He meant to drive them out, swamp them in the stream, choke them in
the sand, hunt them in the heather; make every man of them rue the
day that ever they came thither to meddle with the Edera water.
"Curse them! Their blood will be on their own heads!" he said between
his teeth. He was thinking of the strange men who it was said would
be at work on the land and the water before the moon, young now,
should be in her last quarter; men hired by the hundreds,
day-labourers of the Romagna and the Puglie, leased by contract,
marshalled under overseers, different in nothing from slaves who
groan under the white man's lash in Africa.
"Let me come with you to-night," she pleaded again. "I will hide in
the bushes. The men shall not see me."
"No, no," he said sternly. "Get you back to your rest at Ruscino. I
did wrong, I did basely to use your ignorance and abuse your
obedience. Get you gone, and listen to your priest, not to me."
The child, ever obedient, vanished through the olive boughs. Adone
went onward northward to his tryst: his soul was dark as night; it
enraged him to have been forced by his conscience and his honour to
obey the command of Don Silverio.
But she did not go over the bridge to Ruscino. She waited a little
while then followed on his track. Gianna was right. She was a wild
bird. She had been caught and tamed for a time, but she was always
wild. The life which they had given her had been precious and sweet
to her, and she had learned willingly all its ways; but at the bottom
of her heart the love of liberty, the love of movement, the love of
air and sky and freedom were stronger than all else. She was of an
adventurous temper also, and brave like all Abruzzese, and she longed
to see one of those moonlit midnight meetings of armed men to which
she had escaped from Alaida's keeping, she could not have forced
herself to go back out of this clear, cool, radiant night into the
little, close, dark sleeping-chamber. No, not if Don Silverio himself
had stood in her path with the cross raised. She was like a year-old
lioness who smells blood.
She knew the way to the tomb of Asdrubal, even in the darkness, as
well as he did. It was situated in a grassy hollow surrounded by
dense trees, some five miles or more from the Terra Vergine, on the
north bank of the river. The solitude was absolute, and the place
large enough to permit the assemblage of several scores of men.
Adone went on, unconscious that he was followed; he went at a
swinging trot, easy and swift; the sinews of his lithe limbs were
strong as steel, and his rage, all aflame, lent lightning to his
feet.
She allowed him to precede her by half a mile or more, for if he had
seen her his anger would have been great, and she feared it. She went
skipping and bounding along, where the path was clear, in all the joy
of liberty and rapture of the fresh night air. The hours spent in
Alaida's close house in the village had been as terrible to her as
his hours in a birdcatcher's hamper are to a wild bird. Up at Ansalda
she had always been out of doors, and at the Terra Vergine she had
gone under a roof only to eat and sleep.
The moon, which was in the beginning of its first quarter, had passed
behind some heavy clouds; there was little light, for there were as
yet few stars visible, but that was not matter to her. She knew her
way as well as any mountain hare.
The pungent odour of the heaths through which she went seemed to her
like a draught of wine, the strong sea breeze which was blowing bore
her up like wings. She forgot that she was once more a homeless waif,
as she had been that day when she had sat under the dock leaves by
the Edera water. He had told her she should go back; she believed
him: that was enough. Madonna Clelia would forgive, she felt sure,
for what harm had she done? All would be well; she would feed the
oxen again, and go again to the spring for water, and all would be as
it had been before -- her thoughts, her desires, went no farther than
that. So, with a light heart she followed him gaily, running where
there was open ground, pushing hard where the heather grew, going
always in the same path as Adone had done.
All of a sudden she stopped short, in alarm.
The night was still; the spring of the river was loud upon it, owls
hooted and chuckled, now and then a fox in the thickets barked. There
are many sounds in the open country at night; sounds of whirring
pinions, of stealthy feet, of shrill, lone cries, of breaking twigs,
of breaking ferns, of little rivulets unheard by day, of timid
creatures taking courage in the dark. But to these sounds she was
used; she could give a name to every one of them. She heard now what
was unfamiliar to her in these solitudes; she heard the footsteps of
men; and it seemed to her, all around her, as though in a moment of
time, the heath and bracken and furze grew alive to their tryst with
Adone? She did not think so, for she had never known the few men in
the village summon courage to join the armed meetings of the men of
the valley. She stopped and listened, as a pole-cat which was near
her did; the sounds were those of human beings, breathing, creeping,
moving under the heather.
