Ten years have passed since the ever-memorable day on which the Children
of the King hurt their fists so badly in battering Don Pietro Casale's
sharp nose. They are big, bony men, now, with strongly marked features,
short yellow hair and fair beards. So far they are alike, and at first
sight might be taken for twin brothers. But there is a marked difference
between them in character, which shows itself in their faces. Ruggiero's
eye is of a colder blue, is less mobile and of harder expression than
Sebastiano's. His firm lips are generally tightly closed, and his square
chin is bolder than his brother's. He is stronger, too, though not by
very much, and though he is more silent and usually more equable, he has
by far the worse temper of the two. At sea there is little to choose
between them. Perhaps, on the whole, Sebastiano has always been the
favourite amongst his companions, while Ruggiero has been thought the
more responsible and possibly the more dangerous in a quarrel. Both,
however, have acquired an extraordinarily good reputation as seamen, and
also as boatmen on the pleasure craft of all sizes which sail the gulf
of Naples during the summer season.
They have made several long voyages, too. They have been to New York and
to Buenos Ayres and have seen many ports of Europe and America, and much
weather of all sorts north and south of the Line. They have known what
it is to be short of victuals five hundred miles from land with contrary
winds; they have experienced the delights of a summer at New Orleans,
waiting for a cargo and being eaten alive by mosquitoes; they have
looked up, in January, at the ice-sheeted rigging, when boiling water
froze upon the shrouds and ratlines, and the captain said that no man
could lay out upon the top-sail yard, though the north-easter threatened
to blow the sail out of the bolt-ropes--but Ruggiero got hold of the lee
earing all the same and Sebastiano followed him, and the captain swore a
strange oath in the Italo-American language, and went aloft himself to
help light the sail out to windward, being still a young man and not
liking to be beaten by a couple of beardless boys, as the two were
then.[2] And they have seen many strange sights, sea-serpents not a few,
and mermaids quite beyond the possibility of mistake, and men who can
call the wind with four knots in a string and words unlearnable, and
others who can alter the course of a waterspout by a secret spell, and a
captain who made a floating beacon of junk soaked in petroleum in a
tar-barrel and set it adrift and stood up on the quarter-deck calling on
all the three hundred and sixty-five saints in the calendar out of the
Neapolitan almanack he held--and got a breeze, too, for his pains, as
Ruggiero adds with a quiet and somewhat incredulous smile when he has
finished the yarn. All these things they have seen with their eyes, and
many more which it is impossible to remember, but all equally
astonishing though equally familiar to everybody who has been at sea ten
years.
[Footnote 2: The writer knows of a Sorrentine captain, commanding a
large bark who, when top-sails are reefed in his watch regularly takes
the lee earing, which, as most landsmen need to be told, is the post of
danger and honour.]
And now in mid-June they are at home again, since Sorrento is their home
now, and they are inclined to take a turn with the pleasure boats by
way of a change and engage themselves for the summer, Ruggiero with a
gentleman from the north of Italy known as the Conte di San Miniato, and
Sebastiano with a widowed Sicilian lady and her daughter, the Marchesa
di Mola and the Signorina Beatrice Granmichele, generally, if
incorrectly, spoken of as Donna Beatrice.
Now the Conte di San Miniato, though only a count, and reputed to be out
at elbows, if not up to his ears in debt, is the sole surviving
representative of a very great and ancient family in the north. But how
the defunct Granmichele got his title of Marchese di Mola, no one knows
precisely. Two things are certain, that his father never had a title at
all, and that he himself made a large fortune in sulphur and paving
stones, so that his only daughter is much of an heiress, and his elderly
widow has a handsome income to spend as she pleases, owns in Palermo a
fine palace--historical in other hands--is the possessor of a smartish
yacht, a cutter of thirty tons or so, goes to Paris once and to Monte
Carlo twice in every year, brings her own carriage to Sorrento in the
summer, and lives altogether in a luxurious and highly correct manner.
She is a tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high
features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the
temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for
physical exertion, mental occupation and punctuality.
