Delarey stole along the beach, walking lightly despite his fatigue. He
felt curiously excited, as if he were on the heels of some adventure. He
passed the Caffè Berardi almost like a thief in the night, and came to
the narrow strip of pebbles that edged the still and lakelike water,
protected by the sirens' isle. There he paused. He meant to gain that
lonely land, but how? By the water lay two or three boats, but they were
large and clumsy, impossible to move without aid. Should he climb up to
the Messina road, traverse the spit of ground that led to the rocky wall,
and try to make his way across it? The feat would be a difficult one, he
thought. But it was not that which deterred him. He was impatient of
delay, and the détour would take time. Between him and the islet was the
waterway. Already he had been in the sea. Why not go in again? He
stripped, packed his clothes into a bundle, tied roughly with a rope made
of his handkerchief and bootlaces, and waded in. For a long way the water
was shallow. Only when he was near to the island did it rise to his
breast, to his throat, higher at last. Holding the bundle on his head
with one hand, he struck out strongly and soon touched bottom again. He
scrambled out, dressed on a flat rock, then looked for a path leading
upward.
The ground was very steep, almost precipitous, and thickly covered with
trees and with undergrowth. This undergrowth concealed innumerable rocks
and stones which shifted under his feet and rolled down as he began to
ascend, grasping the bushes and the branches. He could find no path.
What did it matter? All sense of fatigue had left him. With the activity
of a cat he mounted. A tree struck him across the face. Another swept off
his hat. He felt that he had antagonists who wished to beat him back to
the sea, and his blood rose against them. He tore down a branch that
impeded him, broke it with his strong hands, and flung it away viciously.
His teeth were set and his nerves tingled, and he was conscious of the
almost angry joy of keen bodily exertion. The body--that was his God
to-night. How he loved it, its health and strength, its willingness, its
capacities! How he gloried in it! It had bounded down the mountain. It
had gone into the sea and revelled there. It had fished and swum. Now it
mounted upward to discovery, defying the weapons that nature launched
against it. Splendid, splendid body!
He fought with the trees and conquered them. His trampling feet sent the
stones leaping downward to be drowned in the sea. His swift eyes found
the likely places for a foothold. His sinewy hands forced his enemies to
assist him in the enterprise they hated. He came out on to the plateau at
the summit of the island and stood still, panting, beside the house that
hid there.
Its blind, gray wall confronted him coldly in the dimness, one shuttered
window, like a shut eye, concealing the interior, the soul of the house
that lay inside its body. In this window must have been set the light he
had seen from the terrace. He wished there were a light burning now. Had
he swum across the inlet and fought his way up through the wood only to
see a gray wall, a shuttered window? That cry had come from the rocks,
yet he had been driven by something within him to this house,
connecting--he knew not why--the cry with it and with the far-off light
that had been like a star caught in the sea. Now he said to himself that
he should have gone back to the rocks and sought the siren there. Should
he go now? He hesitated for a moment, leaning against the wall of the
house.
"Maju torna, maju veni
Cu li belli soi ciureri;
Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;
Maju torna, maju è ccà!
"Maju torna, maju vinni,
Duna isca a li disinni;
Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,
Maju viva! Maju è ccà!"
He heard a girl's voice singing near him, whether inside the house or
among the trees he could not at first tell. It sang softly yet gayly, as
if the sun were up and the world were awake, and when it died away
Delarey felt as if the singer must be in the dawn, though he stood still
in the night. He put his ear to the shuttered window and listened.
"L'haju; nun l'haju?"
The voice was speaking now with a sort of whimsical and half-pathetic
merriment, as if inclined to break into laughter at its own childish
wistfulness.
"M'ama; nun m'ama?"
It broke off. He heard a little laugh. Then the song began again:
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,
Bona sorti di Diù vògghiu;
Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,
Diù, pinzàticci vu a la sorti mia!"
The voice was not in the house. Delarey was sure of that now. He was
almost sure, too, that it was the same voice which had cried out to him
from the rocks. Moving with precaution, he stole round the house to the
farther side, which looked out upon the open sea, keeping among the
trees, which grew thickly about the house on three sides, but which left
it unprotected to the sea-winds on the fourth.
A girl was standing in this open space, alone, looking seaward, with one
arm out-stretched, one hand laid lightly, almost caressingly, upon the
gnarled trunk of a solitary old olive-tree, the other arm hanging at her
side. She was dressed in some dark, coarse stuff, with a short skirt, and
a red handkerchief tied round her head, and seemed in the pale and almost
ghastly light in which night and day were drawing near to each other to
be tall and slim of waist. Her head was thrown back, as if she were
drinking in the breeze that heralded the dawn--drinking it in like a
voluptuary.
Delarey stood and watched her. He could not see her face.
