IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the
front door of the great house in the Via Borra. He
remembered that he had been wandering about
the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he
had no idea. Julia's page opened the door, yawning,
and grinned significantly at the haggard,
stony face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to
have the young master come home from jail like
a "drunk and disorderly" beggar. Arthur went
upstairs. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming
down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval.
He tried to pass with a muttered "Good
evening"; but Gibbons was no easy person to get
past against his will.
"The gentlemen are out, sir," he said, looking
critically at Arthur's rather neglected dress and
hair. "They have gone with the mistress to an
evening party, and will not be back till nearly
twelve."
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock.
Oh, yes! he would have time--plenty of time------
"My mistress desired me to ask whether you
would like any supper, sir; and to say that she
hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly
wishes to speak to you this evening."
"I don't want anything, thank you; you can
tell her I have not gone to bed."
He went up to his room. Nothing in it had
been changed since his arrest; Montanelli's portrait
was on the table where he had placed it, and
the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He
paused a moment on the threshold, listening; but
the house was quite still; evidently no one was
coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the
room and locked the door.
And so he had come to the end. There was
nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate
and useless consciousness to get rid of--and nothing
more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of
thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide,
nor indeed had he thought much about it;
the thing was quite obvious and inevitable. He
had even no definite idea as to what manner of
death to choose; all that mattered was to be done
with it quickly--to have it over and forget. He
had no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife;
but that was of no consequence--a towel
would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window.
That would do; but it must be firm to bear his
weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it
was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and
took a hammer from a drawer. He knocked in the
nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed,
when he suddenly remembered that he had not
said his prayers. Of course, one must pray before
dying; every Christian does that. There are even
special prayers for a departing soul.
He went into the alcove and knelt down before
the crucifix. "Almighty and merciful God----"
he began aloud; and with that broke off and said
no more. Indeed, the world was grown so dull
that there was nothing left to pray for--or against.
And then, what did Christ know about a trouble
of this kind--Christ, who had never suffered it?
He had only been betrayed, like Bolla; He had
never been tricked into betraying.
Arthur rose, crossing himself from old habit.
Approaching the table, he saw lying upon it a
letter addressed to him, in Montanelli's handwriting.
It was in pencil:
"My Dear Boy: It is a great disappointment
to me that I cannot see you on the day of your
release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying
man. I shall not get back till late at night. Come
to me early to-morrow morning. In great haste,
"L. M."
He put down the letter with a sigh; it did seem
hard on the Padre.
How the people had laughed and gossiped in the
streets! Nothing was altered since the days when
he had been alive. Not the least little one of all
the daily trifles round him was changed because a
human soul, a living human soul, had been struck
down dead. It was all just the same as before.
The water had plashed in the fountains; the sparrows
had twittered under the eaves; just as they
had done yesterday, just as they would do to-morrow.
And as for him, he was dead--quite dead.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed his
arms along the foot-rail, and rested his forehead
upon them. There was plenty of time; and his
head ached so--the very middle of the brain
seemed to ache; it was all so dull and stupid--so
utterly meaningless----
. . . . .
The front-door bell rang sharply, and he started
up in a breathless agony of terror, with both hands
at his throat. They had come back--he had sat
there dreaming, and let the precious time slip
away--and now he must see their faces and hear
their cruel tongues--their sneers and comments--
If only he had a knife------
He looked desperately round the room. His
mother's work-basket stood in a little cupboard;
surely there would be scissors; he might sever an
artery. No; the sheet and nail were safer, if he
had time.
He dragged the counterpane from his bed, and
with frantic haste began tearing off a strip. The
sound of footsteps came up the stairs. No; the
strip was too wide; it would not tie firmly; and
there must be a noose. He worked faster as the
footsteps drew nearer; and the blood throbbed in
his temples and roared in his ears. Quicker--
quicker! Oh, God! five minutes more!
There was a knock at the door. The strip of
torn stuff dropped from his hands, and he sat quite
still, holding his breath to listen. The handle of
the door was tried; then Julia's voice called:
"Arthur!"
He stood up, panting.
"Arthur, open the door, please; we are waiting."
He gathered up the torn counterpane, threw it
into a drawer, and hastily smoothed down the
bed.
"Arthur!" This time it was James who called,
and the door-handle was shaken impatiently.
"Are you asleep?"
Arthur looked round the room, saw that everything
was hidden, and unlocked the door.