Donna Beatrice, as they call her daughter, is a very pretty girl, aged
nineteen or nearly, of greyhound build, so to say, by turns amazingly
active and astonishingly indolent, capricious and decided in her
caprices while they last, passionately fond of dancing, much inclined to
amuse herself in her own way when her mother is not looking, and
possessing a keen sense of prime and ultimate social ratios. She is
unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow
North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and
Southern States, has heard of Virgil and the Crusades, can play a waltz
well, and possesses a very sweet little voice. She is undoubtedly
pretty. Brown, on the whole, as to colouring--brown skin, liquid brown
eyes, dark brown hair--a nose not regular but attractive, a mouth not
small but expressive, eyebrows not finely pencilled, neither arched nor
straight, but laid on as it were like the shadows in a clever charcoal
drawing, with the finger, broad, effective, well turned, carelessly set
in the right place by a hand that never makes mistakes.
It is the intention of the Marchesa di Mola to marry her daughter to the
very noble and out-at-elbows Count of San Miniato before the summer is
out. It is also the intention of the Count to marry Beatrice. It is
Beatrice's intention to do nothing rashly, but to take as much time as
she can get for making up her mind, and then to do exactly as she
pleases. She perfectly appreciates her own position and knows that she
can either marry a rich man of second-rate family, or a poor man of good
blood, a younger son or a half ruined gentleman at large like San
Miniato, and she hesitates. She is not quite sure of the value of money
yet. It might be delightful to be even much richer than she is, because
there are so many delightful things to be done in the world with money
alone. But it might turn out to be equally agreeable to have a great
name, to be somebody, to be a necessary part of society in short,
because society does a number of agreeable things not wholly dependent
upon cash for being pleasant, and indeed often largely dependent on
credit.
San Miniato attracts her, and she does not deny the fact to herself. He
is handsome, tall, fair, graceful and exceedingly well dressed. He was
several years in a cavalry regiment and is reputed to have left the
service in order to fight with a superior officer whom he disliked. In
reality his straitened means may have had something to do with the step.
At all events he scratched his major rather severely in the duel which
took place, and has the reputation of a dangerous man with the sabre. It
is said that the major's wife had something to do with the story. At
present San Miniato is about thirty years of age. His only known vice is
gambling, which is perhaps a chief source of income to him. Every one
agrees in saying that he is the type of the honourable player, and that,
if he wins on the whole, he owes his winnings to his superior coolness
and skill. The fact that he gambles rather lends him an additional
interest in the eyes of Beatrice, whose mother often plays and who would
like to play herself.
Ruggiero, who is to be San Miniato's boatman this summer, is waiting
outside the Count's door, until that idle gentleman wakes from his late
sleep and calls him. The final agreement is yet to be made, and Ruggiero
makes calculations upon his fingers as he sits on the box in the
corridor. The Count wants a boat and three sailors by the month and if
he is pleased, will keep them all the season. It became sufficiently
clear to Ruggiero during the first interview that his future employer
did not know the difference between a barge and a felucca, and he has
had ocular demonstration that the Count cannot swim, for he has seen him
in the water by the bathing-houses--a thorough landsman at all points.
But there are two kinds of landsmen, those who are afraid, and those who
are not, as Ruggiero well knows. The first kind are amusing and the
sailors get more fun out of them than they know of; the second kind are
dangerous and are apt to get more out of the sailor than they pay for,
by bullying him and calling him a coward. But on the whole Ruggiero,
being naturally very daring and singularly indifferent to life as a
possession, hopes that San Miniato may turn out to be of the
unreasonably reckless rather than of the tiresomely timid class, and is
inclined to take his future master's courage for granted as he makes his
calculations.
"I will take the Son of the Fool and the Cripple," he mutters
decisively. "They are good men, and we can always have the Gull for a
help when we need four."
A promising crew, by the names, say you of the North, who do not
understand Southern ways. But in Sorrento and all down the coast, most
seafaring men get nicknames under which their real and legal
appellations disappear completely and are totally forgotten.
