The Wheat Princess

‘Now we’ll lock the house,’ Sybert added in an undertone, ‘so that when our friends come to call they will have to come the front way.’

He closed the window softly and examined with approval the inside shutters. They were made of solid wood with heavy iron bolts and hinges. The villa had been planned in the old days before the police force was as efficient as now, and it was quite prepared to stand a siege.

‘It will take considerable strength to open these, and some noise,’ he remarked as he swung the shutters to and shot the bolts.

They groped their way out and went from room to room, closing and bolting the windows and doors with as little noise as possible. Sybert appeared, to Marcia’s astonished senses, to be in an unusually light-hearted frame of mind. Once or twice he laughed softly, and once, when her hand touched his in the dark, she felt that same warm thrill run through her as on that other moonlight night.

They came last to the big vaulted dining-room which had served as chapel in the devotional days of the Vivalanti. The three glass doors at the end were open to the moonlight, which flooded the apartment, softening the crude outlines of the frescoes on the ceiling to the beauty of old masters. Sybert paused with his back to the doors to look up and down approvingly.

‘Do you know, it isn’t half bad in this light,’ he remarked casually to Marcia. ‘That old fellow up there,’ he nodded toward Bacchus reclining among the vines in the central panelling, ‘might be a Michelangelo in the moonlight, and in the sunlight he isn’t even a Carlo Dolci.’

Marcia stared. What could he be thinking of to choose this time of all others to be making art criticisms? Never had she heard him express the slightest interest in the subject before. She had been under so great a strain for so long, such a succession of shocks, that she was nearly at the end of her self-control. And then to have Sybert acting in this unprecedented way! She looked past him out of the door toward the black shadow of the ilexes, and shuddered as she thought of what they might conceal. The next moment Sybert had stepped out on to the balcony.

‘Mr. Sybert!’ she cried aghast. ‘They may be watching us. Come back.’

He laughed and seated himself sidewise on the iron railing. ‘If they’re watching us, they’re doubtless wondering why we’re closing the house so carefully. We’ll stop here a few minutes and let them see we’re unsuspicious; that we’re just shutting the doors for fear of draughts and not of burglars.’

‘They’ll shoot you,’ she gasped, her eyes upon his white suit, which made a shining target in the moonlight.

‘Nonsense, Miss Marcia! They couldn’t hit me if they tried.’ He marked the distance to the grove with a calculating eye. ‘There’s no danger of their trying, however. They won’t risk giving their plot away just for the sake of nabbing me; I’m not King Humbert. They don’t hate me as much as that.’ He leaned forward with another laugh. ‘Come out and talk to me, Miss Marcia. Let me see how brave you are.’

Marcia flattened herself against the wall. ‘I’m not brave. Please come back, Mr. Sybert. We must tell Uncle Howard.’

If Marcia did not know Sybert to-night, he did not know himself. He was under a greater strain than she. He had sworn that he would not see her again, and he had weakly come to-night; he had promised himself that he would not talk to her, that he would not by the slightest sign betray his feelings, and he found himself thrown with her under the most intimate conditions. They shared a secret; they were in danger together. It was within the realms of possibility that he would be killed to-night. The Camorrists had attempted it before; they might succeed this time. He actually did not care; he almost welcomed the notion. Ambition was dead within him; he had nothing to live for and he was reckless. He thought that Marcia was in love with another man, but he dimly divined his own influence over her. Once at least, he told himself—once, before she went back to the boy she had chosen, she should acknowledge his power; she should bend her will to his. He knew that she was frightened, but she should conquer her fear. She should come out into the moonlight and stand beside him, hand in hand, facing the shadows of the ilex grove.

He bent forward, watching her as she stood in her white evening gown outlined against the dark tapestry of the wall, her face surrounded by glowing hair, her grey eyes big with amazement and fear.

He stretched out his hand toward her. ‘Marcia,’ he called in a low, insistent tone. ‘Come here, Marcia. Come out here and stand beside me, or I shall think you are a coward.’

She turned aside with a little shuddering gasp and hid her head against the wall. What if they should shoot him in the back as he sat there?

Sybert suddenly came to himself and sprang forward with an apology. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Marcia; I didn’t mean to frighten you. I don’t know what I’m saying.’