She spoke some words in dialect in a clear voice. There was no one else
visible. Evidently she was talking to herself. Presently she laughed
again, and began to sing once more:
"Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,
A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vògghiu;
Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,
Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"
There was an African sound in the girl's voice--a sound of mystery that
suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at
ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the
first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young
countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and,
turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to
the east and the rising sun, lift their hands full of the flowers above
their heads, and, making the sign of the cross, murmur devoutly:
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulàtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;
Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
[Illustration: "HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE DRINKING IN THE
BREEZE"]
Delarey knew neither song nor custom, but his ears were fascinated by the
voice and the melody. Both sounded remote and yet familiar to him, as if
once, in some distant land--perhaps of dreams--he had heard them before.
He wished the girl to go on singing, to sing on and on into the dawn
while he listened in his hiding-place, but she suddenly turned round and
stood looking towards him, as if something had told her that she was not
alone. He kept quite still. He knew she could not see him, yet he felt as
if she was aware that he was there, and instinctively he held his breath
and leaned backward into deeper shadow. After a minute the girl took a
step forward, and, still staring in his direction, called out:
"Padre?"
Then Delarey knew that it was her voice that he had heard when he was in
the sea, and he suddenly changed his desire. Now he no longer wished to
remain unseen, and without hesitation he came out from the trees. The
girl stood where she was, watching him as he came. Her attitude showed
neither surprise nor alarm, and when he was close to her, and could at
last see her face, he found that its expression was one of simple, bold
questioning. It seemed to be saying to him quietly, "Well, what do you
want of me?"
Delarey was not acquainted with the Arab type of face. Had he been he
would have at once been struck by the Eastern look in the girl's long,
black eyes, by the Eastern cast of her regular, slightly aquiline
features. Above her eyes were thin, jet-black eyebrows that looked almost
as if they were painted. Her chin was full and her face oval in shape.
She had hair like Gaspare's, black-brown, immensely thick and wavy, with
tiny feathers of gold about the temples. She was tall, and had the
contours of a strong though graceful girl just blooming into womanhood.
Her hands were as brown as Delarey's, well shaped, but the hands of a
worker. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and brimful of lusty life.
After a minute of silence Delarey's memory recalled some words of
Gaspare's, till then forgotten.
"You are Maddalena!" he said, in Italian.
The girl nodded.
"Si, signore."
She uttered the words softly, then fell into silence again, staring at
him with her lustrous eyes, that were like black jewels.
"You live here with Salvatore?"
She nodded once more and began to smile, as if with pleasure at his
knowledge of her.
Delarey smiled too, and made with his arms the motion of swimming. At
that she laughed outright and broke into quick speech. She spoke
vivaciously, moving her hands and her whole body. Delarey could not
understand much of what she said, but he caught the words mare and
pescatore, and by her gestures knew that she was telling him she had been
on the rocks and had seen his mishap. Suddenly in the midst of her talk
she uttered the little cry of surprise or alarm which he had heard as he
came up above water, pointed to her lips to indicate that she had given
vent to it, and laughed again with all her heart. Delarey laughed too. He
felt happy and at ease with his siren, and was secretly amused at his
thought in the sea of the magical being full of enchantment who sang to
lure men to their destruction. This girl was simply a pretty, but not
specially uncommon, type of the Sicilian contadina--young, gay, quite
free from timidity, though gentle, full of the joy of life and of the
nascent passion of womanhood, blossoming out carelessly in the sunshine
of the season of flowers. She could sing, this island siren, but probably
she could not read or write. She could dance, could perhaps innocently
give and receive love. But there was in her face, in her manner, nothing
deliberately provocative. Indeed, she looked warmly pure, like a bright,
eager young animal of the woods, full of a blithe readiness to enjoy,
full of hope and of unself-conscious animation.
Delarey wondered why she was not sleeping, and strove to ask her,
speaking carefully his best Sicilian, and using eloquent gestures, which
set her smiling, then laughing again. In reply to him she pointed towards
the sea, then towards the house, then towards the sea once more. He
guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that
she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed.
"Niente più sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes.
"Niente! Niente!"
He feigned fatigue. She took his travesty seriously, and pointed to the
house, inviting him by gesture to go in and rest there. Evidently she
believed that, being a stranger, he could not speak or understand much of
her language. He did not even try to undeceive her. It amused him to
watch her dumb show, for her face spoke eloquently and her pretty, brown
hands knew a language that was delicious. He had no longer any thought of
sleep, but he felt curious to see the interior of the cottage, and he
nodded his head in response to her invitation. At once she became the
hospitable peasant hostess. Her eyes sparkled with eagerness and
pleasure, and she went quickly by him to the door, which stood half open,
pushed it back, and beckoned to him to enter.
