Orsino pressed the wasted hand and went out silently, more affected than he owned by the dying man’s words and looks. It was a painful story of well-meant mistakes, he thought, and it explained many things which he had not understood. Linking it with all he knew besides, he had the whole history of Spicca’s mysterious, broken life, together with the explanation of some points in his own which had never been clear to him. The old cynic of a duellist had been a man of heart, after all, and had sacrificed his whole existence to keep a secret for a woman whom he loved but who did not care for him. That was all. She was dead and he was dying. The secret was already half buried in the past. If it were told now, no one would believe it.
Orsino returned on the following day. He had sent for news several times, and was told that Spicca still lingered. He saw him again but the old man seemed very weak and only spoke a few words during the hour Orsino spent with him. The doctor had said that he might possibly live, but that there was not much hope.
And again on the next day Orsino came back. He started as he entered the room. An old Franciscan, a Minorite, was by the bedside, speaking in low tones. Orsino made as though he would withdraw, but Spicca feebly beckoned to him to stay, and the monk rose.
“Good-bye,” whispered Spicca, following him with his sunken eyes.
Orsino led the Franciscan out. At the outer door the latter turned to Orsino with a strange look and laid a hand upon his arm.
“Who are you, my son?” he asked.
“Orsino Saracinesca.”
“A friend of his?”
“Yes.”
“He has done terrible things in his long life. But he has done noble things, too, and has suffered much, and in silence. He has earned his rest, and God will forgive him.”
The monk bowed his head and went out. Orsino re-entered the room and took the vacant chair beside the bed. He touched Spicca’s hand almost affectionately, but the latter withdrew it with an effort. He had never liked sympathy, and liked it least when another would have needed it most. For a considerable time neither spoke. The pale hand lay peacefully upon the pillows, the long, shadowy frame was wrapped in a gown of dark woollen material.
“Do you think she will come to-day?” asked the old man at length.
“She may come to-day — I hope so,” Orsino answered.
A long pause followed.
“I hope so, too,” Spicca whispered. “I have not much strength left. I cannot wait much longer.”
Again there was silence. Orsino knew that there was nothing to be said, nothing at least which he could say, to cheer the last hours of the lonely life. But Spicca seemed contented that he should sit there.
“Give me that photograph,” he said, suddenly, a quarter of an hour later.
Orsino looked about him but could not see what Spicca wanted.
“Hers,” said the feeble voice, “in the next room.”
It was the photograph in the little chiselled frame — the same frame which had once excited Donna Tullia’s scorn. Orsino brought it quickly from its place over the chimney-piece, and held it before his friend’s eyes. Spicca gazed at it a long time in silence.
“Take it away,” he said, at last. “It is not like her.”
Orsino put it aside and sat down again. Presently Spicca turned a little on the pillow and looked at him.
“Do you remember that I once said I wished you might marry her?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It was quite true. You understand now? I could not tell you then.”
“Yes. I understand everything now.”
“But I am sorry I said it.”
“Why?” “Perhaps it influenced you and has hurt your life. I am sorry. You must forgive me.”
“For Heaven’s sake, do not distress yourself about such trifles,” said Orsino, earnestly. “There is nothing to forgive.”
“Thank you.”
Orsino looked at him, pondering on the peaceful ending of the strange life, and wondering what manner of heart and soul the man had really lived with. With the intuition which sometimes comes to dying persons, Spicca understood, though it was long before he spoke again. There was a faint touch of his old manner in his words.
“I am an awful example, Orsino,” he said, with the ghost of a smile. “Do not imitate me. Do not sacrifice your life for the love of any woman. Try and appreciate sacrifices in others.”
The smile died away again.
“And yet I am glad I did it,” he added, a moment later. “Perhaps it was all a mistake — but I did my best.”
“You did indeed,” Orsino answered gravely.
He meant what he said, though he felt that it had indeed been all a mistake, as Spicca suggested. The young face was very thoughtful. Spicca little knew how hard his last cynicism hit the man beside him, for whose freedom and safety the woman of whom Spicca was thinking had sacrificed so very much. He would die without knowing that.
The door opened softly and a woman’s light footstep was on the threshold. Maria Consuelo came silently and swiftly forward with outstretched hands that had clasped the dying man’s almost before Orsino realised that it was she herself. She fell on her knees beside the bed and pressed the powerless cold fingers to her forehead.
Spicca started and for one moment raised his head from the pillow. It fell back almost instantly. A look of supreme happiness flashed over the deathly features, followed by an expression of pain.
