They resumed their journey, leaving the showering meteors behind them,
and the Count, in the lightness of his heart, began humming a tune.
As for Blake, he rode as silently as Ferara, being lost in
contemplation of a happiness in which he had no part. Not until this
moment had he realized how entirely unnecessary he was to the existence
of Martel and Margherita. He longed to remain a part of them, but saw
that his desire was vain. They were complete without him, their lives
would be full. He began to feel like a stranger already. It was a new
sensation, for he had always seemed to be a factor in the lives of
those about him; but Martel had changed with the advent of new
interests and ambitions. Sicily, too, was different from any land he
knew, and even Margherita Ginini was hard to understand. She seemed to
be the spirit of Sicily made flesh and blood. He wondered if the very
fact that she was so unusual might not help him to forget her once he
was away from her influence. He hoped so, for this last week had been
the most painful period of his life. He had come south, somewhat
against his will, for a kaleidoscopic glimpse of Europe, never dreaming
that he would carry back to America anything more than the usual
flitting memories of a pleasant trip; but instead he was destined to
take with him a single vivid picture. He argued that he was merely
infatuated with the girl, carried away by the allurement of a new and
remarkable type of woman, and that these headlong passions were neither
healthy nor lasting; but his reasoning brought him no real sense of
conviction, and his life, as he looked forward to it, appeared
singularly flat and stale. His one consolation, poor as it seemed, lay
in the fact that he had played the man to the best of his ability and
was really glad, even if a bit envious, of Martel's good-fortune.
He let his thoughts run free in this manner, sitting his horse
listlessly, for he was tired mentally and physically, watching the gray
road idly as it slipped past beneath the muffled hoofs, and lulled by
Savigno's musical humming.
It was while he was still in this half-somnolent, semidetached frame of
mind that he rode into a sudden white-hot whirl of events.
Norvin Blake was never clear in his mind regarding the precise sequence
of the action that followed, for he was snatched too quickly from his
mental relaxation to retain any well-defined impressions. He recalled
vaguely that the road lay like a mysterious canon walled in with
darkness, and that his thoughts were miles away when his horse shied
without warning, nearly unseating him and bringing him back to a sense
of his surroundings with a shock. Simultaneously he heard a cry from
Ricardo; it was a scream of agony, cutting through Savigno's song like
a saber stroke. For a moment Blake's heart seemed to stop, then began
pounding crazily. A stream of fire leaped out at his left side,
splitting the quiet night with a detonation. The wood which had lain so
silent and deserted an instant before was lit by answering flashes, the
blackness at an arm's-length on every side was stabbed by wicked
tongues of flame, and the road swarmed with grotesque bodies leaping
and tumbling and fighting. Blake's horse reared as something black rose
up beneath its forefeet and snatched at its bridle; Martel's steed
lurched into it, then fell kicking and screaming, sending its mate
careening to the roadside. The unexpected movement wrenched Norvin's
feet from the stirrups and left him clinging desperately to mane and
cantle.
It all came with a terrifying swiftness--quite as if the three riders
had crossed over a powder-train at the instant of its eruption, to find
themselves, in the fraction of a second, involved in chaos.
Ricardo's horse thundered away, riderless, leaving a squirming,
wriggling confusion of forms in the road where the overseer was
battling for his life. Martel's voice rose shrilly in a curse, and then
Norvin felt himself dragged roughly from his saddle, whether by human
hands or by some overhanging tree-branch he never knew. The force of
his fall bruised and stunned him, but he struggled weakly to his feet
only to find himself in the grasp of a man whose black visage fronted
his own. He tried to break away, but his bones were like rope, his
muscles were flabby and shaking. He exerted no more force than a child.
In front of him something sickening, something unspeakably foul and
horrible, was going on, and in its presence he was wholly unmanned.
More hands seized him quickly, but he lacked the vigor to attempt an
escape. On the contrary, he hung limp and paralyzed with terror. The
mystery, the uncertainty, the hideous significance of that wordless
scuffle in the dusty road rendered him nerveless, and he cried out
shakingly, like a man in a nightmare.
A voice commanded him to be silent, a hot breath beat against his
cheek; but he could not restrain his hysteria, and one of his captors
began to throttle him. He heard his name called and saw Savigno's
figure outlined briefly against the gray background, saw another figure
blend with it, then heard Martel's voice end in a rising cry which
lived to haunt his memory. It rose in protest, in surprise, as if the
Count doubted even at the last that death could really claim him. Then
it broke in a thin, wavering shriek.
Blake may have fainted; at any rate, his body was beyond his control,
and his next remembrance was of being half dragged, half thrust forward
out into the lesser shadows. There was no longer any struggling,
although men were speaking excitedly and he could hear them panting;
some one was working the ejector of a rifle as if it had stuck. A tall
man was wiping his hands upon some dried grass pluck'ed from the
roadside, and he was cursing.
"Who is this?" he cried, thrusting his face into the American's and
showing a brutal countenance bristly with a week's growth of beard.
"The stranger," one of Blake's captors answered, whereupon the tall man
uttered a violent exclamation.
"Wait!" cried the other. "He is already dying. He cannot stand."