"I should think you might at least have obeyed
my express request that you should sit up for us,
Arthur," said Julia, sweeping into the room in a
towering passion. "You appear to think it the
proper thing for us to dance attendance for half
an hour at your door----"
"Four minutes, my dear," James mildly corrected,
stepping into the room at the end of his
wife's pink satin train. "I certainly think, Arthur,
that it would have been more--becoming if----"
"What do you want?" Arthur interrupted. He
was standing with his hand upon the door, glancing
furtively from one to the other like a trapped
animal. But James was too obtuse and Julia too
angry to notice the look.
Mr. Burton placed a chair for his wife and sat
down, carefully pulling up his new trousers at the
knees. "Julia and I," he began, "feel it to be our
duty to speak to you seriously about----"
"I can't listen to-night; I--I'm not well. My
head aches--you must wait."
Arthur spoke in a strange, indistinct voice, with
a confused and rambling manner. James looked
round in surprise.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" he
asked anxiously, suddenly remembering that Arthur
had come from a very hotbed of infection.
"I hope you're not sickening for anything. You
look quite feverish."
"Nonsense!" Julia interrupted sharply. "It's
only the usual theatricals, because he's ashamed to
face us. Come here and sit down, Arthur."
Arthur slowly crossed the room and sat down on
the bed. "Yes?" he said wearily.
Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat,
smoothed his already immaculate beard, and began
the carefully prepared speech over again:
"I feel it to be my duty--my painful duty--to
speak very seriously to you about your extraordinary
behaviour in connecting yourself with--a--
law-breakers and incendiaries and--a--persons of
disreputable character. I believe you to have been,
perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----"
He paused.
"Yes?" Arthur said again.
"Now, I do not wish to be hard on you," James
went on, softening a little in spite of himself
before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner.
"I am quite willing to believe that you have been
led away by bad companions, and to take into
account your youth and inexperience and the--a--
a--imprudent and--a--impulsive character which
you have, I fear, inherited from your mother."
Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's
portrait and back again, but he did not speak.
"But you will, I feel sure, understand," James
continued, "that it is quite impossible for me to
keep any longer in my house a person who has
brought public disgrace upon a name so highly
respected as ours."
"Yes?" Arthur repeated once more.
"Well?" said Julia sharply, closing her fan with
a snap and laying it across her knee. "Are you
going to have the goodness to say anything but
'Yes,' Arthur?"
"You will do as you think best, of course," he
answered slowly, without moving. "It doesn't
matter much either way."
"Doesn't--matter?" James repeated, aghast;
and his wife rose with a laugh.
"Oh, it doesn't matter, doesn't it? Well, James,
I hope you understand now how much gratitude
you may expect in that quarter. I told you what
would come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses
and their----"
"Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!"
"It's all nonsense, James; we've had more than
enough of this sentimentality! A love-child setting
himself up as a member of the family--it's
quite time he did know what his mother was!
Why should we be saddled with the child of
a Popish priest's amourettes? There, then--
look!"
She pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of her
pocket and tossed it across the table to Arthur.
He opened it; the writing was in his mother's
hand, and was dated four months before his birth.
It was a confession, addressed to her husband, and
with two signatures.
Arthur's eyes travelled slowly down the page,
past the unsteady letters in which her name was
written, to the strong, familiar signature: "Lorenzo
Montanelli." For a moment he stared at
the writing; then, without a word, refolded the
paper and laid it down. James rose and took his
wife by the arm.
"There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs
now; it's late, and I want to talk a little business
with Arthur. It won't interest you."
She glanced up at her husband; then back at
Arthur, who was silently staring at the floor.
"He seems half stupid," she whispered.
When she had gathered up her train and left the
room, James carefully shut the door and went back
to his chair beside the table. Arthur sat as before,
perfectly motionless and silent.
"Arthur," James began in a milder tone, now
Julia was not there to hear, "I am very sorry that
this has come out. You might just as well not
have known it. However, all that's over; and I
am pleased to see that you can behave with such
self-control. Julia is a--a little excited; ladies
often--anyhow, I don't want to be too hard on
you."
He stopped to see what effect the kindly words
had produced; but Arthur was quite motionless.
"Of course, my dear boy," James went on after
a moment, "this is a distressing story altogether,
and the best thing we can do is to hold our tongues
about it. My father was generous enough not to
divorce your mother when she confessed her fall to
him; he only demanded that the man who had led
her astray should leave the country at once; and,
as you know, he went to China as a missionary.
