"Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be

going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down."

He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was

sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an

atrocious and carefully planned murder.

CHAPTER XXXIV

All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent

law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled

against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes

could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had

received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other

men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness.

Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been

chosen!

And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He

had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very

simple....

His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he

remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man

was his cousin's first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing

that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against

him to justify a divorce--had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel

altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows.

It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence

on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance

with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse

on her part. She had been playing with him--leading him on. His visits

to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day.... No. She had

carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.

Mr. Heard stayed at home, burdened with a hideous secret. Practical

questions began to assail him. What should he do? Wait! he concluded.

Something would be sure to turn up. He was too dazed to think clearly,

as yet. He also disliked that fellow. But one does not murder a man

because one happens to dislike him. One does not murder a man ...

foolish words, that kept on repeating themselves in his mind.

To pardon--yes. Mr. Heard could pardon to any extent. The act of

pardoning: what did it imply? Nothing more than that poor deluded

mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could

pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard's ruthless

integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a

dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act

of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes,

a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because

one happens to dislike him--

Denis came to enquire, in the course of the morning. He was anxious to

know how the bishop was feeling after yesterday's attack of sunstroke.

"I have been blaming myself bitterly for dragging you out," he began.

"I--really--"

"Don't think about it! I shall be better soon. I'll remain indoors

to-day."

"You are not looking quite yourself just yet. What a fool I was! I

can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Not worth talking about. You'll stay to luncheon?"

The news of Muhlen's disappearance was spread about that same evening,

and created no surprise whatever. Foreigners had a knack of coming to

the island and mysteriously vanishing again; it was quite the regular

thing to run up accounts all around and then clear out. Hotel-keepers,

aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests,

arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so

high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors.

The other tradespeople of the place--the smiling confectioner, the

simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite

hosier--they all worked on the same principle. They recouped themselves

by fleecing the more ingenuous of their clients.

In the case of Muhlen's occultation there was even less surprise than

usual. Everybody, judging by his lavish display of gold and showy

manner, expected him to depart sooner or later in the orthodox

manner--at night-time, by means of a sailing boat secretly hired,

conscientiously prepaid. His more intimate friends, the Magistrate and

the Commissioner, were less surprised than anyone else. True, Signore

Malipizzo was somewhat hurt, because Muhlen had practically invited him

to stay at his own native town where every kind of amusement was to be

had, the female society being of the choicest. Exuberant women--and

rich! It would have been a pleasant change after the trim but tedious

gardens of Salsomaggiore. He had strong homes, however, of receiving a

letter from some safe place outside the dominions, making an

appointment for the holidays. For form's sake, of course, he promptly

initiated the ordinary judicial enquiries. It would look well in the

records of the Court.

As for Mr. Parker, who was brooding in the retirement of his villa

whither the news had swiftly spread, he merely thought:

"Got off scot free. And without paying his Club account, I'll bet.

Bolted. Lucky devil. That's where the casual visitor has the pull over

a resident official like myself. Cleared out! I'm glad I never had any

money to lend him. Touched a good few of them, I'll be bound."

Within an hour or so of the magistrate's formal enquiries led to a

startling discovery. Muhlen's room in the hotel was broken open, and

his property searched. No letters could be found conveying any clue as

to his whereabouts. But--what was almost incredible--there was loose

money lying about. A more minute investigation proved that the

gentleman had dressed himself with considerable care prior to leaving

the establishment for the last time. He had changed his socks and other

underwear--yes, he had donned a clean shirt. The old one, blue-striped,

which he had been seen to wear at breakfast, was lying negligently

across the back of a chair with a pair of costly enameled links, of

azure colour to match, in the cuffs. Moreover, in a small box hidden

beneath some collars in a drawer were found a few foreign bank-notes, a

ring or two, and a handful of gold coins such as he was in the habit of

carrying about his person. The judge, who superintended the researches,

caused these valuables to be impounded, sealed, and deposited in the

Court of Justice.

The discovery put a fresh and ominous complexion on the affair. When a

man means to bolt, he does not leave portable jewelry--an enameled pair

of links--behind him. And even if, in the hurry and scurry of departure,

he does overlook such elegant trifles, he never forgets to take his

money; least of all a man like Muhlen.

A lengthy deposition was signed by the hotel proprietor. It set forth,

in reference to Muhlen's general habits, that this gentleman had

hitherto not attended to his account; he had not been urgently pressed

for a settlement. One did not like to incommode foreign visitors with

bills; it annoyed them so much that they sometimes migrated to other

hotels and made debts there, debts which in certain unexpected cases

were liquidated in full while the former and equally legitimate ones

remained unpaid--which was disheartening. In regard to his recent mode

of life, the document contained the suggestive fact that Muhlen had not

taken his midday meal at the hotel for some time past. He was strangely

fond of going out in the late mornings, the proprietor averred; it

might be, to bathe; he returned at about five in the afternoon after

lunching, presumably, in some small restaurant by the shore.

This declaration, signed by a respected citizen, soon leaked into

publicity. Taken in conjunction with the discovery of his money it was

an eye-opener to the whole community, and to nobody more than to the

judge himself. Signor Malipizzo argued, with his usual penetration,

that Muhlen had intended to return to his quarters as he had always

done of late. The ANIMUS REVERTENDI was abundantly proven by the

sleeve-links and loose cash. He had not returned. Ergo, something

untoward had happened. Untoward things may be divided, for the sake of

convenience, into two main classes, sections, or categories:

1. Accidents.

2. Foul play.

Which was it?

Signor Malipizzo dismissed as untenable the hypothesis of a clandestine

withdrawal from local creditors. By way of clearing up the last vestige

of doubt, however, and also for the sake of appearances (seeing that a

wise magistrate is supposed to take nothing for granted) he called for

depositions for the sailors and fishermen. It was a superfluous piece

of work, a pure formality; he knew beforehand what they would say. They

always said the same thing. They said it. Interrogated on oath they

declared, one and all, that no person answering to the description of

Muhlen had appeared on the beach for a long time; not for the last

eight months and twelve days, to be quite accurate; much less had such

a one engaged a vessel. The jovial but conservative sea-folk never

varied their utterance on those many solemn occasions when a foreigner,

for the purpose of evaporating, paid in advance for the hire of a boat,

or was supposed to have done so. Albeit even ignorant people attached

no significance to this statement, it went for what it was worth as

cumulative evidence.

The sight of that loose cash would have been quite enough for a man of

Signor Malipizzo's discernment. Muhlen had not bolted. Nor was he the

kind of man to lose his life by an accident. Not he! Muhlen was careful

of his skin. Ergo, his disappearance was due to something which came

under the second class, section, or category. He had been done away

with.

The magistrate, thinking of those summer holidays, began to be really

vexed; so did Mr. Parker, who soon learned the result of these

enquiries and regretted that his mourning retirement prevented him from

issuing forth and telling everybody what he thought of this new

disgraceful scandal. His English blood revolted at the idea of a

harmless tourist, a prominent member of the Alpha and Omega Club, being

callously murdered. Would these people never get civilized? He was glad

to hear, at all events, that the judge was doing something.

Signor Malipizzo was doing a good deal. He meant to sift the thing to

the bottom. His energy, hitherto simulated, was now set genuinely at

work to discover indications of the murderer--indications of his missing

friend. But Nepenthe is not a good place for finding corpses. The

island is full of fathomless rents and fissures. A good many

foreigners, especially such as were known to carry loose gold in their

pockets, had been suspected of falling into them without leaving a

trace behind. Yet a thorough search was instituted, for he knew that

criminals were not always as clever as they thought themselves; some

insignificant relic might turn up--a shred of clothing or so forth. Such

things were occasionally picked up on Nepenthe; nobody knew to whom

they belonged. The Cave of Mercury, on being searched, yielded nothing

but a trouser button, apparently of English manufacture. Enquiries were

also made as to when the ill-starred gentleman had last been seen, and

where. Finally, the judge drew up a list, a fairly long list, of all

the suspicious characters on the place with a view to placing them

under lock and key, in expectation of further developments. Such was

the customary procedure; one must assume the worst. If innocent, they

might of course regain their liberty in a year or two.

It stands to reason that a good many people had noticed Muhlen on the

morning of his disappearance. One cannot walk about Nepenthe at that

hour of the day without being seen, and Muhlen was sufficiently

conspicuous. But everyone knew what was in store for him if he admitted

such a fact, to wit, an application of paragraph 43 of the 92nd section

of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which any and every

witness of this kind is liable to be segregated from his family and

kept under arrest for an indefinite length of time, pending the

instruction of a trial which might take half a century. Nobody,

therefore, was fool enough to admit having encountered him--nobody save

a half-witted youth who fatuously confided to a policeman that the had

met the gentleman somewhere in the neighbourhood of the bibliographer's

villa about the hour of midday. Under ordinary circumstances Signor

Malipizzo would have been delighted to lay sacrilegious hands on Mr.

Eames, whose Olympic aloofness had always annoyed him and against whom

a case could now be got up, on the strength of these indications.

Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the villa--that was quite sufficient

to warrant an arrest.

The boy in question happened to be a relation of his arch-enemy, the

parish priest. Better still. Chuckling at the happy coincidence, he

forgot all about Mr. Eames, and gave orders for the other to be

conveyed to the guard-house, searched, and interrogated, arguing

plausibly that a person of his mental instability would be sure to give

himself away by some stupid remark.

Things turned out better than he had dared to hope. Under the

prisoner's clothing was discovered a gold coin of foreign nationality

attached, by a piece of string, round his neck. For all one knew, it

might have been Muhlen's. The interrogating carbineer who is invested,

during such preliminary enquiries, with quasi-judicial functions--being

permitted to assume the role of prosecuting or defending counsel, or to

remain sternly unbiased, as he feels inclined--desired to learn how he

had come by this jewel.

He received it long ago from his mother, he said, as a talisman against

the moonsickness which had tormented him in childhood. Replying, in

stammering and dazed fashion, to further questions, he gave it to be

understood that nobody had ever set eyes on the coin in question; he

was afraid of showing it, lest someone should take it from him by

force. He loved the coin. He got it from his mother.

"Ah!" said the friendly policeman. "And your mother, now--could she

perhaps tell us when she gave it to you?"

"My mother is in Paradise."

"Dead, is she? H'm. That looks queer, my young friend. Very fishy. You

should be more careful in little things like that. She ought to have

been kept alive, you know. Anybody can say they had gold coins given

them by dead mothers, don't you see? Rather a thin trick. Can't you

suggest something better? Cheer up, boy! You needn't tremble all over.

Look, I am writing it down, and you must put your name to it

afterwards. Think--little. A living uncle, for instance--if he came into

Court and testified that he had given you the coin, why, it might make

all the difference and get you out of a nasty scrape. Surely you've got

an uncle or something? How about His Reverence the PARROCO? Couldn't he

swear--?"

"My mother is in Paradise."

"In Paradise, is she? That's where you ought to be, my son. Just sign

this declaration, please. Then perhaps you will meet your mother sooner

than you expect. Can't read or write? Well, put your cross to it and

may the Madonna help you! For I can't. I've done my best to be

impartial, but God alone can steer a fool. He makes a specialty of it,

they tell me. If so, you've got a sporting chance...."

Overjoyed with this incriminating deposition, His Worship gave orders

for the prisoner's formal arrest. Aloud he remarked:

"What have I always said? Beware of wimple folks. They are the deep

ones. Their naivete is nothing but a disguise. Here we have a case in

point. This boy, from all accounts, is the pure type of the callous

murderer. He stutters. He makes uncalled-for gurglings of a bestial

nature. He has pendulous ears, and certain other stigmata of

degeneration which are familiar to all conversant with criminal

anthropology. Of course he denies everything. But mark my words! After

six or seven months, when the prison diet begins to take effect, he

will confess. I know the species; it is all too common. Meanwhile we

must congratulate ourselves on having tracked down the culprit so

soon."

