conversation. He found the two men to be the custodians appointed by the
government to look after the temples and to collect the fees of
travelers. They explained that at this season it was extremely rare for
a visitor to appear, and that they were therefore not particular about
being exactly at their posts. They had heard some rumor of the discovery
of antiques by peasants, and were setting out to investigate. They
explained, however, that the chances of finding out anything were very
small; the peasants all held together, and would all lie for one
another. Jerry inferred, moreover, that they were by no means anxious to
make discoveries. It was part of their duty to investigate such a rumor,
for the government claimed the right to have a hand in the disposal of
any treasure-trove; but the custodians seemed to have a good deal of
sympathy with the wretched peasants, who tried to conceal anything they
might find, in order to sell it for a fraction of its value to any stray
_forestiere_ who might appear. Now that a visitor had come, one of the
men went alone on this errand, and the custode who spoke French returned
toward the temples, which were near at hand, that he might formally take
Tab's lira at the gate.
The Italian walked his horse beside Taberman past the two or three
ruinous and apparently deserted houses, and in a few minutes the pair
came to where their road ended in a broad turnpike which ran at right
angles to it. On the other side of this turnpike, a little distance to
his left, Jerry saw the ruins of a couple of temples, and beyond them
the sea. His guide disregarded them, and led him to the right hand,
where, a hundred yards or so along the highway, they came to a square
two-story building of gray rubble. On its dingy front was painted in
black letters the word "Osteria."
"V'là l'auberge," announced the jovial custodian. "If Michu is fatigued,
he can get eggs and polenta within. The wine is rough, but not so bad as
the water. This way, Michu."
And leaving his horse to crop the rank grass by the doorway, he strode
into the building, Tab following.
The inn was a poor place, even for southern Italy. The floor was of
trampled clay; the walls were unfinished within as without, but like the
ceiling, from which hung bunches of garlic and black and dusty herbs,
they were garnished with abundant cobwebs and a generous coating of soot
and dirt. At the back of the room was a counter, above which a grimy
sign announced the right of the proprietor to sell salt and tobacco. In
the left-hand corner of the back of the place was one of the altar-like
ranges of Italy, upon which glowed a minute heap of charcoal. Tab smiled
to find himself recognizing its use from its resemblance to the
cooking-places he had seen in the ruins of Pompeii, and reflected, with
the superiority of a youth born in a young land, upon the conservatism
which keeps its kitchen arrangements practically the same as they were
two thousand years ago. The room was lighted simply by the door through
which the visitors had entered. Another doorway at the left simply
yawned blackly like the mouth of a cavern. The furniture consisted of a
small square table and three stools. Over the entire place was spread an
appearance of squalor and neglect, depressing, but in key with the air
of poverty and of deadness which had been more evident to Tab with every
step he had taken in Pæstum.
The room was empty when they entered it, but after the custode had
bellowed lustily once or twice for "Angelo," the innkeeper appeared
suddenly. He was a little man doubled up as if with rheumatism, and with
a face as yellow as a dried lemon. On seeing Taberman he croaked
something to the custode, and bowed to his guest again and again,
rubbing his hands and all but losing his crooked balance with each
genuflection.
With the air of an archduke ordering a banquet for his retainers,
Jerry's companion gave some rapid instructions to the innkeeper, told
the Michu to make the place his own, and then departed to attend to his
horse and other trifles, saying that he would be back in half an hour.
Tab seated himself on a stool to await his luncheon. His host puttered
about the altar, occasionally mumbling to himself, like the devotee of
some Stygian power making sacrifice. Jerry was watching him with
amusement, and wondering what would be the outcome of his incantations
in the way of food, when on a sudden the doorway was darkened, and a man
entered the room. At a glance Jerry saw that the newcomer was, like
himself, a traveler. The stranger was of medium height, rather inclined,
hardly to stoutness, but certainly to plumpness; he was well
proportioned, with broad shoulders, but had a carriage curiously
shuffling and insignificant. He held a stiff-brimmed straw hat in his
hand, and Tab could see, where the outer light fell upon his crown, that
his hair was slightly touched with gray. His face, Jerry decided, would
have been handsome, had it not been marred by two deep lines from the
nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which gave an appearance of
sinister suspicion not without a hint of selfish cruelty. Except for a
very silky mustache, he was clean-shaven.
The traveler threw Taberman a quick, almost furtive glance, and then,
turning to the innkeeper, addressed that individual sharply in Italian.
