PADRE SIGISMONDI
The presage of the afternoon sky was amply fulfilled by midnight. The
western gale howled through the window bars and the sound of the sea's
thunder rolled up from the beach. For the Mediterranean it was a gale
beyond the normal, one that had borrowed strength from its Atlantic kin.
It lashed the green islands of the archipelago with unaccustomed
violence. The vine poles fell in ranks before its blast; the lava dust
whirled up in spirals; the pebbles clattered along the face of the
shingle. And yet there was something strange, noticeable, almost
ominous, about the tempest. It had none of the northern breath of ice.
It was a hot wind; in spring or summer, and had it risen in the south,
one would have called it sirocco and kept in the shadow throughout its
blowing. But this wind blew from the north and the month was December.
The islanders mused over the phenomenon debatingly.
Inside the prison the storm muffled sounds which, however, no listener
was abroad to detect. A common table fork his only implement, Aylmer was
levering the massive corner-stones inch by inch from their seating. The
lower one had already been removed, but the upper one, as expected, had
not fallen from its place. He panted as he put forth his strength upon
it. The ebb and flow of his pulses swelled in the half-healed scar on
his temple. Blood was flowing from a few superficial cuts upon his
fingers. He ground his teeth and tugged at the stone savagely, worrying
it as a terrier might worry a defiant rat. And then, with an unexpected
jerk, it fell out upon him bodily. He dropped backwards, the stone's
weight upon his leg.
He gave a half-muffled cry, not of pain, but of satisfaction. The rest
was easy; the road was open.
Then, as he panted in the relief of accomplished effort, Fate rebuked
his satisfaction with a sudden threat. A step sounded coming up the
gravel.
His temperamental coolness and presence of mind never stood a test
better. He stood up, raised each stone in quick succession, and placed
them swiftly, carefully, and silently beneath the coverlet of his
companion's bed. She flung herself down beside them. He drew his own
pallet into the corner from which the stones had been removed and lay,
his face to the wall, the huddle of the bed clothes hiding the opening.
A moment later a light shone through the window. The light of a lamp
illuminated a wrinkled Italian face.
The watcher blinked at them suspiciously, grunted, and then with a
half-articulate expression of satisfaction, turned away. The light
bobbed slowly off into the distance, flaring and guttering before the
force of the wind. Inside the prison a sigh went up--a chorussed echo of
relief.
"Landon is taking no chances," said Aylmer, in a whisper. "We are to be
visited, at intervals. That is evident."
He heard something like the sound of a sob in the darkness.
"It means defeat--this?" asked Claire. "Fate is setting her face against
us. We are not even to have our chance!"
"No!" he said grimly. "Fate is not against us. I feel it, I have
believed it all along. And if she is, then it is our duty to defy her.
After all, we can use the chief source of danger to defeat suspicion;
that is easy."
He rose cautiously and plucked the remaining stones from the hole. He
placed them in his own bed; he arranged matters carefully. And then he
made a motion towards the new-made opening.
"Will you lead?" he said quietly. "Will you be the first to
confront--Fate?"
She gave a little gasp.
"I?" she said, and hesitated, fear in her eyes.
"You, if you will," he answered simply. "Make your way out and hide
yourself in the nearest convenient shadow. Then, if he returns before I
can join you, await me. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders. "I shall be
at your heels."
She still paused, and her fingers clenched and unclenched.
"I did not expect--to be--separated," she breathed. "My strength--I did
not realize it at first--is coming all from you."
His hand went out into the darkness and touched her.
"From now on, it will be used in your service," he said quietly. "For
you and you alone." She felt the hand quiver. "Whether you ask it or
not, whether I am to be all to you in the future, or nothing. It will be
there--for your asking."
And then, because the need of that strength came upon her with a force
which she could not control, she gripped the protecting hand between her
fingers and--Fate alone knows why--raised it to her lips. The next
instant she had slipped past him in the darkness and was drawing herself
through the opening. She rose to her knees, to her feet. She stood out
upon the wind-swept earth, free. Free of the material prison behind her.
Had she not laid upon herself new bonds? It was a thought too new, too
indefinite, too strangely sweet. The tumult of her feelings was in
accord with the tumult of the night.
[Illustration: _She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers_]
She stood, expectant, her ears alert for sounds. There was no grating of
pebbles upon the path. But from the hole at her feet the faint rip of
clothing torn against the angle of the stone. The next instant Aylmer
had emerged, but did not rise. His hands, returning to the opening,
still worked at something within. And then she gave a little gasp. A
light shone at her feet. It made a tiny, yellow splash in the darkness
and fell--on Aylmer's face.
Terror paralyzed her; she stood as if turned to stone; her hands
clenched into her clothing upon her breast. And Aylmer lay as
motionless, the golden gleam falling directly into his eyes, which did
not even blink.
A sound broke the stillness--a sound which came from the far side of
their prison--and the light disappeared. She heard footsteps which
retreated; she recognized again the grunt which told of another
inspection made to the inspector's content. But what had saved
them--what?