“Why did you marry him?” he asked in tones so loud that Orsino started, and Maria Consuelo looked up with streaming eyes.
She did not answer, but tried to soothe him, rising and caressing his hand, and smoothing his pillows.
“Tell me why you married him!” he cried again. “I am dying — I must know!”
She bent down very low and whispered into his ear. He shook his head impatiently.
“Louder! I cannot hear! Louder!”
Again she whispered, more distinctly this time, and casting an imploring glance at Orsino, who was too much disturbed to understand.
“Louder!” gasped the dying man, struggling to sit up. “Louder! O my God! I shall die without hearing you — without knowing—”
It would have been inhuman to torture the departing soul any longer. Then Maria Consuelo made her last sacrifice. She spoke in calm, clear tones.
“I married to save the man I loved.”
Spicca’s expression changed. For fully twenty seconds his sunken eyes remained fixed, gazing into hers. Then the light began to flash in them for the last time, keen as the lightning.
“God have mercy on you! God reward you!” he cried.
The shadowy figure quivered throughout its length, was still, then quivered again, then sprang up suddenly with a leap, and Spicca was standing on the floor, clasping Maria Consuelo in his arms. All at once there was colour in his face and the fire grew bright in his glance.
“Oh, my darling, I have loved you so!” he cried.
He almost lifted her from the ground as he pressed his lips passionately upon her forehead. His long thin hands relaxed suddenly, and the light broke in his eyes as when a mirror is shivered by a blow. For an instant that seemed an age, he stood upright, dead already, and then fell back all his length across the bed with wide extended arms.
There was a short, sharp sob, and then a sound of passionate weeping filled the silent room. Strongly and tenderly Orsino laid his dead friend upon the couch as he had lain alive but two minutes earlier. He crossed the hands upon the breast and gently closed the staring eyes. He could not have had Maria Consuelo see him as he had fallen, when she next looked up.
A little later they stood side by side, gazing at the calm dead face, in a long silence. How long they stood, they never knew, for their hearts were very full. The sun was going down and the evening light filled the room.
“Did he tell you, before he died — about me?” asked Maria Consuelo in a low voice.
“Yes. He told me everything.”
Maria Consuelo went
forward and bent over the face and kissed the white forehead, and made the sign of the Cross upon it. Then she turned and took Orsino’s hand in hers.
“I could not help your hearing what I said, Orsino. He was dying, you see. You know all, now.”
Orsino’s fingers pressed hers desperately. For a moment he could not speak. Then the agonised words came with a great effort, harshly but ringing from the heart.
“And I can give you nothing!”
He covered his face and turned away.
“Give me your friendship, dear — I never had your love,” she said.
It was long before they talked together again.
This is what I know of young Orsino Saracinesca’s life up to the present time. Maria Consuelo, Countess Del Ferice, was right. She never had his love as he had hers. Perhaps the power of loving so is not in him. He is, after all, more like San Giacinto than any other member of the family, cold, perhaps, and hard by nature. But these things which I have described have made a man of him at an age when many men are but boys, and he has learnt what many never learn at all — that there is more true devotion to be found in the world than most people will acknowledge. He may some day be heard of. He may some day fall under the great passion. Or he may never love at all and may never distinguish himself any more than his father has done. One or the other may happen, but not both, in all probability. The very greatest passion is rarely compatible with the very greatest success except in extraordinary good or bad natures. And Orsino Saracinesca is not extraordinary in any way. His character has been formed by the unusual circumstances in which he was placed when very young, rather than by anything like the self-development which we hear of in the lives of great men. From a somewhat foolish and affectedly cynical youth he has grown into a decidedly hard and cool-headed man. He is very much seen in society but talks little on the whole. If, hereafter, there should be anything in his life worth recording, another hand than mine may write it down for future readers.
If any one cares to ask why I have thought it worth the trouble to describe his early years so minutely, I answer that the young man of the Transition Period interests me. Perhaps I am singular in that. Orsino Saracinesca is a fair type, I think, of his class at his age. I have done my best to be just to him.
THE END
The Children of the King
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
DEDICATION
TO THE MIDDY, THE LADDIE, THE MATE
AND THE MEN THE SKIPPER OF THE OLD LEONE
DEDICATES THIS STORY
CHAPTER I.
