"That day--I was seventeen and my brother was twenty and a great deal
stronger than I was, and it was the year when the visitors, who have
brought such prosperity and so many alterations into the village, first
began to come. One English lady in particular, of very high birth,
came, and has written a book about the place, and it was through her
that the Improvement Syndicate was formed, which is about to connect
the hotels with the station by a funicular railway."
"Don't tell me about that lady in here," I observed.
"That day we took her and her friends to see the grottoes. As we rowed
close under the cliffs I put out my hand, as one does, and caught a
little crab, and having pulled off its claws offered it as a curiosity.
The ladies groaned, but a gentleman was pleased, and held out money.
Being inexperienced, I refused it, saying that his pleasure was
sufficient reward! Giuseppe, who was rowing behind, was very angry with
me and reached out with his hand and hit me on the side of the mouth,
so that a tooth cut my lip, and I bled. I tried to hit him back, but
he always was too quick for me, and as I stretched round he kicked me
under the armpit, so that for a moment I could not even row. There was
a great noise among the ladies, and I heard afterward that they were
planning to take me away from my brother and train me as a waiter.
That, at all events, never came to pass.
"When we reached the grotto--not here, but a larger one--the gentleman
was very anxious that one of us should dive for money, and the ladies
consented, as they sometimes do. Giuseppe, who had discovered how much
pleasure it gives foreigners to see us in the water, refused to dive
for anything but silver, and the gentleman threw in a two-lira piece.
"Just before my brother sprang off he caught sight of me holding my
bruise, and crying, for I could not help it. He laughed and said, 'This
time, at all events, I shall not see the Siren!' and went into the
water without crossing himself. But he saw her."
He broke off and accepted a cigarette. I watched the golden entrance
rock and the quivering walls and the magic water through which great
bubbles constantly rose.
At last he dropped his hot ash into the ripples and turned his head
away, and said, "He came up without the coin. We pulled him into the
boat, and he was so large that he seemed to fill it, and so wet that
we could not dress him. I have never seen a man so wet. I and the
gentleman rowed back, and we covered Giuseppe with sacking and propped
him up in the stern."
"He was drowned, then?" I murmured, supposing that to be the point.
"He was not," he cried angrily. "He saw the Siren. I told you."