Suddenly she felt some presence close to her in the dark; she held
her breath; she shrank noiselessly between the plumes of heath. If
they were men of the country they would not hurt her, but if not --
she was not sure.
Near her was an open space where the wild growth had been recently
cut. The men debouched on to it from the undergrowth, there was a
faint light from the stars on that strip of rough grass; by it she
saw that they were soldiers, five in number.
A great terror cowed her, like a hand of ice at her heart, a terror
not for herself, but for those away there, in the green hollow by the
three stone-pines.
They were soldiers; yes, they were soldiers; the sounds she had heard
had been the crushing of the plants under their feet, the click of
their muskets as they moved; they were soldiers! Where had they come
from? There were no soldiers at Ruscino.
The only time when she had ever seen soldiers had been when the
troopers had captured Baruffo. These were not troopers; they were
small men, on foot, linen-clad, moving stealthily, and as if in fear;
only the tubes of their muskets glistened in the light of the great
planets.
She crouched down lower and lower, trying to enter the ground and
hide; she hoped they would go onward, and then she could run --
faster than they -- and reach the hollow, and warn Adone and his
fellows. She had no doubt that they came to surprise the meeting; but
she hoped from their pauses and hesitating steps that they were
uncertain what way to take.
"If you come to me to lead you -- aye! I will lead you! -- you will
not forget where I lead!" she said to herself, as she hid under the
heather; and her courage rose, for she saw a deed to be done. For
they were now very near to the place of meeting, and could have taken
the rebels like mice in a trap, if they had only known where they
were; but she, watching them stand still, and stare, and look up to
the stars, and then north, south, east, and west, saw that they did
not know, and that it might be possible to lead them away from the
spot by artifice, as the quail leads the sportsman away from the
place where her nest is hidden.
As the thought took shape in her brain a sixth man, a sergeant who
commanded them, touched her with his foot, stooped, clutched her, and
pulled her upward. She did not try to escape.
"What beast of night have we here?" he cried. "Spawn of devils, who
are you?"
Nerina writhed under the grip of his iron fingers, but she still did
not try to escape. He cursed her, swore at her, shook her, crushed
her arm black and blue. She was sick with pain, but she was mute.
"Who are you?" he shouted.
"I come down from the mountains to work here in summer."
"Can any of you speak her dialect?" cried the sergeant to his
privates: the sergeant was a man of Milan.
One man answered, "I come from Paganica; it is much the same tongue
there as in these parts."
"Ask her the way, then."
The soldier obeyed.
"What is the way to the Three Pines? -- to the tomb of Asdrubal?"
"The way is long," said Nerina.
"Do you know it?"
"I know it."
"Have you heard tell of it?"
"Yes."
"That men meet at night there?"
"Yes."
"Meet this night there?"
"Yes."
"You know where the tomb of Asdrubal is?"
"Have I not told you?"
The soldier repeated her answer translated to his sergeant; the
latter kept his grasp on her.
"Ask her if she will take us there."
The soldier asked her and translated her answer.
"If we give her two gold pieces she will take us there."
"Spawn of hell! I will give her nothing. But if she do not lead us
aright I will give her a bullet for her breakfast."
The soldier translated to Nerina: "He will give you two gold pieces
if you guide us aright; and you need have no fear; we are honest men
and the king's servants."
"I will guide the king's servants."
"You are sure of the way?"
"Is the homing pigeon sure of his?"
"Let us be off," said the sergeant. "A bullet for her if she fail."
He had little pleasure in trusting to this girl of the Abruzzo hills,
but he and his men were lost upon these moors, and might grope all
night, and miss the meeting, and fail to join his comrades and
surprise those who gathered at it. He reckoned upon fear as a sure
agent to keep her true, as it kept his conscripts under arms.
"Bid him take his hand off me," said Nerina, "or I do not move."
The private translated to his superior. "She prays of your mercy to
leave her free, or she cannot pass through the heather."
The sergeant let her go unwillingly, but pushed her in front of him,
and levelled his revolver at her.
"Tell her, if she try to get away, I fire."
"Tell him I know that," said Nerina.