To condemn for homicide the cousin of a Catholic priest warmed the

cockles of his free-thinking heart. In fact, on second thoughts, it was

better than if he had caught the real murderer who might have turned

out to be an atheist, which would have been bad enough--or possibly a

freemason, which would have been really awkward. The news spread

rapidly over the island, and caused wild rejoicings among the

anti-clericals.

The rejoicings were of brief duration.

Torquemada, as usual, was in fighting trim. Like all God-fearing

ascetics, he was a man-eater at heart. He made up his mind long ago to

eat the judge, whom he considered an offence to Heaven and earth--the

official mouthpiece of the devil. Up to the present he had bided his

time, waiting for a good opportunity. The time was now ripe.

Not that he greatly loved his cousin. The family to which the unhappy

youth belonged was of no credit or use to himself, and this particular

member was worse than useless, being afflicted with an unpardonable

vice--lack of judgment. His stupidity had already got him into a number

of minor scrapes. As a child he annoyed foreigners by ingenuous

requests for money, stole flowers from neighbours' gardens because they

were so irresistibly pretty, tied saucepans to their cats because they

had such irresistibly long tails and made such irresistibly droll

movements and noises in order to get rid of them, frightened old ladies

by making faces at them; sometimes, by way of a change, he threw off a

fit; later on, he had taken to smashing crockery, mooning about the

vineyards, forgetting errands entrusted to him, throwing stones at

passing carriages and making a general nuisance of himself. The PARROCO

knew that he had been dismissed as incompetent by tradespeople to whom

he was apprenticed, by farmers who had employed him as a labourer. He

could not even repeat his Ave Maria without producing sinister

crepitations from his gullet. And now he had crowned all by this

surpassing act of imprudence. If he had only kept his mouth shut, like

everybody else. But there! What could you expect from a fool?

A genuine murderer--it was most irreligious, of course. Still, some

homicides were fairly justifiable, others almost meritorious; and a

criminal of this kind showed, in every case, undeniable traces of

manliness; one could not help respecting him in an oblique sort of

fashion. But a fool! Torquemada, the zealous priest, the man of God,

could never quite repress the promptings of his blood. He had all the

fanatic's appreciation of violent methods; all the Southerner's

fondness for a miscreant, and contempt for a simpleton. A mere

fool--what's the use of him on earth? Had the culprit been any ordinary

Christian, His Reverence would not have dreamt of interfering; gladly

would he have let him spend the remainder of his day sin prison which

everybody knew to be the best place for stupid people--it kept them out

of mischief.

But this was not an ordinary Christian. He was a relation. A relation!

That meant that one must show fight for him, if only for the sake of

public appearances.

He held a hurried council with his family and, half an hour later, a

second one with the more influential members of the priesthood. It was

decided, in both cases, that the occasion was favourable for a

long-deferred contest between the Powers of Light and the powers of

darkness, the Catholic Church and modernism, the Clergy of Nepenthe and

the secular authority of law and order as personified by that judge in

whom all evil, public and private, flowed together. A noble parting

cheque which he had just received from Mr. van Koppen for some urgent

repairs to the parish organ came in handy. It would enable him to face

the adversary with good hopes of success. To his friends he said:

"An insult to my family! I shall not take it lying down. Let them see

what a humble servant of God can do."

So saying, he girded his loins for the fray, walked in person to the

post office and wrote out a lengthy telegram to the redoubtable Don

Giustino Morena, the parliamentary representative of Nepenthe who, as

readers of the newspapers were aware, happened to be taking a brief

holiday among his own people in the South. It was a judiciously

flattering dispatch. It prayed the famous lawyer-politician to

undertake the defence of a relation, an orphan, a mere child, unjustly

accused of murder and arbitrarily imprisoned, and to deign to accept a

pitiful honorarium of five thousand francs--the largest sum which a

parish priest, poor but jealous of the honour of his family, could

scrape together. If the great man accepted the offer, he might arrive

by the nest day's boat. There was a chance, thought the PARROCO, of his

doing so. Don Giustino was an ardent Catholic; he might be favourably

impressed by the modest petition of a clergyman in his constituency. He

had promised over and over again to visit his Nepenthean constituents.

He would now be killing two birds with one stone.

Five minutes, under ordinary circumstances, were wont to elapse ere an

item of private news could percolate out of the post office and become

public property. Such was the portentous import of this message that it

did not percolate at all. It flashed, and produced forthwith a feeling

of joyous elation at the prospect of lively events in the near

future--of a battle between the Vatican and the Quirinal. Coming on the

top of Muhlen's murder--which was a decided improvement upon his alleged

flight--it caused the citizens to talk in excited and almost random

fashion about what was coming next. Alone, the members of the Alpha and

Omega Club, thanks to the benign influence of Parker's poison, received

the successive waves of information with composure, and preserved from

beginning to end their sense of proportion.

"Heard the news? Muhlen's bolted."

"I thought he would."

"They say he owes a good deal."

"Obviously. Else he wouldn't have bolted. Good riddance, anyhow."

"That's what I say. But he owes me a lot of whiskies, the blighter."

"You're lucky. Gone off with thirty francs of mine."

"Damn his eyes. I expect we're not the only ones."

"Not by a long chalk. Come and have a drink."

"Heard the news? Muhlen's murdered."

"Serve him bloody well right. The blackguard owes me two francs fifty.

I'll bet it was some money business."

"Not a bit of it. A little girl, you know. Got a knife in the stomach.

About eleven at night, from all accounts. They heard him squealing a

mile off."

"I don't believe it. He was not that kind."

"Not that kind? What do you mean?"

"Not that kind."

"Not THAT kind? Really? Go on. You don't say so, by Jove! What makes

you think it?"

"Think? I don't think. I happen to know. You pay for my peg and I'll

tell you all about it...."

"Heard the news? Don Giustino's coming over."

"The old assassin. What of it?"

"Good business! One in the eye for Mali--what's his name. There'll be

the hell of a row. We ought to be grateful to Muhlen for this

amusement."

"Damned if we ought. Unless he got himself killed on purpose to amuse

us. And even then it would have amused me more if he had paid me back

those seventeen francs."

"You're very hard to please to-day."

"So would you be, if you'd been as raddled as I was last night. You

ought to see the inside of my head, you ought. There's room for a coal

barge, in there."

"That's easily remedied. Toss up for drinks."

"Don't mind if I do...."

Signor Malipizzo heard the news as he was sitting down to luncheon. At

first he thought the priest had gone crazy. Don Giustino--good God! Five

thousand francs. Where had he found the money? Then he remembered

hearing about old Koppen's cheque for the organ. Those confounded

foreigners, always mixing themselves up in local concerns! If the

PARROCO were really poor, as these hypocrites of Christians professed

to be, he could never have run to it. Don Giustino. What an awful turn

of events. And all because Muhlen got himself murdered. These

confounded foreigners!

His heart sank within him. He had looked forward to keeping the

priest's cousin for a year or two in gaol, previous to his trial. That

would have to be altered. If Don Giustino came, the proceedings must be

fixed for next morning--it was the merest act of courtesy towards a man

of his standing, a man whom one must conciliate at any cost. He blamed

himself for arresting that young idiot. It threatened to bring him into

undesired prominence. Hitherto, by reason of his sheer insignificance,

he had escaped the great Catholic deputy's eye. As Magistrate of

Nepenthe, who cared what political or religious views he professed or

in what manner he administered the law? All this was now changed. He

was in the limelight. It might end--who knows where? He had other

enemies on the island beside the clericals; the arrival of Don Giustino

might lead to a general revision of his judicial labours. To-morrow

perhaps he would have to confront the monster. Don Giustino! He knew

him by reputation. A Camorrista of the blackest dye. He took no

chances. He never threatened; he performed. Everybody knew that. Signor

Malipizzo did not like the prospect of losing his lucrative job. Still

less did he fancy the notion of receiving a charge of buck-shot in his

liver, one evening from behind a wall. That was Don Giustino's cheerful

way with people who annoyed him. Those infernal clericals; their

sanguinary, out-of-date methods! Papacy and Camorra--interconvertible

terms--who could plumb their depths? The Masons were different. They

fought for the enlightenment of a people deluded by priestly snares and

intimidated by the threats of assassins. Don Giustino. Holy Mother of

God! What would to-morrow bring?

Thinking thus, the judge eyed his victuals resentfully. His appetite

was gone--he was beginning to feel sick. Suddenly he pushed his plate

away from him and hobbled out of the room, even forgetting to finish

his wine. He limped across the broiling market-place to give the

necessary orders to his faithful and experienced clerk who, having

likewise got wind of that telegram, was not unprepared for some change

of mind on the part of his chief.

"The young idiot must come up for trial to-morrow, if the assassin

arrives."

"A sound suggestion," the grey-haired one replied. "It will take the

wind out of his sails. It will prove--"

"Of course it will. And now, Don Carlo, go and take your little nap. I

will stay here, to put my papers in order. May your dreams be happy."

The judge was dowered with extreme irascibility of temper, due to his

chronic valetudinarian condition. He, too--within the limits of

propriety--was not going to take things lying down. So much was certain.

At first he was too agitated to be able to collect his thoughts.

Gradually, as he moved about those rooms, calmness and confidence

returned. He was alone. It was very warm and quiet here, amid these

scenes of his many little triumphs. The look of the archives, the

familiar smell of the place, was reassuring. He began to feel at ease

once more. Ideas came to him.

He signed warrants for the arrest of the Messiah, Krasnojabkin and some

fifteen others of those who had escaped his wrath on the previous

occasion. They would be under lock and key within two hours. Don

Giustino would never interfere on behalf of these aliens. Nor would any

one else. An inspiration! It would proclaim his zeal for the public

order--his official independence of mind.

And--yes. There was one other little thing.

He hobbled to where the various PIECES JUSTIFICATIVES were lying in

their sealed envelopes. He took up the receptacle containing the gold

talisman which had been sequestrated from the priest's nephew, and

broke it open. It could always be sealed up again. The coin, attached

to its string, fell out; it was an old-fashioned medal--Spanish,

apparently. He fingered it awhile. Then, opening the packet which held

Muhlen's gold, he carefully examined the contents. Five or six of these

coins were of the same kind. French Napoleons. That was lucky. Any

stick was good enough to beat a dog with. This was a particularly good

stick. He bored a hole through one of the Napoleons and placed it on

the culprit's string, after removing the original talisman, which he

bestowed in his own pocket. That done, he sealed up the two parcels

again, conscientiously.

"There!" he said. "He laughs best who laughs last. Don Giustino is a

clever man. But the devil himself could not prove the prisoner

innocent, in the face of evidence like this. Down with the Pope!"

Never had he felt so enlightened, so gloriously freemasonish.

CHAPTER XXXV

The commendatore Giustino Morena--familiarly known as Don Giustino or,

by his enemies, as "the assassin"--was a Southerner by birth, a city

product. From low surroundings he had risen to be a prominent member of

the Chamber of Deputies and one of the most impressive figures in the

country.

As a child he was apprenticed to a cobbler. There, bending over his

work on the pavement outside the shop-door, his blue eyes and curly

fair hair, his rosy cheeks, his winning smile, his precocious retorts,

attracted the most favourable comment from the passers-by and secured

him an unfailing supply of chocolates and cigarettes. People liked him

so much that he quickly learned not only how to mend shoes but a good

many other things which they were anxious to teach him. His grown-up

friends vied with one another for a place in his affections and a

certain scandalous affair with knives, which somehow or other got into

the daily press where it had no business to be, put the seal on his

reputation in the quarter.