The crooked host bowed furiously, made apologetic and deprecatory
gestures with the rapidity of a mountebank, skipped about in feverish
excitement, and jerked his head more and more frantically. The
gentleman--for he seemed one--continued his objurgations unappeased by
all these demonstrations, and ended by swearing roundly in English.
"Oh!" exclaimed Taberman involuntarily.
The stranger turned to him.
"I beg your pardon," he said in a curious sing-song voice with a
markedly rising inflection, "but this brute has not prepared my
luncheon. Do you mind sharing the table with me?"
"Not the least in the world," replied Jerry. "I'm sure it will give me
great pleasure."
"Good," said the stranger. "I see you are an American," he flung out as
an addition.
"I am," returned Taberman, feeling a simple pride in the fact.
"Thank God I'm not," remarked the stranger. His voice showed no trace of
truculence; it was murmured as if to himself. Before Jerry had time to
explode the gentleman continued: "I'm English. What does that mean?
Celt, Angle, Saxon, and ages of tradition--ages of it. By the bye, you
mustn't mind the things I say, you know; your pernicious self-respect
would force you to resent them if you did. May I ask your name?"
"My name is Taberman," Jerry replied, struggling with a mingling of
indignation, amazement, and amusement, "Jerrold Taberman. I live in
Boston."
"Dedham rather," returned the other easily. "I knew a Taberman when I
was in college. Curious chap. I-- My name's Wrenmarsh, Gordon Wrenmarsh.
Fact is, I was an American, but I couldn't stand the place. Bostonians
have good manners; but New York is a vile spot. So is Boston; that is--
Well, perhaps you see the difference."
The tricks this extraordinary man played with his voice were
astonishing, and as he went on talking he quite dizzied Tab by the
cryptic, baffling nature of his nervous speeches. He had, too, a curious
and disconcerting habit of displaying great emotional intensity--opening
his eyes to their greatest extent and distending his nostrils--in
dealing with trifles of the slightest consequence; while whenever, as
happened once or twice in the course of the luncheon, they touched even
remotely on subjects of really vital importance, the extraordinary Mr.
Wrenmarsh fairly oozed indifference. His conduct was so thoroughly
strange that once or twice Jerry felt a puzzled doubt whether the man
were entirely sane.
"I'll tell you," said Mr. Wrenmarsh, when their slight repast was over,
"we'll do the temples together. I've been camping in this abominable
hole of an _osteria_ for over a week, so that I know them pretty well.
One of them is in my period, moreover."
Jerry looked at him as if to ask if the stranger claimed to be a
contemporary of the ruins.
"Your period?" he echoed confusedly.
"Yes; you see, I'm an archæologist--collector, in fact. Hello; here's
the custode."
The custodian entered as Mr. Wrenmarsh spoke, and Taberman had somehow
the idea that the look he gave the Englishman was not very friendly.
"Ah, Michu, have you found a friend?" he asked in his queer French.
"I don't know," Jerry returned, with a half laugh.
"Well," responded the Italian, "if Michu is ready to see the temples, I
am waiting."
"Bien," responded Jerry; and then turning to the archæologist, he asked,
"Are you coming?"
"Of course," the Englishman answered. "Never mind this custode; he's
only an ignorant pig."
Jerry secretly felt that, ignorant or not, the big Italian, with his
merry face and open smile, would be a much more companionable guide than
the eccentric collector; but without comment he paid the reckoning, and
they set out. They went down the road to a gate, paid a lira each to the
custode, and entered upon a field of ploughed land, planted with maize.
The Italian, who had more and more the air of not liking the Englishman,
made some remarks to the effect that Michu l'Anglaise was a very learned
man, and one much better fitted to explain the marvels of ancient
architecture than he, a plain man who had had to pick up his education
in the army. On these grounds he excused himself and went into a little
lodge, while the others walked on to the temples which stood before
them, ideal in their beauty.
The two pushed their way across the field and entered the nearest
temple. Jerry's was not an impressionable nature, and in one way to him
these august colonnades meant little; yet despite a certain sophomoric
exuberance which he had never outgrown, his nature was fundamentally too
refined to fail to respond to the silent grandeur of this solemn harmony
in stone. The roofless enclosure, after all the indignities a score of
centuries had been able to inflict upon it, possessed still a nobility
and a beauty which seemed almost personal and conscious. One feels in
seeing the ruins at Pæstum as if a certain inherent and indestructible
loveliness would pervade the very stones were they thrown down to the
last one; and while the columns stand, the place is one to make the
visitor catch his breath with admiration and almost with awe. Taberman
did not analyze, and indeed he was instinctively so occupied in
concealing from his companion how profoundly he was impressed as to have
little attention left for introspection; but he was more deeply stirred
than he could have conceived possible.
