Chapter 30

Long ago, when she first knew him well and loved his beauty, she had sometimes thought of him as a being of legend. She had let her fancy play about him tenderly, happily. He had been Mercury, Endymion, a dancing faun, Cupid vanishing from Psyche as the dawn came. And now she let a cruel fancy have its will for a moment. She imagined the sirens calling among the rocks, and Maurice listening to their summons, and going to his destruction. The darkness of the ravine helped the demon who hurried with her down the narrow path, whispering in her ears. But though she yielded for a time to the nightmare spell, common-sense had not utterly deserted her, and presently it made its voice heard. She began to say to herself that in giving way to such fantastic fears she was being unworthy of herself, almost contemptible. In former times she had never been a foolish woman or weak. She had, on the contrary, been strong and sensible, although unconventional and enthusiastic. Many people had leaned upon her, even strong people. Artois was one. And she had never yet failed any one.

"I must not fail myself," she suddenly thought. "I must not be a fool because I love."

She loved very much, and she had been separated from her lover very soon. Her eagerness to return to him had been so intense that it had made her afraid. Yet she had returned, been with him again. Her fear in Africa that they would perhaps never be together again in their Sicilian home had been groundless. She remembered how it had often tormented her, especially at night in the dark. She had passed agonizing hours, for no reason. Her imagination had persecuted her. Now it was trying to persecute her more cruelly. Suddenly she resolved not to let it have its way. Why was she so frightened at a delay that might be explained in a moment and in the simplest manner? Why was she frightened at all?

Gaspare's foot struck a stone and sent it flying down the path past her.

Ah! it had been Gaspare. His face, his manner, had startled her, had first inclined her to fear.

"Gaspare!" she said.

"Si, signora?"

"Come up beside me. There's room now."

The boy joined her.

"Gaspare," she continued, "do you know that when we meet the padrone, you and I, we shall look like two fools?"

"Meet the padrone?" he repeated, sullenly.

"Yes. He'll laugh at us for rushing down like this. He'll think we've gone quite mad."

Silence was the only response she had.

"Won't he?" she asked.

"Non lo so."

"Oh, Gaspare!" she exclaimed. "Don't--don't be like this to-night. Do you know that you are frightening me?"

He did not answer.

"What is the matter with you? What has been the matter with you all day?"

"Niente."

His voice was hard, and he fell behind again.

Hermione knew that he was concealing something from her. She wondered what it was. It must be something surely in connection with his anxiety. Her mind worked rapidly. Maurice--the sea--bathing--Gaspare's fear--Maurice and Gaspare had bathed together often while she had been in Africa.

"Gaspare," she said. "Walk beside me--I wish it."

He came up reluctantly.

"You've bathed with the padrone lately?"

"Si, signora."

"Many times?"

"Si, signora."

"Have you ever noticed that he was tired in the sea, or afterwards, or that bathing seemed to make him ill in any way?"

"Tired, signora?"

"You know there's a thing, in English we call it cramp. Sometimes it seizes the best swimmers. It's a dreadful pain, I believe, and the limbs refuse to move. You've never--when he's been swimming with you, the padrone has never had anything of that kind, has he? It wasn't that which made you frightened this evening when he didn't come?"

She had unwittingly given the boy the chance to save her from any worse suspicion. With Sicilian sharpness he seized it. Till now he had been in a dilemma, and it was that which had made him sullen, almost rude. His position was a difficult one. He had to keep his padrone's confidence. Yet he could not--physically he could not--stay on the mountain when he knew that some tragedy was probably being enacted, or had already been enacted by the sea. He was devoured by an anxiety which he could not share and ought not to show because it was caused by the knowledge which he was solemnly pledged to conceal. This remark of Hermione gave him a chance of shifting it from the shoulders of the truth to the shoulders of a lie. He remembered the morning of sirocco, his fear, his passion of tears in the boat. The memory seemed almost to make the lie he was going to tell the truth.

"Si, signora. It was that."

His voice was no longer sullen.

"The padrone had an attack like that?"

Again the terrible fear came back to her.

"Signora, it was one morning."

"Used you to bathe in the morning?"

A hot flush came in Gaspare's face, but Hermione did not see it in the darkness.

"Once we did, signora. We had been fishing."

"Go on. Tell me!"

Then Gaspare related the incident of his padrone's sinking in the sea. Only he made Maurice's travesty appear a real catastrophe. Hermione listened with painful attention. So Maurice had nearly died, had been into the jaws of death, while she had been in Africa! Her fears there had been less ill-founded than she had thought. A horror came upon her as she heard Gaspare's story.

"And then, signora, I cried," he ended. "I cried."

"You cried?"

"I thought I never could stop crying again."