"That boy will go far!" the old men and women used to say. "Only look

at his blue eyes. Blessed the mother that bore him, whoever she

was"--for nobody even pretended to know.

They were right; as old folks are apt to be. The victor in the

disreputable affray happened to be a gentleman of middle age, a

distinguished ornament of the Black Hand. No happier fate could have

been devised for Giustino than to live under the patronage of such an

individual. He took charge of the little fellow, and was not slow in

discovering that his protege possessed not only a muscular framework

and ready wit, but the malice, the concentrated ruthlessness and

rapacity of fifty devils rolled into one. Something could be made out

of that boy, he concluded; the Society, always ready to adopt promising

neophytes on the recommendation of a qualified practitioner like

himself, would doubtless enrol him in due course. Meanwhile he

instructed him, by precept and example, how to be religious in the

manner most pleasing to the Madonna. He narrated the Lives of the

Saints, forced him to attend Mass and confess himself to one of the

Society's trusted priests and taught him, above all things, to hate the

Government because it oppressed the Pope and the poor. One day he said:

"You must now attend evening classes. I think you will do well at our

school of the Holy Cross. Your outfit is exceptional. Among other

things you have the great advantage that the first and second fingers

of both your hands are of equal length. That augurs well! God has

favoured you, for many lads have to lengthen the first one

artificially, which is apt to weaken the joints."

The Master and Director drew good salaries from the numerous pupils at

this institution. Everything useful to young boys was taught here save

only religion. Seeing that all the scholars were drawn from families

distinguished for their piety and adherence to the Pope, the Director

considered a religious training to be superfluous--his pupils learnt

these things on their mothers' knees. Giustino soon acquired the

jargon; he passed his examination in fifteen articles, in secrecy,

swiftness of foot and nimbleness of hand. The latter was taught on a

clothed wooden figure out of whose pockets the students were obliged to

extract handkerchiefs, gold watches and jewelry with such dexterity

that not one of the little bells, which dangled from its hat, gave

forth the slightest sound; that stage passed, the art was practised on

the person of the Director himself who, walking through the streets as

an ordinary citizen, was supposed to have his pockets picked in the

approved professional manner. Those who failed to come up to the

standard were thrashed savagely three or four times; if they still

failed, they were sent back to their parents with a polite

recommendation that they should be taught some other trade. Giustino

was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of

his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the

regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of

proficiency, a cross, on the back of his right hand.

The patron, while proud of his young friend, did not intend to spoil

his chances in after life by an indelible bodily mark of this kind

however honourably attained. He had other designs for him. To pass the

next year or two, he made arrangements for Giustino, now grown lean and

wolfish, to be officially received into the Black Hand. As probationer

he was the delight of his superiors; he went through the various tests

with phenomenal rapidity and gave abundant proofs of manliness. At the

age of sixteen he had already killed three men--one of them being a

policeman who was suspected of infidelity towards the Society. It was

then that the protector, who was no fool, spoke to him a second time,

saying:

"As you know, my son, I can neither read nor write. Those were not

considered respectable accomplishments, in my day, for a lad of spirit

or a man of honour. Devil's work! But we live in an effeminate age.

Virtue is at a discount. The wise man, while observing these things

with regret, adapts himself to them. He marches with the times. They

call us reactionaries. It depends upon boys like you to show the world

what reactionaries are good for. The whole town has already learnt to

respect your manly instincts. You must now go further and learn to read

and write. You will then enter the University. There you will study law

and politics. You will then enter Parliament. There you will represent

our cause. The means--the money? Trust the Society! Only be a credit to

your friends, defend the poor, and never forget to say your prayers.

Then the good God will reward your efforts."

This is precisely what the good God did. Within a short space of time

the young deputy had made a name for himself; he was recognized as one

of the few representatives of the Black Hand whose word could be

implicitly relied upon. He had a share in everything; commissions and

percentages poured in upon him. After making an example of half a dozen

tiresome persons by having them quietly stabbed or shot--nothing was

ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work--he

experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never

threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal

Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore;

not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but

because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity of

showing that he could do what he pleased with everybody, Government

included. It was an open secret that the next vacant portfolio of

Justice would be at his disposal. All this of course was years and

years ago.

To these arts of statecraft he added a quite unusual legal acumen and

forensic ability. For the last fifteen years he had been in receipt of

large annual retaining fees from the principal commercial firms of the

country; that of one shipping company alone amounted to fifty thousand

francs. They found it worth their while since, without doing a stroke

of work for them, he gave his tacit support to their most nefarious

undertakings. A useful man! As a lawyer in private cases his reputation

was tremendous. Judges and juries had been known to faint with emotion

at his dramatic gestures, his fiery eloquence. He could pull anybody

out of a scrape. Wherever he spoke the Court was crowded to listen to

his impassioned arguments, to look upon the cold fire of his blue eyes,

his carefully adjusted dress, his fair hair turning to grey, his smooth

face which he kept shaven for no other reason--so he used to

declare--than because he reverenced the fashions of the old papal

regime. "Just like an Englishman," people said.

He had lately put on flesh; it inspired confidence. Moreover, he never

married; that also was something out of the common--it pointed to

independence, to lack of ordinary human frailties. In short, he was so

perfect a compound of vice and intelligence that even his dearest

friends could not put their finger on the exact spot where the one

began and the other ended. And the whole of this unique mixture was

placed at the disposal of the Vatican. Don Giustino was the implacable

enemy of modernism, a living disproof of the vulgar assertion that

freemasonry is the sole key to success in modern Italy. A formidable

man! And growing more formidable every day, as his wealth increased.

His income was already such that he could afford to be honest; nothing

but the force of old habits kept him from developing into a positive

saint.

It stands to reason that a person of this caliber would have sniffed at

a paltry remuneration of five thousand francs offered by an obscure

country priest. But Don Giustino was a good son of the Church. He had

never forgotten the recommendation of his old patron to succour the

humble and distressed; he specialized, as a lawyer, in defending

murderers and rescuing them from the secular arm. They were enthusiasts

suffering under a sense of wrong; they belonged to the class of the

honest poor; they were victims of governmental greed and social

injustice. Motives, not deeds! he would say. And the motives of the

poor must be judged by other standards than those of the rich. They

have other lives, other temptations. Trust the people. The people,

under proper guidance of the priests....

Although it was hardly likely that the great man would deign to accept

Torquemada's invitation, yet half the town was assembled at the harbour

to await the arrival of the evening boat and catch a glimpse, if

possible, of the famous Camorrista. And there he was! He leaned over

the taffrail, easily recognizable from his pictures in the illustrated

papers. He was dressed in a felt hat, brown boots, and light grey

clothes--just like anybody else. Presently he descended to the quay,

followed by a tall and solid-looking young valet. He was wreathed in

smiles. A whiff of political life, of busy deeds in the capital,

exhaled from his person. The Mayor of Nepenthe, a devout Catholic,

deferentially shook hands and introduced the PARROCO and other

notabilities. They drove up together. It was all delightfully breezy

and informal. But men were aware that in this little episode there

lurked more than met the eye; that the arrival of Commendatore Morena

was an occasion worthy to be chronicled in the annals of the island.

Not only was it his first appearance as a deputy among his

constituents. That alone would have been an event. The avowed purpose

of his visit, to rescue a criminal from the properly constituted

authorities, gave it the character of a pro-Vatican demonstration--a

slap in the face of King and Constitution.

An intimate little dinner had been arranged by the parish priest in

order to give the principal clergy and a few favoured laymen of their

party an opportunity of paying their respects. No one knew what took

place at this repast save that the distinguished guest was in wonderful

humour; he joked and laughed and told funny stories; he was enchanted

with the wine and the excellent local crayfish and announced his

intention of buying a little villa wherein to spend the evening of his

days, after his public labours were over. An ideal spot! Lucky people,

he called them. It was most unfortunate that he would be obliged to

leave by to-morrow's midday boat, and so miss the greater part of the

festival of Saint Eulalia.

Another little item of news was allowed to filter out and sedulously

propagated, to the effect that the Commendatore had refused, politely

but firmly, to accept any remuneration for his services. Such a thing

could not be thought of! Pleasure and duty rarely coincided as in this

case, where it was both a pleasure to come to this charming island and

a duty to say a few words in Court about this unfortunate young man--to

defend the oppressed to the utmost of his miserable ability, and

thereby approve himself a good son of the Church.

"Your servant in everything!" he added. "And if you would now accept

from me a humble donation of one thousand francs to be distributed, as

His Reverence thinks best, among the needy poor of Nepenthe, you would

indeed make me your debtor for life!"

Such was the great man's speech, as reported. It was a pure invention

on the part of Torquemada who, being a high-principled ecclesiastic,

had clear-cut orthodox views anent the utility of pious legends. He

knew it would sound well among the populace. He hoped it would vex the

envious magistrate into a fit of colic. He argued that the great man

himself, in the event of its coming to his ears, would not be otherwise

than gratified by a godly fable so strictly in keeping with his

character.

Don Francesco alone, the smiling terrestrial beast, the lover of wine

and women, held aloof from the entertainment, alleging a gastric

indisposition and doctor's orders. He did not see eye to eye with

Torquemada on matters such as these. Don Francesco disliked all

measures of violence, Camorra or freemasonry, Vatican or

Quirinal--disliked them so much that he would have hated them had he

been built, like the PARROCO, on hating lines. He was too unwieldy, too

fond of life, too indulgent towards himself and others to experience at

mention of Don Giustino's name anything but a certain feeling of

discomfort--a feeling which his acute intelligence, embedded under those

rolls of fat, enabled him to formulate with warmth and precision.

"I know quite well," he said to Torquemada, "that he calls himself a

good son of the Church. So much the worse for the Church. I understand

he is a prominent member of the Government. So much the worse for the

Government. And I realize that, but for his intervention, this harmless

individual might spend the remainder of his life in prison. So much the

worse for all of us, who derive justice from so tainted a source. As to

dining at the same table with him--no. Does not the whole world know his

history? The animal! He would make me vomit. And you will believe me

when I say, my dear PARROCO, that I do not look my best on such

occasions."

Torquemada shook his head, mournfully. It was by no means the first

time that he had suspected his popular colleague of being a lukewarm

Christian.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The market-place was filled to over-brimming. Everybody discussed the

near events in the Court of Justice. It promised to be a bad day for

Signor Malipizzo. And yet people could not help admitting how clever he

had been to lock up those Russians. It was the best thing he could have

done under the circumstances. It proved his freedom from anti-Catholic

prejudices. It made him look icily objective.

Torquemada, on hearing that the prisoner's gold coin corresponded with

those others which had been in the possession of the murdered man,

thought it deplorable. Here was plain evidence of his cousin's guilt!

Most deplorable. Still, the victim being not only a foreigner but a

Protestant was a considerable mitigation of the offence from the moral

and religious point of view, and possibly from the legal one as well.

Anyhow, what did legal aspects matter? Had he not engaged Don Giustino?

Innocent or guilty, the prisoner would be released. And, on second

thoughts, he discovered him to be worthy of the great man's golden

eloquence. He was not altogether a fool. There was a touch of manliness

about him; he was decidedly a brighter lad than he looked. He deserved

to be released.

Ten o'clock sounded.

The Court had never been so crowded. There was barely standing room.

Sunlight poured in through the windows which had not been cleaned for

many long months; the atmosphere was already rather oppressive. It was

a stuffy place at all times, reeking of old tobacco smoke and humanity.