The Fool, whose son Ruggiero meant to engage, had earned his title in
bygone days by dancing an English hornpipe for the amusement of his
companions, the Gull owed his to the singular length and shape of his
nose, and the Cripple had in early youth worn a pair of over-tight
boots on Sundays, whereby he had limped sadly on the first day of every
week, for nearly two years. So that the crew were all sound in mind and
body in spite of their alarming names.
Ruggiero sat on the box and waited, meditating upon the probable
occupations of gentlemen who habitually slept till ten o'clock in the
morning and sometimes till twelve. From time to time he brushed an
almost imperceptible particle of dust from his very smart blue cloth
knees, and settled the in-turned collar of the perfectly new blue
guernsey about his neck. It was new, and it scratched him disagreeably,
but it was highly necessary to present a prosperous as well as a
seamanlike appearance on such an important occasion. Nothing could have
been more becoming to him than the dark close-fitting dress, showing as
it did the immense breadth and depth of his chest, the clean-cut sinewy
length of his limbs and the easy grace and strength of his whole
carriage. His short straight fair hair was brushed, too, and his young
yellow beard had been recently trimmed. Altogether a fine figure of a
man as he sat there waiting.
Suddenly he was aware of a wonderful vision moving towards him down the
broad corridor--a lovely dark face with liquid brown eyes, an exquisite
figure clad in a well-fitted frock of white serge, a firm, smooth step
that was not like any step he had ever heard. He rose quickly as she
passed him, and the blood rushed to his face, up to the very roots of
his hair.
Beatrice was too much of a woman not to see the effect she produced upon
the poor sailor, and she nodded gracefully to him, in acknowledgment of
his politeness in rising. As she did so she noticed on her part that the
poor sailor was indeed a very remarkable specimen of a man, such as she
had not often seen. She stopped and spoke to him.
"Are you the Count of San Miniato's boatman?" she asked in her sweet
voice.
"Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero, still blushing violently
"Then he has engaged the boat? We want a boat, too--the Marchesa di
Mola--can you get us one?"
"There is my brother, Eccellenza."
"Is he a good sailor?"
"Better than I, Eccellenza."
Beatrice looked at the figure before her and smiled graciously.
"Send him to us at twelve o'clock," she said. "The Marchesa di Mola--do
not forget."
"Yes, Eccellenza."
Ruggiero bowed respectfully, while Beatrice nodded again and passed on.
Then he sat down again and waited, but his fingers no longer moved in
calculations and his expression had changed. He sat still and stared in
the direction of the corner beyond which the young girl had disappeared.
He was conscious for the first time in his life that he possessed a
heart, for the thing thumped and kicked violently under his blue
guernsey, and he looked down at his broad chest with an odd expression
of half-childish curiosity, fully expecting to see an outward and
visible motion corresponding with the inward hammering. But he saw
nothing. Solid ribs and solid muscles kept the obstreperous machine in
its place.
"Malora!" he ejaculated to himself. "Worse than a cat in a sack!"
His hands, too, were quite cold, though it was a warm day. He noticed
the fact as he passed his thumb for the hundredth time round his neck
where the hard wool scratched him. To tell the truth he was somewhat
alarmed. He had never been ill a day in his life, had never had as much
as a headache, a bad cold or a touch of fever, and he began to think
that something must be wrong. He said to himself that if such a thing
happened to him again he would go to the chemist and ask for some
medicine. His strength was the chief of his few possessions, he thought,
and it would be better to spend a franc at the chemist's than to let it
be endangered. It was a serious matter. Suppose that the young lady,
instead of speaking to him about a boat, had told him to pick up the box
on which he was sitting--one of those big boxes these foreigners travel
with--and to carry it upstairs, he would have cut a poor figure just at
that moment, when his heart was thumping like a flat-fish in the bottom
of a boat, and his hands were trembling with cold. If it chanced again,
he would certainly go to Don Ciccio the chemist and buy a dose of
something with a strong bad taste, the stronger and the worse flavoured
the better, of course, as everyone knew. Very alarming, these symptoms!