For my part, I was very much against your having
anything to do with him when he came back; but
my father, just at the last, consented to let him
teach you, on condition that he never attempted to
see your mother. I must, in justice, acknowledge
that I believe they both observed that condition
faithfully to the end. It is a very deplorable
business; but----"
Arthur looked up. All the life and expression
had gone out of his face; it was like a waxen
mask.
"D-don't you think," he said softly, with a curious
stammering hesitation on the words, "th-that--all
this--is--v-very--funny?"
"FUNNY?" James pushed his chair away from
the table, and sat staring at him, too much petrified
for anger. "Funny! Arthur, are you mad?"
Arthur suddenly threw back his head, and burst
into a frantic fit of laughing.
"Arthur!" exclaimed the shipowner, rising with
dignity, "I am amazed at your levity!"
There was no answer but peal after peal of
laughter, so loud and boisterous that even James
began to doubt whether there was not something
more the matter here than levity.
"Just like a hysterical woman," he muttered,
turning, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders,
to tramp impatiently up and down the room.
"Really, Arthur, you're worse than Julia; there,
stop laughing! I can't wait about here all night."
He might as well have asked the crucifix to come
down from its pedestal. Arthur was past caring
for remonstrances or exhortations; he only
laughed, and laughed, and laughed without end.
"This is absurd!" said James, stopping at last
in his irritated pacing to and fro. "You are evidently
too much excited to be reasonable to-night.
I can't talk business with you if you're going on
that way. Come to me to-morrow morning after
breakfast. And now you had better go to bed.
Good-night."
He went out, slamming the door. "Now for the
hysterics downstairs," he muttered as he tramped
noisily away. "I suppose it'll be tears there!"
. . . . .
The frenzied laughter died on Arthur's lips.
He snatched up the hammer from the table and
flung himself upon the crucifix.
With the crash that followed he came suddenly
to his senses, standing before the empty pedestal,
the hammer still in his hand, and the fragments of
the broken image scattered on the floor about his
feet.
He threw down the hammer. "So easy!" he
said, and turned away. "And what an idiot
I am!"
He sat down by the table, panting heavily for
breath, and rested his forehead on both hands.
Presently he rose, and, going to the wash-stand,
poured a jugful of cold water over his head and
face. He came back quite composed, and sat down
to think.
And it was for such things as these--for these
false and slavish people, these dumb and soulless
gods--that he had suffered all these tortures of
shame and passion and despair; had made a rope
to hang himself, forsooth, because one priest was
a liar. As if they were not all liars! Well, all that
was done with; he was wiser now. He need only
shake off these vermin and begin life afresh.
There were plenty of goods vessels in the docks;
it would be an easy matter to stow himself away
in one of them, and get across to Canada, Australia,
Cape Colony--anywhere. It was no matter
for the country, if only it was far enough; and, as
for the life out there, he could see, and if it did not
suit him he could try some other place.
He took out his purse. Only thirty-three paoli;
but his watch was a good one. That would help
him along a bit; and in any case it was of no
consequence--he should pull through somehow. But
they would search for him, all these people; they
would be sure to make inquiries at the docks. No;
he must put them on a false scent--make them
believe him dead; then he should be quite free--
quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the
thought of the Burtons searching for his corpse.
What a farce the whole thing was!
Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words
that occurred to him:
"I believed in you as I believed in God. God
is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a
hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."
He folded up the paper, directed it to Montanelli,
and, taking another sheet, wrote across it:
"Look for my body in Darsena." Then he put on
his hat and went out of the room. Passing his
mother's portrait, he looked up with a laugh
and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied
to him.
He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping
back the door-bolts, went out on to the great,
dark, echoing marble staircase. It seemed to
yawn beneath him like a black pit as he descended.
He crossed the courtyard, treading cautiously
for fear of waking Gian Battista, who slept on the
ground floor. In the wood-cellar at the back was
a little grated window, opening on the canal and
not more than four feet from the ground. He
remembered that the rusty grating had broken away
on one side; by pushing a little he could make an
aperture wide enough to climb out by.
The grating was strong, and he grazed his
hands badly and tore the sleeve of his coat; but
that was no matter. He looked up and down the
street; there was no one in sight, and the canal
lay black and silent, an ugly trench between two
straight and slimy walls. The untried universe
might prove a dismal hole, but it could hardly be
more flat and sordid than the corner which he was
leaving behind him. There was nothing to regret;
nothing to look back upon. It had been a pestilent
little stagnant world, full of squalid lies and clumsy
cheats and foul-smelling ditches that were not
even deep enough to drown a man.
