CHAPTER VIII

"DEATH IN THE FACE, AND MURDER IN THE HEART"

Lord St. Maurice was in a good humor with himself and the entire world that night. He had spent nearly the whole of the day with the woman he loved, and whom he was shortly to marry, and with the prospect of another such day on the morrow, even his temporary exile from paradise was not a very severe trial. He was an ardent suitor, and deeply in love, but an hour or two alone with a case of excellent cigars, with delightful thoughts to keep him company, the softest air in Europe to breathe, and one of the most picturesque sights to look upon, could scarcely be esteemed a hardship. Above him, among the woods, twinkled the bright lights of the Villa Fiolesse which he had just quitted, and below was the gay little Marina, still dotted about with groups of men in soft hats and light clothes, and bright-eyed, laughing women, whose musical voices rang out on the still night air with strange distinctness.

Through the clinging magnolia bushes and rhododendron shrubs he pushed his way downward, the red end of his cigar shining out like a signal light in the semi-purple darkness. Every now and then he stopped to take a breath of air perfumed by a clump of hyacinth, or some star-shaped flower which had yielded up its sweetness to the softly-falling night. Now and then, too, he took a lover's look at the stars, and downward to the softly-heaving bosom of the Mediterranean. All these things seemed to mean so much more to him now! Adrienne had changed the world, and he was looking out upon it with different eyes. Sentiment, which before he had scoffed at a little, as became a sturdy young Briton but lately escaped from public school and college, had suddenly become for him something akin to a holy thing. He was almost a poet that night—he who had scarcely read a line of what the world calls poetry since his school days. There was a man whom he had hated all his life. Just then he began to think of him without a particle of anger or resentment. If he could have met him there, among those drooping, white-flowering shrubs, he felt that he could have shaken his hand, have asked him heartily after his health, and doubtless have fixed a day to dine with him. The world was a capital place, and Palermo was on the threshold of heaven. His big, boyish heart was full to over-flowing. Oh! it is a fine thing to be in love!

From the present he began to think a little of the future. He was right in the clouds, and he began to dream. At twenty-five years old imagination is the master of the man; at forty the situations are reversed; but in losing the upper hand imagination often loses its power and freshness. Lord St. Maurice was in his twenty-sixth year, and he began to dream. He was his own master, and he was rich. There was a fine estate in Eastshire, a shooting lodge in Scotland, and a box in Leicestershire. Which would Adrienne prefer? How delightful it would be to take her to them in the proper seasons, and find out which one pleased her most. When they reached England, after a cruise as far as Cairo and back along the Mediterranean, July would be on the wane. It was just the best time. They would go straight to Scotland and have a few days alone upon those glorious moors before the shooting commenced. He remembered, with a little laugh, the bachelor invitations which he had given, and which must now be rescinded. Bother bachelor invitations! Adrienne was sure to like Scotland. This southern land with its profusion of flowers, its deep, intense coloring, and its softly-blowing winds, was beautiful enough in its way, but the purple covered moors and cloud-topped hills of Scotland had their own charm. Adrienne had never seen heather; and his long, low cottage was set in a very sea of it. How pleasant the evening would be, out on the balcony, with the red sun sinking down behind Bathness Hill. Ah! how happy they would be. Life had never seemed so fair a thing!

He was on the Marina by this time, elbowing his way among the people who were still lazily walking backward and forward, or standing in little knots talking. The open-air restaurant, too, was crowded, but there were a few vacant seats, and among them the little iron chair in which he had been lounging on that evening when Adrienne Cartuccio had passed by among the crowd. He stopped short, and stepping lightly over the railing, drew it to him, and sat down. The busy waiter was by his side in a moment with coffee and liqueurs, and taking a cigar from his case he began meditatively to smoke.

Since sundown the hot air had grown closer and more sulphurous, and away westward over the waters the heavens seemed to be continually opening and closing, belching out great sheets of yellow light. A few detached masses of black clouds were slowly floating across the starlit sky. Now one had reached the moon, and a sudden darkness fell upon the earth. With such a lamp in the sky illuminations in the hotel gardens were a thing unheard of, and the effect was singular. Only the red lights of the smokers were visible, dotted here and there like glow-worms. Conversation, too, dropped. Men lowered their voices, the women ceased to make the air alive with the music of their laughter. It was the southern nature. When the sky was fair, their hearts were light and their voices gay. Now there was a momentary gloom, and every one shivered.