Everybody was still save the old grey-headed clerk who fussed about

with papers. Signor Malipizzo, after a deferential but dignified bow to

the famous lawyer, had taken his seat on the raised platform facing the

public whence he was wont to dispense justice. Nailed against the wall,

directly over his head, was a large white paper bearing the printed

words "La Legge": the law. It dominated the chamber. On one side of

this could be seen a coloured portrait of the Sovereign in the

bersagliere uniform; a fierce military glance shot out of his eyes from

under that helmet whose plume of nodding feathers made it look three

sizes too large for his head. On the other side hung a representation

of the Madonna, simpering benignly in a blue tea-gown besprinkled with

pearls and golden lace. The spittoon, which His Worship required

continually during the audiences, was wont to be placed immediately

below this latter picture; it was the magistrate's polite freemasonish

method of expressing his reverence for the Mother of God. Everybody

noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was

located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate

compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn

enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little

detail. How artful of him! they said.

All eyes were fixed upon Don Giustino. He sat there quietly. If he was

bored he certainly did not show it. Now that he was here he would give

these good people a taste of his quality. He knew all about the gold

coin; he was profoundly convinced of the prisoner's guilt. This was

lucky for the young man. Had he thought otherwise he would probably

have refused to take up the case. Don Giustino made a point of never

defending innocent people. They were idiots who entangled themselves in

the meshes of the law; they fully deserved their fate. Really to have

murdered Muhlen was the one and only point in the prisoner's favour. It

made him worthy of his rhetorical efforts. All his clients were guilty,

and all of them got off scot free. "I never defend people I can't

respect," he used to say.

He began his speech in a rambling, desultory sort of fashion and quite

a low tone of voice, as if he were addressing a circle of friends.

A charming place, Nepenthe! He would carry away the pleasantest

memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants. It was

like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger. And

yet nothing on earth was secure. That volcanic eruption the other

day--what a scare it must have given them! What a lucky escape they had,

thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint! Hardly any

damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were

intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to

their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather

round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the

pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source

whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and

right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the

parents' teaching and example--nothing! And this poor boy, now

threatened with imprisonment, had a mother. He had a mother. Did the

Court appreciate the import of those words? Did they realize what it

meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her

offspring's help and consolation--the child of its mother's fostering

care? Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past

who were known to have had mothers--Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter

the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon--why had they achieved distinction in

the world? What was the secret of their greatness? A mother's

affectionate guidance in youth. They had not been torn, as children,

from her loving arms.

A good many people were already sobbing. But the orator had noticed

that something was wrong. He consulted a small scrap of paper and then

continued in the same conversational tones as before.

He had no mother. He was an orphan. An orphan! Did the Court realize

what it meant? No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all

that was implied in that bitter word. An orphan. Nobody to instil those

early lessons of piety ... to grow up wild, neglected, despised....

It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly

unnatural conditions. Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct

them; he alone was bereft of this blessing. It was cruel, it was

illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate

other ones. Let the Court call to mind the names of those who had

deviated from the narrow path of duty; did they not all belong to this

unhappy class? It might safely be inferred that they had no mothers!

Such person were to be pitied and helped, rather than condemned for

what was the fault not of their natures but of their anomalous

situation in life. To rescue a motherless young soul from the brink of

perdition was the noblest task of a Christian. And this was still,

thank Heaven, a Christian country, despite the ever-swelling invasion

of that irreligious foreign element which threatened to break up the

old faith in God. The Madonna was still worshipped; together with the

Saints. Their precious relics and other holy amulets still proved their

efficacy in the hour of danger.

Amulets--ah, that reminded him.

To kill a man with a view to possessing yourself of his substance was

an unpardonable crime. Now what had this boy done? Let them take the

so-called robbery first. Well, no robbery had been committed, in spite

of the notorious fact that this Protestant, this foreigner was known to

be loaded with money. His client had fought down the temptation, the

almost irresistible temptation, of appropriating the gold. Let them

remember that! The minutest investigation failed to reveal anything

save a single coin which he had attached to a string and hung about his

neck. Motives, not deeds! What were his motives for this strange act?

An unconscious application of the homoeopathic principle. He had taken

it as a safeguard, an amulet, in the childish belief that it might

protect him on future occasions against insults such as those he had

undergone.

Then, while the audience were still puzzling what the last words meant,

he suddenly indulged in one of those abrupt transitions for which he

was famous, and burst out:

"Down with foreigners! We Catholics know what foreigners are, how they

work for evil in places high and low. One cannot take up a daily paper

without seeing some exposure of their many-sided viciousness. They

contaminate the land with their godless depravity. Nobody can count on

immunity. The highest officials in the land, the very Ministers of the

Crown, are subjected to their vile disguised attempts at bribery and

corruption, no humble peasant girl, no child, is safe from the

befoulment of their filthy minds. We know them--our police records, the

archives of our Courts of Justice, testify to their demoralizing

agency. A pest, a contagion! Who can tell what proposals were made in

this particular case--what degrading proposals, backed by the insidious

offer of foreign gold? A weak character might have succumbed. But the

victim was made of different stuff. He belonged to another type--the

heroic type. Suffering anguish of soul, he yet preferred honour to

baseness. In self-defence--"

At this point the great Deputy ceased to speak. Signor Malipizzo had

swooned away. He had to be carried out of Court.

It mattered little, for the proceedings were at an end save for a few

formalities. The case was won.

People were rather annoyed at being deprived of one of Don Giustino's

far-famed perorations. It could not be helped. Better luck next time.

Then they asked themselves why the judge had fainted. Some thought it

might be the heat, or a touch of his old complaint. The majority were

agreed that the attack was due to the Deputy's eloquence. And it was

true that he was greatly impressed by the speech, but not quite as much

as all that. He had decided to faint at a critical moment, for the sake

of appearances. It was clever of him. He did it beautifully too; he had

been rehearsing half the night. Don Giustino, on his part, shared the

common opinion and was charmed with this tribute to his genius.

Altogether, the local judge had made a favourable impression on him;

his attitude had been irreproachably correct. He was not a bat fellow,

for a freemason. One might do worse than leave him in possession of his

present appointment on Nepenthe.

The Deputy freed his prisoner; it was unavoidable. But the Russians

remained in gaol, and this was always something to the credit of Signor

Malipizzo....

Madame Steynlin, on hearing of Peter the Great's arrest, was stricken

dumb. She wept the bitterest tears of all her life. Then, with

returning calmness, she remembered Mr. Keith whose friendship with the

magistrate was the common talk of the place. Would he be able to do

anything? Impulsive by nature, she called on that gentleman and poured

out her griefs to him. Mr. Keith was sympathetic. He declared he

understood perfectly. He promised to do his utmost, that very day.

The Master, meanwhile, languished in prison. He had nobody to take his

part, not even among the Little White Cows; the new section, that

clique of young extremists, were only too delighted to have him out of

the way. The communal doctor alone interceded on his behalf, imploring

the judge in the name of the sacred brotherhood of freemasons that he,

the Messiah, should be excarcerated in order that he, the physician,

might be enabled to continue the daily treatment to which the old man

had grown accustomed and for which he was being regularly remunerated.

"Think of my wife and children!" he said to the magistrate.

Signor Malipizzo on this occasion did not mean to be baulked of his

prey. He was in bad humour; Don Giustino had got on his nerves. By

means of a lightning-like discharge of symbols intelligible only to the

Elect he retorted that a physician, who depended for his livelihood

upon a legitimate practice among BONA FIDE patients, was not fit to be

a freemason.

Then the doctor urged the humanitarian aspects of the case. The old man

needed the treatment which could be given in prison just as well; the

fees would doubtless be paid sooner or later.

The magistrate proved inexorable, adamantine. What was good enough for

a native, he argued, was good enough for a vicious old alien. A

stomach-pump in prison! What more? They would be wanting fried fish and

asparagus next.

As a special concession to the Master's age and rank a separate upper

chamber, described as very airy, had been allotted to him in the local

gaol. The poor old man did not know how he got there; they had thrust

him into this strange place and locked the door on him. Long hours had

passed. He sat on an uncomfortable cane-bottomed chair, his hands

folded across his stomach. There was already a slight sense of

oppression in that region of his body. His head, too, felt heavy.

Without knowing how or why, he had fallen into a trap, after the manner

of some dumb beast of earth. When would they take him out again? And

when would that kind gentleman with the machine arrive?

Daylight entered through a small but thickly grated window. Looking out

from where he sat, he could detect neither men nor houses nor

trees--nothing but four rectangular patches of deep blue. The sea! Often

had he wondered about the sea, and why it was there. It had ever been

an enigma to him, this purposeless mass of water. Not even good to

drink. He knew nothing of those fables of the pagans--of old Poseidon

and white-armed Leucothea and the blithe crew of Triton and

silver-footed Thetis moving upon the placid sunlit waters; nothing of

that fair sea-born goddess whose beauty swayed the hearts of men. His

Venus ideals had been of a more terrestrial nature--the wives or

daughters of army generals and state functionaries who desired

advancement, and sometimes got it.

Not even good to drink! There was nothing like this in Holy Russia. God

would never have allowed it. The uselessness of this sea had always

been to him a source of perplexity and even vague apprehension. The

spectacle of this shining immensity troubled his world-scheme. Why did

God create water, when land would have been so much more useful? Often

had he puzzled on the subject.... Why?

But now, in the evening of his life and the extremity of his anguish,

the truth was made manifest. A Revelation drew nigh. It just came to

him.

The fishes.

It was a dying gleam of intelligence, his last inspired thought, his

swan-song. How else could the fishes live save in the water? All these

long years he had remained ignorant of the truth. Ah, if only his

disciples were at hand, to jot it down into that GOLDEN BOOK!

But why--why must the fishes live in water? And why so much water for so

few fishes? Why cannot fishes live on land? Then everybody would be

satisfied. Inscrutable are the ways of God....

And his glazed eye moved wearily from that disquieting expanse of blue

along the wall of his chamber which had once been white and was now

scrawled over with obscene jests and drawings, product of the leisure

hours of generations of prisoners. The writing, like all writing, was

unintelligible to him. But some of the artistic efforts left little to

the imagination. He was saddened, less by homely pictures than by the

unfamiliar script. He had always distrusted the written word. Why all

these strange letterings--so unnecessary, so dangerous to the life of an

orthodox Christian? What one brother has to tell another--why write it

down?

He saw the straw pallet destined for his nocturnal repose. It reminded

him dimly of a similar resting-place during his monastic life. Then,

too, he had slept on a couch near the floor. Flickering visions came to

him of those days, so long ago, ere yet the First Revelation was given

to the world. A breath of old Russia was wafted into his nostrils. He

remembered the lusty, jovial country folk, the songs and dances at

hay-making, the fragrance of the land, the sluggish rivers rolling

their brown mud about the plains, the mild long-drawn evenings. He felt

again that all-pervading charm of sadness, of tender yearning, that

hangs in the pale Russian sky and penetrates to the very soul of the

endless country.

Gloomy autumn days--wet leaves and lowering horizons. The long winter

within doors. Faces appeared to him, faces of old, an endless

procession of faces clear-cut as ever ... his brother monks, bearded

and unkempt ... debauched acolytes ... pilgrims from the Holy Land

... glittering festal robes ... vodka orgies, endless chants and

litanies, holy lamps burning, somber eikons with staring eyes ... the

smell of greasy lukewarm cabbage soup, of unwashed bodies and boot

leather and incense. Holy Russia--it all moved before his eyes in a kind

of melodious twilight. Then the First Revelation. The Man-God.

Man-God. The word filtered through his intelligence. How strange it

sounded. The Man-God--what could it mean.