Aylmer rose and stood beside her. His hand gently gripped her elbow and
drew her out into the roar and beat of the tempest. He headed inland;
the path which the sentinel had taken was the one which led towards the
shore.
A minute later she breathed her question. And he laughed lightly in the
darkness. The sound, incongruous as it seemed to her sense of
ever-menacing fear, thrilled her strangely. If he could laugh, was not
Fate laughing with him? Was there not a smile on the face of Hope?
"I was only just through the hole when he came, when he flashed his
lantern at what he supposed was my body, recumbent on the bed. I was
holding up the bed clothes _from outside_; I had not had time to shove
the stones back into place."
She shuddered at the nearness of the hazard. Supposing the man had come
at the very moment of escape--supposing?
"But the light?" she protested. "The light shone upon your face!"
He laughed again.
"The bed clothes had a hole in them!" he said. "I held them up into the
form of human shoulders, and through a rent his lantern beat directly on
my face! He could not, of course, see me, but I got a good view of him.
It was Luigi himself, this time. Has Fate been whispering to him, do you
think? Has she made him suspicious?"
She stumbled and caught at him to steady herself. He looked down in
sudden, quick compunction.
"It has been too much for you!" he said anxiously. "You are feeling
faint?"
"No!" she said quietly. "I am trying to think of it as a nightmare from
which I shall wake directly, but it is real! Whenever that comes home to
me it--it is a pain. Well, it will not be a long ordeal now, will it? We
meet Fate at the landing stage, and she will give her decision. Can we
unmoor the _Santa Margarita_ from inside the breakwater, or can we not?
She will know."
He nodded.
"In five minutes we, too, shall know. We are circling for the Marina
now. A couple of hundred yards and we shall be there!"
They strode on into the darkness, with eyes and ears alert. They heard
the battling of the waves against the stones of the tiny pier, but what
they did not hear was the sound of singing cordage in the felucca's
rigging.
Aylmer halted with a sudden, muffled exclamation.
"They have unshipped the mast!" he cried sharply, and this time she
recognized, even in his voice, the note of defeat.
She echoed his exclamation; she followed at his heels as he ran out upon
the little breakwater. No, there had been no room for mistake. The great
mast with its cross spar lay along the stone flags. The hull was snugly
berthed alongside it, within the tiny harbor. The dingy? There was none;
they had cast it loose when they fled from the torpedo boat through the
island channel.
For a moment he did not speak. He stood, looking silently at the
dismantled boat, the raging sea, the swinging lights of a passing
steamer. Then he turned and shook his head.
"To step that mast into place again is beyond one man's strength," he
said. "To fling ourselves out into that whirl on a mastless hull is to
court death inevitably. What is the alternative? We could stand in front
of the shed here, screened from view inland, and signal some passing
vessel with flares, if we had the means of making a light. That would
not be a good chance, but it has possibilities."
"And I have matches!" she said eagerly. "I have my chatelaine still. I
have even my purse yet. So far they have not robbed me."
He turned as she spoke and without comment ran back across the shingle.
He began to pluck handfuls of the dry, bent grass which found a sparse
livelihood in the belt of sand between the shore and the vineyards. He
returned, rummaged among the litter around the shed, broke up some
stray pieces of driftwood into chips, and thrust a lighted match among
the bents. A flame shot up, passed from the tinder to the wood, and
within a minute was a well-lit fire. He twisted the remaining handfuls
of grass into spirals, wetted them slightly in the sea, and held them to
the flame.
They burnt slowly with a red glow, as he swung them to and fro in the
wind; in dashes, in dots, in circles, he spelled messages into the
night, but no answering lantern or rocket came from the sea. And she
watched apathetically. For her hope was dead again, the hand of Fate had
closed. This was action; this helped them to avoid thinking, to avert
anticipation, but success was a matter outside her calculations. The
sense of nightmare closed down upon her again. The storm, the red
flashes against the purple darkness, the wild unaccustomedness of
everything heightened the illusion. But when would she wake? Ah, when
would she wake?
And then--she rubbed her eyes. A light--surely this was no freak of her
fevered eyesight?--danced into view within a couple of hundred yards of
the shore. For a moment it swung to the lift and surge of the waves
alone, but a moment later it rose half a dozen feet into the air, and
flashed and circled as the charred torch in Aylmer's hand was
circling--an answer to their message of despair. She gasped with
eagerness; she cried aloud.
Was it fancy or did another cry reach them through the thunder of the
waves?
The light stayed motionless for an instant, and then swung towards them.
Whatever vessel was bearing it had turned its prow towards the shore.
Aylmer caught up another glowing handful of bents and ran out to the
breakwater's end. Claire's heart beat in suffocating throbs as she
followed.
Again a cry reached them, and Aylmer waved his beacon vigorously. A
sudden shaft of moonlight sank through a rift in the flying clouds.