How different from an English boy's reticence was this frank confession! and yet what English boy was ever more manly than this mountain lad?

"Why--but then you saved the padrone's life! God bless you!"

Hermione had stopped, and she now put her hand on Gaspare's arm.

"Oh, signora, there were two of us. We had the boat."

"But"--another thought came to her--"but, Gaspare, after such a thing as that, how could you let the padrone go down to bathe alone?"

Gaspare, a moment before credited with a faithful action, was now to be blamed for a faithless one. For neither was he responsible, if strict truth were to be regarded. But he had insisted on saving his padrone from the sea when it was not necessary. And he knew his own faithfulness and was secretly proud of it, as a good woman knows and is proud of her honor. He had borne the praise therefore. But one thing he could not bear, and that was an imputation of faithlessness in his stewardship.

"It was not my fault, signora!" he cried, hotly. "I wanted to go. I begged to go, but the padrone would not let me."

"Why not?"

Hermione, peering in the darkness, thought she saw the ugly look come again into the boy's face.

"Why not, signora?"

"Yes, why not?"

"He wished me to stay with you. He said: 'Stay with the padrona, Gaspare. She will be all alone.'"

"Did he? Well, Gaspare, it is not your fault. But I never thought it was. You know that."

She had heard in his voice that he was hurt.

"Come! We must go on!"

Her fear was now tangible. It had a definite form, and with every moment it grew greater in the night, towering over her, encompassing her about. For she had hoped to meet Maurice coming up the ravine, and, with each moment that went by, her hope of hearing his footstep decreased, her conviction that something untoward must have occurred grew more solid. Only once was her terror abated. When they were not far from the mouth of the ravine Gaspare suddenly seized her arm from behind.

"Gaspare! What is it?" she said, startled.

He held up one hand.

"Zitta!" he whispered.

Hermione listened, holding her breath. It was a silent night, windless and calm. The trees had no voices, the watercourse was dry, no longer musical with the falling stream. Even the sea was dumb, or, if it were not, murmured so softly that these two could not hear it where they stood. And now, in this dark silence, they heard a faint sound. It was surely a foot-fall upon stones. Yes, it was.

By the fierce joy that burst up in her heart Hermione measured her previous fear.

"It's he! It's the padrone!"

She put her face close to Gaspare's and whispered the words. He nodded. His eyes were shining.

"Andiamo!" he whispered back.

With a boy's impetuosity he wished to rush on and meet the truant pilgrim from the sea, but Hermione held him back. She could not bear to lose that sweet sound, the foot-fall on the stones, coming nearer every moment.

"No. Let's wait for him here! Let's give him a surprise."

"Va bene!"

His body was quivering with suppressed movement. But they waited. The step was slow, or so it seemed to Hermione as she listened again, like the step of a tired man. Maurice seldom walked like that, she thought. He was light-footed, swift. His actions were ardent as were his eyes. But it must be he! Of course it was he! He was languid after a long swim, and was walking slowly for fear of getting hot. That must be it. The walker drew nearer, the crunch of the stones was louder under his feet.

"It isn't the padrone!"

Gaspare had spoken. All the light had gone out of his eyes.

"Si! Si! It is he!"

Hermione contradicted him.

"No, signora. It is a contadino."

Her joy was failing. Although she contradicted Gaspare, she began to feel that he was right. This step was heavy, weary, an old man's step. It could not be her Mercury coming up to his home on the mountain. But still she waited. Presently there detached itself from the darkness a faint figure, bent, crowned with a long Sicilian cap.

"Andiamo!"

This time she did not keep Gaspare back. Without a word they went on. As they came to the figure it stopped. She did not even glance at it, but as she went by it she heard an old, croaky voice say:

"Benedicite!"

Never before had the Sicilian greeting sounded horrible in her ears. She did not reply to it. She could not. And Gaspare said nothing. They hastened on in silence till they reached the high-road by Isola Bella, the road where Maurice had met Maddalena on the morning of the fair.

It was deserted. The thick white dust upon it looked ghastly at their feet. Now they could hear the faint and regular murmur of the oily sea by which the fishermen's boats were drawn up, and discern, far away on the right, the serpentine lights of Cattaro.

"Where do you go to bathe?" Hermione asked, always speaking in a hushed voice. "Here, by Isola Bella?"

She looked down at the rocks of the tiny island, at the dimness of the spreading sea. Till now she had always gloried in its beauty, but to-night it looked to her mysterious and cruel.

"No, signora."

"Where then?"

"Farther on--a little. I will go."

His voice was full of hesitation. He did not know what to do.

"Please, signora, stay here. Sit on the bank by the line. I will go and be back in a moment. I can run. It is better. If you come we shall take much longer."