He began closing the doors and shutters farthest away. As he reached her side he paused and looked at her. Her eyes were shut and she did not move. He closed and barred the last shutter, and they stood silent in the dark. Marcia was struggling to control herself. ‘I shall think you a coward,’ was ringing in her ears. She had borne a great deal to-day, from the moment when she had first seen the man asleep in the grass; and now, as she opened her eyes in the darkness, a sudden rush of fear swept over her such as she had experienced in the old wine-cellar. It was not fear of any definite thing; she could be as brave as any one in the face of visible danger. It was merely a wild, unreasoning sensation of physical terror, bred of the dark and overwrought nerves. She stretched out her hand and touched Sybert to be sure he was there. The next moment she was beyond herself. ‘I’m afraid,’ she sobbed out, and she clung to him convulsively.

She felt him put his arm around her. ‘Marcia! My dear little girl. There’s nothing to be afraid of. When they find we are on our guard they won’t dare molest us. Nothing can hurt you.’ It was so exactly his tone to Gerald, she would have laughed had she not been crying too hard to stop. Then suddenly his arms tightened about her. ‘Marcia,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘Marcia,’ and he bent his head until his lips touched hers. They stood for an instant without moving; then she felt him become quickly rigid as he dropped his arms and gently loosened her hands. They groped their way into the hall without a word, and neither looked at the other. They were both ashamed. The tears still stood in Marcia’s eyes, but her cheeks were scarlet. And Sybert was pale beneath the olive of his skin.

He stepped to the threshold of the salon. ‘Ah, Copley,’ he said in a low tone. ‘Are you nearly through? I want to tell you something.’

Copley waved him off without looking up. ‘Sh—it’s a crucial moment. Don’t interrupt. The scores are even and only one hand more to play. I’ll be out in a few minutes.’

Marcia sat down in a chair on the loggia. It was on the opposite side of the house from the ilex grove, and besides, her spasm of fear had passed. Everything was blotted out of her mind except what had just happened. Her thoughts, her feelings, were in wild commotion; but one thing stood out clearly. She had thrown herself into his arms and he had kissed her; and then—he had unloosed her hands. She shut her eyes and winced at the thought; she felt that she could never face him again.

And on the other end of the loggia Sybert was pacing up and down, lighting cigarettes and throwing them away. He, too, was fiercely calling himself names. He had frightened her when he knew that she was beside herself with nervousness; he had taken advantage of the fact that she did not know what she was doing; he knew that she was engaged to Paul Dessart, and he had forgotten that he was a gentleman. With a quick glance toward the salon, he threw away his cigarette, and crossing the loggia, he sat down in a chair at Marcia’s side. She shrank back quickly, and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his eyes on the brick floor.

‘Marcia,’ he said in a tone so low that it was barely audible, ‘I love you. I know you don’t care for me; I know you are engaged to another man. I didn’t mean to see you again; most of all I didn’t mean to tell you. I had no right to take advantage of you when you were off your guard, but—I couldn’t help it; I’m not so strong as I thought I was. Please forgive me and forget about it.’

Marcia drew a deep breath and shut her eyes. Her throat suddenly felt hot and dry. The rush of joy that swept over her made her feel that she could face anything. She had but to say, ‘I am not engaged to another man,’ and all would come right. She raised her head and looked back into Sybert’s deep eyes. It was he this time who dropped his gaze.

‘Mr. Sybert–’ she whispered.

A shadow suddenly fell between them, and they both sprang to their feet with a little exclamation. A man was standing before them as unexpectedly as though he had risen from the earth or dropped from the sky. He was short and thick-set, with coarsely accentuated features; he wore a loose white shirt and a red cotton sash, and though the shirt was fastened at the throat, Marcia could see the mark of the crucifix on his brown skin as plainly as if it were visible.

‘It’s the tattooed man!’ she gasped out, but as she felt Sybert’s restraining touch on her arm she calmed herself.

The man took off his hat with a polite bow and an impertinent smile.

‘Buona sera, signorina,’ he murmured. ‘Buona sera, Friend of the Poor. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I come on business molto urgente.’

‘What is your business?’ Sybert asked sharply.

‘My business is with Signor Copley.’

‘What is this? Some one to see me?’ Copley asked, appearing in the doorway. ‘Well, my man,’ he added in Italian, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘Uncle Howard, don’t speak to him! It’s the tattooed man,’ Marcia cried. ‘There’s a plot. He wants to kill you.’

An expression approaching amusement flitted over Mr. Copley’s face as he looked his visitor over.

‘I wish to speak to the signore alone, in private, on urgent business,’ the man reiterated, looking scowlingly from one face to the other. He did not understand the foreign language they spoke among themselves, and he felt that it gave them an advantage.

