The Lost Girl Part 83

He held her pa.s.sionately. But she did not feel she needed protecting. It was all wonderful and amazing to her. She could not understand why he seemed upset and in a sort of despair. To her there was magnificence in the l.u.s.trous stars and the steepnesses, magic, rather terrible and grand.

They came down to the level valley bed, and went rolling along.

There was a house, and a lurid red fire burning outside against the wall, and dark figures about it.

"What is that?" she said. "What are they doing?"

"I don't know," said Ciccio. "Cosa fanno li--eh?"

"Ka--? Fanno il buga'--" said the driver.

"They are doing some washing," said Pancrazio, explanatory.

"Washing!" said Alvina.

"Boiling the clothes," said Ciccio.

On the cart rattled and b.u.mped, in the cold night, down the high-way in the valley. Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes.

Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. She felt she was quite, quite lost. She had gone out of the world, over the border, into some place of mystery. She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to England--all lost.

They pa.s.sed through a darkness of woods, with a swift sound of cold water. And then suddenly the cart pulled up. Some one came out of a lighted doorway in the darkness.

"We must get down here--the cart doesn't go any further," said Pancrazio.

"Are we there?" said Alvina.

"No, it is about a mile. But we must leave the cart."

Ciccio asked questions in Italian. Alvina climbed down.

"Good-evening! Are you cold?" came a loud, raucous, American-Italian female voice. It was another relation of Ciccio's. Alvina stared and looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who stood in the light of the doorway.

"Rather cold," she said.

"Come in, and warm yourself," said the young woman.

"My sister's husband lives here," explained Pancrazio.

Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round pan of charcoal, which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp, a man was pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave.

"Warm yourself," said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down.

The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards.

Ciccio came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him effusively, watching Alvina between whiles as if she were some alien creature.

Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect.

There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside. Ciccio came and said to her:

"They want to know if we will stay the night here."

"I would rather go on home," she said.

He averted his face at the word home.

"You see," said Pancrazio, "I think you might be more comfortable here, than in my poor house. You see I have no woman to care for it--"

Alvina glanced round the cave of a room, at the rough fellows in their black hats. She was thinking how she would be "more comfortable" here.

"I would rather go on," she said.

"Then we will get the donkey," said Pancrazio stoically. And Alvina followed him out on to the high-road.

From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes.

His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals.

"This is my brother Giovanni," said Pancrazio. "He is not quite sensible." Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect.

Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina, and gave the lantern to Pancrazio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the a.s.s. Ciccio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the lantern the things were slung on either side of the a.s.s, in a rather precarious heap. Pancrazio tested the rope again.

"There! Go on, and I shall come in a minute."

"Ay-er-er!" cried Giovanni at the a.s.s, striking the flank of the beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark high-way, stalking with his dingy white legs under his m.u.f.fled cloak, leading the a.s.s. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandalled feet, the quiet step of the a.s.s.

She walked with Ciccio near the side of the road. He carried the lantern. The a.s.s with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were trees on the road-side, and a small channel of invisible but noisy water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing, the mountain high-road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead.

"How strange it is!" said Alvina to Ciccio. "Are you glad you have come home?"

"It isn't my home," he replied, as if the word fretted him. "Yes, I like to see it again. But it isn't the place for young people to live in. You will see how you like it."

She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancrazio. The latter now came running to catch them up.

"I think you will be tired," he said. "You ought to have stayed at my relation's house down there."

"No, I am not tired," said Alvina. "But I'm hungry."

"Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house."

They plodded in the darkness of the valley high-road. Pancrazio took the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A great flat loaf fell out, and rolled away, and smack came a little valise. Pancrazio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing him the lantern. Ciccio picked up the bread and put it under his arm.

"Break me a little piece," said Alvina.

And in the darkness they both chewed bread.

After a while, Pancrazio halted with the a.s.s just ahead, and took the lantern from Giovanni.

"We must leave the road here," he said.

And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small track descending in the side of the bank, between bushes. Alvina ventured down the steep descent, Pancrazio following showing a light.

In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the a.s.s. They all picked their way down into the great white-bouldered bed of a mountain river.

It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars.

There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial-sounding. The place seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes, along the far sh.o.r.e.