by Ouida
She knew the way to the tomb of Asdrubal, even in the darkness, as well as he did. It was situated in a grassy hollow surrounded by dense trees, some five miles or more from the Terra Vergine, on the north bank of the river. The solitude was absolute, and the place large enough to permit the assemblage of several scores of men.
Adone went on, unconscious that he was followed; he went at a swinging trot, easy and swift; the sinews of his lithe limbs were strong as steel, and his rage, all aflame, lent lightning to his feet.
She allowed him to precede her by half a mile or more, for if he had seen her his anger would have been great, and she feared it. She went skipping and bounding along, where the path was clear, in all the joy of liberty and rapture of the fresh night air. The hours spent in Alaida’s close house in the village had been as terrible to her as his hours in a birdcatcher’s hamper are to a wild bird. Up at Ansalda she had always been out of doors, and at the Terra Vergine she had gone under a roof only to eat and sleep.
The moon, which was in the beginning of its first quarter, had passed behind some heavy clouds; there was little light, for there were as yet few stars visible, but that was not matter to her. She knew her way as well as any mountain hare.
The pungent odour of the heaths through which she went seemed to her like a draught of wine, the strong sea breeze which was blowing bore her up like wings. She forgot that she was once more a homeless waif, as she had been that day when she had sat under the dock leaves by the Edera water. He had told her she should go back; she believed him: that was enough. Madonna Clelia would forgive, she felt sure, for what harm had she done? All would be well; she would feed the oxen again, and go again to the spring for water, and all would be as it had been before — her thoughts, her desires, went no farther than that. So, with a light heart she followed him gaily, running where there was open ground, pushing hard where the heather grew, going always in the same path as Adone had done.
All of a sudden she stopped short, in alarm.
The night was still; the spring of the river was loud upon it, owls hooted and chuckled, now and then a fox in the thickets barked. There are many sounds in the open country at night; sounds of whirring pinions, of stealthy feet, of shrill, lone cries, of breaking twigs, of breaking ferns, of little rivulets unheard by day, of timid creatures taking courage in the dark. But to these sounds she was used; she could give a name to every one of them. She heard now what was unfamiliar to her in these solitudes; she heard the footsteps of men; and it seemed to her, all around her, as though in a moment of time, the heath and bracken and furze grew alive to their tryst with Adone? She did not think so, for she had never known the few men in the village summon courage to join the armed meetings of the men of the valley. She stopped and listened, as a pole-cat which was near her did; the sounds were those of human beings, breathing, creeping, moving under the heather.
Suddenly she felt some presence close to her in the dark; she held her breath; she shrank noiselessly between the plumes of heath. If they were men of the country they would not hurt her, but if not — she was not sure.
Near her was an open space where the wild growth had been recently cut. The men debouched on to it from the undergrowth, there was a faint light from the stars on that strip of rough grass; by it she saw that they were soldiers, five in number.
A great terror cowed her, like a hand of ice at her heart, a terror not for herself, but for those away there, in the green hollow by the three stone-pines.
They were soldiers; yes, they were soldiers; the sounds she had heard had been the crushing of the plants under their feet, the click of their muskets as they moved; they were soldiers! Where had they come from? There were no soldiers at Ruscino.
The only time when she had ever seen soldiers had been when the troopers had captured Baruffo. These were not troopers; they were small men, on foot, linen-clad, moving stealthily, and as if in fear; only the tubes of their muskets glistened in the light of the great planets.
She crouched down lower and lower, trying to enter the ground and hide; she hoped they would go onward, and then she could run — faster than they — and reach the hollow, and warn Adone and his fellows. She had no doubt that they came to surprise the meeting; but she hoped from their pauses and hesitating steps that they were uncertain what way to take.
“If you come to me to lead you — aye! I will lead you! — you will not forget where I lead!” she said to herself, as she hid under the heather; and her courage rose, for she saw a deed to be done. For they were now very near to the place of meeting, and could have taken the rebels like mice in a trap, if they had only known where they were; but she, watching them stand still, and stare, and look up to the stars, and then north, south, east, and west, saw that they did not know, and that it might be possible to lead them away from the spot by artifice, as the quail leads the sportsman away from the place where her nest is hidden.
As the thought took shape in her brain a sixth man, a sergeant who commanded them, touched her with his foot, stooped, clutched her, and pulled her upward. She did not try to escape.
“What beast of night have we here?” he cried. “Spawn of devils, who are you?”
Nerina writhed under the grip of his iron fingers, but she still did not try to escape. He cursed her, swore at her, shook her, crushed her arm black and blue. She was sick with pain, but she was mute.
“Who are you?” he shouted.
“I come down from the mountains to work here in summer.”
“Can any of you speak her dialect?” cried the sergeant to his privates: the sergeant was a man of Milan.
One man answered, “I come from Paganica; it is much the same tongue there as in these parts.”
“Ask her the way, then.”
The soldier obeyed.
“What is the way to the Three Pines? — to the tomb of Asdrubal?”
“The way is long,” said Nerina.
“Do you know it?”