‘Don’t speak to him alone,’ Sybert warned. ‘He’s dangerous.’

‘Well, what do you want?’ Copley demanded peremptorily. ‘Say whatever you have to say here.’

The man glanced at Marcia and Sybert, and then, shrugging his shoulders in true Italian fashion, turned to Copley.

‘I wish the money of the poor,’ he said.

‘The money of the poor? I haven’t any money of the poor.’

‘Si, si, signore. The money you stole from the mouths of the poor—the wheat money.’

Marcia shuddered at the word ‘wheat.’ It seemed to her that it would follow her to her dying day.

‘Ah! So it’s the wheat money, is it? Well, my good man, that happens to be my money. I didn’t steal it from the mouths of the poor. I bought the wheat myself to give to the poor, and I sold it for half as much as I paid for it; and with the money I intend to buy more wheat. In the meantime, however, I shall keep it in my own hands.’

‘You don’t remember me, signore, but I remember you. We met in Naples.’

Copley bowed. ‘On which occasion I put you in jail—a pleasure I shall avail myself of a second time if you trouble me any further.’

‘I have come for the money.’

‘You fool! Do you think I carry thirty thousand lire around in my pockets? The money is in the Banca d’Italia in Rome. You may call there if you wish it.’

The man put his hands to his mouth and whistled.

‘Ah! It’s a plot, is it!’ Copley exclaimed.

‘Si, signore. It is a plot, and there are those who will carry it out.’

He turned with an angry snarl, and before Sybert could spring forward to stop him he had snatched a stiletto from his girdle. Copley threw up his arm to protect himself, and received the blow in the shoulder. Before the man could strike again, Sybert was upon him and had thrown him backward across the balustrade. At the same moment half a dozen men burst from the ilex grove and ran across the terrace; and one of them—it was Pietro—levelled the stolen rifle as he ran.

‘Back into the house!’ Sybert shouted, ‘and bar the salon windows.’ He himself sprang back to the threshold and snatched out his revolver. ‘You fools!’ he cried to the Italians in front. ‘We’re all armed men. We’ll shoot you like dogs.’

For answer Pietro fired the rifle, and the glass of an upper window crashed.

Sybert closed the door and dropped the bar across it. He faced the excited group in the hall with a little laugh. ‘If that’s a specimen of his marksmanship, we haven’t much to fear from Pietro.’

He glanced quickly from one to the other. Marcia, in the salon, was slamming the shutters down. Mrs. Melville and Mrs. Copley were standing in the doorway with white faces, too amazed to move. Copley, in the middle of the hall, with his right arm hanging limp, was dripping blood on the marble pavement while he loudly called for a pistol; and Melville was standing on a chair hastily tearing from the wall a collection of fourteenth-century Florentine arms.

‘Pietro’s got your pistol,’ Sybert said. ‘But I’ve got five shots in mine, and we’ll do for the sixth man with one of those bludgeons. I ought to have shot that tattooed fellow when I had the chance—he’s the leader—but I’ll make up for it yet.’

A storm of blows on the door behind him brought out another laugh. ‘That door is as solid as the side of the house. They can hammer on it all night without getting in.’

The assailants had evidently arrived at the same conclusion, for the blows ceased while they consulted. A crash of glass in the salon followed, and Sybert sprang in there, calling to Melville to guard the hall window. The shutters held against the first impact of the men’s bodies, and they drew off for a minute and then redoubled the blows. They were evidently using the butt of the rifle as a battering-ram, and the stoutest of hinges could not long withstand such usage. With a groan one side of the shutter gave way and swung inward on a single hinge.

‘Put out the lights,’ Sybert called over his shoulder to Marcia, and he fired a shot through the aperture. The assailants fell back with groans and curses, but the next moment, raising the cry, ‘Avanti! Avanti!’ they came on with a rush, the Camorrist leading with the stolen revolver in his hand. Sybert took deliberate aim and fired. The man slowly sank to his knees and fell forward on his face. His comrades dragged him back.

Marcia, in the darkness behind, shut her eyes and clenched her hands. It was the first time she had ever seen a person die, and the sight was sickening. The men withdrew from the window and those waiting inside heard them consulting in low, angry guttural tones. The next moment there was a crash of glass at the hall window which opened into the loggia, and again the rifle as a battering-ram.

‘Ah!’ said Sybert under his breath, and he thrust the revolver into Marcia’s hand. ‘Quick, take that to Melville and bring me one of those spiked truncheons. We’ll make ’em think we’ve got a regular arsenal in here.’

