The Story of a Genius Part 16

They talked together a long time. The moon rose, and poured its peaceful light into the gloomy streets; but only for a little while, then the sky darkened again, and black clouds rose slowly from the west.

"See," laughed Nino, "the holy Pancrazio is getting tired of his bath.

And see, too, Carmela, he favors our love. He is hiding the clear moonlight. Will you come now? Come then!"

She hesitated a moment Then she whispered. "Wait, I will fetch my mantle," and disappeared.

While the pair were holding their rendezvous before Don Cesare's house, that worthy was proceeding to his, after another fashion. At a leisurely pace, as if addressed to an evening's gossip with a friend, he had slowly departed down the street, never doubting that Carmela would look after him; all girls did so, and his sister was like the others, of course. Women were women, he opined, smiling quietly to himself; one must treat them like children, pretend immense confidence, but be mighty vigilant, and always preserve one's masculine independence. This he certainly did, and carried out his theory with much precision by making a sudden turn the moment a bend in the road hid him from Carmela, and starting off at an amazing gait in the opposite direction. First he took a side circuit through the crooked little streets, and then hurried off toward the Promontory of Evolo.

There must have been something extraordinary in the busy little man's brain, for he ran as fast as his short legs would let him. Tali Ciccio, whom he met outside the ruined gate of the town, looking for Heaven knows what in that lonely place, he never once noticed; on the contrary, when he saw him from a distance, he seized the blue hood which every one on the coast of Sicily wears winter and summer, in sun, wind, and rain, fastened Bedouin fashion around his neck, and drew it far over his face, raised his broad shoulders, and sunk his head between them. He pa.s.sed his astonished fellow citizen without looking around, and the latter stood gazing after him, and muttered: "The devil knows who that is, and where he is going;--I know every one in Roccastretta, but I never saw _him_ before;" and shook his head after him for a long while, like an honest member of society who has met with something to reflect upon.

Don Cesare, meantime, hurried on, smiling slyly to himself. "By you, my stupid Ciccio, I, Don Cesare, am not going to let myself be overreached. What you are doing at this hour outside the town Heaven knows. Some sort of love adventure, perhaps. Or have you been stealing fruits and grain, and hiding them somewhere in a ruinous ca.s.sine? Or are you engaged in smuggling? Saints have mercy on us! who could thrive at smuggling these days, when not a ship runs into our harbor? For three months, exactly as long as the rain has failed, not a sail has this poor deserted harbor looked upon. Smuggling! Yes, that business paid once on a time, but not now."

And the honest Don Cesare thought, with satisfaction, of that happy time when, at least twice every month, a foreign sailing vessel came in his way. What pleasant times! And now, for three long months, he had stood day after day near the chapel of Evolo, which he now saw before him on the heights above, and he had looked with his trusty spygla.s.s in all four quarters of the heavens to see if he could not discover a white sail making for the harbor of Roccastretta, and showing the well-known flag of Norway, or of England, or of Germany. From thence came the vessels which supplied themselves in this vicinity with southern fruits, olive oil, sulphur, and pumice stone, and brought hither various things which Don Cesare secretly purchased for little money and sold again for much--tobacco and cigars, woolen and cotton goods, gay ribbons, gaudily-painted saints, and freshly-varnished Madonnas, apostles, evangelists, and all sorts of wares, for which the customhouse inspectors were especially greedy. These Don Cesare understood how to convey into his house without discovery, and undiscovered to sell afterward at a comfortable profit. Close by his house, tied to an old broken pile, year in and year out, his boat lay ready, and when a sail appeared in the distance, he was the first to row out and offer his a.s.sistance to the captain; for he could jabber a mixture of every known tongue with the greatest fluency, and the ship had not come to anchor before Don Cesare was the confidential friend of every one and the trusted adviser of the whole crew. Yes, insignificant as he was in figure, Don Cesare was an enterprising fellow, and had his head in the right place; and that thick, round skull, covered with close-cut hair, with big, prominent, ring-bedecked ears, and wide mouth stretched in an everlasting smile, was stuffed full of stratagems and trader's tricks that brought him many a pretty sum, and at which the honest foreign sailors did not complain; for, without Don Cesare's help, they must have paid far dearer, and how did it cheat them that he made a hundred per cent, on the fiery wine which he furnished them, and that he obtained their fruits and meal and fresh meat from his neighbors at a ridiculously low price? Oh, those good honest people!