They saw it then--a dark mass which plunged and heaved among the white
crests, and drifted nearer and nearer. There was no sail set, but they
could see the rise and fall of a couple of great oars which steadied the
boat as it advanced by drifting only. It was less than a cable length
distant now, passing through the ring of rocks which guarded the harbor
entrance.
They held their breath. Ten seconds would do it, but ten seconds held an
infinitude of possibilities. If the boat broached to, if its prow,
indeed, deflected a couple of yards from the course, would not that give
Fate a chance to fling her scorn upon their rising hopes? Their eyes
were strained. Claire's hand was clenched till her nails seemed to sink
into the flesh of her palm. And then she gave a sigh of relief. The boat
had passed the outer rock, was heading straight for the inner harbor and
the calm.
Fate laughed harshly.
A gust stormed in from the sea, caught the boat's prow, swung it, caused
the port side rower to meet its strength too swiftly with his own. They
heard a crack--heard it distinctly above the uproars of the gale. The
oar had broken between the thole-pins; the rower was down.
There was another crashing sound, louder this time, and menacing. A
great sea raced beneath the laboring keel, lifted it, shook it, and
flung it aside, full upon the rock. The white gleam of the new-made
splinters reached them through the smother of the foam fifty yards away.
Aylmer cried out and raced back along the stones. His hands plucked at
the cordage which was folded about the felucca's mast, and drew out a
rope. He came back at speed, unwinding the coils as he came. He thrust
the loose end into her hands.
"Get a purchase against a stone and then hold on--hold on!" he ordered.
He flung off his coat.
She cried out in protest; she clung to him.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
Very gently, very firmly, her hand was drawn aside. He bent over her;
something touched faintly--very faintly--her lips. The next instant she
was alone. He had leaped--far out into the grip of the tide.
She caught her breath and clutched the rope; she flung herself down and
wedged her limbs behind a boulder. Fate was relentless, she told
herself, was cruel beyond even her darkest anticipations. For now her
one support was to be denied her; she was to be left alone. She set her
lips grimly. No, she would never see Aylmer again, but she would defy
Fate! She was to be crushed, but she would go down fighting; she would
be worthy of herself--and of him.
The vagrant shaft of moonlight was gone again; the darkness was
well-nigh impenetrable. The rope swung between her fingers unstraining.
The minutes passed one by one; the tension of expectancy plucked at her
nerves; she shivered, but not with cold. Even if it was the worst that
was to come upon her she wanted to know--to know.
The rope grew taut.
It was as if an electric shock thrilled her. She braced herself against
the stone, and her muscles tightened; slowly, using her strength to its
utmost but with steady effort, she began to haul it in foot by foot. It
came heavily but unceasingly, the coils unwinding fathom after fathom
at her side.
And then the strain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A voice hailed
her out of the darkness, almost at her feet. A dark bulk rose at the
breakwater's edge.
Aylmer staggered towards her and laid something on the stones--something
which stirred uneasily but unavailingly, clogged, as it seemed, by the
weight of its sodden clothing.
She knelt beside it. She brushed the lank hair from a dripping face.
Aylmer waved her back.
"There is another!" he shouted. "Hold on if you can! Hold on!" and so
plunged back into the surf. For the second time she braced herself to
endure the strain--to wait--to agonize with expectation. And again Fate
played with her, racked her between hope and fear, drew out the strain
and then, as suddenly, relaxed it. Aylmer crept out upon the stones,
gasping, doggedly clinging to a new burden.
This time it was the bearer who staggered and fell, the burden who rose
unsteadily, and peered into his rescuer's face.
She dropped upon her knees beside him. Pale, clean-cut ascetic features
were lifted to hers. Two dark brown eyes inspected her with startled
incredulity.
And then the man rose and--the act was instinctive, it was
obvious--doffed his hat.
"Signora," he said in Italian. "Signora! This is Salicudi, is it not? I
am at a loss--I do not understand."
For a moment she hesitated, looking at him. The long black garment which
clung about him reached to his feet. Suddenly she recognized it, and,
with recognition, a little cry escaped her. It was a _soutane_. And
this was no sailor. She was confronted by a priest.
As she opened her lips to find a reply, something clattered behind her;
something rushed, calling upon the names of innumerable saints, out of
the darkness, and seized her shoulder. A harsh voice rang into the
echoes of the night.
"To me--to me, all of you! They are escaping! Blood of My Lady, the
prisoners are loose!"
The man in the soutane whirled fiercely upon the newcomer. And as he
turned the moon broke through the scurry of the drift and fell upon the
group in cold brilliance.
"Prisoners!" The voice was incredulous, wrathful, and above all full of
command. "Prisoners! You speak of--whom?"
The hand upon Claire's shoulder dropped. Her captor fell away as if
struck by a physical blow.
"Padre Sigi!" he stammered, and his voice was convincing of his
amazement. "Padre Sigi!"
The other nodded imperiously.
"Padre Sigismondi," he agreed. "At your service, my good Luigi. At your
service!"