He obeyed her, went in, and found himself almost in darkness, for the big
windows on either side of the door were shuttered, and only a tiny flame,
like a spark, burned somewhere among the dense shadows of the interior at
some distance from him. Pretending to be alarmed at the obscurity, he put
out his hand gropingly, and let it light on her arm, then slip down to
her warm, strong young hand.
"I am afraid!" he exclaimed.
He heard her merry laugh and felt her trying to pull her hand away, but
he held it fast, prolonging a joke that he found a pleasant one. In that
moment he was almost as simple as she was, obeying his impulses
carelessly, gayly, without a thought of wrong--indeed, almost without
thought at all. His body was still tingling and damp with the sea-water.
Her face was fresh with the sea-wind. He had never felt more wholesome or
as if life were a saner thing.
She dragged her hand out of his at last; he heard a grating noise, and a
faint light sputtered up, then grew steady as she moved away and set a
match to a candle, shielding it from the breeze that entered through the
open door with her body.
"What a beautiful house!" he cried, looking curiously around.
He saw such a dwelling as one may see in any part of Sicily where the
inhabitants are not sunk in the direst poverty and squalor, a modest home
consisting of two fair-sized rooms, one opening into the other. In each
room was a mighty bed, high and white, with fat pillows, and a
counterpane of many colors. At the head of each was pinned a crucifix and
a little picture of the Virgin, Maria Addolorata, with a palm branch that
had been blessed, and beneath the picture in the inner room a tiny light,
rather like an English night-light near its end, was burning. It was this
that Delarey had seen like a spark in the distance. At the foot of each
bed stood a big box of walnut wood, carved into arabesques and grotesque
faces. There were a few straw chairs and kitchen utensils. An old gun
stood in a corner with a bundle of wood. Not far off was a pan of
charcoal. There were also two or three common deal-tables, on one of
which stood the remains of a meal, a big jar containing wine, a flat loaf
of coarse brown bread, with a knife lying beside it, some green stuff in
a plate, and a slab of hard, yellow cheese.
Delarey was less interested in these things than in the display of
photographs, picture-cards, and figures of saints that adorned the
walls, carefully arranged in patterns to show to the best advantage. Here
were colored reproductions of actresses in languid attitudes, of peasants
dancing, of babies smiling, of elaborate young people with carefully
dressed hair making love with "Molti Saluti!" "Una stretta di Mano!"
"Mando un bacio!" "Amicizia eterna!" and other expressions of friendship
and affection, scribbled in awkward handwritings across and around them.
And mingled with them were representations of saints, such as are sold at
the fairs and festivals of Sicily, and are reverently treasured by the
pious and superstitious contadine; San Pancrazio, Santa Leocanda, the
protector of child-bearing women; Sant Aloe, the patron saint of the
beasts of burden; San Biagio, Santo Vito, the patron saint of dogs; and
many others, with the Bambino, the Immacolata, the Madonna di Loreto, the
Madonna della Rocca.
In the faint light cast by the flickering candle, the faces of saints and
actresses, of smiling babies, of lovers and Madonnas peered at Delarey as
if curious to know why at such an hour he ventured to intrude among them,
why he thus dared to examine them when all the world was sleeping. He
drew back from them at length and looked again at the great bed with its
fat pillows that stood in the farther room secluded from the sea-breeze.
Suddenly he felt a longing to throw himself down and rest.
The girl smiled at him with sympathy.
"That is my bed," she said, simply. "Lie down and sleep, signorino."
Delarey hesitated for a moment. He thought of his companions. If they
should wake in the cave and miss him what would they think, what would
they do? Then he looked again at the bed. The longing to lie down on it
was irresistible. He pointed to the open door.
"When the sun comes will you wake me?" he said.
He took hold of his arm with one hand, and made the motion of shaking
himself.
"Sole," he said. "Quando c'è il sole."
The girl laughed and nodded.
"Si, signore--non dubiti!"
Delarey climbed up on to the mountainous bed.
"Buona notte, Maddalena!" he said, smiling at her from the pillow like a
boy.
"Buon riposo, signorino!"
That was the last thing he heard. The last thing he saw was the dark,
eager face of the girl lit up by the candle-flame watching him from the
farther room. Her slight figure was framed by the doorway, through which
a faint, sad light was stealing with the soft wind from the sea. Her
lustrous eyes were looking towards him curiously, as if he were something
of a phenomenon, as if she longed to understand his mystery.
Soon, very soon, he saw those eyes no more. He was asleep in the midst of
the Madonnas and the saints, with the blessed palm branch and the
crucifix and Maria Addolorata above his head.
