"GEMMA, there's a man downstairs who wants
to see you." Martini spoke in the subdued tone
which they had both unconsciously adopted during
these last ten days. That, and a certain slow
evenness of speech and movement, were the sole
expression which either of them gave to their grief.
Gemma, with bare arms and an apron over her
dress, was standing at a table, putting up little
packages of cartridges for distribution. She had
stood over the work since early morning; and
now, in the glaring afternoon, her face looked haggard
with fatigue.
"A man, Cesare? What does he want?"
"I don't know, dear. He wouldn't tell me.
He said he must speak to you alone."
"Very well." She took off her apron and
pulled down the sleeves of her dress. "I must go
to him, I suppose; but very likely it's only a spy."
"In any case, I shall be in the next room, within
call. As soon as you get rid of him you had better
go and lie down a bit. You have been standing
too long to-day."
"Oh, no! I would rather go on working."
She went slowly down the stairs, Martini following
in silence. She had grown to look ten years
older in these few days, and the gray streak across
her hair had widened into a broad band. She
mostly kept her eyes lowered now; but when, by
chance, she raised them, he shivered at the horror
in their shadows.
In the little parlour she found a clumsy-looking
man standing with his heels together in the middle
of the floor. His whole figure and the half-frightened
way he looked up when she came in,
suggested to her that he must be one of the Swiss
guards. He wore a countryman's blouse, which
evidently did not belong to him, and kept glancing
round as though afraid of detection.
"Can you speak German?" he asked in the
heavy Zurich patois.
"A little. I hear you want to see me."
"You are Signora Bolla? I've brought you a
letter."
"A--letter?" She was beginning to tremble,
and rested one hand on the table to steady herself.
"I'm one of the guard over there." He
pointed out of the window to the fortress on the
hill. "It's from--the man that was shot last
week. He wrote it the night before. I promised
him I'd give it into your own hand myself."
She bent her head down. So he had written
after all.
"That's why I've been so long bringing it," the
soldier went on. "He said I was not to give it to
anyone but you, and I couldn't get off before--
they watched me so. I had to borrow these
things to come in."
He was fumbling in the breast of his blouse.
The weather was hot, and the sheet of folded
paper that he pulled out was not only dirty and
crumpled, but damp. He stood for a moment
shuffling his feet uneasily; then put up one hand
and scratched the back of his head.
"You won't say anything," he began again
timidly, with a distrustful glance at her. "It's as
much as my life's worth to have come here."
"Of course I shall not say anything. No,
wait a minute----"
As he turned to go, she stopped him, feeling for
her purse; but he drew back, offended.
"I don't want your money," he said roughly.
"I did it for him--because he asked me to. I'd
have done more than that for him. He'd been
good to me--God help me!"
The little catch in his voice made her look up.
He was slowly rubbing a grimy sleeve across his
eyes.
"We had to shoot," he went on under his
breath; "my mates and I. A man must obey
orders. We bungled it, and had to fire again--
and he laughed at us--he called us the awkward
squad--and he'd been good to me----"
There was silence in the room. A moment
later he straightened himself up, made a clumsy
military salute, and went away.
She stood still for a little while with the paper
in her hand; then sat down by the open window
to read. The letter was closely written in pencil,
and in some parts hardly legible. But the first
two words stood out quite clear upon the page;
and they were in English:
"Dear Jim."
The writing grew suddenly blurred and misty.
And she had lost him again--had lost him again!
At the sight of the familiar childish nickname all
the hopelessness of her bereavement came over
her afresh, and she put out her hands in blind
desperation, as though the weight of the earth-clods
that lay above him were pressing on her heart.
Presently she took up the paper again and went
on reading:
"I am to be shot at sunrise to-morrow. So
if I am to keep at all my promise to tell you everything,
I must keep it now. But, after all, there is
not much need of explanations between you and
me. We always understood each other without
many words, even when we were little things.
"And so, you see, my dear, you had no need to
break your heart over that old story of the blow.
It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had plenty
of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get
over them,--even to pay back a few of them,--and
here I am still, like the mackerel in our nursery-book
(I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking,
oh!' This is my last kick, though; and then, to-morrow
morning, and--'Finita la Commedia!'
You and I will translate that: 'The variety show
is over'; and will give thanks to the gods that
they have had, at least, so much mercy on us. It
is not much, but it is something; and for this and
all other blessings may we be truly thankful!
"About that same to-morrow morning, I want
both you and Martini to understand clearly that
I am quite happy and satisfied, and could ask
no better thing of Fate. Tell that to Martini
as a message from me; he is a good fellow and a
good comrade, and he will understand. You see,
dear, I know that the stick-in-the-mud people are
doing us a good turn and themselves a bad one
by going back to secret trials and executions so
soon, and I know that if you who are left stand
together steadily and hit hard, you will see great
things. As for me, I shall go out into the courtyard
with as light a heart as any child starting
home for the holidays. I have done my share of
the work, and this death-sentence is the proof that
I have done it thoroughly. They kill me because
they are afraid of me; and what more can any man's
heart desire?
"It desires just one thing more, though. A man
who is going to die has a right to a personal fancy,
and mine is that you should see why I have always
been such a sulky brute to you, and so slow to forget
old scores. Of course, though, you understand
why, and I tell you only for the pleasure of
writing the words. I loved you, Gemma, when you
were an ugly little girl in a gingham frock, with a
scratchy tucker and your hair in a pig-tail down
your back; and I love you still. Do you remember
that day when I kissed your hand, and when
you so piteously begged me 'never to do that
again'? It was a scoundrelly trick to play, I know;
but you must forgive that; and now I kiss the
paper where I have written your name. So I have
kissed you twice, and both times without your
consent.
"That is all. Good-bye, my dear."
There was no signature, but a verse which they
had learned together as children was written
under the letter:
"Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live
Or if I die."
. . . . .
Half an hour later Martini entered the room,
and, startled out of the silence of half a life-time,
threw down the placard he was carrying and flung
his arms about her.
"Gemma! What is it, for God's sake? Don't
sob like that--you that never cry! Gemma!
Gemma, my darling!"
"Nothing, Cesare; I will tell you afterwards--I
--can't talk about it just now."
She hurriedly slipped the tear-stained letter into
her pocket; and, rising, leaned out of the window
to hide her face. Martini held his tongue and bit
his moustache. After all these years he had betrayed
himself like a schoolboy--and she had not
even noticed it!
"The Cathedral bell is tolling," she said after
a little while, looking round with recovered self-command.
"Someone must be dead."
"That is what I came to show you," Martini
answered in his everyday voice. He picked up the
placard from the floor and handed it to her.
Hastily printed in large type was a black-bordered
announcement that: "Our dearly beloved Bishop,
His Eminence the Cardinal, Monsignor Lorenzo
Montanelli," had died suddenly at Ravenna, "from
the rupture of an aneurism of the heart."
She glanced up quickly from the paper, and
Martini answered the unspoken suggestion in her
eyes with a shrug of his shoulders.
"What would you have, Madonna? Aneurism
is as good a word as any other."