He walked along the canal bank, and came out
upon the tiny square by the Medici palace. It was
here that Gemma had run up to him with her vivid
face, her outstretched hands. Here was the little
flight of wet stone steps leading down to the moat;
and there the fortress scowling across the strip of
dirty water. He had never noticed before how
squat and mean it looked.
Passing through the narrow streets he reached
the Darsena shipping-basin, where he took off his
hat and flung it into the water. It would be
found, of course, when they dragged for his body.
Then he walked on along the water's edge, considering
perplexedly what to do next. He must
contrive to hide on some ship; but it was a difficult
thing to do. His only chance would be to
get on to the huge old Medici breakwater and
walk along to the further end of it. There was a
low-class tavern on the point; probably he should
find some sailor there who could be bribed.
But the dock gates were closed. How should
he get past them, and past the customs officials?
His stock of money would not furnish the high
bribe that they would demand for letting him
through at night and without a passport. Besides
they might recognize him.
As he passed the bronze statue of the "Four
Moors," a man's figure emerged from an old house
on the opposite side of the shipping basin and
approached the bridge. Arthur slipped at once
into the deep shadow behind the group of statuary
and crouched down in the darkness, peeping
cautiously round the corner of the pedestal.
It was a soft spring night, warm and starlit.
The water lapped against the stone walls of the
basin and swirled in gentle eddies round the steps
with a sound as of low laughter. Somewhere near
a chain creaked, swinging slowly to and fro. A
huge iron crane towered up, tall and melancholy
in the dimness. Black on a shimmering expanse of
starry sky and pearly cloud-wreaths, the figures
of the fettered, struggling slaves stood out in
vain and vehement protest against a merciless
doom.
The man approached unsteadily along the water
side, shouting an English street song. He was
evidently a sailor returning from a carouse at some
tavern. No one else was within sight. As he
drew near, Arthur stood up and stepped into the
middle of the roadway. The sailor broke off in
his song with an oath, and stopped short.
"I want to speak to you," Arthur said in
Italian. "Do you understand me?"
The man shook his head. "It's no use talking
that patter to me," he said; then, plunging into
bad French, asked sullenly: "What do you want?
Why can't you let me pass?"
"Just come out of the light here a minute; I
want to speak to you."
"Ah! wouldn't you like it? Out of the light!
Got a knife anywhere about you?"
"No, no, man! Can't you see I only want your
help? I'll pay you for it?"
"Eh? What? And dressed like a swell,
too------" The sailor had relapsed into English.
He now moved into the shadow and leaned against
the railing of the pedestal.
"Well," he said, returning to his atrocious
French; "and what is it you want?"
"I want to get away from here----"
"Aha! Stowaway! Want me to hide you?
Been up to something, I suppose. Stuck a knife
into somebody, eh? Just like these foreigners!
And where might you be wanting to go? Not
to the police station, I fancy?"
He laughed in his tipsy way, and winked one eye.
"What vessel do you belong to?"
"Carlotta--Leghorn to Buenos Ayres; shipping
oil one way and hides the other. She's over
there"--pointing in the direction of the breakwater
--"beastly old hulk!"
"Buenos Ayres--yes! Can you hide me anywhere on board?"
"How much can you give?"
"Not very much; I have only a few paoli."
"No. Can't do it under fifty--and cheap at
that, too--a swell like you."
"What do you mean by a swell? If you like my
clothes you may change with me, but I can't give
you more money than I have got."
"You have a watch there. Hand it over."
Arthur took out a lady's gold watch, delicately
chased and enamelled, with the initials "G. B." on
the back. It had been his mother's--but what
did that matter now?
"Ah!" remarked the sailor with a quick glance
at it. "Stolen, of course! Let me look!"
Arthur drew his hand away. "No," he said.
"I will give you the watch when we are on board;
not before."
"You're not such a fool as you look, after all!
I'll bet it's your first scrape, though, eh?"
"That is my business. Ah! there comes the
watchman."
They crouched down behind the group of statuary
and waited till the watchman had passed.
Then the sailor rose, and, telling Arthur to follow
him, walked on, laughing foolishly to himself.
Arthur followed in silence.
The sailor led him back to the little irregular
square by the Medici palace; and, stopping in a
dark corner, mumbled in what was intended for a
cautious whisper:
"Wait here; those soldier fellows will see you
if you come further."
"What are you going to do?"