“I know it.”
“Have you heard tell of it?”
“Yes.”
“That men meet at night there?”
“Yes.”
“Meet this night there?”
“Yes.”
“You know where the tomb of Asdrubal is?”
“Have I not told you?”
The soldier repeated her answer translated to his sergeant; the latter kept his grasp on her.
“Ask her if she will take us there.”
The soldier asked her and translated her answer.
“If we give her two gold pieces she will take us there.”
“Spawn of hell! I will give her nothing. But if she do not lead us aright I will give her a bullet for her breakfast.”
The soldier translated to Nerina: “He will give you two gold pieces if you guide us aright; and you need have no fear; we are honest men and the king’s servants.”
“I will guide the king’s servants.”
“You are sure of the way?”
“Is the homing pigeon sure of his?”
“Let us be off,” said the sergeant. “A bullet for her if she fail.”
He had little pleasure in trusting to this girl of the Abruzzo hills, but he and his men were lost upon these moors, and might grope all night, and miss the meeting, and fail to join his comrades and surprise those who gathered at it. He reckoned upon fear as a sure agent to keep her true, as it kept his conscripts under arms.
“Bid him take his hand off me,” said Nerina, “or I do not move.”
The private translated to his superior. “She prays of your mercy to leave her free, or she cannot pass through the heather.”
The sergeant let her go unwillingly, but pushed her in front of him, and levelled his revolver at her.
“Tell her, if she try to get away, I fire.”
“Tell him I know that,” said Nerina.
She was not afraid, for a fierce, unholy joy was in her veins; she could have sung, she could have laughed, she could have danced; she held
them in her power; they had come to ensnare Adone, and she had got them in her power as if they were so many moles!
They tied her hands behind her; she let them do it; she did not want her hands. Then she began to push her way doggedly, with her head down, to the south. The tomb of Asdrubal was due north; she could see the pole star, and turned her back to it and went due south.
Three miles or more southward there was a large pollino, or swamp as L’Erba Molle, the wet grass; the grass was luxuriant, the flora was varied and beautiful; in appearance it was a field, in reality it was a morass; to all people of the Valdedera it was dreaded and avoided, as quicksand are by the seashore.
She went on as fast as the narrow path, winding in and out between the undergrowth, permitted her to go; the armed soldiers, heavy laden with their knapsacks and their boots, following her clumsily, and with effort, uttering curses on their ill-luck and their sleepless night.
The stars were now larger and brighter; the darkness was lightened, the river was running away from its southern birthplace in the hills which lie like couched lions about the feet of the Gran Sasso. She could hear its distant murmur. “They come to capture you,” she said to it, “and I will kill them. They shall choke and go down, down, down—”
Her heart leapt within her; and she went with the loaded revolver pointed at her from behind as though she went to her bridal-bed.
“Where are you taking us, vile little bitch?” the sergeant cried, and the soldier from Paganica translated: “Pretty little brown one, whither do you go?”
“I take you straight,” said Nerina, “only you go to clumsily, for men in these parts should not wear leather upon their feet.”
The soldiers sighed assent, and would willingly have gone barefoot, and the sergeant swore in tones of thunder because he could not understand what she said.
Before long they came in sight of the Erba Molle; it looked like a fair, peaceful pasture, with thousands of sword rushes golden upon its surface. The light of the stars, which was now brilliant, shone upon its verdure; there were great flocks of water-birds at roost around it, and they rose with shrill cries and great noise of wings, with a roar as though a tide were rising.
Across it stretched a line of wooden piles which served as a rude causeway to those who had the courage and the steadiness to leap from one to another of them. It was not three times in a season that any one dared to do so. Adone did so sometimes; and he had taught Nerina how to make the passage.
“Pass you after me, and set your feet where I set mine,” said Nerina to the little soldier of the Abruzzo, and she put down her foot on the first pile, sunk almost invisible under the bright green slime, where thousands of frogs were croaking.
The soldier of the Abruzzo said to his superior, “She says we must set our feet where she sets hers. We are quite near now to the tomb of the barbarian.”
Nerina, with the light leap of a kid, bounded from pile to pile. They thought she went on solid ground; on meadow grass. The sergeant and his men crowded on to what they thought was pasture. In the uncertain shadows and scarce dawning light, they did not see the row of submerged timber. They sank like stones in the thick ooze; they were sucked under to their knees, to their waists, to their shoulders, to their mouths; the yielding grasses, the clutching slime, the tangled weed, the bottomless mud, took hold of them; the water-birds shrieked and beat their wings; the hideous clamour of dying men answered them.
Nerina had reached the other side of the morass in safety, and her mocking laughter rang upon their ears.
“I have led you well!” she cried to them. “I have led you well, oh servants of the king! — oh swine! — oh slaves! — oh spies! — oh hunters and butchers of men!”
And she danced on the edge of the field of death, and the light of the great planets shone upon her face.
Had she run onward at once the wood beyond she would have been saved. That instant of triumph and mockery lost her.