They paid so willingly whatever he asked; they found everything so cheap in this beautiful land; and when the ship was once more under sail they all thanked him who went away, and those who remained, they thanked him, too, for they all had done a good business; but he had done better than any one! Yes, pleasant time! thought Don Cesare, as he wandered along through the night and looked out on the black sailless sea. Directly before him lay the Promontory of Evolo, with its old olive trees. The chapel showed clearly through the darkness; last year they had whitewashed it, to the honor of the saint who now lay in the water. Don Cesare shook his head. "You poor, dear Evolino, what must you think of me, that I could help them treat you so? And yet, you know as well as I do, how much good it would have done for me to interfere.

If I had opposed them they would, maybe, have used you far worse; and that, instead of water, you did not have to stand the scorching fire, you may thank me. Sometimes one serves a friend better by howling with the wolves than letting himself be torn to pieces by them in his friend's company. Only wait. I will make it all right, good Evolino."

He had arrived at the foot of the Promontory. The little path wound off among the rocks. A few steps further and it turned to the left, toward the other side of the cliffs where Nino's country house lay silently hid in thick groves of orange and lemon.

Don Cesare stood still. Suddenly a puff of wind pa.s.sed over the water which foamed up to his feet.

"Oh, oh!" said the little ship-trader, "from the west! The wind for rain! No, dear San Pancrazio, you will not be so obliging to those people who threw you into the water?"

Then he looked cautiously on every side, listened carefully to right and left, and believing himself secure stepped down to the sh.o.r.e where he knew the saint lay, felt around among the stones till he found the rope, and then one might have seen the little man, slowly pulling the line toward him, with the exertion of his whole strength. But the holy Pancrazio didn't come so easily. One arm stuck on a sharp rock, his halo got caught between two stones, and when there came a hard pull it seemed as if something cracked in poor Saint Pancras' ancient worm-eaten neck, and as if a very critical wabbling seized his old heathen head.

"Ei, ei!" the poor saint must have thought, "how careless these human beings are with their saints! First one is tied and thrown in the water, and then knocked to pieces against the stones, for some one is pulling the rope I see. What is _he_ going to do with me?"

And the shiny varnished eyes of Evolino tried to recognize the man, and when he found that it was Don Cesare, he sighed in his wooden bosom, but he patiently resigned himself to his fate. Only the wabbling of his head made him anxious; for he liked his old head. Suppose he should lose it, and they should put him on a new one?--a new head on the old trunk! or if they should order a whole new saint from the best modern wood-carver, what would become then of him, the only real, true, ancient, genuine San Pancrazio of Evolo?

But Don Cesare pulled and pulled, and turned and twisted, and at last, there lay the saint at his feet on the dry sand.

"Now, G.o.d be gracious to you, poor Evolino!" thought that ill-used person. What then was his surprise, when Don Cesare, without speaking a word, dragged him across the footpath, set him carefully up in a cleft of the rock, brushed and cleaned him from slime and dirt, and dropping on his knees, with folded hands, thus addressed him:

"There you are again on dry land, dear, good, holy Pancrazio, and are rescued from the neighborhood of sea-crabs and polyps. And, do you see, me, me alone, you have to thank for it, Don Cesare, who loves and honors you! I told you so when I was bringing you down from the chapel.

The others have treated you shockingly, poor patron, but I, I rescued you. Don't forget it, dear old San Pancrazio. Now I know well enough what you would say: Don Cesare! Don Cesare! you were there too, and slung the rope over the olive tree! Alas, yes! I had to be there! But only think what would have happened if I had not been there, those others were in such a rage with you!--on account of the rain! But what do I care about the rain? You may leave them for weeks longer without rain for all I care! they deserve it, and that tall, lean Ciccio, whom I just met outside the walls, he it was who bl.u.s.tered most shockingly about fire, and I it was who silenced him by slinging you into the water. Yes, Evolino, and it is I again who drew you out. And now, Evolino, be good to me, you who are also an ancient G.o.d of the Winds.