A sudden change. A life of glory and intrigue. Food on platters of

gold, sparkling wines and laughter. A diamond cross, an imperial gift,

the reward of faithful services. Everybody cringing. Showers of bribes.

Women--always women. A divine life! Nothing but women....

Darkness. Something had happened; they had carried him into a place

full of endless penances, floggings, starvings. Then they accused him

of doing wrong. What was it? The flesh of warm-blooded beasts.... He

had preferred the service of God to that of his earthly master. For

this they banished him and made him suffer. He was dying now--dying to

save mankind. He was giving up his life for sinners. Someone else had

once done the same thing. Who was it? He could not remember. People who

read and write--they know these things. Some saint, possibly; or at

least a man from another province--someone he had never met or spoken

to. A good Russian, whoever it was. But the name--the name had slipped

out of his mind. He always had a good memory for faces, but a bad one

for names.

He was so ill and oppressed too. Worse than before. He felt himself

rotting earthwards, like a fungus of his own native forests under

autumn rains. His body remained inert but his eye, roaming away from

the straw pallet, fixed itself upon the door. When, when would that

kindly gentleman with the instrument arrive?

CHAPTER XXXVII

Concerning the life and death of Saint Eulalia, patroness of Nepenthean

sailors, we possess ample and accurate information.

She was born in 1712 at a remote village in the Spanish province of

Estramadura. Various divine portents accompanied her birth. Her mother

dreamed a strange dream about a sea-serpent; her father was cured of a

painful gouty affection; the image of Saint James of Compostella in the

local church was observed to smile benignly at the very hour of her

entry into the world. At the age of two years and eleven months she

took the vow of chastity. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping

the infant alive; she tormented her body in so merciless a fashion. She

refused to partake of food save once in every five weeks; she remained

immovable "like a statue" for months on end; she wore under her rough

clothing iron spikes which were found, after death, to have entered

deeply into her flesh. She was never known to use a drop of water for

purposes of ablution or to change her underwear more than once a year,

and then only at the order of her confessor who was obliged to be in

daily contact with her. The heat of her body was such that it could not

be touched by human hands. During her frequent trances she spoke

accurately in sixty-nine different languages; there was no hair

whatever on her head which was "spotless as an egg." She put baskets of

sea urchins into her bed and, as a penance for what she called "her

many sins," forced herself to catch the legions of vermin that infested

her brown blanket, count them, separate the males from the females, set

them free once more, and begin over again. She died at the age of

fourteen years and two months. Her corpse forthwith became roseate in

colour, exhaled a delicious odour of violets for twenty weeks, and

performed countless miracles. On dissection, a portrait of Saint James

of Compostella was discovered embedded in her liver.

Saint Eulalia appeared too late to find her proper niche in Monsignor

Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES or to be commemorated in some worthy

architectural monument by the Good Duke Alfred; too late--and this is

doubtless a lucky circumstance--to become the victim of one of Father

Capocchio's offensive sneers. Whoever is interested in her saintly

career may purchase at Nepenthe, for the small sum of sixpence, an

admirable biography by a young Canon of the Church, Don Giacinto

Mellino. It gives a full account of her life and of those nine hundred

and seventy-two miracles of hers which have been authenticated by

eye-witnesses. No need, therefore, to expatiate further.

It stands to reason that Mr. Eames possessed a copy of this treatise.

An ideal annotator, he rarely indulged in speculation; his business was

to discover and co-ordinate references. Nevertheless, in regard to the

earthly life of this particular saint, he used to say: "There are some

things a man cannot help puzzling about." It irked him--her success on

Nepenthe. He knew the sailormen to be a horny-handed, skeptical,

worldly brood. Why had they imported the cult of Eulalia from Spain;

why had they chosen for their patroness a mawkish suffering nonentity,

so different from those sunny goddesses of classical days? He

concluded, lamely, that there was an element of the child in every

Southerner; that men, refusing to believe what is improbable, reserve

their credulity for what is utterly impossible; in brief, that the

prosaic sea-folk of Nepenthe were like everybody else in possessing a

grain of stupidity in their composition--"which does not bring us much

further," he would add....

At the time of this year's festival Mr. Eames was supremely happy.

Another pamphlet had come into his hands, an anonymous pamphlet making

fun of the Duchess whose reception into the Roman Church had been fixed

for the day of Saint Eulalia's festival. It bore the objectionable

title THE DIPPING OF THE DUCHESS and had presumably been indited by

some wag at the Alpha and Omega Club who disapproved of water in every

shape, even for baptismal purposes. The stuff was printed on the sly

and hastily circulated about the island--some people maintained that Mr.

Richards, the respectable Vice-President of that institution, was its

author. It was a scurrilous anti-Catholic leaflet, grossly personal and

savouring of atheism. The Duchess, on hearing of it--everything got

about on Nepenthe--was so distressed that she decided to cancel, or at

least postpone, the ceremony of her public conversion. At a meeting of

urgency convened by the priests, who were bitterly disappointed at her

attitude, it was agreed that this was no time for half-measures. A

round sum of money was voted wherewith to buy back the pernicious

pamphlet from its respective owners with a view to its destruction.

In the space of a single day every copy vanished from the island--every

copy save one, which had found its way into Mr. Eames' collection. He

meant to keep that copy. He would have died sooner than yield it up.

When the clerical deputation arrived at his villa with soft words and

promises of more solid lucre, he professed the uttermost amazement at

their quest. Mr. Eames, the soul of honesty, the scorner of all

subterfuge and crooked dealing, put on a new character. He lied like a

trooper. He lied better than a trooper; that is to say, not only

forcefully but convincingly. He lied as only a lover of bibliographical

curios can lie, in defence of his treasure. He thanked them for their

courteous visit and bade them keep their gold. He professed himself a

poor recluse innocent of the world's ways and undesirous of riches,

adding, as a mere afterthought, that he had not so much as heard of the

noxious broadsheet in question. There must be some mistake. Society

people might know something about it; that gentleman who called himself

a bishop for example, that sallow gentleman from Africa, who spent so

much of his time in social gaieties--he might very likely have received

a copy. If they wished, he would gladly make enquiries, discreet

enquiries, about the matter.

It was Mr. Eames' second lapse from grace. Gentlemen do not tell

falsehoods. He did not want to be a gentleman just then. He wanted that

pamphlet.

The reverend visitors withdrew convinced, amid showers of compliments

and apologies. After seeing them safely off the premises and even, for

greater security, half-way down the hill, Mr. Eames returned, drew out

the jewel from where it lay in a secret hiding-place among others of

its kind, and hugged it to his heart. He purposed to reproduce the

pamphlet IN EXTENSO, in that particular appendix to his edition of

Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES which dealt with "Contemporary Social History."

...

Mr. Heard knew nothing of all this as, jostled among the crowd, he

watched the procession on that bright morning. It reminded him of the

feast of Saint Dodekanus which he had witnessed twelve days earlier; it

was even more extravagant. But he now felt himself seasoned to this

kind of display. Besides, he had seen funnier things in Africa; though

not much funnier. Once more his thoughts went back to those laughing

black people, he remembered all of them--the Wabitembes, the M'tezo, the

Kizibubi--what a set of jovial ruffians! How they would have enjoyed

this sunshiny nonsense. And the Bulangas. Really, those Bulangas--

There was a light touch on his shoulder. He turned, and found himself

face to face with Mrs. Meadows. She was smiling and looking ever so

happy.

"Well, Tommy!" she said. "You don't seem to be very pleased to see me.

Why haven't you come to tea lately? And why are you looking so glum?

He's got his leave, after all. I had a cable two days ago. He'll pick

me up here in a fortnight or three weeks. Aren't you glad you needn't

escort me to England?"

"Awfully glad!" he replied, trying to be jocular. The words stuck in

his throat. He had expected to meet--if he met her at all--a skulking

contrite criminal. This woman was jubilant. An amazing, terrifying

state of affairs.

"There is something the matter with you, Tommy. Perhaps you have caught

my headache. You remember how inquisitive you were? And how you

complained of the roses? If you come up now you will find fresh ones

waiting for you."

Her glance was unclouded. No human being ever looked less

conscience-stricken. It was as though she had convinced herself of the

righteousness of her deed, and thereafter dismissed it from her mind as

something not worth bothering about. Blithe as a bird! If he had not

seen with his own eyes--

"Has it gone, your headache?" he enquired, not knowing what to say.

"Gone away altogether. I have heard so much about this procession that

I thought I would drive down and have a look at it. I missed the last

one, you know. Besides, I wanted to see some friends here whom I've

been neglecting lately. I feel quite guilty about it," she added.

He couldn't help saying:

"You don't look guilty."

"Ah, but you mustn't judge by appearances!"

"You blamed the sirocco, I remember."

"I don't blame it any longer. Surely a woman can change her mind? But

what is the matter with you?"

"Perhaps the south wind," he ventured.

She remarked laughingly:

"I don't believe the wind is in the south at all. But you always were a

funny boy, Tommy. If you are very good you will see some pretty

fireworks presently. As for myself, I shall have to drive home for

Baby's early dinner."

"Fireworks in broad daylight?" he asked. "That is something new."

"In broad daylight! Aren't they queer people? They can't wait till it

gets dark, I suppose."

At that moment they were joined by Keith and three or four others. He

had no more chance of speaking to her alone; she drove away, not long

afterwards, waving her parasol at him and leaving him in a state of

dazed perplexity.

He had been thinking night and day about his cousin, certain of her

criminality and profoundly convinced of her moral rectitude. What had

Muhlen done? He had probably threatened her with some exposure. He was

her legal husband--he could make himself abominable to her and to

Meadows. The future of the child, too, was imperiled. He might be able

to claim it; or if not that--the bishop's notions of bastardy laws were

not very clear--he could certainly rely upon his friend the magistrate

to take the child out of the mother's custody or do something horrible

of that kind. The happiness of that whole family was at his mercy. She

had been goaded to desperation. Mr. Heard began to understand. To

understand--that was not enough. Anybody could understand.

Keith took his arm and remarked:

"Come and see my cannas! They are prefect just now. I must tell you a

story about them--it's the wildest romance. I am the only person in

Europe who understands the proper cultivation of cannas. I shall have

scented ones soon."

"Don't they smell?" enquired the bishop absent-mindedly.

"Not yet. You are looking a little tired, Heard, as if you had not

slept well lately. Perhaps you would like to sit down? We can watch the

fireworks from the terrace. You ought to read Pepys' DIARY. That is

what I have been doing. I am also rather low-spirited just now. The end

of another spring, you know--it always makes me feel sad. Pepys is the

antidote. He is a tonic. Every Englishman ought to be compelled, for

the good of his soul, to go through Pepys once in three years."

"I must read him again," said the bishop who was not particularly

interested in the diarist just then.

"His universal zest! It seems to be extinct nowadays; it is a charm

that I have not discovered in any living Englishman. What a healthy

outlook! Not a trace of straining anywhere. He took life with both

hands. How he threw himself into his work, his amusements, his clothes

and women and politics and food and theatres and pictures. Warm heart,

cool head. So childlike, and yet so wise. There's only one thing that

troubles me about him--his love of music. It was so obviously sincere.

He not only liked it; he actually understood it. Music, to me, is a

succession of sounds more or less painful. I can't even whistle. It's

too bad."

The bishop said:

"If the lives of all of us were written down with the same remorseless

candour, how few would stand the test."

He was thinking of the Devil's Rock.

"I don't trouble about tests," replied Keith. "The whole herd of

humanity adapts its pace to that of the weakest lamb. The capacity of

the weakest lamb--that is the test. I don't consider myself bound to

such a vulgar standard. And how spectacular we are, in matters of

so-called right and wrong. That is because we have painfully cultivated

the social conscience. Posing, and playing to the gallery! Mankind is

curiously melodramatic, my dear fellow; full of affected reverence for

its droll little institutions. As if anybody really cared what another

person does! As if everybody were not chuckling inwardly all the time!"