The girl sat down on a chair just outside the door, and began to sing to
herself once more in a low voice:
"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza, consulàtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;
Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
Once, in his sleep, Delarey must surely have heard her song, for he began
to dream that he was Ulysses sailing across the purple seas along the
shores of an enchanted coast, and that he heard far off the sirens
singing, and saw their shadowy forms sitting among the rocks and
reclining upon the yellow sands. Then he bade his mariners steer the bark
towards the shore. But when he drew near the sirens changed into devout
peasant women, and their alluring songs into prayers uttered to the
Bambino and the Virgin. But one watched him with eyes that gleamed like
black jewels, and her lips smiled while they uttered prayers, as if they
could murmur love words and kiss the lips of men.
"Signorino! Signorino!"
Delarey stirred on the great, white bed. A hand grasped him firmly, shook
him ruthlessly.
"Signorino! C'è il sole!"
He opened his eyes reluctantly. Maddalena was leaning over him. He saw
her bright face and curious young eyes, then the faces of the saints and
the actresses upon the wall, and he wondered where he was and where
Hermione was.
"Hermione!" he said.
"Cosa?" said Maddalena.
She shook him again gently. He stretched himself, yawned, and began to
smile. She smiled back at him.
"C'è il sole!"
Now he remembered, lifted himself up, and looked towards the doorway. The
first rays of the sun were filtering in and sparkling in the distance
upon the sea. The east was barred with red.
He slipped down from the bed.
"The frittura!" he said, in English. "I must make haste!"
Maddalena laughed. She had never heard English before.
"Ditelo ancora!" she cried, eagerly.
They went but together on to the plateau and stood looking seaward.
"I--must--make--haste!" he said, speaking slowly and dividing the words.
"Hi--maust--maiki--'ai--isti!" she repeated, trying to imitate his
accent.
He burst out laughing. She pouted. Then she laughed, too, peal upon peal,
while the sunlight grew stronger about them. How fresh the wind was! It
played with her hair, from which she had now removed the handkerchief,
and ruffled the little feathers of gold upon her brow. It blew about her
smooth, young face as if it loved to touch the soft cheeks, the innocent
lips, the candid, unlined brow. The leaves of the olive-trees rustled and
the brambles and the grasses swayed. Everything was in movement, stirring
gayly into life to greet the coming day. Maurice opened his mouth and
drew in the air to his lungs, expanding his chest. He felt inclined to
dance, to sing, and very much inclined to eat.
"Addio, Maddalena!" he said, holding out his hand.
He looked into her eyes and added:
"Addio, Maddalena mia!"
She smiled and looked down, then up at him again.
"A rivederci, signorino!"
She took his hand warmly in hers.
"Yes, that's better. A rivederci!"
He held her hand for a moment, looking into her long and laughing eyes,
and thinking how like a young animal's they were in their unwinking
candor. And yet they were not like an animal's. For now, when he gazed
into them, they did not look away from him, but continued to regard him,
and always with an eager shining of curiosity. That curiosity stirred his
manhood, fired him. He longed to reply to it, to give a quick answer to
its eager question, its "what are you?" He glanced round, saw only the
trees, the sea all alight with sun-rays, the red east now changing slowly
into gold. Then he bent down, kissed the lips of Maddalena with a laugh,
turned and descended through the trees by the way he had come. He had no
feeling that he had done any wrong to Hermione, any wrong to Maddalena.
His spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to
the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he
stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into
the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the
cold, bracing water seized him, he heard far above him the musical cry
of the siren of the night. He answered it with a loud, exultant call.
That was her farewell and his--this rustic Hero's good-bye to her
Leander.
When he reached the Caffè Berardi its door stood open, and a middle-aged
woman was looking out seaward. Beyond, by the caves, he saw figures
moving. His companions were awake. He hastened towards them. His morning
plunge in the sea had given him a wild appetite.
"Frittura! Frittura!" he shouted, taking off his hat and waving it.
Gaspare came running towards him.
"Where have you been, signorino?"
"For a walk along the shore."
He still kept his hat in his hand.
"Why, your face is all wet, and so is your hair."
"I washed them in the sea. Mangiamo! Mangiamo!"
"You did not sleep?"
Gaspare spoke curiously, regarded him with inquisitive, searching eyes.
"I couldn't. I'll sleep up there when we get home."
He pointed to the mountain. His eyes were dancing with gayety.
"The frittura, Gasparino, the frittura! And then the tarantella, and then
'O sole mio'!"
He looked towards the rising sun, and began to sing at the top of his
voice:
"O sole, o sole mio,
Sta 'n fronte a te,
Sta 'n fronte a te!"
Gaspare joined in lustily, and Carmela in the doorway of the Caffè
Berardi waved a frying-pan at them in time to the music.
"Per Dio, Gaspare!" exclaimed Maurice, as they raced towards the house,
each striving to be first there--"Per Dio, I never knew what life was
till I came to Sicily! I never knew what happiness was till this
morning!"
"The frittura! The frittura!" shouted Gaspare. "I'll be first!"
Neck and neck they reached the caffè as Nito poured the shining fish into
Madre Carmela's frying-pan.