Weren't you called aeolus before you became the Saint of Evolo? Surely you have not forgotten that,--and the winds will certainly listen to you still. Blow, then, a good strong wind into the sails of a foreign ship and guide it to our harbor, so that I may earn something once more! See, I am not a rich man"--

He broke off suddenly. A clear, white beam of light had fallen upon the saint and a strange smile seemed to play over his features. Don Cesare looked around him in fright But it was only the moon that had just risen from the ocean, and threw its first beams upon the image.

"It is clearing," said Don Cesare, as he rose, and brushed the sand from his knees. "I must go now, for you understand, Evolino, only you alone know that I have drawn you out of the sea. Now stand quietly, and dry yourself, and get over your fright. But don't forget that you have me to thank, me alone! and don't forget to send me the ship--soon! very soon! Then I will dress your altar, and you shall have a new halo."

He stopped again in his discourse; for suddenly the image grew dark.

What was that? a cloud? rain? He looked around. In the west it had grown black and heavy from the horizon up. "West wind?" said Don Cesare. "Rain wind?--yes. But a favorable wind for ships that come from the ocean into the Mediterranean. San Pancrazio, San Pancrazio--only remember me!" He clambered slowly up the steep path, that led between rubble, sharp-pointed cactus and aloes, to the chapel, but on the way he often paused and looked around to see if any gleam of white sail flashed across the blackness of the waves; for now he knew certainly that Evolino had listened to him, and once the wind came to blowing, the ships could not long fail. Thicker and thicker the huge clouds ma.s.sed themselves on the horizon. When he reached the top he sat down under an olive tree to take breath. In the distance he thought he heard a noise. Was it a ship in whose cordage the wind whistled its song, and which was hastening to the protecting harbor? "Then Carmela may wait till I come home," murmured Don Cesare. "I shall stay up here." And, his eye immovably fixed on the water, Don Cesare remained sitting under his olive tree.

Not from the sea, however, did the sound come which held the listening trader spellbound on his lookout. With her narrow mantle drawn far over her face, glancing on every side, secretly trembling from fear and joy, Carmela ran beside Nino along the sh.o.r.e, jumped, with a beating heart, from stone to stone, and at every noise that reached her ears from the sea or the dark lemon trees, she clung closer and faster to her companion.

"It is too far," she whispered, and already repented that she had listened to his persistent entreaties, and left the safe walls of her own home to follow him on this dangerous expedition.

"Calm yourself, child," answered Nino; "it is not a hundred steps further, and your brother will not return before midnight--to-day especially, they will have so much to tell about the fate of San Pancrazio--and meanwhile we will tell other stories yonder in my cozy Casina."

"Oh, Nino, it frightens me. Why did we not stay and chat at my window?

The street is so lonesome. Let us turn back. Really it is not right for me."

"What are you saying, Carmela? The street lonesome? Oh, yes, and suppose that old Francisca, your servant, looks out of the window on a sudden, and sets all the dogs on the midnight marauder, as she did last time? In my Casina there is nothing of that kind to dread. We shall be alone there, and we have never been alone together yet since we plighted our love to one another."

Carmela stood still.

"Nino," she said, "you risk nothing; but I risk everything. If any one should find me here--or yonder."

"Who should find you?" broke in Nino. "No one wanders around out here at this hour, and you are as safe as"--

She started suddenly, shrank back, and laid her hand, with an impetuous gesture, on his mouth. They were standing directly in front of the Promontory, where its outermost point juts forth and descends sheer to the sea, and where the path crowds narrowly between this rocky wall and the water.

"What is it?" asked Nino, softly.

"Yonder!" whispered Carmela, and her finger pointed through the night to a rock close by the path, where, silent and motionless. _One_ stood.

