CHAPTER III

A CASTLE OF THE ADRIATIC

When the yacht moored in front of the ducal castle of Morgania, Morgana was surely absent, for no fantastic mirage welcomed their coming. Out of courtesy to the duke, a salvo of cannon was fired from the yacht; and the salute was returned, shot by shot, from the bastion.

“Poor duke!” said grandma. “We are making him waste his powder!”

The yachting-party witnessed, indeed, a grand spectacle. It was the country itself, with the forests in its valleys and its uplands ragged with wild rocks. You could imagine paths winding around precipices, and rivulets falling down the crags like shining swords. High up and far away, with its base lost in the mist and its summit lighted by the rays of the sun, the Kutsch-kom Mountain closed in the horizon.

The port was at the end of a gulf, with two gigantic cliffs reaching out at the sides. The yachting-party was still fresh from their view of the white terraces of the Achilleion of Corfu, with its marble statues and its orange-trees; and they looked with astonishment at this corner full of shadows, with the thousand-year-old castle perched upon its rock. It was seated on lofty and solid buttresses. A rampart flanked by thick bastions defended it; and stunted box-trees stretched over it their dark branches. Behind, wide, deep passages led up to battlemented towers.

At its feet the little city interlaced its narrow streets. You felt that it was builded in feudal times, and had been constructed under the master’s eye, and by his orders. Later, it had pushed back its walls and extended into the plain. A dike by the beach, strewn with fallen boulders, sheltered it against the sea. A road up an embankment, broken by intervals of steps, led up from the city to the castle. Everything seemed weighted down with the years,—the Byzantine domes of churches, Oriental minarets, Frankish towers; everywhere you felt the succession of the ages.

“It is a romantic country,” said Ethel. “There is no need of a mirage to believe one’s self in the heart of the Middle Ages. We have only to look at the setting of the scene to be transported centuries back. All these old things must reek with superstition. If you stayed here long, Will, you, too, would end by believing in Morgana. See,” added Ethel, as amused as a child, “see, she is smiling at us! That shining point up there, above the Gothic portal—it is Morgana’s window,—the window the duke was telling us about,—do you remember, grandma? Up there, in the tower front!”

Everybody looked where she was pointing, but just then the reflection of the sun’s rays disappeared, and the window was quenched in shadow.

The bells of the city, ringing the Angelus in the evening calm, sounded like a salutation to Morgana. They had seen Loreto and its Casa Santa, brought thither by angels; the cathedral church of San Ciriaco, in Ancona, once a temple of Venus; Ravenna, where the heroine Amalberga was deified; Venice, protected by its winged lions. So, after their long cruise in this sea of legend, they came well prepared to study the people’s superstitions and the folk-lore of Morgania. They tasted, in anticipation, the pleasure of seeing the daily life of the castle, wherein there had been no change for centuries.

Every one seemed to have important things to do. On the morrow Phil was to put his Morgana picture in place, and retouch it on the spot. Ethel and Will were to go on an excursion. Caracal would delve into ducal archives. Grandma was already _blasé_ on these cities of pigmies, wherein music takes the place of the noise of foundries, and where men sleep with their heads in the shade and their feet in the sun while they digest their garlic. Grandma would remain on deck and look at Morgania over her glasses.

“I hope, M. Caracal, you will write a book on Morgania and its folk-lore,” said Ethel. “You would find pathetic things into which this people must have put their love and faith. It would be a rest after the cruel studies which you devote, it seems, to modern society.”

In her manner of speaking to Caracal, it was perceptible that Ethel wished to be merciful. That evening when she had discovered everything, Phil hardly dared come up on deck; but the next day he was greatly surprised to find Ethel as smiling as ever, and Caracal amiable as usual. Ethel was even talking with interest to Caracal, asking questions and seeming to study the man.

From the dining-room, through the port-holes, they could see the gray mass of towers. A few lights were shining along the hills; and beyond stretched away a great wall of rocks and the somber woods. The yachting-party admired the grandeur of the landscape as they ate their peach ice-cream.

