BEFORE DAYLIGHT
In the purple dawn of a morning two or three days later, Derby emerged
from the house of Donna Marcella, saddled his horse and for the first
time without his attendant _carabinieri_, started for the mines. The
faint light showed him only a blurred and indistinct landscape; and in
the crisp stillness the leather of his saddle creaked a monotonous
accompaniment to the horse's hoofs, which struck the road with clean-cut
staccato sharpness.
Meanwhile, in the big best room on the ground floor of Donna Marcella's
house, Porter slept. A man's step outside and the fingering of a
shutter-latch disturbed him not at all; even when there came a nervous
tap on the window frame, Porter slept on. A moment of silence followed,
and then a voice breathed stridently, "_Signore!_" Porter stirred in his
sleep. A man's head and shoulders appeared over the sill of the open
window. "_Signore! Signore l'Americano!_" The tone was louder and very
urgent. Porter awoke with a start and seized his revolver. "_Pax, pax!_"
came the voice as the man dropped out of sight.
"_Signore, Signore._ It is a friend who would speak to the _Signore
l'Americano_!" The syllables were whispered with ringing distinctness.
Porter jumped out of bed, revolver in hand. Close to the window, he
demanded who was there.
"It is a matter of life and death! May I show myself?"
"Certainly!" said Porter. "For heaven's sake, stand up and let me have a
look at you! And give an account of why you are getting a Christian out
of his bed at this unearthly hour!" In the glimmering dawn he could see
the outline of the man's figure, but he could not recognize him.
"_Signore_, I would speak with the big _Americano_, the one who sent the
daylight miracle to the palace of the archbishop. I am sent by His
Eminence the Archbishop. I am Teobaldo his servant. See, I carry the
archbishop's holy ring to show I speak the truth."
Porter saw the ring distinctly, held between the man's fingers--"Yes! I
believe you. Be quick!"
"I have ridden through the night, but I arrive late because I lost my
path in the blackness. Last night by chance it became known to the
archbishop that there is a plot to assassinate the Americano. I am come
secretly to warn him. The assassin is waiting along the road to the
mine; it is to be there, and the hour is now!"
Porter sprang back into the room. "Jack, Jack! For God's sake, are you
there?" He tore back the covers of Derby's bed, but it was empty. He
remembered with horror that the _carabinieri_ were not to accompany
Derby that morning. He had insisted that they were no longer necessary.
Scrambling into his clothes any fashion--his trousers over his pajamas,
his shoes over stocking less feet--he strapped on his revolvers, and
took the window ledge at a bound.
He jumped astride his horse without stopping for a saddle, and beat and
kicked the poor beast along the road as though the very fiends were
after him. The horse rocked on his legs and breathed hard, but Porter
had no consideration for that. The pale dawn revealed an empty road,
along which he sped at breakneck pace, while beads of perspiration
gathered on his forehead in his impatience at the seeming slowness of
his progress. At last the road cut through a tangled bit of forest with
a sharp bend at the end. Just as he reached the turn two shots rang out
in quick succession. With his heart almost frozen, he dashed around the
corner in time to see Derby plunging into the underbrush. Like a wild
man Porter shouted, "I'm coming, Jack, I'm coming!"--impelling his
already spent horse to the spot where Derby had disappeared into the
thicket.
Derby, like all men who live much in the woods, had almost an animal's
instinct for danger, and his ears, supersensitive to wood sounds, had
caught a moving in the bushes. To get his revolver in hand and drop
forward behind his horse's shoulders had been the act of a second, and
the bullet whistled over his head. But the immediate effect of the
attack had been to enrage him out of all prudence. Firing point-blank at
the smudge of smoke, he jumped from his horse and rushed in pursuit of
his assailant.
A second shot Derby thought had grazed his coat; he emptied two barrels
of his revolver in the direction from which it came. Another bullet
whistled close to his ear, then two shots went entirely wide of him, and
the next moment he reached a man lying prone--with blood gushing from
his head. Derby knocked the rifle out of his hands, but there was no
further danger of its being fired, for the man had fainted.
In a second Porter dashed up, in a frenzy of terror. When he found Derby
safe, his fright turned to rage, and he was impatient to put the
prisoner into the hands of the _carabinieri_. "Our friend Basso will
make short work of him, I'm thinking!" he said grimly.
But Derby had no intention of making such a disposition of his prisoner.
"Not at all," he said deliberately; "we will hand him over to Padre
Filippo. Priests are better for such creatures than police. Come, help
me tie up his head--my shirt will do!" Suiting the action to his words,
he pulled off his coat. His shirt was scarlet!
"Great Heavens, man, why didn't you say you were hit?" Porter gasped.