He walked about with Mr. Wrenmarsh, who talked along in his curious
voice, expatiating upon styles and orders, influence and epochs, with
all sorts of things of which Jerry understood at best not more than a
quarter; until at last, instead of going on to the neighboring temple,
the strangely assorted pair sat down on the western steps of the ruin
through which they had come. Taberman looked away westward, where the
rim of the sea shone like a fillet of molten silver. For some time
neither spoke; but at length Mr. Wrenmarsh broke in upon Tab's train of
thought with a question.
"Are you traveling alone?" he asked quite suddenly.
Taberman explained that he had come over from America in a yacht. It is
to be feared that it was vanity which led him to make the unlucky
addition that he was in command of her until his friend should rejoin
him at Naples.
"Ah," commented the archæologist, with a new appearance of interest;
"you're cruising."
"Yes," said Jerry.
The spell of the temple was upon him, and he had no inclination to talk.
He was conscious of a half-defined desire to have this stranger take
himself off, and not bother him further with questions.
"And what do you suppose I am doing here?" queried the collector in a
tone of almost fierce intensity.
"Why," Jerry responded rather absently, "I supposed you were studying or
something."
"Why, yes, to be sure I am; haven't I told the custode so?" chuckled Mr.
Wrenmarsh. His laughter was as extraordinary as his speech and manner.
He would double up as if with a sort of a spasm and snigger gastrically.
"But that's not all," he went on, as Jerry turned to look at him
questioningly; "that's not all. I'm doing something else. I'm waiting."
"What for?" asked Taberman, seeing that he was expected to speak.
"Help," replied Wrenmarsh laconically.
"Help?" repeated Jerry blankly.
"Yes, help; waiting. Collecting is nothing but waiting anyway,--waiting
for news, waiting for funds, waiting for auctions, waiting for old
countesses to die, waiting for some fool of a peasant to discover
something; waiting, waiting, waiting all along the line. It's the man
who waits with his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut that gets what
he wants. He's the man."
"But--but what sort of help do you want now?" Tab inquired.
He was sympathetic by nature, and this extraordinary individual had
aroused not only his curiosity, but in some mysterious manner stimulated
him to a desire to be of service. He had come to Pæstum for amusement.
He felt that in meeting the collector he had been amply repaid. The
unwonted emotion which had been stirred by the temple melted in his
boyish heart before the warmer human interest which the collector
aroused, and it was perhaps with some unrealized relief at getting back
to more familiar levels of feeling that he now began to enter into the
affairs of his companion. It came over him that he was being appealed
to, and he was ready to take the position that if any aid of his could
bring relief to Mr. Wrenmarsh, that eccentric gentleman should no longer
need to go on waiting for help.
"I'll tell you the whole business," said the archæologist, in a sudden
burst of frankness. "You look trustworthy. I've been here ten
days--waiting. I've written, of course, for help; but it doesn't seem to
come. Three weeks ago I was in Naples, and heard--no matter how--that
somewhere down here a lot of good stuff had turned up. I kept coming
down here daily until, by dint of discreet questions--discretion's the
backbone of the game--I found out what had happened. A peasant here had
been spading over some ground. One day the earth sunk suddenly under
him, and down he went into a hole. He found, as soon as he could get his
wits together, that he had broken through the roof of an ancient _cella_
of some sort. He got out without much trouble, pulled himself together,
and did what any peasant would know enough to do,--covered the place
with brush and dirt so that no news of the thing should get to the
custodi. Then he went on with his spading."
"Without investigating?" asked Jerry, full of interest.
Mr. Wrenmarsh looked at him curiously.
"Of course," he responded. "If he had let his curiosity get the better
of him, or his tongue wag, he'd be a good deal poorer than he is at
present. They are stupid louts, these peasants, but they do learn
enough not to take the government into their confidence when they find
anything. They know that they'd get nothing out of it if they did.
Besides, they are as stolid as buffaloes. They can wait well enough."