Then he fell to thinking of the young lady herself, and she seemed to
rise before him, just as he had seen her a few moments earlier. The
signs of his new malady immediately grew worse again, and when it
somehow struck him that he might serve her, and let Sebastiano be
boatman to the Count, the pounding at his ribs became positively
terrifying, and he jumped up and began to walk about. Just then the door
opened suddenly and San Miniato put out his head.
"Are you the sailor who is to get me a boat?" he asked.
"Yes, Eccellenza," answered Ruggiero turning quickly, cap in hand.
Strange to say, at the sound of the man's voice the alarming symptoms
totally disappeared and Ruggiero was quite himself again.
He remembered also that he had been engaged for the Count, through the
people of the hotel, on condition of approval, and that it would be
contrary to boatman's honour to draw back. After all, too, women in a
boat were always a nuisance at the best, and he liked the Count's face,
and decided that he was not of the type of landsmen who are frightened.
The interview did not last long.
"I shall wish to make excursions in all directions," said San Miniato.
"I do not know anything about the sea, but I dislike people who make
difficulties and talk to me of bad weather when I mean to go anywhere.
Do you understand?"
"We will try to content your excellency," answered Ruggiero quietly.
"Good. We shall see."
So Ruggiero went away to find the Son of the Fool, and the Cripple, and
to engage them for the summer, and to deliver to his brother the message
from the Marchesa di Mola. The reason why Ruggiero did not take
Sebastiano as one of his own crew was a simple one. There lived and
still lives at Sorrento, a certain old man known as the Greek. The Greek
is old and infirm and has a vicious predilection for wine and cards, so
that he is quite unfit for the sea. But he owns a couple of smart
sailing boats and gets a living by letting them to strangers. It is
necessary, however, to have at least one perfectly reliable man in
charge of each, and so soon as the Children of the King had returned
from their last long voyage the Greek had engaged them both for this
purpose, as being in every way superior to the common run of boatmen who
hung about the place waiting for jobs. It was consequently impossible
that the two brothers could be in the same boat's crew during the
summer.
Ruggiero found the Cripple asleep in the shade, having been out all
night fishing, and the Son of the Fool was seated not far from him,
plaiting sinnet for gaskets. The two were inseparable, so far as their
varied life permitted them to be together, and were generally to be
found in the same crew. Average able seamen both, much of the same
height and build, broad, heavy fellows good at the oar, peaceable and
uncomplaining.
While Ruggiero was talking with the one who was awake, his own brother
appeared, and Ruggiero gave him the message, whereupon Sebastiano went
off to array himself in his best before presenting himself to the
Marchesa di Mola. The Son of the Fool gathered up his work.
"Mola?" he repeated in a tone of inquiry.
Ruggiero nodded carelessly.
"A Sicilian lady who has a cutter?"
"Yes."
"Her daughter is going to marry a certain Conte di San Miniato--a great
signore--of those without soldi."
The sailor coiled the plaited sinnet neatly over his bare arm, but
looked up as Ruggiero uttered an exclamation.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked.
Ruggiero's face was quite red and his broad chest heaved as he bit his
lip and thrust his hands into his pockets. His companion repeated his
question.
"Nothing is the matter," answered Ruggiero. "Wake up the Cripple and see
if there is everything for rigging the boat. We must have her out this
afternoon. The Conte di San Miniato of whom you speak is our signore."
"Oh! I understand!" exclaimed the Son of the Fool. "Well--you need not
be so anxious. I daresay it is not true that he has no money, and at all
events the Greek will pay us."
"Of course, the Greek will pay us," answered Ruggiero thoughtfully. "I
will be back in half an hour," he added, turning away abruptly.
He walked rapidly up the steep paved ascent which leads through the
narrow gorge from the small beach to the town above. A few minutes later
he entered the chemist's shop for the first time in his life in search
of medicine for himself. He took off his cap and looked about him with
some curiosity, eying the long rows of old-fashioned majolica drug jars,
and the stock of bottles of all colours and labels in the glass cases.