Derby looked down at his shirt and then quizzically at Porter. "Funny,"
he remarked indifferently; "I thought the bullet had only grazed my
coat. It can't be much, as I didn't even feel it; however, you might tie
me up, too." He pulled off his shirt. Porter tore it up and bound
Derby's shoulder. Then together they made a bandage for the bandit's
head.
"He's got an ugly mug!" said Porter, as he wiped the man's face. "By
Jove--it's the brigand I noticed coming down on the boat! I told you he
looked like a cutthroat."
"Your natural intuition for character?" Derby smiled, but the next
minute added soberly enough: "If he came from the mainland we must be up
against a good deal more than the poor devils here! Who the deuce can he
be? He's no miner, that's certain!"
They had dragged their prisoner out to the side of the road and laid him
down. And as Derby insisted, Porter rode off for the priest. Derby sat
near his charge, who showed no signs of returning consciousness. His own
shoulder ached now, and he gradually became aware of slight weakness. He
felt in his pockets for a flask, but found he had forgotten to carry
one, so he lit his pipe instead, and fell to scrutinizing the man before
him. He was of small stature, but there was great endurance in the long,
pointed nose, the strong, lantern jaw; and the face, sinister though it
was, retained, even in unconsciousness, an expression of grim
fortitude. The more Derby studied the man, the more certain he became
that he was no mere skulking coward.
At last Porter and the _padre_ appeared over the hill. No sooner had the
priest caught sight of the prisoner than he exclaimed, "_Per l'amor di
Dio!_ It is Luigi Calluci!" There was added horror in his tone as he
whispered, "Signore, Signore, he is the body servant of the Duca di
Scorpa!"
At this even Derby started, but he said quite calmly, "Poor devil! The
question is, what will you do with him?"
"He must be put under the arrest----"
"Well, naturally," chimed in Porter.
But Derby interposed: "He shall be put under nothing of the kind until
he can give an account of himself. There is no knowing what fancied
grievance he may have against me. Wait until he has been heard. The
question of punishment can be considered then. But in the meantime he
must be nursed!"
"You have his brother in the settlement--Salvatore Calluci, the man to
whom you have given special duty in the night shaft." The priest's red
head wagged mournfully: "It was to the wife of Salvatore you gave an
extra goat because of her children!" But then he added, brightening a
little at the thought, "I am sure--of a truth I am sure, Signore, that
the brother had no hand in this!"
"Very well, then; we will take him to the house of Salvatore. We will
say merely that an accident has happened--do you hear? I do not want the
story of an attempted assassination to get about." Derby's voice had
grown quite weak as he spoke, and the priest and Porter were both too
concerned for him to think of opposing any wish he might express in
regard to the prisoner. So they laid the man across the saddle of Padre
Filippo's horse, and Porter and the _padre_ walked on either side of him
into camp. Derby rode his own horse, but by the time he reached the
mine, he had lost so much blood that he was pretty fit for the doctor
himself. Tiggs, a lean, wiry Yankee, sandy-haired and resourceful, was a
tolerable surgeon, and he plastered Derby up, pronouncing the injury
nothing more serious than a flesh wound.
Luigi Calluci meanwhile was carried into the hut of his brother and put
to bed. If Salvatore and his wife had any idea of the cause of his
"accident," they said nothing. They were among the most intelligent of
the miners, and their gratitude to Derby for the change in their
condition, was proportionate.
But it was not alone the Callucis who had made fast strides. The whole
settlement had undergone a change that was nothing short of
transformation. One reason for the rapid improvement was doubtless the
influence exerted by the Sicilian carpenter who had been to America and
who had returned a "great man" and rich. Through him as interpreter,
all things the American did were good; and the "land of plenty" lost
nothing in the telling. The people began to look upon the new mining
process as a miracle, and the American as sent by the Blessed Virgin.
The wages were stupendous--as much as sixty cents a day! But best of
all, they were wages for work that a human being could do. Around the
miners' houses were the beginnings of gardens, and several families had,
in addition to the goat, a few chickens.
Every day Derby went to the hut of the Calluci. Gradually consciousness
came back to Luigi. Slowly, as reason returned, the events of the past
weeks formed themselves in distinct sequence. He knew where he was
now--at the "Little Devil." Had he not himself descended its ladders
into the mine's burning pits? Was not that why he was undersized and
weak of lungs? He bore scars that had seared even deeper than through
the flesh. He knew the huts, too: caves in which men lived like beasts.
It was all clear except the surroundings in which he found himself. The
haggard faces of his brother and his sister-in-law were familiar, yet
not as he remembered them. The withered bodies of the children seemed
not nearly so pathetic! Then, full of bewilderment, he heard his
sister-in-law singing. Singing! Could it be possible that a voice could
sing in the "Little Devil" settlement! Distinctly he heard another
sound, the voices of children at play.