“I want to see the sorceress,” said Ethel, “provided they don’t accuse me of wishing to take her off to America like Richard the Lion-hearted.”

“As for me,” said Helia, “I should dearly like to see the defile where Morgana stopped the invasion.”

“We shall go together,” answered Ethel; “and I hope the gentlemen will accompany us. For me, it is a place of pilgrimage; it will do us good to compare our useless lives with that of the heroine. We shall gather from it resolution to be brave and energetic, without prejudice, of course, to our right to cry out for the least little ache. Never mind; for a few hours we shall have understood what duty is.”

“But duty doesn’t always mean that one should fight,” said Phil. “It takes other forms as well.”

“It always consists in fighting,” said Ethel; “but not always against some one else—oftenest it is against ourselves.”

“There is no one slain in that case,” remarked Caracal. “The blows we strike ourselves are never mortal—we are careful to strike with the flat of the blade!”

“That’s the way they punish cowards,” said Ethel.

They were interrupted by a lackey announcing the coming of the Duke of Morgania.

They had just finished dining, and they went up on deck to receive the duke. Helia and Sœurette retired.

Without, everything was in shadow. A dense crowd thronged the jetty. The searchlight of the yacht threw its rays upon the shore and brought out here and there white minarets and roofs and domes. A swarm of people—men, women, and children—half blinded by the light, stared at the yacht. The shining of their eyes could be seen; here there was the glitter of a poniard-handle, and there the glow of silver buckles. There were men in great drugget cloaks over their white fustanelle, and women clad in long red garments, which fell straight as on figures in shrines. Anxious faces might be seen, with scared expressions; and from the crowd, pressed together like a herd, mounted up a confused murmur.

The word of command was heard; and there was a sound of oars striking the water. A small boat came alongside, a rope was thrown out, and the ladder lowered; and Monseigneur, the Duke of Morgania, came up. The light fell full upon him. The duke bowed respectfully to the ladies, and shook the men by the hand, like a boon companion.

“I’m not putting you out too much, I hope?”

“We are delighted to see you,” said grandma. “Come into the music-room.”

“Don’t be alarmed, monseigneur; we shall not have music!” added Ethel.

“You are right,” said the duke; “no music is worth the sound of friendly voices. How happy I am to see you again! I thank you for coming,—I seem to be leaving my exile.”

The descendant of Morgana and of Rhodaïs offered his arm to grandma, to enter the salon. As soon as they were seated, conversation began, as if they had left each other but the day before; it was familiar and gay, as among members of the same social world.

“What is the news in Paris?”

“We do not come from there. Talk to us about the sorceress,” said Ethel.

“On the contrary, let us not speak of her! The country is upside down; every one is losing his head. I should not be astonished if, to-morrow, when the people see you, they should all cry, ‘Morgana!’”

“Why, that would amuse me immensely!” said Ethel. “How is it possible for you to be bored in such a country? It must be always interesting.”

“Oh, very, very interesting!” said the duke. “But I should prefer something else.”

“And yet, to lead the people!—and then, what about your heroines,—Morgana and Rhodaïs and Bertha,—all those valiant women?”

“Ah! that’s what we need nowadays,” said the duke. “Perhaps one valiant woman like those ancestors of mine would save Morgania!”

“Is Morgania threatened to that degree?” asked Ethel. “We were counting on long excursions into the interior.”

“You come at a bad time for that, Miss Rowrer!”

In a few words he gave an impressive description of the state of the country. Everywhere was the expectation of war, with all its disquiet. Fields were uncultivated, and the region of the Moratscha was already all but emptied of its inhabitants. Bands of fugitives were coming in every day, with a pitiful procession of Christians, chased from Albania by the Turks. “You speak of excursions to the Castellum. I greatly fear you’d not be able to do water-color sketches there. At most you might take kodak shots at brutes always ready to fire on strangers and pillage them. The state of things is insupportable. However, I will have you accompanied by a squad of soldiers.”