"But what did he find?" demanded Taberman, his interest thoroughly
aroused by this tale of treasure-trove, which appealed to every boyish
and every adventurous fibre in him.
"He went by night with a lantern and a couple of panniers. He filled his
baskets twice, filled them with priceless things in a perfect
condition--beautiful kylixes and glass bowls. There's one that measures
at least half a metre across the top. Think of that! Why, it's the
finest glass I've ever seen or heard of! It's the finest glass there
is!"
"Great Scott!" cried Jerry, alive with excitement. "It must be awfully
old!"
"Old!" retorted Wrenmarsh with scorn; "do you know where you are?"
Jerry twisted his head to look up at the tall columns and broken
pediment above him, on the pinkish-gray stones of which the afternoon
sun fell with loving warmth.
"Yes, of course," he said. "But what did he do with the things?"
"I kept at him till I wormed the whole business out of him," the
collector answered, "and I bought his things--damn him!"
He brought out the objurgation with amazing vigor; then stopped and
stared gloomily before him.
"Well?" said Jerry. "What are you waiting for? More?"
"More!" exploded the collector, disgust and indignation in his face.
"Man, I've got hold of a collection that is all but unique! More! Don't
you see--I can't get away with it! Piece by piece I could run it out of
the country, but I don't dare to leave anything behind me. If only my
men were at hand--but they're not, they're not. One's off the track in
the T road, and the other's in America."
He passed his hand before his eyes with a gesture so expressive that it
was even more impassioned than his tone.
Taberman was moved, both by the enthusiasm of this man for his work and
by the exciting romance of the finding of this treasure. He knew vaguely
of the laws that forbade the taking of works of art out of Italy and
Greece, but he had no conception that they were strictly enforced. It
gave him a new sensation to be thus brought in contact with the actual
working of a statute which was aimed to prevent a man from removing his
own possessions from one country to another. He had been too well
brought up under a high protective tariff to have any moral scruples
about smuggling anything. A Mugwump atmosphere had acted upon the
natural inclination of youth to defy authority, and had bred in Jerry
the feeling that smuggling, however little its true nature was
appreciated in high places, was really in its essence a maligned virtue.
In the present instance, moreover, the boyish feeling that what one owns
is his to do what he chooses with despite all fiats of principalities,
potentates, and powers, helped to make the idea of this especial case of
an attempt to defy the laws one of particular merit. He gave himself
eagerly to considering how it could be done.
"Can't you take your traps to Naples, and ship 'em from there?" he at
last demanded of the archæologist.
"You don't understand, I'm afraid," replied the other. "My reputation in
itself compels me to lie close. Besides that, there's the awkward
problem of the octroi and the export examinations. I couldn't take the
things into Naples without running into the one, or out of it without
getting afoul of the other. They'd be no end sharp in examining
anything I tried to pass. I'm hideously notorious in Italy." His pride
in this last statement was entirely evident, but Jerry was impressed by
the deeds of archæological daring which were implied in such a
reputation. "I simply can't get these things away without help," he
continued. "I've written and telegraphed to every mortal I can count
on,--there are only five or six of them,--and not one of them can help
me out just now. Meanwhile I starve on eggs and polenta, under the
suspicious eyes of the custodi--damn 'em! They'd have got me a week ago
if they'd had any brains."
"Upon my word," cried Jerry, the idea suddenly striking him for the
first time, "it's extraordinary you should tell me all this, and I a
stranger."
"I count on your helping me," responded Mr. Wrenmarsh in keenly incisive
tones.
"My helping you!" ejaculated Tab in amazement. "What in the world have I
to do with the business?"
"You practically said so," returned the collector. "At least your face
did." He looked at Jerry, and then turned away to the brown expanse of
plain in a manner so stricken and so reproachful that Taberman could not
help feeling convicted of consummate wickedness. "I counted on you," he
added, in a tone of profoundest pathos.
Jerry was completely nonplussed. He felt that he was being played with;
he was angrily conscious that the whole affair was no concern of his,
and that he had no business to be dragged into it. Yet he felt no less
but rather more keenly that he could not endure the imputation of having
encouraged a man in difficulties with a hope of assistance and of having
then refused to fulfill them. His youthful blood, moreover, was stirred
by the flavor of adventure which came alluringly to his inner sense. For
a moment there was a strained silence, and then it was broken by Tab.
"You've mistaken my interest for something else, I'm afraid," he said,
trying to speak lightly, and feeling that he was making a mess of it.