Thinking all this must be merely the creation of his brain, he raised
himself on his elbow and made a careful survey of the room. There was no
doubt that he was in a good bed, covered by a thick new quilt, and the
walls were cleanly white-washed. The air held none of the foul and
strangling odors which never had been, and never could be, forgotten.
That his brother had moved and had become a well-to-do peasant of the
mountain slopes and vineyards was the only explanation possible. He
tried to get out of bed, but fell back dizzy, and his mind wandered off
again to the semi-conscious vagaries of illness.
In this state of mind, he had become used to a new presence--a very big,
very kind personality that hauntingly resembled the Americano--it was,
of course, one of those phantoms that appear before fevered
imaginations. He realized that, and now he made an effort to detach the
dream from the reality.
But even as he was trying to put his thoughts in order, the door
opened--and he vividly saw the figure of his vision followed by his
sister-in-law. Thinking that his mind was wandering, he lay quite still.
Then he heard a kindly voice saying, "I have brought soup for him with
me--in this jar. You have only to heat it."
Luigi felt a strong hand clasp his wrist and feel for his pulse. Then
came the full belief that this was no dream, but reality, and that it
was the Tyrant, the Americano himself, who laid hands on him. With a
frantic effort he sprang up and tried to close his fingers around his
enemy's throat! But firm, powerful hands gripped his shoulders and
forced him quietly down in his bed. Then he lost consciousness.
When he came to, he thought he had dreamed the whole occurrence. His
brother and Padre Filippo were sitting beside him, and they would not
let him talk. But gradually, as his strength returned, he took in the
story. From his brother, from the neighbors, from the priest most of
all, he heard, bit by bit, of the work that the Americano had
accomplished--the Americano whom he, Luigi, had nearly slain. Slowly,
slowly, he understood that the "Little Devil" mine had been
re-christened "The Paradise"--not by the nobles who owned it, but by the
people who worked in it. And then little by little the resentment, the
bitterness, the grievances of his long, hard life turned him against the
Duke Scorpa just as his realization of what Derby was doing won him over
to the American.
That Scorpa should have sent a man to stab him was, curiously enough, a
fact that did not seem to trouble Derby in the least. It was, after all,
no more than he might have expected. Before he had left Rome, Scorpa had
warned him. He rather admired him for that.
Derby was heart and soul interested in his settlement. In the short
space of time since he had arrived in Sicily, the incredible had
already come to pass--and to Derby, as he looked forward, there was
every reason to feel assured that the settlement would develop as he had
planned. The output of the mines promised to be up to the most sanguine
expectation. The whole scheme was organized and started--there was
nothing to do now but to keep it going.
In the meantime he received a cable which, when deciphered, ran:
"Telegraph _Celtic_ at Gibraltar, giving Hobson
instructions where to find you. Put package he
carries in safe keeping. In case of serious
development use own judgment."
Hobson was one of J. B. Randolph's secretaries. Derby at once wired to
Hobson to await him in Naples. Then, leaving Tiggs and Jenkins in
charge, he and Porter embarked.
As they leaned over the deck rail watching the blue shallows where the
waters of the Mediterranean curled away from the ship's prow, Porter
said:
"It must be good to be going back to Rome with the feeling that you have
carried out what you started to do. It's a big feather in your cap, and
now there is only one thing needed to make the whole episode a romance
from start to finish!"
Derby interrogated good-humoredly, "And that is----?"
"You will probably go up in the air if I tell you."
Derby looked up from the water. "Go ahead--say what you like----"
"You ought to marry Miss Randolph!" Porter declared abruptly, and before
Derby could protest he hurried on: "Yes, I know what you would say--she
is too rich and she is scheduled to marry a title. But I don't think she
is the sort of girl that really puts as much stock in titles as it would
seem; and as for money, by the time you have two or three mines like the
'Little Devil' going, you will be pretty rich yourself. Even with your
present prospects, no one could accuse you of marrying her for her
fortune."
"Prospects are very different from actual money, and compared to her I'm
a pauper," Derby answered. "I don't care what people accuse me of, but
to marry a girl like Nina Randolph--even assuming the unlikelihood that
she'd have me--would be a fatal mistake, unless I had a fortune to match
her own. Every changing hour of the day would bring fresh doubt; she
would never believe in a poor man's love. How could she!"
Derby stood up straight, thrust his hands into the pockets of his
ulster, and as Porter tried to protest, he withdrew from the discussion
by declaring that there was nothing to discuss. For himself--he was but
a human machine that God had set upon the earth to bore holes in it, and
to set swarms of human ants working.