Sir John Constantine Part 30

"It leaves one man behind, and one only, in our camp below. He is my father, and he has some knowledge of surgery; I believe he could save my friend here."

She stood considering. "So much was known to me," she answered at length; "that, after you, there would be but one left. Three of my men have gone down to take him. He will be here before long."

"But, pardon me--for as yet I know not whether your aim is to kill us or take us alive--"

She interrupted me with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I have no wish to kill you. But I must know what brings you here, and the rest can talk nothing but English. As for this one"--with a gesture of the hand towards Nat--"he was foolish. He tried to run away and warn you."

"Then, signorina, let me promise, who know my father, that you will not take him alive."

"I have sent three men."

"You had done better to send thirty; but even so you will not succeed."

"I have heard tell," she said, again with a little movement of her shoulders, "that all Englishmen are mad."

I laughed; and this laugh of mine had a singular effect on her.

She drew back and looked at me for an instant with startled eyes, as though she had never heard laughter in her life before, or else had heard too much.

"Tell me what you propose," she said.

"I propose to send down a message to my father, and one of your men shall carry it with a white flag (for that he shall have the loan of my handkerchief). I will write in Italian, that you may read and know what I say."

"It is unnecessary."

"I thank you." I found in my pockets the stump of a pencil and a sc.r.a.p of paper--an old Oxford bill--and wrote--

"DEAR FATHER,

"We are prisoners, and Nat is wounded, but whether past help or not I cannot say. I believe you might do something for him.

If it suit your plans, the bearer will give you safe conduct: if not, I remain your obedient son,"

"PROSPER."

I translated this for her, and folded the paper.

"Marc'antonio!" she called to one of the three men, who by this time had finished plaiting the litter and were strewing it with fern.

Marc'antonio--a lean, slight fellow with an old scar on his cheek-- stepped forward at once. She gave him my note and handkerchief with instructions to hurry.

"Excuse me, principessa"--he hesitated, with a glance at me and another at his comrades--"but these two, with the litter, will have their hands full; and this prisoner is a strong one and artful.

Has he not already slain 'l Verru?"

"You will mind your own business, Marc'antonio, which is to run, as I tell you."

The man turned without another word, but with a last distrustful look, and plunged downhill into the scrub. The girl made a careless sign to the others to lay Nat on his litter, and, turning, led the way up the rocky front of the summit, presenting her back to me, choosing the path which offered fewest impediments to the litter-bearers in our rear.

The sun was now high overhead, and beat torridly upon the granite crags, which, as I clutched them, blistered my hands. The girl and the two men (in spite of their burden) balanced themselves and sprang from foothold to foothold with an ease which shamed me. For a while I supposed that we were making for the actual summit; but on the second terrace my captress bore away to the left and led us by a track that slanted across the northern shoulder of the ridge.

A sentry started to his feet and stepped from behind a clump of arid sage-coloured bushes, stood for a moment with the sun glinting on his gun-barrel, and at a sign from the girl dropped back upon his post.

Just then, or a moment later, my ears caught the jigging notes of a flute; whereby I knew Mr. Badc.o.c.k to be close at hand, for it was discoursing the tune of "The Vicar of Bray"!

Sure enough, as we rounded the slope we came upon him, Mr. Fett, and Billy Priske, the trio seated within a semi-circle of admiring Corsicans, and above a scene so marvellous that I caught my breath.

The slope, breaking away to north and east, descended sheer upon a vast amphitheatre filled with green acres of pine forest and pent within walls of porphyry that rose in tower upon tower, pinnacle upon pinnacle, beyond and above the tree-tops; and these pillars, as they soared out of the gulf, seemed to shake off with difficulty the forest that climbed after them, holding by every nook and ledge in their riven sides--here a dark-foliaged clump caught in a chasm, there a solitary trunk bleached and dead but still hanging by a last grip.

On the edge of this green cauldron the Corsicans and my comrades sat like so many witches, their figures magnified uncannily against the void; and far beyond, above the rose-coloured crags, deep-set in miles of transparent blue, shone the snow-covered central peaks of the island.

As I rounded the corner, Mr. Fett hailed me with a shout and a vocal imitation of a post-horn.

"Another," he cried, and slapped his thigh triumphantly. "Another blossom added to the posy! Badc.o.c.k, my flosculet, you owe me five shillings. Permit me to explain, sir"--he turned to me--"that Mr.

Badc.o.c.k has been staking upon an anthology, I upon the full basket and the whole hog. It is cut and come again with these Corsicans; and, talking of hogs--"

His chatter tailed off in a pitiful exclamation as the litter-carriers came around the angle of the ridge with Nat's body between them.

"Poor lad! Ah, poor lad!" I heard Billy say. Mr. Badc.o.c.k nervously disjointed his flute. "I warned him, sir. Believe me, my last words were that, being in Rome, so to speak, he should do as the Romans did--"

"There is one more," announced the girl, to her Corsicans, "and I have sent for him. He will come under conduct; and, meanwhile, I have to say that any man who offers to harm this prisoner, here, will be shot."

"But why should we harm him, principessa?" they asked; and, indeed, I felt inclined to echo their question, seeing that she pointed at me.

"Because he has killed Giuseppe," she answered simply.

"Giuseppe? He has slain Giuseppe?" The simultaneous cry went up in a wail, and by impulse the hand of each one moved to his knife.

"Your pardon, principessa--" began one black-avised bandit, dropping the haft of his knife and feeling for the gun at his back.

She waived him aside and turned to me. "I should warn you, sir, that we are of one clan here, though I may not tell you our name; and against the slayer of one it is vendetta with us all. But I spare you until your father arrives."

"I thank you," answered I, feeling blue, but fetching up my best bow.

(Here was a pleasant prospect!) "I only beg to observe that I killed this man--if I have killed him--in self-defence," I added.

"Do you wish me to repeat that as your plea?" she asked, half in scorn.

"I do not," said I, with a sudden rush of anger. "Moreover, I dare say that these savages of yours would see no distinction."

"You are right," she replied carelessly, "they would see no distinction."

"But excuse me, principessa," persisted the scowling man, "a feud is a feud, and if he has slain our Giuse--"

"Attend to me, sir," I broke in. "Your Giuseppe came at me like a hog, and I gave him his deserts. For the rest, if you move your hand another inch towards that gun I will knock your brains out." I clubbed my musket ready to strike.

"Gently, sir!" interposed the girl. "This is folly, as you must see."

I shrugged my shoulders. "You will allow me, Princess. If it come to vendetta, you have slain my friend."

She gave her back to me and faced the ring. "I tell you," she said, "that Giuseppe's death rests on the prisoner's word alone.

Marc'antonio and Stephanu have gone down and will bring us the truth of it. Meanwhile I say that this one is our prisoner, like as the others. Give him room and let him wait by his friend. Does any one say 'nay' to that?" she demanded.

The scowling man, with a glance at his comrades' faces, gave way.

I could not have told why, but from the start of the dispute I felt that this girl held her bandits, or whatever they were, in imperfect obedience. They obeyed her, yet with reserve. When pressed to the point between submission and mutiny, they yielded; but they yielded with a consent which I could not reconcile with submission.

Even whilst answering deferentially they appeared to be looking at one another and taking a cue.