Persons Unknown Part 46

"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't G.o.d A'mighty, whoever she is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this world--she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said, she's got her husband!"

He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're natcherul born devils--she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low an' squirm through.--Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out there?"

He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You will, above, attend the council!"

Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and pulling mildly at his cuff.

The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that gibberish--I been altogether _too_ patient, this good while!" The messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!--Yeh can g'won up."

Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft.

At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings rea.s.sured him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing that a.s.semblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on trial, of being a satisfaction to its l.u.s.t and fear. The poor fellow looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amus.e.m.e.nt, as if he were thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?--A satisfied, panting breath, full of heat, rose from the crowd.

"Filippi Alieni?"

"Suor servitor, signor."

He did not deny it!

"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?"

"Si, Signor."

"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello, were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable Society?"

"Si, signor."

"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires and releasing m.u.f.fled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces.

"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the sacred song

If I live, I will kill thee, If I die, I forgive thee!

You took that oath and you broke it. You revealed a secret and you denounced to the police! For you four heroes died! Yet you live--because you were shielded by Nicola Pascoe. He forsook the Honorable Society and fled with you, you and your wife, and for love of that sister, whom he feared to be condemned like you, has he lived an exile and a shamed man! And for this has the Honorable Society sought and found you at the last--is it not so!"

He knew better than to answer, this time. But his silence did him no good. "He denies not! He can not speak! He knows well his guilt! His guilty heart, it shows in his face! He has an evil eye!" So howled the pure-minded chorus, feeling that Mr. Gumama had had the floor long enough. Timid spirits began to call upon the saints for protection when through the hubbub there lightly threaded the clipped final syllables and soft, melancholy rhythm of some Parmesan; strangely netted out of the virtuous north and lifting the tender chant, "I demand the suppression of Filippi Alieni!"

"I demand--" "I demand--" The loft was full of it. "Let him be put to sleep." "I volunteer!" "I volunteer!" "NO, I! I am the older novice!"

And then the Parmesan, "I will put him to sleep and bear him to the capo in testa in our name!"

"Pazienza! Pepe, the greed for glory is well. But be not too greedy.--Admit, Alieni!" thundered Mr. Gumama. "All else is useless!

Admit! Admit!"

"Oh, si! Si! Si!" cried the young fellow, who had been standing as if stunned. And now he threw his arms above his head and rocked himself between them, with a transport that matched the crowd's.

It, too, was stunned by that simple admission into a moment's silence in which Mr. Gumama gave forth, "You have said. You are condemned. Filippi Alieni, you must now be put to sleep."

Still he took it quietly, stupidly, looking questioningly, incredulously, into Mr. Gumama's face. Then some instinct turned his head and at last he saw and quite mistook the sentinel with the knife.

He gave a convulsive start and sprang through their hands like an uncoiled whiplash. As he leaped on the surprised sentinel the rope of the little vendor caught him in its noose. Still there was a moment when he was the active center of a writhing knot, a centipede of men rolling, tearing and struggling upon the ground; bounding and falling like one, tripping and throttling each other and kicking the wrong ribs.

A babel of oaths and sporting outcries shook the place, pierced from the street without by the strains of an emulous organ-grinder jocularly jerking out the tango. And then the noose tightened, the strength which was only energy collapsed, and the struggling prisoner, p.r.o.ne upon his back, could only bite the hand which agreeably attempted a bit of triumphant tickling. The bitten one, with an outraged shriek, caught him a buffet between the eyes that made his head swim and then a train roared past and its infernal reverberations quieted all sound. When it was gone the renewed stillness and the restored, dim light found the prisoner on his feet; upheld by a guard on either hand and safely lashed, from knee to shoulder, in firm-laced rope.

"Filippi Alieni, have you anything to say before you sleep?"

The young man stood drooping in the hands of his captors, still breathing desperately; not flushed from his struggle but pale and faint as if his blood were stolen by some hidden pain. His throat swelled with a bitterness which he was now too hopeless or too spiritless to loose, and Mr. Gumama saw that it was doubtful if his question had penetrated to a mind that was one concentrated egoism. A barrel which Mrs. Pascoe had emptied of its finery, was brought into the cleared s.p.a.ce before the court and Mr. Gumama, examining it, ordered, "Find a cover. And nails."

