All Sicily blazed with the account of the assassination of the Count of
Martinello and his overseer. All Italy took it up and called for
vengeance. There went forth to the world by wire, by post, and through
the public press a many-voiced and authoritative promise that the
brigandage which had cursed the island for so many generations should
be extirpated. The outrage was the one topic of conversation from
Trapani to Genoa, from Brindisi to Venice, in clubs, in homes, upon the
streets. Carbineers and soldiers came pouring into Terranova and San
Sebastiano. They scoured the mountains and patrolled the roads; they
searched the houses and farms, the valleys and thickets, and as the
days dragged on, proving the futility of their efforts, still more
carbineers arrived. But no trace of Cardi, of Narcone, or of the other
outlaws was discovered. Rewards were offered, doubled, trebled; the
north coast seethed with excitement.
The rank of the young Count and his fiancee enlisted the interest of
the nobility, the lively-minded middle classes were romantically
stirred by the picture of the lonely girl stricken on the eve of her
wedding, and yet notwithstanding the fact that towns were searched,
forests dragged as with a net, no quarry came to bay.
Colonel Neri explained it to Norvin, as he rode in to San Sebastiano
after thirty-six hours in the saddle.
"It is this accursed Sicilian Mafia," he growled. "The common people
are shocked, horrified, sympathetic, and yet they fear to show their
true feelings. They dare not tell what they know. Mark you, those men
are not hiding in the forests, they are here in San Sebastiano or the
other villages under our very noses; perhaps they are strutting the
streets of Palermo or Bagheria or Messina marked by a hundred eyes,
discussed by a hundred tongues, and yet we cannot surprise a look or
win the slightest hint. Fifty arrests have been made, but there will be
fifty alibis proven. It is maddening, it is damnable, it is--Sicily!"
He swore wearily beneath his breath, and twirled his mustache with
listless fingers.
"Then you are losing hope?"
"No. I had none to begin with, for I know these people. But we are
doing everything possible. God in heaven! The country is wild. From
Rome has come the order, definite, explicit, to stamp out the banditti,
if it requires an army; enough soldiers are coming to defeat the
Germans. But the more we have the less we shall accomplish. 'Sweep
Sicily!' 'Stamp out the Mafia!' What does Rome know about the Mafia?
Signore, did we arrest one half of those whom we know to be Mafiosi,
Rome would need to send us, not an army of soldiers, but regiments of
stone masons to enlarge our prisons. No! Send back the armed men, give
me ten thousand of your American dollars, and ten of my carbineers, and
I will catch Cardi, though it would require the cunning of the devil.
However, we may find something; who can tell? At any rate we will try."
"Can't you work secretly?"
"It is being done, but we are too many. We make too much noise. The
Sicilian distrusts the law and above all he distrusts his neighbor. He
will perjure himself to acquit a Mafioso rather than betray him and
become a victim of his vengeance. He who talks little is wise. Of that
which does not concern him he says neither good nor evil; that is a
part of the Sicilians' training. But--miracles have happened, and God
may intervene for that saintly girl at Terranova. And now tell me, how
is the poor child bearing up?"
"I haven't seen her since we brought in Martel's body. I couldn't, in
fact, although I have sent word for her to call me when she is ready.
It seems a long time since--since--"
Neri shook his head in sorrowful agreement.
"I have never seen such grief. My heart bleeds. She was so still! Not a
tear! Not an outcry! It was terrible! Weak women do not act in that
manner. But you have suffered also, and I judge you have rested no more
than I."
"I can't rest," Blake said, dully. "I can do nothing but think." He did
not reveal the nature of the thoughts which in the short space of
thirty-six hours had put lines into his face. Instead, he scanned the
officer's countenance with fearful eyes to see if by any chance he had
guessed the truth. Blake had found himself looking thus at every one
since the tragedy, and it was a source of constant wonder to him that
his secret had remained his own. It seemed that they must know and
loathe him as he loathed himself. But on the contrary he was treated
with sympathy on all sides, and it was taken merely as an example of
the outlaws' cunning that they had refrained from injuring a foreigner.
To illustrate how curiously the Sicilian mind works on these subjects,
there were some who even spoke of it as demonstrating the fairness of
the bandits, thus to exclude Savigno's friend from any connection with
their quarrel.
During the long hours since the night of his friend's death Blake had
looked at himself in all his nakedness of soul, and the sight was not
pleasant. He could never escape the thought that if he had acted the
part of a man, if he had resisted with the promptness and vigor of his
companions, the result might have been different and Martel might at
this moment be on his way to Rome with his bride, alive and well. On
such occasions he felt like a murderer. But his mind was not always
undivided in this self-condemnation; there were times when with some
show of justice he told himself that the result would have been the
same or even worse if he had fought; and he tried to ease his
conscience by dwelling on the possibility that under other
circumstances he might not have proved a coward. He had been physically
tired, worn out; his nervous force had been spent. At the moment of
ambush his mind had been far away and he had had no time in which to
gather his wits. Moral courage, he knew, is quite different from
physical courage, which may depend upon one's digestion, one's state of
mind, or the amount of sleep one has had. It is sometimes present in
physical weaklings, and men of great daring may entirely lack it. A
man's behavior when suddenly attacked and overpowered is a test of his
nerve rather than his true nature. Still, at the last, he was always
faced by the stark, ugly fact that he had been tried and found wanting.