Marcia obeyed without a word, and the next moment shots and cries rang out in the hall. She had scarcely placed the unwieldy weapon in Sybert’s hands when another man thrust himself into the salon opening. They had evidently determined to divide their forces and attack the two breaches at once. Both Marcia and Sybert recognized the man instantly. It was Tarquinio, the son of Domenico, the baker of Castel Vivalanti.

‘Tarquinio! You fool! Go back,’ Sybert cried.

‘Ah-h—Signor Siberti!’ the young fellow cried as he lunged forward with a stiletto. ‘You have betrayed us!’

Sybert shut his lips, and reversing the truncheon, struck him with the handle a ringing blow on the head. Tarquinio fell forward into the darkness of the room, and the moonlight streamed in on his bloody face.

Sybert bent over him a moment with white lips. ‘You poor fool!’ he muttered. ‘I had to do it.’

The next moment Marcia uttered a joyous cry that rang through the rooms.

‘Listen!’

A silence of ten seconds followed, while both besieged and besiegers held their breath. The sound was unmistakable—a shout far down the avenue and the beat of galloping hoofs.

‘The soldiers!’ she cried, and the men outside, as if they had understood the word, echoed the cry.

‘I soldati! I soldati!’

The next moment a dozen carabinieri swept into sight, the moonlight gleaming brightly on their white cross-belts and polished mountings. The men on the loggia dropped their weapons and dashed for cover, while the soldiers leaped from their horses and with spiked muskets chased them into the trees.

Sybert hastily bent over Tarquinio and dragged him back into the shadow.

‘Is he alive?’ Marcia whispered.

‘He’s only stunned. And, poor fellow, he doesn’t know any better; he was nothing but their dupe. It’s a pity to send him to the galleys for life.’

They dropped a rug over the man and turned into the hall, which was hot with the smell of powder and smoking candles. Sybert threw the door wide and let the moonlight stream in. It was a queer sight it looked upon. Copley, weak from his wound, had collapsed into a tall carved chair, while the two ladies, in blood-stained evening dresses, were anxiously bending over him. Melville, with the still smoking revolver in his hand and a jewelled dagger sticking from his pocket, was frenziedly inquiring, ‘For the Lord’s sake, has any one got any whisky?’ Gerald, in his white nightgown and little bare legs, was howling dismally on the stairway; while Granton, from the landing, looked grimly down upon the scene with the air of an avenging Nemesis. The next moment the soldiers had come trooping in, and everything was a babel of cries and ejaculations and excited questions. In the midst of the confusion Mrs. Copley suddenly drew herself up and pronounced her ultimatum.

‘On the very first steamer that sails, we are going back to America to live!’

Marcia uttered a little hysterical laugh, and Melville joined in.

‘And I think you’d better go with them, my boy,’ he said, laying a grimy hand on Sybert’s arm. ‘I suspect that your goose is pretty thoroughly cooked in Italy.’

Sybert shook the elder man’s hand off, with a short laugh that was not very mirthful.

‘I’ve suspected that for some time.’ And he turned on his heel and strode out to the loggia, where he began talking with the soldiers.

‘Poor fellow!’ Melville glanced at Marcia and shook his head. ‘It’s a bad dose!’ he murmured. ‘I have a curiosity to see with what grace he swallows it.’

Marcia looked after Sybert with eyes that were filled with sympathy. She realized that it was a bitter time for him, though she did not know just why; but she had seen the spasm that crossed his face at Tarquinio’s cry, ‘You have betrayed us!’ She half started to follow him, and then she drew back quickly. Through the open door she had caught a glimpse of Sybert and a soldier bending over the Camorrist’s body. They had opened his shirt in front, and she had seen the purple crucifix covered with blood. She leaned back against the wall, faint at the sight. It seemed as if the impressions of this dreadful day could never leave her!

CHAPTER XXV

Mr. Copley’s wounded arm was bandaged the best that they could manage and a soldier dispatched to Palestrina for a doctor. Gerald was put to bed and quieted for the third time that night, and the excitement in the house was subsiding to a murmur when Marcia came downstairs again. Melville met her by the door of the loggia, evidently anxious that she should not go out. She had no desire to; she had seen more than she cared to see.

‘We have caught two of the men,’ he said; ‘but I am afraid that the rest have got off—that precious butler of yours among them.’

‘Where is Mr. Sybert?’ she asked. The thought of Tarquinio had suddenly occurred to her; she had forgotten him in the distraction of helping with her uncle.