"Surely there are heights and depths in the matter of conduct?"

"I don't trouble about heights and depths. Does it not all depend upon

where we take up our stand? Must we always remain stationary like

vegetables? A bird knows nothing of heights and depths. You sit here at

night-time and look at the stars. They are firm-fixed, you say. Well,

they are not firm-fixed. Therefore it is the wrong way to look at them.

I have also written a diary, Heard. It is my legacy to posterity and

will be published after my death. It relates of actions not all of

which Count Caloveglia would call pretty. Perhaps it will give some

people the courage of their unspoken convictions."

The bishop suddenly asked:

"If somebody you knew had committed a crime, what would you say?

Somebody you really respect--a person like Mrs. Meadows?"

"Your cousin? I should say that whatever Mrs. Meadows does is well done."

"You would approve?"

"Of course I would. People like that are bound to be in the right."

"Really ...?"

The fireworks were splendid; altogether, Saint Eulalia's day proved a

tremendous success. The festal joy was only marred by the unseemly

behaviour of Miss Wilberforce, who profited by the occasion to let off

some fireworks, or at least steam, of her own.

In broad daylight too.

This was something new, and rather ominous.

The dear lady was becoming quite a problem.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Men looked down from the market-place that afternoon and beheld a

gaily-coloured throng moving about Madame Steynlin's awkwardly situated

promontory. Her house and its wide terrace overhanging the sea were

filled with guests. The entertainment differed from the receptions of

the Duchess. It was more rustic and unrestrained--more in the nature of

a picnic. Everything possible had been done to convert that tongue of

land, that refractory stretch of trachyte, into a garden. Paths were

blasted through the rock; those few scarred olives, the aboriginals,

had been supplanted by whatever flowers and shade-giving trees could be

induced, with assiduous waterings, to strike roots into the arid soil.

It was still rather a transparent place.

A number of new people had lately arrived on Nepenthe in favour of whom

the hostess, with the frank cordiality of her nature, had issued

invitations broadcast. There was the celebrated R. A. and his dowdy

wife; a group of American politicians who were supposed to be reporting

on economic questions and spent the Government's money in carousing

about Europe; Madame Albert, the lady doctor from Lyons whose unique

combination of magic and massage (a family secret) had brought the

expiring Prince of Philippopolis to life again; an Italian senator with

his two pretty daughters; a bluff hilarious Scotchman, Mr. Jameson,

who, as a matter of fact, had done seven years for forgery but did not

like to have it brought up against him; some sisters of charity; a

grizzled sea-captain who was making discreet enquiries about a safe

place for a shipwreck, having been promised by the owners twenty per

cent of his vessel's insurance money; a dilapidated Viscount and his

SOI-DISTANT niece; two fluffy Danish ladies who always travelled

together and smiled at everything, though the younger one smiled in

such a horrible knowing fashion that you could not help disliking her;

Mrs. Roger Rumbold who addressed meetings to advocate Infanticide for

the Masses; Mr. Bernard of the Entomological Society-author of THE

COURTSHIP OF COCKROACHES; another young man of pleasant exterior who

was held to be an architect because his brother used to be employed in

a well-known engineering firm, and several more.

The exclusive Mr. Eames was absent. He sat at home, thinking how

narrowly he had escaped imprisonment at the hands of Signor Malipizzo,

in connection with Muhlen's disappearance. The closest shave of all his

life! It showed how right Keith had been in bidding him keep on the

right side of the law--on the right side of the judge--rather than trust

to the promptings of a "good conscience." The Duchess likewise sent her

excuses. She was so troubled about the pamphlet that Don Francesco

hardly dared to leave her side. He, therefore, was also absent; so was

the bereaved Commissioner. Mrs. Meadows had driven home again long ago.

Van Koppen intended to sail in the early hours of next morning. The

bishop and Denis were likewise on the verge of departure. A break-up

was at hand.

Mr. Keith alone refused to budge. He was waiting for the first cicada

whose strident call was due, he declared, in a week's time. Till then

he proposed to remain on Nepenthe.

"Fancy waiting for an insect," said his friend van Koppen. "I believe,

Keith, you've got a sentimental streak somewhere."

"I have been fighting against it all my life. A man ought to dominate

his reflexes. But if the insect keeps good time--why not?"

He was in an elegiac mood, though he meant to drive away his cares

later in the evening by the "Falernian system." He felt the exodus in

the air. Another spring drawing to its close--everybody scattering! He

was filled, too, with that peculiar pensiveness which troubles complex

people when they have done a kindly act. Virtue had gone out of him.

He had wrought a miracle.

The moist look in the eye of his hostess testified to the miracle; so

did her frock which, being of pink muslin, harmonized with the state of

her mind but not with her complexion. Peter the Great had escaped from

prison. Not only he, but all the others were at liberty once more,

including the Messiah who, after some attentions on the part of the

communal doctor, had been put to bed like a little child. The rest of

them filled her trim walks with their gleeful laughter and bright

raiment; they devoured abundant wines and food at those refreshment

tables which groaned under the weight of good things. One could trust

Madame Steynlin to attend to the commissariat department. She knew how

to gladden the human heart. That of Peter the Great was gladdened to

such an extent that he soon began to perform a Russian peasant dance, A

PAS SEUL, to the delight of the assembled guests. It was a cheery

interlude with a disastrous ending, for the rough terrace being

different from what he expected, he stumbled and fell full length upon

the ground. There he lay, laughing, like a young giant refreshed with

wine.

"I don't know how you have done it, Mr. Keith," she said, "and I am not

going to ask. But I shall never forget this kindness of yours."

"Would you not do the same for me? I imagine, between ourselves, that

the judge has been a good deal flustered with this trial and the

intervention of Don Giustino. Perhaps he lost his head. We are all

liable to that, are we not? He is a nervous man; but quite a good

fellow if one keeps on the right side of him. It is so easy to keep on

the right side of people. I often wonder, Madame Steynlin, why men are

so full of bitterness towards each other. It is one of the things I

shall never live to understand. And another is this problem of music!

Will you help me to grasp the pleasure which you seem to derive from

it? Helmholtz does not bring me much further. He explains why certain

sounds are necessarily disagreeable--"

"Oh, Mr. Keith! You would go to a professor. I fear you are not very

musical. Have you never felt inclined to cry?"

"I have. But not in a concert-room."

"Nor yet in a theatre?"

"Never," he replied, "though it saddens me a little to see grown-up men

and women stalking about in funny dressing-gowns and pretending to be

kings and queens. When I watch HAMLET or OTHELLO, I say to myself:

'This stuff is nicely riveted together. But, in the first place, the

story is not true. And secondly, it is no affair of mine. Why cry about

it?'"

"That looks as if you were heartless and unimaginative. And you so

compassionate! I do not understand you. I do not understand myself

either. We are always groping about in the dark, are we not? We are

always puzzling about our own problems instead of helping other people

with theirs. Perhaps one should not think so much of oneself, though it

is an interesting subject. Tell me, if music says nothing to you, why

not leave it alone?"

"Because I want to be able to extract pleasure from it, as you do. That

is what makes me curious. I like to understand things, because then I

can begin to enjoy them. I think knowledge should intensify our

pleasures. That is its aim and object, so far as I am concerned. What

are other joys--those of the illiterate and incurious? A dog scratching

his fleas in the sunshine. They too are not wholly to be despised--"

"What a dreadful simile!"

"A precise one."

"You like to be precise?"

"It is my mother's fault. She brought me up so carefully."

"I think that is a pity, Mr. Keith. If I had children I would let them

run wild. People are too tame nowadays. That is why so few of them have

any charm. These poor Russians--no one tries to understand them. Why is

everybody so much alike? Because we never follow our feelings. And yet,

what is a surer guide than the heart? We seem to live in a world of

echoes."

"A world of masks, Madame Steynlin. It is the only theatre worth

looking at...."

The lady was too happy to consider how the miracle had been wrought,

though she suspected dirty work at the bottom of it. She never

discovered how simple had been the method of Mr. Keith who had merely

given His Worship to understand that he had done enough bribing for one

season and that, unless Krasnojabkin were promptly released, there

would be no bribing whatever next year. The judge, with his usual legal

acumen, perceived the cogency of his friend's argument. He met Mr.

Keith's wishes more than half-way. On an impulse of downright

good-nature--there was no other interpretation to be put on it--he

released all the Russians, including the Messiah. They were

excarcerated then and there on a decree of "provisional liberty," which

looked well in the records of the Court and, being interpreted,

signified immunity from further judicial molestation. The incident was

closed.

People talked about it none the less. They discussed Don Giustino, his

past career and present prosperity. As for Mr. Muhlen--he was already

almost forgotten. So was the Commissioner's lady. Madame Steynlin alone

brought herself to say a few kind words about both of them. She was

ready to say kind things about anyone. The magic of love! Her heart,

under the influence of Peter, had opened so wide as to embrace not only

the Russian colony, but even the nine thousand families of Chinese

cultivators who, according to a paragraph in the morning's newspaper,

had perished in a sudden inundation of the Hoang-Ho.

The poor people! she said. She did not see why one should not

sympathize with the griefs of a Chinaman. Humble honest folks, without

a doubt--swept off the face of the earth, through no fault of their own,

by a cataclysm! There was quite a discussion about it on her terrace

that afternoon.

Mr. Heard, feeling also very charitable, found himself taking her part

against someone who said it was impossible to sympathize with the

troubles of a yellow man--they were too different, too remote from

ourselves. He thought that much individual hardship had been suffered,

undeserved, unchronicled; homes destroyed, children drowned before the

eyes of their parents. And nobody seemed to care.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Later on, he turned his back upon the crowded walks and found himself

on a remote terrace overlooking the sea. It was quiet here, in view of

the sunset--his last sunset on Nepenthe.

Leaning over the parapet he enjoyed, once more, the strangely intimate

companionship of the sea. He glanced down into the water whose uneven

floor was diapered with long weedy patches, fragments of fallen rock,

and brighter patches of sand; he inhaled the pungent odour of sea-wrack

and listened to the breathings of the waves. They lapped softly against

the rounded boulders which strewed the shore like a flock of nodding

Behemoths. He remembered his visits at daybreak to the beach--those

unspoken confidences with the sunlit element to whose friendly caresses

he had abandoned his body. How calm it was, too, in this evening light.

Near at hand, somewhere, lay a sounding cave; it sang a melody of moist

content. Shadows lengthened; fishing boats, moving outward for their

night-work, steered darkly across the luminous river at his feet. Those

jewel-like morning tints of blue and green had faded from the water;

the southern cliff-scenery, projections of it, caught a fiery glare.

Bastions of flame....

The air seemed to have become unusually cool and bracing.

Here, on a bench all by himself, sat Count Caloveglia. As the bishop

took a seat beside him they exchanged a few words. The Italian, so

affable as a rule, was rather preoccupied and disinclined for talk.

Mr. Heard remembered his first encounter with that old man--the Salt of

the South, as Keith had called him. It was at those theatricals in the

Municipality. Then too the Count had been remarkably silent, his chin

reposing in his hand, absorbed in the spectacle--in the passionate grace

of the young players. He was absorbed in another spectacle now--the old

sun, moving in passionless splendour down the sky.

Only a fortnight ago, that first meeting. Less than a fortnight. Twelve

days. How much had been crammed into them!