"Santo Diavolo!" muttered Nino, darkly, to himself, and all his Sicilian jealousy rushed like flame to his head. Hastily bending down, he picked up a sharp heavy stone, and, without turning his eye from the mysterious figure, he added, hastily: "The way is watched. Here is the path that leads up to the chapel. Quick, Carmela, before he sees us."

By this time the rushing wind had driven the heavy clouds high up into the zenith. Suddenly, through a rift, a beam of bright moonlight fell upon the rocks. A wild scream broke from the girl, staring with wide eyes at the motionless figure.

"The saint!" she cried, and held out her arms as if in self-defence against the fearful sight. "The saint! ascended from the sea! Blessed Madonna, protect me!" And, without knowing what she did, as if fleeing from Divine judgment, she rushed up the path to the chapel in breathless haste.

At first Nino was as if spellbound at the unexpected and, even for him, mysteriously terrible vision.

"San Pancrazio!" came brokenly from his lips. But when he heard his beloved's cry, and saw her fleeing through the darkness as if bereft of reason, then the wild blind rage of the Sicilian whose love is threatened seized him.

"Santo Diavolo, accursed saint, you shall pay for this!" he screamed, fiercely, and at the same moment the stone flew, sent by a strong, young hand, toward the Evolino. Nino watched it go, strike; then something solid and heavy rolled, with a dull sound, over the rocks.

"May you smash your heathen skull to pieces on the cliffs, old idol!"

cried Nino to the tottering saint, and followed his beloved. "Carmela!"

he called, without regard to the danger of being heard and discovered.

"Carmela, stop! What are you doing?"

But Carmela rushed on like a frightened deer, over stones and roots of trees, whither she knew not, what she sought she could not have told.

She fled, in order to flee--fled from the image of the threatening saint, who had appeared in the white shimmering moonlight, as a messenger of G.o.d, with the rod of avenging justice in his hand, or perhaps as a guardian angel set in the way of temptation and destruction.

She did not hear Nino's shouts, and she was deaf also to another voice that suddenly called her name. As if all the lost souls from perdition were at her heels, she flew up the cliff's side, and ran under the old olive trees to the chapel.

"Carmela! Carmela!" shouted Nino, following close in breathless haste; a gust of wind swung open the door of the deserted sanctuary; like a child seeking its father's protection, Carmela sprang within; close behind her followed Nino, and at the same moment, propelled by a powerful hand, the door fell to with a loud bang; a hasty rattling followed, and from the fast-made lock some one drew out the key.

Don Cesare it was who stood before the chapel, motionless, the key in his hand, his eyes fastened on the door. Convulsively his hand sought his knife, and he muttered a few half-stifled words. He stood there a long time, seemingly in violent conflict with himself, and as if he strove in vain for a decision. At last he seemed to find what he sought.

"You won't escape me," he said to himself, and shoved the key into his pocket; and after another pause he added: "Herein I recognize thy hand, holy Pancrazio."

He clambered hurriedly down the path to the cliff once more, and a very grim smile indeed pa.s.sed over his face, for a saying which Father Atanasio loved to bring into his sermons came suddenly, he could not tell how, into his head--about ancient Saul, and how he went forth to seek his she a.s.s. Had he not also, like Saul, found something better than he sought? The bold Nino was in his power. The blood shot up into his head. He almost turned back to the chapel, but he was master of his own will, and let the knife go again. The thieving villain! He had taken advantage of his absence to chatter, Heaven knew what, misleading nonsense in his favorite sister's ears, and had enticed her out of the house onto that lonely path. She had fled before him, but yet she had followed him. And now the two were sitting up there, caught, behind lock and bolt, and he, Don Cesare, held the key in his hand, and, except as true and honorable husband of Carmela, that rascal should never come out of the chapel. And now Don Cesare laughed aloud, and said:

"Whom have you to thank for this, Don Cesare? Whom but the good, dear Evolino, whom you drew out of the water with your own hand--to whom you will go now, this moment, and, throwing yourself on your knees, will"--

Hold! what was that? Evolino was no longer standing in the rocky niche, and what did he see? Yonder he lay across the path; and, holy Madonna!