‘He’s locking the house.’

‘I will see if I can help him,’ and she turned into the salon.

Melville looked after her with a momentary smile. He had a theory which his wife did not share.

Marcia passed through the empty salon and the little ante-room, and hesitated with her hand on the dining-room door. She had a premonition that he was within; she turned the knob softly and entered.

Sybert sprang up with a quick exclamation. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said. ‘I thought I had locked the door. Draw the bolt, please. I brought him in here and I’m trying to bring him round. If they find him he’ll be sent to the galleys, and it seems a pity. He’s got a wife and child to support.’

Marcia looked down on the floor where Tarquinio was lying. Sybert had thrown the glass doors open again and the moonlight was flooding the room. A towel, folded into a rough bandage, was wrapped around the young Italian’s head, and his pale face beneath it had all the dark, tragic beauty of his race.

‘Poor man!’ she exclaimed as she bent over him. ‘Are you sure he’s alive?’ she asked, starting back.

‘Heavens, yes! It takes more than that knock to kill one of these peasants. He groaned when I carried him in. Here, let me give him some whisky.’

He raised the man’s head and pressed the flask to his lip. Tarquinio groaned again, and presently he opened his eyes. Sybert raised him to a sitting posture against the wall. For a moment his glance wandered about the room, uncomprehendingly, dully. Then, as it fixed upon Sybert, a wild, fierce light suddenly sprang into his eyes. ‘Traitor!’ he gasped out, and he struggled to his feet.

Again Marcia saw that quick look of pain shoot over Sybert’s face; he swallowed a couple of times before speaking, and when he did speak his voice was hard and cold.

‘Can you walk? Then climb over that railing and get away as fast as you can. The soldiers are here, and if they find you they will send you to the galleys—not that it would be any great loss,’ he added with a contemptuous laugh. ‘Italy has no need of such men as you.’

Something of the fierceness faded from the young fellow’s face, and he looked back with the pleading, child-like eyes of the Italian peasant. The two men watched each other a moment without speaking, then Tarquinio turned to the open door with a shrug of the shoulders—Young Italy’s philosophy of life.

They stood silently looking after him as he let himself down to the ground and unsteadily crossed the open space to the shadow of the grove. Sybert was the first to move. He turned aside with a tired sigh that was half a groan, and dropping into a chair, rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. All the wild buoyancy that had kept him through the evening had left him, and there was nothing in its place but a dull, unreasoning despair. For the last few weeks he had been glancing at the truth askance. To-night he was looking it full in the face. The people no longer trusted him; he could do no more good in Italy; his work was at an end. Why had they not killed him? That would have been the appropriate conclusion.

Marcia, watching his bowed figure, dimly divined what was going on within his mind. She hesitated a moment, and then with a quick impulse laid her arm about his neck. ‘There isn’t any one but you,’ she whispered.

He sat for a moment, motionless, and then he slowly raised his eyes to hers. ‘What do you mean, Marcia?’

‘I love you.’

‘And—you’re free to marry me?’

She nodded.

He sprang to his feet with a deep, shuddering breath of relief. ‘I’ve lost Italy, Marcia, but I’ve found you!’

She smiled up at him through her tears, and he looked back with sombre eyes.

‘You aren’t getting much of a man,’ he said brokenly. ‘I—was just thinking of shooting myself.’

A quick tremor passed over her, and she drew his face down close to hers and kissed it.

They stood for a long time on the little balcony, hand in hand, facing the shadows of the ilex grove; but the shadows no longer seemed black, because of the light in their own souls. He talked to her of his past—frankly, freely—and of Italy, his adopted land. He told her what he had tried to do and wherein he had failed. And as she listened, many things that had puzzled her, that had seemed enigmas in his character, assumed their right relations. The dark glass that had half hidden his motives, that had contorted his actions, suddenly cleared before her eyes. She saw the inherent sweetness and strength of his nature beneath his reserve, his apparent indifference. And as he told the story of Italy, of the sacrifices and valour and singleness of purpose that had gone to the making of the nation, there crept involuntarily a triumphant ring into his voice. The note of despondency that had dominated him for the past few months disappeared; for, as he dwelt upon the positive things that had been accomplished, they seemed to take shape and stand out clearly against the dimmer background of unaccomplished hopes. The remembrance of the nation’s smaller mistakes and faults and crimes had vanished in the larger view. The story that he had to tell was the story of a great people and a great land. There had been patriots in the past; there would be patriots in the future. The same strength that had made the nation would build it up and carry it on.