Conversation with Neri he found rather a relief.
"I wonder what the Countess will do?" he said.
"What would any one do? She will grieve for a long while, but time will
gradually rob her of her sorrow. She will remember Martel as a saint
and marry some sinner like you or me."
"Marry? Never!"
"Never?" The Colonel raised his brows. "She is young, she is human, she
is full of fire. It would be a great pity if she did not allow herself
to love--a great pity indeed."
"I'm afraid she's thinking more of vengeance than of love."
"Perhaps, but hatred is short-lived, while love grows younger all the
time. The world is full of great loves, but great hates usually consume
themselves quickly. I hope she will leave all thoughts of such things
to us who make a business of them."
"If you fail, as you fear, she might feel bound to take up the task
where you leave it."
"And she might succeed. But--"
"But what?"
"Revenge is a cold bedfellow, and women are designed to cherish finer
sentiments. As for Lucrezia, she will doubtless swear a vendetta, like
those Sardinians."
"She has."
"Indeed! Well, she is the kind to nourish hatred, for she is like her
father, silent, somber, unforgiving, whereas the Contessa is all
sunshine. But hear me talk! I am dying of fatigue. The funeral is at
twelve? It will be very sad and the poor girl will be under the
greatest strain then, so we must be with her, you and I. And then I
must be off again upon the trail of this infamous Cardi, who is, and
who is not. Ah, well!" He yawned widely. "We may accomplish the
impossible, or if not we may press him so closely that he will sail for
your America, which would not be so bad, after all."
Of course the country people turned out for the funeral, but for the
most part they came from curiosity. To Norvin the presence of such
spectators at the last sacred rites for the dead seemed sacrilegious,
indecent, and he knew that it must add to Margherita's pain. It was an
endless, heart-rending ordeal, a great somber, impressive pageant, of
which he remembered little save a tall, tawny girl crushed beneath a
grief so great that his own seemed trivial in comparison.
She was in such a state of physical collapse after the service that she
did not send for him until the second day following. He came timidly
even then, for he was at a loss how to comfort her, vividly conscious
as he was of his own guilt and shame. He found her crouched upon one of
the old stone benches in the garden in the full hot glare of the sun.
It relieved him to find that she had lost her unnatural self-control,
having fallen, it seemed, into much the same mood he would have
expected in any woman. It had been so hard to find what to say
heretofore--for she was braver than those about her and her grief was
so deep as to render words of comfort futile. Her eyes now were heavy
and full of haunting shadows, her ivory cheeks were pale, her lips
tremulous, and she seemed at last to crave sympathy.
"I do not know why I have summoned you," she said, leaving her hand in
his, "unless it is because my loneliness has begun and I lack the
courage to face it."
"I have been waiting. It will always be so, Contessa. I shall come from
across the world whenever you need me."
She smiled listlessly. "You are very good. I knew you were waiting. It
seems so strange to know that he is gone"--her voice caught, her eyes
filled, then cleared without overflowing--"and that the world is moving
on again in the same way and only I am left standing by the wayside.
You cannot wait with me; you must move on with the rest of the world.
You had planned to go home, and you must, for you have your work and it
calls you."
"Please don't think of it. I sha'n't leave you for a long time. I
promised Martel--"
"You promised? Then he had reason to suspect?"
"He would not acknowledge the possibility, and yet he must have had a
premonition."
"Oh, why will men trust themselves when women know! If he had told me,
if he had confided his fears to me, I could have told him what to do."
"I couldn't leave now, even if I wished, for I might be needed by
the--the law. You understand? It isn't finished with me yet."
"The law will not need you," she told him bitterly. "The law will do
nothing. The task is for other hands."
After a pause he said, "I had news from home to-day,--rather bad news."
Then at her quick look of inquiry he went on: "Nothing serious, I hope,
nothing to take me away. My mother is ill and has cabled me to come."
"Then you will go at once, of course?"
"No. I've tried to explain to her the situation here, and the necessity
of my remaining for a time at least. Unless she grows worse I shall
stay and try to help Neri in his search."
"It is a great comfort to have you near, for in you I see a part
of--Martel. You were his other half. But there are other aching hearts,
it seems. That mother calls to you, and you ought to go. Besides, I
must begin my work."
"What work?"
She met his eyes squarely. "You know without asking. Neri will fail; no
Italian could succeed; no one could succeed except a Sicilian. I am
one."
"You mean to bring those men to justice?"