The Italian Twins Part 3

"Every day we will have a word together, and soon our chance will come."

"I'll try, Beppo," said Beppina, gulping down her sobs.

"Good girl!" said Beppo, patting her approvingly, though his own lips trembled and his voice shook. "Don't you remember how it is in the fairy tales? The prince _always_ kills the giants and dragons if only he isn't afraid, even if he has to pa.s.s through enchanted forests."

Beppina looked fearfully over her shoulder. "Oh, Beppo," she gasped, "I didn't think of it before, but now I'm sure. This _is_ an enchanted forest, and Carlotta is a witch woman! We must pray always to the Holy Virgin to protect us. Promise me you will!"

"I promise," said Beppo solemnly; "and don't you forget about the prince either."

Just then they heard Carlotta's voice shouting at them, and, leaping apart, they fled to do their errands.

When breakfast had been eaten, and the animals fed, Luigi lit his pipe and stretched out on the ground beside the fire with the monkey beside him.

"Here we stay a little," he said. "Ugolone lies there like one dead.

The donkeys are tired and so am I. We have come thirty miles from Florence."

"Ecco!" said Carlotta. "Then there is time for bean soup." She sent Beppo for more water, and, when the kettle was bubbling on the fire, called the children to her side. "Tell me," she said, "can you dance?"

"A little," quavered Beppina. "Dance, then," said the woman. Beppina reluctantly seized her skirts, and, making a dancing-school bow, took a few dainty steps and tripped over a stone.

Carlotta laughed contemptuously. "Santa Maria!" she said, "you don't call that dancing!" Then, beckoning to her husband, she cried, "But they know nothing! They cannot earn their salt! We have made a bad bargain. Come, then, and we will teach these ignorant ones the trescone!"

Luigi grunted as he rose unwillingly from his hard couch, tied the monkey's string about a tree branch, and came forward.

"Watch closely, both of you," said Carlotta to the children. "It is for you to dance like Tuscans, not like marionettes. Even old Ugolone can do better."

Once he was roused, Luigi's weariness seemed to vanish. He suddenly seized Carlotta's hands, and, holding her at arm's length, began to wheel and jump, to turn and twist in all sorts of curious figures.

Sometimes the dancers' arms were linked above their heads. Sometimes they shook a lifted foot. Faster and faster they whirled, and the monkey, inspired by their example, began to leap and bound about at the end of her string, chattering wildly.

The speed of the dancers slackened like that of a spinning top, and they came to a sudden standstill. Luigi returned to Carina and his place by the fire, and Carlotta got out the hand-organ. All the morning she made the children practice the figures of the dance to music, until they were ready to drop with fatigue. While she prepared the soup for their noon meal they were allowed to rest, but immediately afterwards the donkeys were harnessed again, and to the music of their tinkling bells the little cavalcade moved on.

For some time they travelled over the steep mountain roads without seeing a soul; then they met a girl driving a flock of sheep to pasture.

Later they overtook some peasant women walking like queens with great loads of wood on their heads. Beyond them they pa.s.sed an ox-team, and Beppo whispered to Beppina, "It's a good sign to meet oxen in the road."

But alas, a moment later they met a priest, mumbling his prayers as he walked. It was a glance of despair that Beppina gave her brother then, for it is very bad luck to meet a priest in the road, as every Tuscan child can tell you.

Nevertheless, all these signs, bad and good, indicated that they were approaching a town, and a few moments later they came to a stream where women were washing clothes, and the van rumbled across a bridge and into the open square of a small mountain village. In an instant there was great excitement in the town, and all the inhabitants swarmed about the van.

Luigi climbed down from the driver's seat, with Carina on his shoulder, and loosed the bear's rope, while Carlotta brought out the organ, and gave the tambourine to the monkey.

"Balla! Balla!" cried Luigi, and Ugolone rising to his hind legs wearily began his clumsy dance. The children, meanwhile, shrank back out of sight in the van.

"She will make us dance like the bear, I know she will," moaned Beppina, "and I cannot remember the steps!" She crossed herself frantically, and said a prayer to the Virgin, but it was of no avail, for soon Carlotta's wheedling tones reached their hiding-place.

"Avanti, carissimi," she called, and, not daring to disobey or even to linger, the children leaped from the back of the van into the centre of a crowd of round-eyed villagers. The children of the Marchese Grifoni dancing in company with a monkey and a bear for the entertainment of an audience of peasants! The humiliation of it was almost more than they could endure, but the Twins did their best, and the moment the performance was over dived into the back of the van, and hid themselves again, while Carina leaped about among the crowd, gathering the soldi in her tambourine.

Their stay in the village was short, for the people were poor.

"It is a town of pigs," said Carlotta angrily, as she counted the money, and to the great relief of the children she gave the order to move on into the hills beyond the village.

They stopped at one more village during the afternoon, and here things went better. The children remembered their steps, and there were more soldi in the tambourine, even though Ugolone sat firmly down upon his haunches and refused to budge. In vain Luigi tugged at his rope and shouted "Balla! Balla!" It was as if Ugolone, seeing the children dance, had concluded that his dancing days were over, and had resigned in their favour.