The chemist was a worthy old creature with a white beard and solemn
ways.
"What do you want?" he inquired.
"A little medicine, but good," answered Ruggiero, looking critically
along the shelves, as though to select a remedy. "A little of the best,"
he added, jingling a few silver coins in his pockets and wondering how
much the stuff would cost.
"But what kind of medicine?" asked the old man. "Do you feel ill?
Where?"
"Here," answered Ruggiero bringing his heavy bony hand down upon his
huge chest with a noise that made the chemist start, and then chuckle.
"Just there, eh?" said the latter ironically. "You have the health of a
horse. Go to dinner."
"I tell you it is there," returned Ruggiero. "Sometimes it is quite
quiet, as it is now, but sometimes it jumps and threshes like a dolphin
at sea."
"H'm! The heart, eh?" The old man came round his counter and applied his
ear to Ruggiero's breast. "Regular as a steam engine," he said. "When
does it jump, as you call it? When you go up hill?"
Ruggiero laughed.
"Am I old or fat?" he inquired contemptuously. "It happened first this
morning. I was waiting in the hotel and a lady came by and spoke to
me--about a certain boat."
"A lady? H'm! Young perhaps, and pretty?"
"That is my business. Then half an hour later I was talking to the Son
of the Fool. You know him I daresay. And it began to jump again, and I
said to myself, '"Health is the first thing," as the old people say.' So
I came for the medicine."
The chemist chuckled audibly.
"And what were you talking about?" he asked. "The lady?"
"It is true," answered Ruggiero in a tone of reflection. "The Son of the
Fool was telling me that the lady is to marry my signore."
"And you want medicine!" cried the old man, laughing aloud. "Imbecile!
Have you never been in love?"
Ruggiero stared at him.
"Eh! A girl here and there--in Buenos Ayres, in New Orleans--what has
that to do with it? You--what the malora--the plague--are you talking
about? Eh? Explain a little."
"You had better go back to Buenos Ayres, or to some other place where
you will not see the lady any more," said the chemist. "You are in love
with her. That is all the matter."
"I, with a gran' signora, a great lady! You are crazy, Don Ciccio!"
"Crazy or not--tell me to-morrow whether your heart does not beat every
time she looks at you. As for her being a great lady--we are men, and
they are women."
The chemist had socialistic ideas of his own.
"To please you," said Ruggiero, "I will go and see her now, and I will
be back in an hour to tell you that you do not understand your business.
My brother is to go there at twelve and I will go with him. Of course I
shall see her."
He turned to go, but stopped suddenly on the threshold and came back.
"There!" he cried triumphantly. "There it is again, but not so hard this
time. Is the lady here, now?" He pushed his chest against the old man's
ear.
"Madonna mia! What a machine!" exclaimed the latter, after listening a
moment. "If I had a heart like that!"
"Now you see for yourself," said Ruggiero. "I want the best medicine."
But again the chemist broke into a laugh.
"Medicine! A medicine for love! Do you not see that it began to beat at
the thought of seeing her? Go and try it, as you proposed. Then you will
understand."
"I understand that you are crazy. But I will try it all the same."
Thereupon Ruggiero strode out of the shop without further words,
considerably disappointed and displeased with the result of the
interview. The chemist apparently took him for a fool. It was absurd to
suppose that the sight of any woman, or the mention of any woman, could
make a man's heart behave in such a way, and yet he was obliged to admit
that the coincidence was undeniable.
He found his brother just coming out of the house in which they lodged,
arrayed at all points exactly like himself. Sebastiano's young beard was
not quite so thick, his eyes were a little softer, his movements a
trifle less energetically direct than Ruggiero's, and he was, perhaps,
an inch shorter; but the resemblance was extraordinary and would have
struck any one.
They were admitted to the presence of the Marchesa di Mola in due time.