The Englishman looked up at the cloud, wondered whether there would be a storm, and calmly went on smoking. The sudden hush and darkness meant nothing to him. In his state of mind they were rather welcome than otherwise. But in the midst of the darkness a strange thing happened.

He was neither superstitious nor impressionable. From either weakness he would contemptuously, and with perfect truth, have declared himself altogether free. But suddenly the sweet, swiftly-flowing current of his thoughts came to a full stop. He was conscious of a cold chill, which he could not in any way explain. There had been no sound of footsteps, nothing to warn him of it, but he fancied himself abruptly encountered by some nameless danger. The perspiration broke out upon his forehead, and the cigar dropped from his fingers. Was it a nightmare, the prelude to a fever? Was he going mad? Oh! it was horrible!

By a great effort of will he contrived to raise his eyes to the cloud. It had almost passed away from the face of the moon. The main body of it was already floating northward, only one long jagged edge remained. There could be only a second or two more of this unnatural gloom. His heart was thankful for it. Ah! what was that? He bit his tongue hard, or he would have called out. Either he was dreaming, or that was the warm panting breath of a human being upon his cheek.

He sprang up, with his arm stretched out as though to defend himself, and holding his breath; but there was no sound, save the dull murmur of whispered conversation around. One glance more at the cloud. How slowly it moved. Ah! thank God! the light was coming. Already the shadows were moving away. Voices were being raised; figures were becoming distinct; in a moment the moon would be free.

It was all over. Laughing voices once more filled the air. The waiters were running about more busily than ever; people rubbed their eyes and joked about the darkness. But the Englishman sat quite still, holding in his hand a long, curiously-shaped dagger, which the first gleam of moonlight had shown him lying at his feet.

He was no coward, but he gave a little shudder as he examined the thing, and felt its blueish steel edge with his finger. It was by no means a toy weapon; it had been fashioned and meant for use. What use? Somehow he felt that he had escaped a very great danger, as he put the thing thoughtfully into his pocket, and leaned back in his chair. The shrill voices and clatter of glasses around him sounded curiously unreal in his ears.

By degrees he came to himself, and leaning forward took a match from the little marble table, and re-lit his cigar. Then, for the first time, he noticed with a start, that the chair opposite to him was occupied, occupied, too, by a figure which was perfectly familiar. It was the Sicilian who sat there, quietly smoking a long cigarette, and with his face shaded by the open palm of his hand.

Lord St. Maurice made no sign of recognition. On the contrary, he turned his head away, preferring not to be seen. His nerves were already highly strung, and there seemed to him to be something ominous in this second meeting with the Sicilian. If he could have been sure of being able to do so unnoticed, he would have got up and gone into the hotel.

"Good-evening, Signor!"

Lord St. Maurice turned and looked into the white, corpse-like face of the Sicilian. It told its own story. There was trouble to come.

"Good-evening, Signor," he answered quietly.

The Sicilian leaned over the table. There were gray rims under his eyes, and even his lips had lost their color.

"A week ago, Signor," he remarked, "we occupied these same seats here."

"I remember it," Lord St. Maurice replied quietly.

"It is well. It is of the events which have followed that night that I desire to speak, if you, Signor, will grant me a few moments of your time?"

"Certainly," the Englishman replied courteously. After all, perhaps the fellow did not mean to quarrel.

"I regret exceedingly having to trouble you, Signor, with a little personal history," the Sicilian continued. "I must tell you, at the commencement, that for five years I have been a suitor for the hand of the Signorina Adrienne Cartuccio, my cousin."

"Second cousin, I believe," Lord St. Maurice interposed.

The Sicilian waved his hand. It was of no consequence.