She was not afraid, for a fierce, unholy joy was in her veins; she
could have sung, she could have laughed, she could have danced; she
held them in her power; they had come to ensnare Adone, and she had
got them in her power as if they were so many moles!
They tied her hands behind her; she let them do it; she did not want
her hands. Then she began to push her way doggedly, with her head
down, to the south. The tomb of Asdrubal was due north; she could see
the pole star, and turned her back to it and went due south.
Three miles or more southward there was a large _pollino_, or swamp
as L'Erba Molle, the wet grass; the grass was luxuriant, the flora
was varied and beautiful; in appearance it was a field, in reality it
was a morass; to all people of the Valdedera it was dreaded and
avoided, as quicksand are by the seashore.
She went on as fast as the narrow path, winding in and out between
the undergrowth, permitted her to go; the armed soldiers, heavy laden
with their knapsacks and their boots, following her clumsily, and
with effort, uttering curses on their ill-luck and their sleepless
night.
The stars were now larger and brighter; the darkness was lightened,
the river was running away from its southern birthplace in the hills
which lie like couched lions about the feet of the Gran Sasso. She
could hear its distant murmur. "They come to capture you," she said
to it, "and I will kill them. They shall choke and go down, down,
down -- "
Her heart leapt within her; and she went with the loaded revolver
pointed at her from behind as though she went to her bridal-bed.
"Where are you taking us, vile little bitch?" the sergeant cried, and
the soldier from Paganica translated: "Pretty little brown one,
whither do you go?"
"I take you straight," said Nerina, "only you go to clumsily, for men
in these parts should not wear leather upon their feet."
The soldiers sighed assent, and would willingly have gone barefoot,
and the sergeant swore in tones of thunder because he could not
understand what she said.
Before long they came in sight of the Erba Molle; it looked like a
fair, peaceful pasture, with thousands of sword rushes golden upon
its surface. The light of the stars, which was now brilliant, shone
upon its verdure; there were great flocks of water-birds at roost
around it, and they rose with shrill cries and great noise of wings,
with a roar as though a tide were rising.
Across it stretched a line of wooden piles which served as a rude
causeway to those who had the courage and the steadiness to leap from
one to another of them. It was not three times in a season that any
one dared to do so. Adone did so sometimes; and he had taught Nerina
how to make the passage.
"Pass you after me, and set your feet where I set mine," said Nerina
to the little soldier of the Abruzzo, and she put down her foot on
the first pile, sunk almost invisible under the bright green slime,
where thousands of frogs were croaking.
The soldier of the Abruzzo said to his superior, "She says we must
set our feet where she sets hers. We are quite near now to the tomb
of the barbarian."
Nerina, with the light leap of a kid, bounded from pile to pile. They
thought she went on solid ground; on meadow grass. The sergeant and
his men crowded on to what they thought was pasture. In the uncertain
shadows and scarce dawning light, they did not see the row of
submerged timber. They sank like stones in the thick ooze; they were
sucked under to their knees, to their waists, to their shoulders, to
their mouths; the yielding grasses, the clutching slime, the tangled
weed, the bottomless mud, took hold of them; the water-birds shrieked
and beat their wings; the hideous clamour of dying men answered them.
Nerina had reached the other side of the morass in safety, and her
mocking laughter rang upon their ears.
"I have led you well!" she cried to them. "I have led you well, oh
servants of the king! -- oh swine! -- oh slaves! -- oh spies!-- oh
hunters and butchers of men!"
And she danced on the edge of the field of death, and the light of
the great planets shone upon her face.
Had she run onward at once the wood beyond she would have been saved.
That instant of triumph and mockery lost her.
The sergeant had put his revolver in his teeth; he knew now that he
was a dead man; the slime was up to his chin, under his feet the
grass and the mud quaked, yielded, yawned like a grave.
He drew his right arm out of the ooze, seized his revolver, and aimed
at the dancing, mocking, triumphant figure beyond the border of
golden sword rushes. With a supreme effort he fired; then he sank
under the mud and weed.
The child dropped dead on the edge of the morass.
One by one each soldier sank. Not one escaped.
The water-birds came back from their upward flight and settled again
on the swamp.
Underneath it all was still, save for the loud croaking of the frogs.