"It never even occurred to me that I could help you out of this blessed
muss; and I don't see that there's anything I can do anyway, except to
keep mum about it. Of course that I'd do anyway."
"No use," retorted the archæologist. "If you can help me and won't,
after my taking you into my confidence, you--you ruin me."
"Hmm," Jerry observed rather coldly, "that's too subtle for me. I fail
to see it in that light. You're no worse off than you were before."
"I'm sure, Mr. Tableman"--
"Taberman," Jerry corrected.
"Pardon me, Mr. Taberman; but you don't see the _catena logica_ by which
I arrive at my conclusions!" Mr. Wrenmarsh, both in speech and gestures,
was momentarily growing more and more theatrical. "Suppose you should,
knowing my story and the law against taking works of art out of the
country, tell my case to the police. What then?"
"It would be the trick of a blackguard, of course," Jerry replied
promptly, "but"--
"_Momento!_" interrupted the other, holding up his hand. "Now suppose
things to be as they are, and you learn that the custodi are on my
track"--
"They've heard something of the find," interposed Jerry; "they told me
that."
"There! You see!" Wrenmarsh said, with a gesture which seemed to appeal
to all humanity to bear witness that in whatever he had said he had been
completely right. "Suppose, now, that you have--with perfect security to
yourself, mind--a chance to give me a friendly word of warning, and
don't do it. What then?"
"Why," Tab answered, feeling every moment more and more as if he were
being snarled up in a web, "it would be, in such a case as you suppose,
a pretty shabby trick, of course. At the same time"--
"Wait a bit," cried Mr. Wrenmarsh, again interrupting him, and growing
visibly more excited still; "wait a bit. I want you to consider the
present case. You say yourself the secret is leaking out, and of course
every moment makes my danger greater. With practically no bother and
with absolute safety you can help me out of the whole tangle. If you
don't, I shall be caught; I shall lose this incomparable treasure and
all the money I paid for it,--and that's no small sum, let me tell
you,--and all because you, my forlorn hope that I've confided in _in
rebus angustis_, won't devote twenty-four hours of your time to saving
your own self-respect. By Jove!" he cried, starting to his feet, "if you
don't help me you betray me as much as if you went straight to the
custodi with my story."
"Sit tight!" cried Jerry, startled by the violence of the other's
demonstration. "Sit tight!"
"Will you help me?" demanded Mr. Wrenmarsh, his brown eyes blazing.
"Will you help--help me to dodge these Italian robbers and get my
things--my antiquities that I have paid for with hard cash--out of this
rotten country? Will you help, or will you desert me, and take sides
with those that are waiting to rob me?"
"By George, I've a mind to try!" incautiously ejaculated Jerry, for the
moment carried off his balance by the enthusiasm and the persuasive
personality of the other.
"Good man!" cried the antiquarian in a rapture; "good man! I knew you
would. We'll beat 'em! I"--
"Hold your horses a bit!" put in Tab hastily, taken aback by the force
Wrenmarsh gave to his unconsidered words. "Go slow, please. I may
have"--
"Oh, that's all right," returned the collector impetuously. "We'll take
a turn down the road, and plan it all out. I can think better when I'm
walking--sort of peripatetic, you see. Ha, ha!--and it'll look queer if
you don't go down to see the other temple. Come on."
Mr. Wrenmarsh made his way toward the road, trampling impetuously over
the wild thyme and the acanthus, while Taberman followed in a mixture of
amused amazement and indignation, but with a full determination to
expostulate. He found, however, that he was not allowed any opportunity
for remonstrance. Every sentence he began was choked off with some fresh
exclamation of gratitude from the collector, or by some burst of
delight that out of the skies, as it were, he had fallen to be the
savior of the perplexed archæologist. By the time they had walked around
the third temple, which stands at some distance from the other two,
Taberman had given up protesting. He merely listened to his companion's
bewildering flow of talk, and felt as if he were being drawn into a
whirlpool. He was helped by his own secret delight at the thought of
having a share in a real adventure, and perhaps pushed on by a boyish
shame at the idea of seeming to draw back and to fail another in an
extremity. He had not much chance to speak,--but he soon found that what
he did say was in the line of his having accepted the position into
which Mr. Wrenmarsh had been endeavoring to force him.
As they returned from the third temple they found the custode beside the
fountain which stood across the road from the inn. He was trying to
teach his horse to shake hands.