"Go, Gaspare!" she said. "But--stop--where do you bathe exactly?"

"Quite near, signora."

"In that little bay underneath the promontory where the Casa delle Sirene is?"

"Sometimes there and sometimes farther on by the caves. A rivederla!"

The white dust flew up from the road as he disappeared.

Hermione did not sit down on the bank. She had never meant to wait by Isola Bella, but she let him go because what he had said was true, and she did not wish to delay him. If anything serious had occurred every moment might be valuable. After a short pause she followed him. As she walked she looked continually at the sea. Presently the road mounted and she came in sight of the sheltered bay in which Maurice had heard Maddalena's cry when he was fishing. A stone wall skirted the road here. Some twenty feet below was the railway line laid on a bank which sloped abruptly to the curving beach. She leaned her hands upon the wall and looked down, thinking she might see Gaspare. But he was not there. The dark, still sea, protected by the two promontories, and by an islet of rock in the middle of the bay, made no sound here. It lay motionless as a pool in a forest under the stars. To the left the jutting land, with its turmoil of jagged rocks, was a black mystery. As she stood by the wall, Hermione felt horribly lonely, horribly deserted. She wished she had not let Gaspare go. Yet she dreaded his return. What might he have to tell her? Now that she was here by the sea she felt how impossible it was for Maurice to have been delayed upon the shore. For there was no one here. The fishermen were up in the village. The contadini had long since left their work. No one passed upon the road. There was nothing, there could have been nothing to keep a man here. She felt as if it were already midnight, the deepest hour of darkness and of silence.

As she took her hands from the wall, and turned to go on up the hill to the point which commanded the open sea and the beginning of the Straits of Messina, she was terrified. Suspicion was hardening into certainty. Something dreadful must have happened to Maurice.

Her legs had begun to tremble again. All her body felt weak and incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt sick and contemptible, no longer her own mistress either physically or mentally. The voices within her that strove to whisper commonplaces of consolation, saying that Maurice had gone to Marechiaro, or that he had taken another path home, not the path from Isola Bella, brought her no comfort. The thing within her soul that knew what she, the human being containing it, did not know, told her that her terror had its reason, that she was not suffering in this way without cause. It said, "Your terror is justified."

At last she was at the top of the hill, and could see vaguely the shore by the caves where the fishermen had slept in the dawn. To her right was the path which led to the wall of rock connecting the Sirens' Isle with the main-land. She glanced at it, but did not think of following it. Gaspare must have followed the descending road. He must be down there on that beach searching, calling his padrone's name, perhaps. She began to descend slowly, still physically distressed. True to her fixed idea that if there had been a disaster it must be connected with the sea, she walked always close to the wall, and looked always down to the sea. Within a short time, two or three minutes, she came in sight of the lakelike inlet, a miniature fiord which lay at the feet of the woods where hid the Casa delle Sirene. The water here looked black like ebony. She stared down at it and saw a boat lying on the shore. Then she gazed for a moment at the trees opposite from which always, till to-night, had shone the lamp which she and Maurice had seen from the terrace. All was dark. The thickly growing trees did not move. Secret and impenetrable seemed to her the hiding-place they made. She could scarcely imagine that any one lived among them. Yet doubtless the inhabitants of the Casa delle Sirene were sleeping quietly there while she wandered on the white road accompanied by her terror.

She had stopped for a minute, and was just going to walk on, when she heard a sound that, though faint and distant, was sharp and imperative. It seemed to her to be a violent beating on wood, and it was followed by the calling of a voice. She waited. The sound died away. She listened, straining her ears. In this absolutely still night sound travelled far. At first she had no idea from what direction came this noise which had startled her. But almost immediately it was repeated, and she knew that it must be some one striking violently and repeatedly upon wood--probably a wooden door.

Then again the call rang out. This time she recognized, or thought she recognized, Gaspare's voice raised angrily, fiercely, in a summons to someone. She looked across the ebon water at the ebon mass of the trees on its farther side, and realized swiftly that Gaspare must be there. He had gone to the only house between the two bathing-places to ask if its inhabitants had seen anything of the padrone.

This seemed to her to be a very natural and intelligent action, and she waited eagerly and watched, hoping to see a light shine out as Salvatore--yes, that had been the name told to her by Gaspare--as Salvatore got up from sleep and came to open. He might know something, know at least at what hour Maurice had left the sea.

