CAPTURED.
That night, at Cortina, Sidney was watching in the hope of capturing
his son. Philip was with him, concealed in a dependance opposite to
the hotel, ready to intercept Martin if he took fright, or to pursue
him if he made his escape. Phyllis and Dorothy sat in their dark room,
with the window open that they might step noiselessly on to the balcony.
Phyllis had not seen Martin; and no description given of him by Philip
and Dorothy led her to imagine him in any way different from the
peasants who inhabited the cottages near the little town. That he was
rougher and less civilized did not for a moment enter her brain. She
noticed these mountain laborers closely, wondering which of them would
be most like her unknown cousin, who so greatly altered her own future
prospects. It was plain to her that Philip and Margaret were Quixotic
enough to acknowledge the claim of this deserted son of a lowborn
mother to his rights as the eldest son and heir of his father, but she
was not sure of what Sidney meant to do. He might still listen to
reason and common sense. But she began to wonder, with a sinking heart
as she thought of marrying a comparatively poor man, how soon and how
much would this usurper acquire a fitness for his distinguished
position.
To Sidney, the cheerful loyalty with which Philip came to aid him to
rescue his son was full of reproach. He felt, too, that Dorothy and
Philip were taking the affair out of his hands, and that his part was
almost a passive one, that of a spectator. These young creatures who a
few months ago looked up to him as an infallible oracle and the arbiter
of their lives, now stood beside him, nay, even before him, covering
with the strength of their youthful hopes, and their certainty of
success, the feebleness of his own doubtful and perplexed judgment.
They talked of Martin as though sure of redeeming him from his
ignorance and savagery, and fitting him to fill the position he was
born to; while Sidney could see in him only a man whose habits of mind
and body were unalterably rooted, a monster to whom he had given life,
and who was about to become his master. They, youthful and idealistic,
with no knowledge of the world, and but little of their own nature,
were ardently pursuing their object, blind to what he saw so clearly,
the long monotony of slowly passing years to come, when Martin, with
his ingrained savagery, would become a daily burden, full of care and
shame to all of them. If only he could save Margaret and his boys from
that burden!
The long, silent hours of watching passed on, and Phyllis grew fretful
with the tedium of waiting. Every quarter of an hour sounding from the
clock tower made the time seem longer. The stars glittered in the
almost frosty sky; and the moon, now waning, threw a sad, white light
upon the sleeping town. There had been no sound for an hour or more,
when at last a stealthy, creeping footfall reached their straining
ears. The two girls stole silently to the balcony, and leaned
cautiously over the parapet. In the dim light Phyllis saw a wild, half
naked creature, bare-headed, with long, rough hair matted about his
face, scraping together the fragments of food thrown out into the
street for the dogs. It was a horrible sight to her, and she uttered a
low scream as she fled back into the room, which startled his
frightened ears. He was darting away when Dorothy called to him:
"Martino!"
It was his own name that this white vision of an angel was calling; and
he hesitated in his intended flight, looking up again to see if she was
still there, and did not vanish away.
"Martino!" she said again in her foreign accent, "we are your friends."
"Si, signora," he answered.
"Martino!" repeated a friendly voice beside him, and he felt a hand
laid gently on his bare arm, "we are your friends."
He turned round with a start of terror; but the face he met was that of
the young English gentleman whom he had seen a few days ago, before
Chiara died, and who had given him the silver coin, which he carried
carefully concealed in his rags. He knelt down again to him, laid his
hands on his feet, muttering and mumbling his recognition and delight.
Philip glanced round to the dark doorway where his father stood unseen.
What must he be suffering in seeing such a sight as this?
"Get up, Martino," he said, trying to raise him from his abject
posture, "we are your friends," he repeated, at a loss for words.
"Father," he continued in a low voice, "come and speak to him. You
know his language better than I do. Oh! if I could only make him
understand how much my mother and I pity him!"
Sidney approached his sons cautiously. For a moment Martin stood as if
about to take a sudden flight; but the sight of an Englishman alone
pacified him; there was no need to be afraid of him. They were very
rich, these English; Chiara had always said so; they could give him
enough money to buy the right of building a little hut for himself in
some place on the mountains, where he could keep goats and sheep. He
stood quietly, therefore, watching them from under his shaggy eyebrows,
while Philip still held him by a slight yet firm grasp, of which he was
unconscious, so light his touch was. They waited, both of them in
silence, for their father to speak.
But Sidney could not speak. He had seen Martin for only one moment
before, when he fled past him from the infuriated mob that had burnt
Chiara's hut over his head. Now he stood close beside him: a strongly
built man, with thews and sinews of iron, yet worn looking, with bowed
shoulders and stooping head, as though even his great strength had been
overtaxed with too many labors and hardships. His squalid face, the
almost brutish dullness of its expression, the untamed savagery of his
whole appearance, were too revolting to Sidney. Here was his own
folly, his own sin personified. He could have hated this monster but
for the remembrance of Margaret.
"Mr. Martin," said Dorothy's clear young voice from the balcony
overhead, "take him into the dependance, and tell him he must sleep
there to-night, and you will talk to him in the morning. See, I have
some food in this satchel. And Philip will keep watch lest he should
try to escape. I am so glad we have found the poor fellow."
"The signora says you must stay here to-night," repeated Philip, as he
saw Martin looking up at Dorothy, and listening attentively to her
unknown language, "and to-morrow we will show you we are friends."
"Are the signori rich?" asked Martin.
"Very rich," answered Philip.
"Will the signori give money to me?" he asked again.
"As much as you like," said Sidney, "if you will obey me."
"As much money as Chiara had?" he rejoined.
"More," replied Sidney.
"Then I will obey you," he said, with a rough laugh.