"Get you some clothes. I'm not going to take
you on board with that bloody coatsleeve."
Arthur glanced down at the sleeve which had
been torn by the window grating. A little blood
from the grazed hand had fallen upon it. Evidently
the man thought him a murderer. Well,
it was of no consequence what people thought.
After some time the sailor came back, triumphant,
with a bundle under his arm.
"Change," he whispered; "and make haste
about it. I must get back, and that old Jew has
kept me bargaining and haggling for half an
hour."
Arthur obeyed, shrinking with instinctive disgust
at the first touch of second-hand clothes.
Fortunately these, though rough and coarse, were
fairly clean. When he stepped into the light in
his new attire, the sailor looked at him with tipsy
solemnity and gravely nodded his approval.
"You'll do," he said. "This way, and don't
make a noise." Arthur, carrying his discarded
clothes, followed him through a labyrinth of winding
canals and dark narrow alleys; the mediaeval
slum quarter which the people of Leghorn call
"New Venice." Here and there a gloomy old
palace, solitary among the squalid houses and
filthy courts, stood between two noisome ditches,
with a forlorn air of trying to preserve its ancient
dignity and yet of knowing the effort to be a hopeless
one. Some of the alleys, he knew, were
notorious dens of thieves, cut-throats, and smugglers;
others were merely wretched and poverty-stricken.
Beside one of the little bridges the sailor
stopped, and, looking round to see that they were
not observed, descended a flight of stone steps to
a narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a
dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply ordering Arthur
to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the
boat and began rowing towards the harbour's
mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and leaky
planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had
thrown over him, and peeping out from under
them at the familiar streets and houses.
Presently they passed under a bridge and
entered that part of the canal which forms a moat
for the fortress. The massive walls rose out of
the water, broad at the base and narrowing upward
to the frowning turrets. How strong, how
threatening they had seemed to him a few hours
ago! And now----
He laughed softly as he lay in the bottom of the
boat.
"Hold your noise," the sailor whispered, "and
keep your head covered! We're close to the
custom house."
Arthur drew the clothes over his head. A few
yards further on the boat stopped before a row of
masts chained together, which lay across the surface
of the canal, blocking the narrow waterway
between the custom house and the fortress wall.
A sleepy official came out yawning and bent over
the water's edge with a lantern in his hand.
"Passports, please."
The sailor handed up his official papers.
Arthur, half stifled under the clothes, held his
breath, listening.
"A nice time of night to come back to your
ship!" grumbled the customs official. "Been out
on the spree, I suppose. What's in your boat?"
"Old clothes. Got them cheap." He held up
the waistcoat for inspection. The official, lowering
his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.
"It's all right, I suppose. You can pass."
He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly
out into the dark, heaving water. At a little distance
Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.
"Here she is," the sailor whispered, after rowing
for some time in silence. "Keep close behind me
and hold your tongue."
He clambered up the side of a huge black monster,
swearing under his breath at the clumsiness
of the landsman, though Arthur's natural agility
rendered him less awkward than most people
would have been in his place. Once safely on
board, they crept cautiously between dark masses
of rigging and machinery, and came at last to a
hatchway, which the sailor softly raised.
"Down here!" he whispered. "I'll be back in
a minute."
The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably
foul. At first Arthur instinctively drew
back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and
rancid oil. Then he remembered the "punishment
cell," and descended the ladder, shrugging
his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same
everywhere, it seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with
vermin, full of shameful secrets and dark corners.
Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.
In a few minutes the sailor came back with
something in his hands which Arthur could not
distinctly see for the darkness.
"Now, give me the watch and money. Make
haste!"
Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded
in keeping back a few coins.
"You must get me something to eat," he said;
"I am half starved."
"I've brought it. Here you are." The sailor
handed him a pitcher, some hard biscuit, and a
piece of salt pork. "Now mind, you must hide
in this empty barrel, here, when the customs officers
come to examine to-morrow morning. Keep
as still as a mouse till we're right out at sea. I'll
let you know when to come out. And won't you
just catch it when the captain sees you--that's
all! Got the drink safe? Good-night!"
The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the
precious "drink" in a safe place, climbed on to an
oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he
curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the
first time since his babyhood, settled himself to
sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round
him in the darkness; but neither their persistent
noise nor the swaying of the ship, nor the nauseating
stench of oil, nor the prospect of to-morrow's
sea-sickness, could keep him awake. He
cared no more for them all than for the broken and
dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been
the gods of his adoration.
