A Spirit in Prison Part 40

The prow of the launch struck a wave which burst over the bows, scattering spray to the roof of the cabin.

"But I like it, I love it!" said Vere. "Don't you?--don't you, Madre?"

Before Hermione could reply the Marchesino exclaimed:

"Signorina, in the breast of an angel you have the heart of a lion! The sea will never harm you. How could it? It will treat you as it treats the Saint of your pool, San Francesco. You know what the sailors and the fishermen say? In the wildest storms, when the sea crashes upon the rocks, never, never does it touch San Francesco. Never does it put out the lamp that burns at San Francesco's feet."

"Yes, I have heard them say that," Vere said.

Suddenly her face had become serious. The romance in the belief of the seamen had got hold of her, had touched her. The compliment to herself she ignored. Indeed, she had already forgotten it.

"Only the other night--" she began.

But she stopped suddenly.

"You know," she said, changing to something else, "that when the fishermen pa.s.s under San Francesco's pedestal they bend down, and lift a little water from the sea, and sprinkle it into the boat, and make the sign of the cross. They call it 'acqua benedetta.' I love to see them do that."

Another big wave struck the launch and made it s.h.i.+ver. The Marchesino crossed himself, but quite mechanically. He was intent on Vere.

"I wonder," the girl said, "whether to-night San Francesco will not be beaten by the waves, whether his light will be burning when we reach the island."

She paused, then she added, in a lower voice:

"I do hope it will--don't you, Madre?"

"Yes, Vere," said her mother.

Something in her mother's voice made the girl look up at her swiftly, then put a hand into hers, a hand that was all sympathy. She felt that just then her mother's imagination was almost, or quite, one with hers.

The lights of Naples were gone, swallowed by the blackness of the storm.

And the tiny light at the feet of the Saint, of San Francesco, who protected the men of the sea, and the boys--Ruffo, too!--would it greet them, star of the sea to their pool, star of the sea to their island, their Casa del Mare, when they had battled through the storm to San Francesco's feet?

"I do hope it will."

Why did Hermione's heart echo Vere's words with such a strenuous and sudden pa.s.sion, such a deep desire? She scarcely knew then. But she knew that she wanted a light to be s.h.i.+ning for her when she neared home--longed for it, needed it specially that night. If San Francesco's lamp were burning quietly amid the fury of the sea in such a blackness as this about them--well, it would seem like an omen. She would take it as an omen of happiness.

And if it were not burning?

She, too, longed to be outside with Gaspare and the sailors, staring into the darkness with eyes keen as those of a seaman, looking for the light. Since Vere's last words and her reply they had sat in silence.

Even the Marchesino's vivacity was suddenly abated, either by the increasing violence of the storm or by the change in Vere. It would have been difficult to say by which. The lightning flashed. The thunder at moments seemed to split the sky asunder as a charge of gunpowder splits asunder a rock. The head wind rushed by, yet had never pa.s.sed them, but was forever coming furiously to meet them. On the roof of the little cabin the rain made a noise that was no longer like the rustle of silk, but was like the crackle of musketry.

There was something oppressive, something even almost terrible, in being closely confined, shut in by low roof and narrow walls from such sweeping turbulence, such a clamor of wind and water and the sky.

Hermione looked at her diamond brooch, then at her cloak.

Slowly she lifted her hand and began to b.u.t.ton it.

Vere moved and began to b.u.t.ton up hers. Hermione glanced at her, and saw a watchful, s.h.i.+ning, half-humorous, half-pa.s.sionate look in her eyes that could not be mistaken.

She dropped her hands.

"No, Vere!"

"Yes, Madre! Yes, yes, yes!"

The Marchesino stared.

"No, I did not--"

"You did! You did, Madre! It's no use! I understood directly."

She began quickly to take off her hat.

"Marchese, we are going out."

"Vere, this is absurd."

"We are going outside, Marchese. Madre wants air."

The Marchesino, accustomed only to the habits and customs of Neapolitan women, looked frankly as if he thought Hermione mad.

"Poor Madre must have a breath of air."

"I will open the window, Signora!"

"And the rain all over her, and the thunder close above her, and the sea in her face, the sea--the sea!"

She clapped her hands.

"Gaspare! Gaspare!"

She put her face to the gla.s.s. Gaspare, who was standing up in the stern, with his hands holding fast to the rail that edged the cabin roof, bent down till his brown face was on a level with hers, and his big eyes were staring inquiringly into her eyes.

"We are coming out."

On the other side of the gla.s.s Gaspare made violently negative gestures.

One word only came to those inside the cabin through the uproar of the elements.

"Impossible!"

"Signorina," said the Marchesino, "you cannot mean it. But you will be washed off. And the water--you will be drowned. It cannot be."

"Marchese, look at Madre! If she stays inside another minute she will be ill. She is stifling! Quickly! Quickly!"

The Marchesino, whose sense of humor was not of a kind to comprehend this freak of Vere's, was for once really taken aback. There were two sliding doors to the cabin, one opening into the bows of the launch, the other into the stern. He got up, looking very grave and rather confused, and opened the former. The wind rushed in, carrying with it spray from the sea. At the same moment there was a loud tapping on the gla.s.s behind them. Vere looked round. Gaspare was crouching down with his face against the pane. She put her ear to the gla.s.s by his mouth.

"Signorina, you must not go into the bows," he called. "If you will come out, come here, and I will take care of you."

He knew Vere's love of the sea and understood her desire.