A kind of merry nightmare. Things happened. There was something bright

and diabolical in the tone of the place, something kaleidoscopic--a

frolicsome perversity. Purifying, at the same time. It swept away the

cobwebs. It gave you a measure, a standard, whereby to compute earthly

affairs. Another landmark passed; another milestone on the road to

enlightenment. That period of doubt was over. His values had righted

themselves. He had carved out new and sound ones; a workable,

up-to-date theory of life. He was in fine trim. His liver--he forgot

that he ever had one. Nepenthe had done him good all round. And he knew

exactly what he wanted. A return to the Church, for example, was out of

the question. His sympathies had outgrown the ideals of that

establishment; a wave of pantheistic benevolence had drowned its smug

little teachings. The Church of England! What was it still good for? A

stepping-stone, possibly towards something more respectable and humane;

a warning to all concerned of the folly of idolizing dead men and their

delusions. The Church? Ghosts!

His thoughts wandered to England. Often had he sighed, in Africa, for

its drowsy verdant opulence--those willow-fringed streamlets and grazing

cattle, the smell of hay, the flowery lanes, the rooks cawing among

slumberous elms; often had he thought of that village on the hill-top

with its grey steeple. Well, he would see them all in a few days. And

how would England compare with the tingling realism of Nepenthe? Rather

parochial, rather dun; grey-in-grey; subdued light above--crepuscular

emotions on earth. Everything fireproof, seaworthy. Kindly thoughts

expressed in safe unvarying formulas. A guileless people! Ships tossing

at sea; minds firmly anchored to the commonplace. Abundance for the

body; diet for the spirit. The monotony of a nation intent upon

respecting laws and customs. Horror of the tangent, the extreme, the

unconventional. God save the King.

So much the better. This soulful cult of tradition, this clinging to

the obvious and genteel as it were an anchor of safety--it nipped in the

bud the monster-making faculty of low horizons and bleak, wintry

stretches of earth. Bazhakuloff! Those Russians, it struck him, had

been providentially sent to Nepenthe for his delectation and

instruction. He was glad to have beheld a type of this nature,

inconceivable in England. That grotesque, with three million followers!

It had been a liberal education to look into his vacuous face, into

those filmy eyes dripping with saintliness and alcohol. The Little

White Cows! Chimaeras, engendered in hyperborean mists.

And still Count Caloveglia said nothing. He gazed at the sun, whose orb

now rolled upon the rim of the horizon. Slowly it sank, fusing the

water into a golden pool. A hush fell upon nature. Colours fled from

earth into the sky. They scattered among the clouds. The enchantment

began, overhead.

At last the old man remarked:

"I suppose that is why I am no colourist. That is why I worship the

inexorable rigour of form. We of the South, Mr. Heard, are drenched in

volatile beauty.... And yet one never wearies of these things! It is

what you call a glamour, an interlude of witchcraft. Nature is

a-tremble with the miraculous. She beckons us to explore her strange

places. She says: Tread here, my friend--and here; tread where you have

never trodden before! The sage surrenders his intelligence, and grows

young again. He recaptures the spirit of his boyish dreams. He peers

into worlds unknown. See! Adventure and discovery are lurking on every

side. These painted clouds with their floating banners and citadels,

yonder mysterious headlands that creep into the landscape at this hour,

those islets emerging, like flakes of bronze, out of the

sunset-glow--all the wonder of the ODYSSEY is there!"

He spoke out of politeness and soon fell silent again. His thoughts

roamed far away.

They were thoughts commensurate with the grandeur of the scene.

Count Caloveglia was no colourist. He was a sculptor, about to reap the

reward of his labours. The cheque would be in his pocket that night.

Three hundred and fifty thousand francs--or nearly. That is what made

him not exactly grave, but reserved. Excess of joy, like all other

excesses, is not meet to be displayed before men. All excess is

unseemly. Nothing overmuch. Measure in everything.

Measure even in the fabrication of Hellenic masterpieces. He had

created one of them (the Demeter did not count); it sufficed for his

modest ambitions. The Faun was his first forgery and his last. To

retrieve the fortunes of his family he had employed those peculiar

talents which God had given him. He would remain, henceforward, an

artist. He shrank from the idea of becoming a wholesale manufacturer of

antiques.

Three hundred and fifty thousand francs. If sufficed. Thinking of those

figures, he began to smile with contentment. He smiled--but no more. And

as he continued to muse upon the transaction his look melted,

imperceptibly, into one of reverential awe; there was a solemnity about

that sum, an amplitude, a perfection of outline that reminded him, in a

way, of the proportions of some wonderful old Doric temple. The labour

of a lifetime would not have enabled him to collect so much had he

tried to sell bronzes of his own workmanship. A bust or statue by Count

Caloveglia--it would command a certain small price, no doubt; but what

was the reputation, the market value, of the most eminent modern artist

as compared with that nameless but consummate craftsman of Locri?

The Count saw things in their true perspective. His mental attitude

towards Sir Herbert Street and his American employer was not tinged

with the faintest cloud of disrespect; for van Koppen, indeed, he

cherished a liking which bordered on affection. He detected in the

astute American what nobody else could detect--an element of childlike

freshness and simplicity. As far apart, in externals, as two distant

trees whose leaves are fluttering on either side of some tangled

forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground,

drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old

teeming soil of human aspirations. Nor was he vainglorious of his

achievement. His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of

the gods. Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature. He was not proud but

glad--glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social

position; glad, above all things, to have forged a link with the past--a

key to admit him into the fellowship of Lysippus and those others whose

august shades, he opined, were even them smiling upon him. The Locri

Faun was his handiwork. He was "entitled to dine well," as he had told

Denis. That was what he now purposed to do. One master-stroke had

repaired his fortunes. It sufficed. Nothing overmuch. Count Caloveglia

knew the story of Polycrates, the too-fortunate man. He knew what lies

in wait for the presumptuous mortal whoo oversteps the boundary of what

is fair and good. Nemesis!

Three hundred and fifty thousand francs. There would be an ample dowry

for Matilda. And, as regards himself, he could return to his passion of

youth; he could afford to become a sculptor again and even, if so

disposed, a collector--though not exactly after the style of his

excellent friend Cornelius van Koppen.

"That was a suggestive encounter, was it not, between the Deputy and

our local judge?"

He spoke, as before, out of civility.

"Very suggestive," assented Mr. Heard. "Two blackguards, I call them."

The bishop was particularly glad to learn, as everybody on the island

had learnt, the minutest details of this sordid legal affair. It seemed

likewise to have been providentially arranged, in order to afford him

an insight into the administration of local law, and some notion of

what would have been in store for his cousin had she applied for relief

from Muhlen's persecutions to Signor Malipizzo, his intimate friend.

There would have been no justice for her--not from that quarter. He

would probably have forbidden the child to be moved out of his

jurisdiction, pending the progress of a trial which might never end.

Nor could the English Court, with its obsolete provisions on this head,

have regarded Muhlen otherwise than as her legal husband--the child of

her later union as illegitimate. Bastardy: a taint for life! How well

she had done to put herself beyond a rancorous letter of the law; to

protect her child and family according to the immutable instincts of

mankind!

The Nepenthe magistrate had shown what he was capable of, in his

bestial dealings with a half-witted lad and those harmless Russian

lunatics--the first one saved through the intervention of a cut-throat

politician, and the second ... well, he did not exactly know how the

Muscovites had been able to regain their freedom but, remembering what

Keith had told him about Miss Wilberforce, her periodical imprisonments

and his periodical bribes, he shrewdly suspected some underhand

practices on the part of that gentleman at the instigation, very

possibly, of the charming Madame Steynlin. Signor Malipizzo's cruel

travesty of justice--how unfavourably it compared with his cousin's

altogether satisfactory, straightforward and businesslike handling of

Muhlen's little affair!

Doubtless she suffered intensely. He called to mind her looks, her

voice, during that first interview at the villa Mon Repos; he thought

it likely that, but for her child and husband, she would have taken her

own life in order to escape from this villain. And doubtless she had

weighed the matter in her own mind. Sensible people do not take steps

of this gravity without reflecting on the possible consequences. She

must have tried her hardest to talk Muhlen over, before coming to the

conclusion that thee was nothing to be done with the fellow. She knew

him; she knew her own mind. She knew better than anyone else what was

in store for her if Muhlen got the upper hand. Her home broken up; her

child a bastard; herself and Meadows--social outcasts; all their three

lives ruined. Mrs. Meadows, plainly, did not relish such a prospect.

She did not see why her existence should be wrecked because a scoundrel

happened to be supported by a disreputable paragraph of the Code.

Muhlen was a troublesome insect. He must be brushed aside. Ridiculous

to call such a thing a tragedy!

He thought of the insignificance of a human life. Thousands of decent

upright folks swept away at a blow.... Who cared? One dirty

blackmailer more or less: what on earth did it matter to anybody?

An enigma? His cousin was not an enigma at all. Keith had called her a

tiger mother. That was correct. Not every parent could do what she had

done. Not every parent could do what she had done. Not every parent was

placed under the necessity. Not every parent had the grit. If all of

them fought for their offspring after this fashion, the race would be

stronger and better. Thinking thus, he not only understood. He

approved. Mrs. Meadows had saved her family. She was perfect of her

kind.

Suddenly he remembered that other parent on the passenger boat when he

came to Nepenthe--that ugly peasant-woman dressed in black, with the

scar across her cheek--how she had tried to console her suffering child.

What had Muhlen said? "Throw it into the water! It's often the only way

of ridding oneself of a nuisance." Into the water. His own words. That

was where he, the nuisance, had gone. It was unpleasant, maybe, to

hurtle through eight hundred feet of air. But men who specialize in

making themselves objectionable after Muhlen's peculiar fashion deserve

all they can get. Sensible women do not put up with such nonsense, if

they can help it.

One owes something to one's self, N'EST-CE PAS?

Decidedly so.

Everything was as clear as daylight. And he found he had bothered

himself long enough about Muhlen; there were so many other interesting

things on earth. A contemptible little episode! He decided to relegate

it into the category of unimportant events. He was glad that the whole

affair had remained in the background, so to speak, of his Nepenthean

experiences. It seemed appropriate. Odd, all the same, that the most

respectable woman on the island should be a murderess.

"Dear me!" he mused. "How very queer. It never struck me in the light

before. Shows how careful one must be.... And a relation of mine

into the bargain. H'm. Some people, if they knew, would call it a

compromising situation. Well, I begin to think it rather creditable

than otherwise to our family. We want more women of this kind on earth.

All mothers ought to be tiger mothers...."

"Don't you notice, Count, that there is an unwonted sparkle in the air

this evening? Something cleansing, clarifying?"

"To be sure I do," replied the other. "And I can tell you the cause of

it. Sirocco is over for the present. The wind has shifted to the north.

It brightens all nature. It makes one see things in their true

perspective, doesn't it?"

"That is exactly what I feel," said Mr. Heard.

CHAPTER XL

The symposium, that evening, might have degenerated into something like

an orgy but for the masterful intervention of Denis who was not going

to let Keith make a fool of himself. It took place in the most famous

of all the caves of Nepenthe-Luisella's grotto-cavern dedicated, by

common usage, to the worship of Venus and Bacchus.

There were two or three living rooms on the surface of the ground.

Walking through the first of these you clambered down some slippery

stairs into what was once a breathless subterranean vault hewn out of

the soft and dry pumiceous rock and used, as was customary, for storing

barrels and other paraphernalia. In the course of time, as more barrels

accumulated, the grotto was excavated further and further into the

entrails of the island. There seemed no reason why it should ever cease

growing when suddenly, one day, the perspiring workmen were struck in

the face by a cool blast of wind laden with marine moisture. They knew

what this meant. They had encountered one of those mysterious and

dangerous fissures that lead down to unknown depths, opening upon the

world of sunshine often at the water's edge, four hundred feet below.