She lay in a deep chair under the arches of her terrace, shaded by brown
linen curtains, languid, idle, indifferent as ever.
"Beatrice!" she called in a lazy tone, as the two men stood still at a
respectful distance, waiting to be addressed.
But instead of Beatrice, a maid appeared at a door at the other end of
the terrace--a fresh young thing with rosy cheeks, brown hair,
sparkling black eyes and a pretty figure.
"Call Donna Beatrice," said the Marchesa. Then, as though exhausted by
the effort of speaking she closed her eyes and waited.
The maid cast a quick glance at the two handsome sailors and disappeared
again. Ruggiero and Sebastiano stood motionless, only their eyes turning
from side to side and examining everything with the curiosity habitual
in seamen.
Presently Beatrice entered, looked at them both for a moment and then
went up to her mother.
"It is for the boat, mamma," she said. "Do you wish me to arrange about
it?"
"Of course," answered the Marchesa opening her eyes and immediately
shutting them again.
Beatrice stepped aside and beckoned the two men to her. To Ruggiero's
infinite surprise, he again felt the blood rushing to his face, and his
heart began to pound his ribs like a fuller's hammer. He glanced at his
brother and saw that he was perfectly self-possessed. Beatrice looked
from one to the other in perplexity.
"You are so much alike!" she exclaimed. "With which of you did I speak
this morning?"
"With me, Eccellenza," said Ruggiero, whose own voice sounded strangely
in his ears. "And this is my brother," he added.
The arrangement was soon made, but during the short interchange of
questions and answers Ruggiero could not take his eyes from Beatrice's
face. Possibly he was not even aware that it was rude to stare at a
lady, for his education had not been got in places where ladies are
often seen, or manners frequently discussed. But Beatrice did not seem
at all disturbed by the scrutiny, though she was quite aware of its
pertinacity. A woman who has beauty in any degree rarely resents the
genuine and unconcealed admiration of the vulgar. On the contrary, as
the young girl dismissed the men, she smiled graciously upon them both,
and perhaps a little the more upon Ruggiero, though there was not much
to choose.
Neither of them spoke as they descended the stairs of the hotel, and
went out through the garden to the gate. When they were in the square
beyond Ruggiero stopped. Sebastiano stood still also and looked at him.
"Does your heart ever jump and turn somersaults and get into your mouth,
when you look at a woman, Bastianello?" he asked.
"No. Does yours?"
"Yes. Just now."
"I saw her, too," answered Sebastiano. "It is true that she is very
fresh and pretty, and uncommonly clean. Eh--the devil! If you like her,
ask for her. The maid of a Marchesa is sure to have money and to be a
respectable girl."
Ruggiero was silent for a moment and looked at his brother with an odd
expression, as though he were going to say something. Unfortunately for
him, for Sebastiano, for the maid, for Beatrice, and for the count of
San Miniato, too, he said nothing. Instead, he produced half a cigar
from his cap, and two sulphur matches, and incontinently began to smoke.
"It is lucky that both boats are engaged on the same day," observed
Sebastiano. "The Greek will be pleased. He will play all the numbers at
the lottery."
"And get very drunk to-night," added Ruggiero with contempt.
"Of course. But he is a good padrone, everybody says, and does not cheat
his men."
"I hope not."
By and by the two went down to the beach again, and Sebastiano looked
about him for a crew. The Marchesa wanted four men in her boat, or even
five, and Sebastiano picked out at once the Gull, the Son of the
American, Black Rag--otherwise known as Saint Peter from his resemblance
to the pictures of the Apostle as a fisherman--and the Deaf Man. The
latter is a fellow of strange ways, who lost his hearing from falling
into the water in winter when overheated, and who has almost lost the
power of speech in consequence, but a good sailor withal, tough,
untiring, and patient.
They all set to work with a good will, and before four o'clock that day
the two boats were launched, ballasted and rigged, the sails were bent
to the yards and the brasses polished, so that Ruggiero and Sebastiano
went up to their respective masters to ask if there were any orders for
the afternoon.