of the river and the voice, interfering with each other, and the voice came irregularly, always repeating the same words, but the river roared on without a break. Then there was a sound of moaning without words, and then the words began again, always the same.

  Orsino started and sat up, wide awake. He was sure that he was awake now, for he could see that the light outside the window was gray. The dawn was beginning to drink the moonlight out of the air. He heard the voice distinctly.

  ‘Me l’hanno ammazzato!’ it moaned, but much less loudly than he had heard it in his dream. ‘They have killed him for me,’ is the meaning of the words.

  Orsino sprang from the bed, and opened the door, which was opposite the window. The long corridor was dark and quiet, and he turned back and opened the casement, and looked out.