CHAPTER XI
THE CHALLENGE
"How long is it since you have seen England, Sir Hugh?" asked DameCarleon languidly.
"Some eighteen months, lady, although in truth it seems more, for manythings have happened to me in that time."
"Eighteen months only! Why, 'tis four long years since I looked uponthe downs of Sussex, which are my home, the dear downs of Sussex, that Ishall see never again."
"Why say you so, lady, who should have many years of life before you?"
"Because they are done, Sir Hugh. Oh, in my heart I feel that they aredone. That should not grieve me, since my only child is buried in thisglittering, southern city whereof I hate the sounds and sights that mencall so beautiful. Yet I would that I might have been laid at last inthe kind earth of Sussex where for generations my forbears have beenborne to rest," and suddenly she began to weep.
"What ails you, lady? You are not well?"
"Oh, I know not. I think it is the heat or some presage of woe to come,not to me only, but to all men. Look, nature herself is sick," and sheled him to the broad balcony of the chamber and pointed to long linesof curious mist which in the bright moonlight they could see creepingtoward Venice from the ocean, although what wind there was appeared tobe off land.
"Those fogs are unnatural," she went on. "At this season of the yearthere should be none, and these come, not from the lagoons, but up fromthe sea where no such vapours were ever known to rise. The physicianssay that they foretell sickness, whereof terrible rumours have for sometime past reached us from the East, though none know whether these betrue or false."
"The East is a large place, where there is always sickness, lady, or soI have heard."
"Ay, ay, it is the home of Death, and I think that he travels to usthence. And not only I, not only I; half the folk in Venice think thesame, though why, they cannot tell. Listen."
As she spoke, the sound of solemn chanting broke upon Hugh's ear. Nearerit grew, and nearer, till presently there emerged from a side street aprocession of black monks who bore in front of them a crucifix of whiteivory. Along the narrow margin which lay between the houses and thecanal they marched, followed by a great multitude of silent people.
"It is a dirge for the dead that they sing," said Dame Carleon, "and yetthey bury no man. Oh! months ago I would have escaped from this city,and we had leave to go. But then came orders from the King that we mustbide here because of his creditors. So here we bide for good and all.Hush! I hear my husband coming; say nothing of my talk, it angers him.Rest you well, Sir Hugh."
"Truly that lady has a cheerful mind," grumbled Grey Dick, when she hadgone, leaving them alone upon the balcony. "Ten minutes more of her andI think I should go hang myself, or squat upon these stones and howl atthe moon like a dog or those whimpering friars."
Hugh made no answer, for he was thinking of his father's tale of theprophecies of Sir Andrew Arnold, and how they grew sad in Dunwich also.In truth, like Lady Carleon, he found it in his heart to wish that hetoo were clear of Venice, which he had reached with so much toil.
"Bah!" he said presently, "this place stinks foully. It puts me in mindof some woman, most beauteous indeed, but three days dead. Let us goin."
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