"Certain political differences with the Imperial party at Rome," he continued, "culminated two years ago in my banishment from Italy and Sicily. You, I believe, Lord St. Maurice, are of ancient family, and it is possible that you may understand to some extent the bitterness of exile from a country and a home which has been the seat of my family for nearly a thousand years. Such a sentence is not banishment as the world understands it; it is a living death! But, Signor, it was not all. It was not even the worst. Alas, that I, a Marioni, should live to confess it! But to be parted from the woman I love was even a sorer trial. Yet I endured it. I endured it; hoping against hope for a recall. My sister and I were orphans. She made her home with the Signorina Cartuccio. Thus I had news of her continually. Sometimes my cousin herself wrote to me. It was these letters which preserved my reason, and consciously or unconsciously, they breathed to me ever of hope.

"Not Adrienne's, I'll swear," the Englishman muttered to himself. He was a true Briton, and there was plenty of dormant jealousy not very far from the surface.

The Sicilian heard the words, and his eyes flashed.

"The Signorina Cartuccio, if you please, Signor," he remarked coldly. "We are in a public place."

Lord St. Maurice felt that he could afford to accept the rebuke, and he bowed his head.

"My remark was not intended to be audible!" he declared.

"For two years I bore with my wretched life," the Sicilian continued, "but at last my endurance came to an end. I determined to risk my liberty, that I might hear my fate from her own lips. I crossed the Alps without molestation, and even entered Rome. There I was watched, but not interfered with. The conclusion I came to was, that as long as I lived the life of an ordinary citizen, and showed no interest in politics, I was safe. I crossed to Palermo unharmed. I have seen the Signorina, and I have made my appeal."

The Englishman dropped his eyes and knocked the ash from his cigar. The fellow was coming to the point at last.

"You, Signor," the Sicilian continued, in a tone which, although it was no louder, seemed to gain in intensity from the smoldering passion underneath, "you, Signor, know what my answer was, for you were the cause. I have not told you this much of my story to win your pity; I simply tell it that I may reason with you. I have tried to make you understand something of the strength of my love for the Signorina. Do you think that, after what I have risked, after what I have suffered, that I shall stand aside, and see another man, an alien, take her from me? I come of a race, Signor, who are not used to see the women they love chosen for other men's wives. Have you ever heard of Count Hubert di Marioni, who, with seven hundred men, carried off a princess of Austria from her father's court, and brought her safely through Italy here to be one of the mothers of my race? It was five hundred years ago, and, among the ruins of ancient kingdoms, the Marionis have also fallen in estate. But the old spirit lingers. Lord St. Maurice, I am not a blood-thirsty man. I do not wish your life. Go back to your country, and choose for a bride one of her own daughters. Give up all thought of the Signorina di Cartuccio, or, as surely as the moon yonder looks down upon you and me, I shall kill you."

Lord St. Maurice threw his cigar away and shrugged his shoulders. The affair was going to be serious, then.

"You must forgive me, Signor, if I do not quite follow you," he said slowly. "The custom in our countries doubtless differs. In England it is the lady who chooses, and it is considered—pardon me—ill-mannered for a rejected suitor to have anything more to say."

"As you remark, the ideas and customs of our countries differ," the Sicilian rejoined. "Here a nobleman of my descent would consider it an everlasting shame to stand quietly on one side, and see the woman whom he worshiped become the bride of another man, and that man an alien. He would be esteemed, and justly, a coward. Let us waste no more words, Signor. I have sought you to-night to put this matter plainly before you. Unless you leave this island, and give up your pretensions to the hand of the Signorina Cartuccio, you die. You have climbed for the last time to the Villa Fiolesse. Swear to go there no more; swear to leave this island before day breaks to-morrow, or your blood shall stain its shores. By the unbroken and sacred oath of a Marioni, I swear it!"

To Lord St. Maurice, the Sicilian's words and gestures seemed only grotesque. He looked at him a little contemptuously—a thin, shrunken-up figure, ghastly pale, and seeming all the thinner on account of his somber black attire. What a husband for Adrienne! How had he dared to love so magnificent a creature. The very idea of such a man threatening him seemed absurd to Lord St. Maurice, an athlete of public school and college renown, with muscles like iron, and the stature of a guardsman. He was not angry, and he had not a particle of fear, but his stock of patience was getting exhausted.