Before he repeated, "Do you, then, make no request?"

This time he shook his head, with a long automatic shake, playing for time. Yet he had no hope. He had used himself up in that first spurt and the spirit upon which Mrs. Pascoe had lately built sank slowly back again till there was no life left in his face except, in the depths of his dark eyes, a waiting, raging stillness of despair.--Mr. Gumama regarded him disapprovingly. "You do not wish to make peace with G.o.d?"

He answered with a grinding laugh and let his head drop down again upon his breast. Even the organ-grinder had changed from the tango to the Miserere. Those present had piously removed their hats. Mr. Gumama pointed toward the bonds of the two condemned men as if giving a signal.

"Wait yet a little!"

It was the coo of the Parmesan. He had been diligently and amusedly studying the last prisoner. "I wish to ask him a thing."

The prisoner drew a quick, scared breath, but he did not look up.

Mr. Gumama, annoyed at the Parmesan for putting himself forward, tartly replied, "Ask, then!"

"Alieni o' n'infama," said the Parmesan, pleasantly, "what would you do to remain awake?"

The crowd and the prisoner gave a simultaneous start. This was too much!

The cry of the crowd was a baulked tiger's. Regardlessly, the dark eyes of the prisoner leaped to those of the Parmesan and clung there with their bright questioning, tenacious as bats. Mr. Gumama turned upon the Parmesan with a gesture like a blow.

"Oh, oh, oh!" sighed the Parmesan, lightly reproachful. "Let me speak, who have thought of things. We of the Arm know a game of our own. It was invented by the basista Alieni, and it calls itself the Duel by Wine."

He bowed low to Mr. Gumama. "Sir, it is not our custom to bring evildoers here in packages and let them be warned of that which might befall them so much the easier accidentally, after dark, in the rough street. So I suppose--what else?--that those two are to attempt the Duel by Wine. Yes? And that he who wins lives to suppress the traitor-leaving him in the barrel on the wharf, signed with our sign? And bearing his token--that bracelet will do--to the capo in testa?"

"It is the plan."

"And have you not one more plan? No? Sir--pardon!--you do not--in your greatness you do not--reflect! There is, to us of the fifth paranza, another danger. Enlighten us, sir, please, what this other is."

His look met and challenged Mr. Gumama's, upon whose face intelligence and admission reluctantly broke forth.

"Ah-ha! Is, then, the sentence of the Mother Society the only sentence that we have to fear? Is there not a sentence that will strike at us and, perhaps, through us at her? The foe which has enchained Angelo's brother, the foe from which, suspecting us not at all, Nicola flees--the policemen of the Americans! Ay di me--listen, my dears! Does not this cold foe ever seek and question night and day, with pictures always in the journals, for one who perhaps knows too much and who has a girl's tongue to talk? You think all will be well when you have suppressed the traitor. What if there should be a danger deeper than the traitor? Tell us, sir, your plan about the pretty one, the little one, the little Nancia--Oh, what name! Nancia Cornees!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE SICILIAN TRAITOR: "YOU THAT CHOOSE NOT BY THE VIEW"

The prisoner had never taken his eyes from the Parmesan's face. Their hope was so cruel that it might have been fear, instead. If, from the world of responsibility, the girl's name penetrated to him with any meaning he gave no sign. The same animal concentration abode in his close stare.

But the new anxiety at once affected the meeting. Only Mr. Gumama, resenting this intrusion, shrugged, snubbingly. "Clever youth, there is a plan for her, wholly good. When the Signora Alieni expected her American lover to travel with her she could not take with her his betrothed--it would not have been seemly! So Nicola sends her to-night with the gang of Roselli, which is soon, too, sailing for Brazil. There they must restore her to himself. He knows not he will not sail. Very well. She is slight but she is fair. She will do well for the Rosellis in Brazil."

"I do not--pardon!--I do not think of the Rosellis. What will she do for us?"

"In Brazil? If she were a danger even there would not the Signora Alieni have destroyed that danger?"