To make up for Ugolone the Twins had to dance again and again, and then to their great surprise Carlotta made them sing! They had voices like the whistle of song thrushes in the spring, but how in the world could Carlotta have guessed that? They were too astonished to refuse, even if they had dared, so they opened their mouths and quavered out a song about the swallow, which they had learned in the nursery at home.

This was the song:--

"Pilgrim swallow, lightly winging, Now upon the terrace sitting, Ev'ry morn I hear thee singing, In sad tones thy song repeating.

What may be the tale thou'rt telling, Pilgrim swallow, near my dwelling?

"Thou art happier far than I am; On free wing at least thou'rt flying Over lake and breezy mountain.

Thou canst fill the air with crying His dear name through cave and hollow.

Thou art free, thou pretty swallow."

It was so familiar a song that all the people joined with them in singing it, and some of them danced to the music of the hand-organ when it played, so that altogether the villagers had a gay time, and as a result Carlotta found many more coins than usual in the tambourine when the performance was over. She glanced triumphantly at her husband as she counted the money. "We have caught two pigeons with one pea after all," she said to him.

"As for that lazy Ugolone, he gets no supper! If he will not work, he shall not eat!"

The children heard and shuddered. "She will treat us like that, too,"

sobbed Beppina, "and if she's truly a witch she may even turn us into bears!"

Out through sunny vineyards and grey olive orchards beyond the town they followed the winding road, and, as night came on, the weary children saw that they were approaching a ruined castle set high on a spur of the Apennines. The wind swept over the bare hill-top and whistled through the windows of its ruined towers, where hundreds of years before lovely ladies had watched their knights ride forth to battle.

It was a bleak and lonely spot, fit only to be inhabited by ghosts, and Beppina shivered as the wheels of the van rattled over the ancient draw-bridge, and stopped in the overgrown court-yard.

"I know it's enchanted," she whispered to Beppo, and Beppo, his own teeth chattering, could only say, "Remember about the prince," to keep up their failing courage.

There was no sign of human beings about the place, and Luigi took possession as if he owned it. He tied Ugolone in the ruins of what had once been a stately banqueting-hall, and let the donkeys eat their supper from the green gra.s.s which carpeted the court-yard.

Soon a fire was blazing in the ruins of an ancient chimney, and the tired travellers gathered about it for their evening meal. From the tower came the surprised hoot of a solitary owl, and bats, disturbed by the light, swooped in great circles about the little group as they silently ate their polenta. Even the monkey seemed to feel the weird spell of the place, for she cowered in a corner by the fire, chattering to herself, while from the banqueting-hall came the complaining growls of poor hungry Ugolone. It was to such music as this that the children of the Marchese at last fell asleep.

CHAPTER FIVE.

ON THE ROAD.

When they awoke the next morning Carlotta and Luigi were nowhere in sight. The monkey was tied to one wheel of the van, and from the banqueting-hall came the sound of human voices, quarrelling. The tones were so loud that the children could not help hearing the words.

"It is all your fault!" said Luigi's voice. "It was you who made me get the bear in the first place, and undertake this foolish trip, all because you must again see your people in Florence. If we had but stayed in Venice! The bear was old when we got him; he was already tired and sick when we left Florence, and now, per Bacco, he is dead!

You would not feed him, yet it was Ugolone that we depended upon to bring in the money. A hand-organ, a monkey--what are they? And now you have added those brats beside for us to feed! This comes of listening to a woman and a smooth-tongued Tuscan at that. I could beat you!"

Carlotta's wheedling voice answered him. "Do not grieve, my angel," she said; "you will yet see the wisdom of your Carlotta. Ugolone was old and sick, it is true. A pest upon the villain who sold him to us! May his eyes weep rivers of tears! But you are wrong about the children.

They are worth more than Ugolone, the donkeys, and the van, all put together. Did you not see how they pleased the people yesterday? I will teach them to sing more songs, and to dance the tarantella as well as the trescone, and we shall soon forget this sorrow. When we reach the coast, we will sell the van and the donkeys, and go back to your beloved Venice, to live in comfort on the earnings of these brats! You shall see!"

"That's more of your oily Tuscan talk," growled Luigi. "Think of the risk we run! If the ragazzini should be recognised, it would go hard with us. Their parents will lay every trap to catch us. It is safe enough in these mountain villages, but in the larger towns it will be a different story. There are the police--"

Carlotta interrupted him. "Che, che!" she cried. "You have the heart of a chicken! I tell you, even their own mother would hardly know them now, and it will be easy to hide them in Venice. We shall be like rats in the walls of a house, where the cat cannot follow. As for traps--we are too sharp for them. Even if we were to be seen and tracked, they will not seek donkeys and a van in Venice, where there are no such things."

Luigi only grunted for reply, and Carlotta, seeing that her arguments had made an impression, boldly finished her plan.

"When we reach the coast," she said, "you remain behind to sell the van, and I will go on to Venice with the ragazzini. We shall not be pursued upon the boat. Courage! In a few days we shall be safe, and then we can live at ease, and you will say, 'Ah, what a great head has my Carlotta!'"