Again came the knocking and the call, again--four, five times. Then there was a long silence. Always the darkness reigned, unbroken by the earth-bound star, the light she looked for. The silence began to seem to her interminable. At first she thought that perhaps Gaspare was having a colloquy with the owner of the house, was learning something of Maurice. But presently she began to believe that there could be no one in the house, and that he had realized this. If so, he would have to return either to the road or the beach. She could see no boat moored to the shore opposite. He would come by the wall of rock, then, unless he swam the inlet. She went back a little way to a point from which dimly she saw the wall, and waited there a few minutes. Surely it would be dangerous to traverse that wall on such a dark night! Now, to her other fear was added fear for Gaspare. If an accident were to happen to him! Suddenly she hastened back to the path which led from the high-road along the spit of cultivated land to the wall, turned from the road, traversed the spit, and went down till she stood at the edge of the wall. She looked at the black rock, the black sea that lay motionless far down on either side of it. Surely Gaspare would not venture to come this way. It seemed to her that to do so would mean death, or, if not that, a dangerous fall into the sea--and probably there were rocks below, hidden under the surface of the water. But Gaspare was daring. She knew that. He was as active as a cat and did not know the meaning of fear for his own safety. He might--

Out of the darkness on the land beyond the wall, something came, the form of some one hurrying.

"Gaspare!"

The form stopped.

"Gaspare!"

"Signora! What are you doing here? Madonna!"

"Gaspare, don't come this way! You are not to come this way."

"Why are you here, signora? I told you to wait for me by Isola Bella."

The startled voice was hard.

"You are not to cross the wall. I won't have it."

"The wall--it is nothing, signora. I have crossed it many times. It is nothing for a man."

"In the day, perhaps, but at night--don't, Gaspare--d'you hear me?--you are not--"

She stopped, holding her breath, for she saw him coming lightly, poised on bare feet, straight as an arrow, and balancing himself with his out-stretched arms.

"Ah!"

She had shrieked out. Just as he was midway Gaspare had looked down at the sea--the open sea on the far side of the wall. Instantly his foot slipped, he lost his balance and fell. She thought he had gone, but he caught the wall with his hands, hung for a moment suspended above the sea, then raised himself, as a gymnast does on a parallel bar, slowly till his body was above the wall. Then--Hermione did not know how--he was beside her.

She caught hold of him with both hands. She felt furiously angry.

"How dare you disobey me?" she said, panting and trembling. "How dare you--"

But his eyes silenced her. She broke off, staring at him. All the healthy color had left his face. There was a leaden hue upon it.

"Gaspare--are you--you aren't hurt--you--"

"Let me go, signora! Let me go!"

She let him go instantly.

"What is it? Where are you going?"

He pointed to the beach.

"To the boat. There's--down there in the water--there's something in the water!"

"Something?" she said.

"Wait in the road."

He rushed away from her, and she heard him saying: "Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"--crying it out as he ran.

Something in the water! She felt as if her heart stood still for a century, then at last beat again somewhere up in her throat, choking her. Something--could Gaspare have seen what? She moved on a step. One of her feet was on the wall, the other still on the firm earth. She leaned down and tried to look over into the sea beyond, the sea close to the wall. But her head swam. Had she not moved back hastily, obedient to an imperious instinct of self-preservation, she would have fallen. She sat down, there where she had been standing, and dropped her face into her hands close to her knees, and kept quite still. She felt as if she were in a train going through a tunnel. Her ears were full of a roaring clamor. How long she sat and heard tumult she did not know. When she looked up the night seemed to her to be much darker than before, intensely dark. Yet all the stars were there in the sky. No clouds had come to hide them. She tried to get up quickly, but there was surely something wrong with her body. It would not obey her will at first. Presently she lay down, turned over on her side, put both hands on the ground, and with an effort, awkward as that of a cripple, hoisted herself up and stood on her feet. Gaspare had said, "Wait in the road." She must find the road. That was what she must do.

"Wait in the road--wait in the road." She kept on saying that to herself. But she could not remember for a moment where the road was. She could only think of rock, of water black like ebony. The road was white. She must look for something white. And when she found it she must wait. Presently, while she thought she was looking, she found that she was walking in the dust. It flew up into her nostrils, dry and acrid. Then she began to recover herself and to realize more clearly what she was doing.

She did not know yet. She knew nothing yet. The night was dark, the sea was dark. Gaspare had only cast one swift glance down before his foot had slipped. It was impossible that he could have seen what it was that was there in the water. And she was always inclined to let her imagination run riot. God isn't cruel. She had said that under the oak-trees, and it was true. It must be true.

"I've never done God any harm," she was saying to herself now. "I've never meant to. I've always tried to do the right thing. God knows that! God wouldn't be cruel to me."

In this moment all the subtlety of her mind deserted her, all that in her might have been called "cleverness." She was reduced to an extraordinary simplicity like that of a child, or a very instinctive, uneducated person.

"I don't think I'm bad," she thought. "And God--He isn't bad. He wouldn't wish to hurt me. He wouldn't wish to kill me."