"How are you going to do the killing?" he asked. "Pardon my ignorance, but it is evidently one of the customs of the country which has not been explained to me. How do you manage it?"

"I should kill you in a duel!" the Sicilian answered. "It would be easily done."

The Englishman burst out laughing. It was too grotesque, almost like a huge joke.

"Damn you and your duels!" he said, rising to his feet, and towering over his companion. "Look here, Mr. di Marioni, I've listened to you seriously because I felt heartily sorry for you; but I've had enough of it. I don't know whether you understand the slang of my country. If you do, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that you've been talking 'bally rot.' We may be a rough lot, we Englishmen, but we're not cowards, and no one but a coward would dream of giving a girl up for such a tissue of whimperings. Be a man, sir, and get over it, and look here—none of this sort of business!"

He drew the dagger from his breast pocket, and patted it. The Sicilian was speechless and livid with rage.

"You are a coward!" he hissed. "You shall fight with me!"

"That I won't," Lord St Maurice answered good-humoredly. "Just take my advice. Make up your mind that we both can't have her, and she's chosen me, and come and give me your hand like a man. Think it over, now, before the morning. Good-night!"

The Sicilian sprang up, and looked rapidly around. At an adjoining table he recognized two men, and touched one on the shoulder.

"Signors!" he cried, "and you, Signor le Capitaine, pardon me if I ask you for your hearing for an instant. This—gentleman here has insulted me, and declines to give me satisfaction. I have called him a coward and a rascal, and I repeat it! His name is Lord St Maurice. If he forfeits his right to be considered a gentleman, I demand that his name be struck off the visitors' club."

The three men had risen to their feet. Two of them were gentlemen of the neighborhood with whom Lord St Maurice had a bowing acquaintance. The third was a French officer. They looked inquiringly at Lord St. Maurice.

"It's quite true, gentlemen," he said with easy self-possession. "He's been calling me all the bad names under the sun, and I have declined to give him what he calls satisfaction. I haven't the least objection to your knowing it."

The two Palermitans looked at one another doubtfully. The officer, giving his moustache a twist, stepped forward and bowed.

"Might we inquire your reasons for declining the duel?" he asked.

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"Certainly," he answered. "In the first place, I am an officer in the service of Her Majesty the Queen, and duelling is strictly forbidden; in the second, Signor di Marioni is too excited to know what he is talking about."

"In England, Signor, your first objection is valid; here, it is scarcely so. As to the latter, Monsieur le Count seems now to be perfectly composed. I am on the committee of the club, and I fear that I must erase your name if you persist in your refusal."

"I don't care two straws about your club," Lord St. Maurice answered carelessly. "As for the duel, I decline it, once and for all. We Englishmen have a code of honor of our own, and it is more to us than the custom of the countries which we chance to visit. I wish you good-night, gentlemen."

They fell back, impressed in spite of themselves by the coolness and hauteur of his words. Suddenly, with the swiftness of a tiger-cat, the Sicilian leaped forward and struck the Englishman on the cheek.

"Perhaps you will tell us all, Signor, how the men of your country resent an insult such as that," he cried.

Every one turned round at the sound of the scuffle. The eyes of all were upon the Englishman, who stood there, head and shoulders above all the crowd, with blazing eyes and pale cheeks. He was in a towering passion, but his voice never shook or faltered.

"You shall see for yourself, Signor!" he cried.

The Sicilian struggled, but he was like a child in the Englishman's arms. He had caught him up in a vice-like grasp, and held him high over the heads of the astonished onlookers. For a moment he seemed as though he were going to throw him right out of the restaurant on to the Marina, but at the last moment he changed his mind, and with a contemptuous gesture set him down in the midst of them, breathless and choking.

"You can send your seconds as soon as you like," he said shortly. "Good-evening, gentlemen."

They fell back before him like sheep, leaving a broad way right into the hotel, through which he passed, stern and self-possessed. The Sicilian watched him curiously, with twitching lips.

"There goes a brave man," whispered one of the Palermitans to the French officer. "But his days are numbered."

The Frenchman gazed at the Sicilian and nodded. There was death in his face.