It was deemed prudent to suspend excavations. These rents in the

interior of the earth had a knack of enlarging themselves, without a

word of warning, from cracks of a few inches to black gulfs several

hundred feet across. The cavern ceased to grow. As a matter of fact, it

turned out to be just large enough.

That current of air ventilating the grotto made the fortune of these

orphan girls--Luisella and her three sisters. The barrels and other

lumber once removed, the recess became a breezy night-tavern, its

natural vaulting being first whitewashed and then adorned, by

master-hand, with thrilling pictures of crimson fish afloat upon

caerulean waves, and piles of bossy pumpkins, and birds of Paradise with

streaming golden feathers, and goats at pasture among blue lilies, and

horses prancing over emerald mountains, and trees laden with flowers

and fruits such as no mortal had ever seen or tasted. It was an ideal

place for a carousal.

They could cook, those girls. Their savoury stews and vegetable soups

and FRITTURAS of every description were known far and wide. It was

universally agreed that nobody could make a more appetizing mayonnaise

sauce for cold fish and lobsters. No mayonnaise was quite like theirs;

no, not quite. Its flavour lingered on the palate; it haunted your

memory in distant lands, like the after-glow of some happy love-affair.

Nice girls, too; well-mannered; not very difficult to caress, and never

jealous of each other. "It's all in the family," they used to declare.

"Am I right, then, or am I wrong?" asked Mr. Keith, whose pomposity was

melting away under successive bottles of his own wine, specially

imported to grace the table.

The honest Vice-President of the Club, Mr. Richards, was pretty far

gone, but could always be relied upon to say something opposite. That

was due to his legal training. Once a thriving solicitor, he had been

struck off the rolls in consequence of some stupid trustee business

which turned out all wrong and thereafter driven along devious paths

known only to himself: hence his residence on Nepenthe. He replied:

"That depends entirely, my dear Sir, upon what you postulated."

"The older I get," observed Mr. van Koppen, "the more I realize that

everything depends upon what a man postulates. The rest is plain

sailing."

"I never heard a truer remark," said Keith, "not even from you! One has

only to posit a thing, and it's done. Don't you agree, Bishop? Here is

what I would call a worn-out earthenware plate. It is not a plate

unless I tell it to be a plate. You may call it anything you like--it

can't answer back. But we need not pursue the argument. Speaking for

myself, I am feeling as comfortable as a beetle in a rose."

The Vice-President remarked:

"We all know what it means when Mr. Keith becomes horticultural in his

similes. It means the same thing as when I become legal. Gentlemen! I

propose to grow legal within the next half-hour or so."

"You promised to tell me the history of your cannas," said Mr. Heard.

"You were going to tell it me too," answered Denis.

"I did. I was. And I will. But let me ask you this: have you ever heard

of a teetotaler conspicuous for kindliness of heart, or intellectually

distinguished in any walk of life? I should be glad to know his name. A

sorry crew! Not because they drink water, but because the state of mind

which makes them dread alcohol is unpropitious to the hatching of any

generous idea. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I like that phrase. WHEN MEN

HAVE WELL DRUNK. I am inclined to think that the Aramaic text has not

been tampered with at this point. What do you say, Heard?"

"Nothing is more improbable," replied the bishop. "And the water, you

perceive, was changed into wine; not into cocoa or lemonade. That

conveys, if I am not mistaken, rather a suggestive implication."

"I have been pursuing Seneca's letters. He was a cocoa-drinker,

masquerading as an ancient. An objectionable hypocrite! I wish people

would read Seneca instead of talking about him."

Van Koppen observed:

"What a man postulates is truer than what exists. I have grown grey in

trying to make my fellow-creatures understand that realities are less

convincing than make-believe."

"Given the proper atmosphere," said the bishop, laughing, "everything

becomes inevitable. If you were wrong, Mr. van Koppen, where would our

poets and novelists be?"

"Where are they?" queried the American.

"How shall that come out of a man," continued Mr. Heard, "which was

never in him? How shall he generate a harmonious atmosphere if he be

disharmonious himself? It is all a question of plausibility, of

verisimi--simili--"

"I never heard a more profound remark, Koppen, no, nor a more subtle

one; not even from you. Nor yet from you, Heard. And I can tell you

something to the point. I was talking this afternoon with a gentleman

about the stage. I said it made me said to see flesh-and-blood people

pretending to be kings and queens. Because it cannot be done. No

sensible person can bring himself to believe it. But when you watch

some of these local marionette theatres the illusion is complete. Why

is a poppy show more convincing than the COMEDIE FRANCAISE? Because it

is still further removed from reality. There is so much make-belief

that you cease to struggle. You succumb without an effort. You are

quite disposed, you are positively anxious, to make concessions to the

improbable. Once they are made--why, as you say, it is plain sailing."

"All life is a concession to the improbable," observed the bishop

rather vaguely.

Mr. Richards remarked:

"These questions must be approached with an open mind. An open mind,

gentlemen, is not necessarily an empty one."

"A fine distinction!"

"Very well. Mr. Keith proposes to abolish theatres. I second the

motion. Nothing is easier. Let me draw up a memorial to the House of

Lords. We will appeal to them on moral grounds. I know the proper

language. WHEREAS BY THE GRACE OF GOD YOUR PETITIONERS HUMBLY PROTEST

THAT THERE IS TOO MUCH KISSING ON THE STAGE--ah! Talking of kissing,

here comes our friend Don Francesco. He shall put his name to the

memorial and seal it with an oath. No Englishman can resist a

Monsignor. And nothing like a solemn oath. People always think you mean

it."

That amiable personage strode down the stairs in dignified fashion,

greeting the guests with a sonorous:

"PAX VOBISCUM!"

He could not be induced to stay long, however. He had been perturbed

all day on account of the Duchess who now threatened to join the

Moravian Brotherhood; she was so annoyed about a little thing which had

happened. He did not quite believe it, of course; but, like a

well-trained priest, took nothing for granted and was prepared for

every emergency where ladies are concerned.

"Just one glass!" said Keith.

"Let me drink to your health ere we part," added the bishop. "I am

sorry to leave you. Our friendship will endure. We meet in September,

during the vintage season. Keith has been talking to me. I am as wax in

his hands. Your smile, Don Francesco, will follow me across the ocean.

Just one glass!"

"Ah, well!" said the priest. "The next best thing to leading others

astray is to be led astray oneself."

He gulped down a couple of tumblers and dutifully took his leave,

turning round, as he reached the staircase, to make a playful gesture

of benediction towards the assembled company.

"Don't leave your bottle half empty," Keith called after him,

imploringly. "It looks untidy."

"And so unhappy," added the bishop. "Dear me! This is most singular. I

seem to see two lamps instead of one. It must have been those

apricots."

Keith interposed:

"Or perhaps you strained one of your eyes bathing. It has happened to

me, occasionally. Darkness is the best remedy. It rests the optic

nerve."

"Shall we take a turn or two outside?" asked Denis.

It was past midnight as the two climbed out of the cave into the night

air. A cool north wind blew across the market-place. The bishop was

filled with a sense--a clear-cut, all-convincing sense--of the

screamingly funny insignificance of everything. Then he noticed the

moon.

It dangled over the water, waning, sickly, moth-eaten, top-heavy, and

altogether out of condition--as if it had been on duty for weeks on end.

In other respects, too, its appearance was not quite normal. In fact,

it soon took to behaving in the most extraordinary fashion. Sometimes

there were two moons, and sometimes one. They seemed to merge

together--to glide into each other, and then to separate again. Mr.

Heard was vastly pleased and puzzled by the phenomenon--so pleased that

he gave utterance to one of the longest speeches he had made since his

arrival on Nepenthe. He said:

"I have seen many funny things here, Denis. But this is the funniest of

all. The spectacle seems to have been providentially arranged, as a

sort of BONNE BOUCHE, for my last evening on the island. Dear me. Now

there are two again. And now they are behind each other once more. A

kind of celestial hide and seek. Most interesting. I wish Keith could

see it. Or that dear Count Caloveglia. He would be sure to say

something polite.... The inconstant moon! I know, at last, what the

poet meant by that expression, though the word inconstant strikes me as

hardly forcible enough. The skittish moon, I should be inclined to call

it. The skittish moon. The frivolous moon. The giddy moon. The

quite-too-absurd moon.... There it goes again! Very curious. What

can it be?... Why, this is the reverse of an eclipse, my boy. The

disk is darkened during an eclipse. It disappears IN VACUO. In the

present case it is brightened and rendered, so to speak, doubly

apparent. What would you call the reverse of an eclipse, Denis?

Anti-eclipse? That sounds rather barbaric to my ears. One should never

mix Greek and Latin, if it can possibly be avoided. Well?"

"We must have a good look at this thing from your window, and then find

out all about it."

"Oh, but I could not possibly take you from your friends! I know my way

home perfectly well. You will not dream of accompanying me."

"Indeed I will. I walked with you to that house when you first arrived

here, and helped you to unpack. Don't you remember? And now you must

let me take you there on our last evening...."

By the time Denis returned to the grotto a more exuberant and

incoherent tone had been generated among the guests. He was not

pleased. He felt inclined to be stern. A number of reprobates from the

Club had dropped in, and Keith, whom he meant to keep straight for one

night at least, was saying silly things and giving himself away. So was

the excellent Mr. Richards.

"This is a good island," observed that gentleman. "We discourse like

sages and drink like swine. Peace with Honour!... How that old Jew

took our English measure, eh? How he laughed in his sleeve at our

infatuation for a phrase like that. Peace with Honour! The sort of

claptrap that makes a man feel so jolly comfortable inside, so damned

satisfied with everything like after a good deed. And that sentimental

primrose business. Dizzy as flower-expert! What cared he for primroses?

Votes and moneybags was what he was after. But he knew the British

Public. And that accounts for the pious domestic button-hole. Who ever

heard of a Jew telling the difference between a primrose and any other

kind of rose? They're not such blasted fools."

"Excuse me," said Keith, rising from his seat in an afflatus of

inspiration. "Excuse me. I know the difference. It is primarily a

question of nutrition. Glucose! I am a great believer in glucose.

Because, even if it could be proved that the monks of Palaiokastron

stripped the vine of its leaves and thereby hastened the maturing of

the grape without reducing its natural supply of sugar--"

"You don't shine," interrupted Denis, "when you talk like that."

"Because even if this could be proved, which I greatly doubt, yet

nothing on earth will make me believe that glucose is otherwise than

beneficial to vegetation. Because--"

"Do sit down, Keith. You are monopolizing the conversation."

"Because the glucose resides within that verdant foliage like truth in

her well, like the oyster within its pearl. The monks of

Palaiokastron--they got it straight from Noah. I am a great believer in

glucose. Which is absurd. Because--"

"Oh, shut up! You are making a perfect exhibition of yourself. Can't

you oblige me, for once in the way?"

Denis was growing seriously alarmed for the reputation of his friend.

He had changed of late; he was beginning to know his own mind. He meant

to put a stop to this humiliating scene. As the other, regardless of

his pleadings, continued to babble dithyrambic nonsense concerning

glucose and self-fertilization and artificial manures and inflorescence

and Assyrian bas-reliefs and Stilton cheese, he suddenly gripped his

arm and pulled him, with a crash, into his chair.

"Sit down, you double-distilled owl!"

This was the first virile achievement of his young life, and directed

to a worthy end. For it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that

Mr. Keith was considerably drunk. Too surprised to utter a word of

protest, the orator paused in his declamation, beaming blandly at

nobody in particular. Then he remarked, in quite a subdued tone of

voice:

"We are all at the mercy of youth. Mr. Richards! Could you oblige me

with a fairy-tale?"