“How will it all end?” Phil asked.

“I count on the aid of the Great Powers,” said the duke.

Will and Phil could not help smiling. The duke himself watched the smoke of his cigar with an enigmatic air. Perhaps he saw in it the image of the stability and fixity of design of the Great Powers.

“Don’t count too much on them,” said Will.

“Meanwhile,” the duke added, “you must consider yourselves quite safe in my stronghold, where I shall be greatly honored to offer you hospitality. Your rooms will be as large as churches, and you shall have an immense stone staircase for yourselves alone.”

“You must be kind enough to excuse me, Monsieur le Duc,” said grandma.

“Well, Morgania is yours!” the duke answered, as he rose to take his departure. “I shall be only too happy to be useful to you,—you must dispose of me at your pleasure!”

As the duke crossed the threshold, he saw Sœurette running by.

“I know that child,” said the duke.

“And her sister also!” Ethel said, repressing a smile, for Parisian gossip had informed her of the duke’s admiration for Helia. “She is on board, traveling with us.”

“Let her, too, come to the castle,” said the duke. “The little girl will be charming company for my son; his life is not any too gay, and with these continual troubles the future is still darker for a ducal heir.”

“Poor child!” said grandma.

The duke, before he left them, insisted again on the danger of excursions. He was getting ready to go down when Helia appeared, looking for Sœurette.

“Mlle. Helia,” said the duke, “I am happy to see you again,” and he bowed to her with his perfect tact.

Helia had heard the end of the conversation. She came just as the duke was speaking of a possible invasion.

“And you, Mlle. Helia,” he added, with a smiling air of protection, “what would you do if you were attacked? You know there is going to be fighting in our country.”

“That’s very easily settled, monseigneur,” Helia said, with a voice in which there was a thrill as of self-sacrifice. “If there’s question of fighting, I will do my part!”

“What an Amazon!” the duke said, looking at Helia with a smile. “So if the occasion demanded you would do like my ancestresses: you’d sleep on the mountainside, in the snow and rain night and day, to give an example!”

“Yes, monseigneur,” said Helia.

The duke made his final bows, with a diplomatic sense of degrees answering to the differences of rank between grandma and Ethel and Helia, and then went down to his boat, which was rowed rapidly away.

There was not a cheer on the shore for the duke. A dull silence reigned on the jetty, broken only by confused expressions of anxiety. Fingers pointed to the yacht, as if to say, “What is it?” No doubt they imagined it to be some powerful envoy of the great nations. Meanwhile the duke disappeared in the night.

The searchlight wavered for a moment, and then fell on the castle. The people on the jetty were no longer visible, lost in the shadow. But the murmur of the crowd was still heard, and a dim reflected light gave the city a phantasmal look, while beyond might be divined the deserted country, the mountains and valleys.

“I don’t understand the duke,” said Ethel, in a low voice. “He should be thrilled at the thought of recreating a people. The duke must be wanting in resolution. I seem to see him in his castle regulating questions of etiquette, brightening up a little the faded gilt of his stage-setting, and regretting Paris—a stranger to his people’s aspirations. Yet how many things are to be done here—wretchedness to console, ignorance to enlighten! In his place I would never have waited for them to come to fetch me back from Paris.”

Ethel suddenly interrupted herself. “See!” she called to Will and grandma, “see, Morgana smiles to us again! See the light yonder, behind Helia!”

Just then the searchlight illumined the top of the Gothic portal. The Morgana window glittered through the night.

“Do not stir, I entreat you!” Ethel said to Helia. “The window throws a halo around you!”

Indeed, they could see the dark profile of Helia in relief against the glittering background. She was superb, standing upright, with her head raised proudly, and one hand grasping a ratline of the mast. She looked as if she were wielding an immense lance, like a warrior-woman of heroic days.