The sergeant had put his revolver in his teeth; he knew now that he was a dead man; the slime was up to his chin, under his feet the grass and the mud quaked, yielded, yawned like a grave.
He drew his right arm out of the ooze, seized his revolver, and aimed at the dancing, mocking, triumphant figure beyond the border of golden sword rushes. With a supreme effort he fired; then he sank under the mud and weed.
The child dropped dead on the edge of the morass.
One by one each soldier sank. Not one escaped.
The water-birds came back from their upward flight and settled again on the swamp.
Underneath it all was still, save for the loud croaking of the frogs.
XX
Don Silverio rose with the dawn of day, and entered his church at five of the clock. There were but a few women gathered in the gaunt, dark vastness of the nave. The morning was hot, and the scent of buds and blossoms and fresh-cut grass came in from the fields over the broken walls and into the ancient houses.
When Mass was over, old Alaida crept over the mouldy mosaics timidly to his side, and kneeled down on the stones.
“Most reverend,” she whispered, “’twas not my fault. I slept heavily; she must have unlocked the door, for it was undone at dawn; her bed is empty, she has not returned.”
“You speak of Nerina?”
“Of Nerina, reverence. I did all I could. It was not my fault. She was like a hawk in a cage.”
“I am grieved,” he said; and he thought: “Is it Adone?”
He feared so.
“Is she not at the Terra Vergine?” he asked. Alaida shook her head.
“No, reverend sir. I sent my grandchild to ask there. Gianna has not seen her, and says the girl would never dare to go near Clelia Alba.”
“I am grieved,” said Don Silverio again.
He did not blame the old woman, as who, he thought, blames one who could not tame an eaglet?
He went back to the presbytery and broke his fast on a glass of water, some bread, and some cresses from the river.
He had sent for Gianna. In half an hour she came, distressed and frightened.
“Sir, I know not of her; I should not dare to harbour her, even in the cattle-stall. Madonna Clelia would turn me adrift. When Madonna Clelia has once spoken—”
“Adone is at home?”
“Alas! No, sir. He went out at nightfall; we have not seen him since. He told me he went to a meeting of men at the Three Pines, at what they call the Tomb of the Barbarian.”
Don Silverio was silent.
“It is very grave,” he said at last.
“Aye, sir, grave indeed,” said Gianna. “Would that it were love between them, sir. Love is sweet and wholesome and kind, but there is no such thing in Adone’s heart. There it is only, alas! Blackness and fire and hatred, sir; bloodlust against those who mean ill to the river.”
“And his mother has lost all influence over him?”
“All, sir. She is no more to him now than a bent stick. Yet, months ago, she gave him her pearls and her bracelets, and he sold them in a distant town to buy weapons.”
“Indeed? What madness!”
“How else could the men have been armed, sir?”
“Armed!” he repeated. “And of what use is it to arm? What use is it for two hundred peasants to struggle against the whole forces of the State? They will rot in prison; that is all that they will do.”
“Maybe yes, sir. Maybe no,” said the old woman, with the obstinacy of ignorance. “Some one must begin. They have no right to take the water away, sir; no more right than to take the breast from the babe.”
Then, afraid of having said so much, she dropped her curtsey and went out into the street. But in another moment she came back into the study with a scared, blanched face, in which the wrinkles were scarred deep like furrows in a field.
“Sir — sir!” she gasped, “there are the soldiery amongst us.”
Don Silverio rose in haste, put the little dog on his armchair, closed the door of his study, and went down the
narrow stone passage which parted his bookroom from the entrance. The lofty doorway showed him the stones of the familiar street, a buttress of his church, a great branch of one of the self-sown ilex-trees, the glitter of the arms and the white leather of the cross belts of a sentinel. The shrill lamentations of the women seemed to rend the sunny air. He shuddered as he heard. Coming up the street farther off were half a troop of carabineers and a score of dragoons; the swords of the latter were drawn, the former had their carbines levelled. The villagers, screaming with terror, were closing their doors and shutters in frantic haste; the door of the presbytery alone remained open. Don Silverio went into the middle of the road and addressed the officer who headed the carabineers.
“May I ask to what my parish owes this visit?”
“We owe no answer to you, reverend sir,” said the lieutenant.
The people were sobbing hysterically, catching their children in their arms, calling to the Holy Mother to save them, kneeling down on the sharp stones in the dust. Their priest felt ashamed of them.
“My people,” he called to them, “do not be afraid. Do not hide yourselves. Do not kneel to these troopers. You have done no wrong.”
“I forbid you to address the crowd,” said the officer. “Get you back into your house.”
“What is my offence?”
“You will learn in good time,” said the commandant. “Get you into your presbytery.”
“My place is with my people.”
The officer, impatient, struck him on the chest with the pommel of his sword.
Two carabineers thrust him back into the passage.
“No law justifies your conduct,” he said coldly, “or authorises you to sever me from my flock.”
“The sabre is law here,” said the lieutenant in command.
“It is the only law known anywhere in this kingdom,” said Don Silverio.
“Arrest him,” said the officer. “He is creating disorder.”