LAY YOUR COURSE south-east half east from the Campanella. If the weather is what it should be in late summer you will have a fresh breeze on the starboard quarter from ten in the morning till four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Sail straight across the wide gulf of Salerno, and when you are over give the Licosa Point a wide berth, for the water is shallow and there are reefs along shore. Moreover there is no light on Licosa Point, and many a good ship has gone to pieces there in dark winter nights when the surf is rolling in. If the wind holds you may run on to Palinuro in a long day before the evening calm comes on, and the water turns oily and full of pink and green and violet streaks, and the sun settles down in the north-west. Then the big sails will hang like curtains from the long slanting yards, the slack sheets will dip down to the water, the rudder will knock softly against the stern-post as the gentle swell subsides. Then all is of a golden orange colour, then red as wine, then purple as grapes, then violet, then grey, then altogether shadowy as the stars come out — unless it chances that the moon is not yet full, and edges everything with silver on your left hand while the sunset dyes fade slowly to darkness upon your right.
Then the men forward will bestir themselves and presently a red glow rises and flickers and paints what it touches, with its own colours. The dry wood crackles and flares on the brick and mortar hearth, and the great kettle is put on. Presently the water boils — in go the long bundles of fine-drawn paste, and everybody collects forward to watch the important operation. Stir it quickly at first. Let it boil till a bit of it is tender under the teeth. In with the coarse salt, and stir again. Up with kettle. Chill it with a quart of cold water from the keg. A hand with the colander and one with the wooden spoon while the milky boiling water is drained off. Garlic and oil, or tomato preserve? Whichever it is, be quick about it. And so to supper, with huge hard biscuit and stony cheese, and the full wine jug passed from mouth to mouth. To every man a fork and to every man his place within arm’s length of the great basin — mottled green and white within, red brown and unglazed on the outside. But the man at the helm has an earthen plate, and the jug is passed aft to him from time to time.
Not that he has much to do as he lies there on his six-foot deck that narrows away so sharply to the stern. He has taken a hitch round the heavy tiller with the slack of the main sheet to keep it off the side of his head while he eats. There is no current, and there is not a breath of air. By and by, before midnight, you will smell the soft land breeze blowing in puffs out of every little bay and indentation. There is no order needed. The men silently brace the yards and change the sheets over. The small jib is already bent in place of the big one, for the night is dark and some of those smart puffs will soon be like little squalls. Full and by. Hug the land, for there are no more reefs before Scalea. If you do not get aground on what you can see in Calabria, you will not get aground at all, says the old proverb. Briskly over two or three miles to the next point, and the breeze is gone again. While she is still forging ahead out go the sweeps, six or eight of them, and the men throw themselves forward over the long slender loom, as they stand. Half an hour to row, or more perhaps. Down helm, as you meet the next puff, and the good felucca heels over a little. And so through the night, the breeze freshening before the rising sun to die away in the first hot morning hours, just as you are abreast of Camerota. L’Infresco Point is ahead, not three miles away. It is of no use to row, for the breeze will come up before long and save you the trouble. But the sea is white and motionless. Far in the offing a Sicilian schooner and a couple of clumsy “martinganes” — there is no proper English name for the craft — are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L’Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. The wind is south by west at first, but it will go round in an hour or two, and before noon you will make Scalea — stand out for the reef, the only one in Calabria — with a stern breeze. You have passed the most beautiful spot on the beautiful Italian coast, without seeing it. There, between the island of Dino and the cape lies San Nicola, with its grand deserted tower, its mighty cliffs, its deep, safe bay and its velvet sand. What matter? The wind is fair and you are for Calabria with twenty tons of macaroni from Amalfi. There is no time to be lost, either, for you will probably come home in ballast. Past Scalea, then, where tradition says that Judas Iscariot was born and bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to within fifty yards of the sea. Now you have run past the little cape, and are abreast of the beach. Down mainsail — down jib — down foresail. Let go the anchor while she forges, eight to nine lengths from the land, and let her swing round, stern to the sand. Clear away the dingy and launch her from amidships, and send a line ashore. Overboard with ev
erything now, for beaching, capstan, chocks and all — the swell will wash them in. As the keel grates on the pebbles, the men jump into the water from the high stern and catch the drifting wood. Some plant the capstan, others pass the long hemp cable and reeve it through the fiddle block. A hand forward to slack out the cable as the heavy boat slowly creeps up out of the water. The men from other craft, already beached, lend a hand too and a score of stout fellows breast the long oars which serve for capstan bars. A little higher still. Now prop her securely and make all snug and ship-shape, and make fast the blade of an oar to one of the forward tholes, with the loom on the ground, for a ladder. You are safe in Calabria.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 576