Sir John Constantine Part 29

I did not actually fall more than a third of the distance, for I saved myself by clutching at a clematis which laced its coils, thick as a man's wrist, across the cleft. But I know that the hole cannot have been less than twenty feet deep, for I had to descend to the bottom of it to recover my musket.

That fall committed me, too. Within five minutes of my first introduction to the _macchia_ I had learnt how easily a man may be lost in it; and in less than half of five minutes I had lost not only my way but my temper. To pursue after the hogs was nearly hopeless: all sound of them was swallowed up in the tangle of scrub. Yet I held on, crawling through thickets of lentisk, tangling my legs in creepers, pus.h.i.+ng my head into clumps of cactus, here tearing my hands and boots on sharp granite, there ripping my clothes on p.r.i.c.kly thorns. Once I found what appeared to be a goat-track. It led to another cleft of rock, where, beating down the briers, I looked down a chasm which ended, thirty feet below, in a whole brake of cacti.

The scent of the crushed plants was divine: and I crushed a plenty of them.

After a struggle which must have lasted from twenty minutes to half an hour, I gained the ridge which had seemed but three minutes away, and there sat down to a silent lesson in geography. I had given up all hope of following the hogs or discovering my comrades. I knew now what it means to search for a needle in a bottle of hay, but with many p.r.i.c.kles I had gathered some wisdom, and learnt that, whether I decided to go forward or to retreat, I must survey the _macchia_ before attempting it again.

To go forward without a clue would be folly, as well as unfair to my father, whom my two shots must have alarmed. I decided therefore to retreat, but first to mount a craggy pile of granite some fifty yards on my left, which would give me not only a better survey of the bush, but perhaps even a view over the tree-tops and down upon the bay where the _Gauntlet_ lay at anchor. If so, by the movements on board I might learn whether or not my father had reached her with his commands before taking my alarm.

The crags were not easy to climb: but, having hitched the musket in my bandolier, I could use both hands, and so pulled myself up by the creepers which festooned the rock here and there in swags as thick as the _Gauntlet's_ hawser. Disappointment met me on the summit.

The trees allowed me but sight of the blue horizon; they still hid the sh.o.r.es of the bay and our anchorage. My eminence, however, showed me a track, fairly well defined, crossing the _macchia_ and leading back to the wood.

I was conning this when a shout in my rear fetched me right-about face. Towards me, down and across the farther ridge I saw a man running--Nat Fiennes!

He had caught sight of me on my rock against the skyline, and as he ran he waved his arms frantically, motioning to me to run also for the woods. I could see no pursuer; but still, as he came on, his arms waved, and were waving yet when a bush on the chine above him threw out a little puff of grey smoke. Toppling headlong into the bushes he was lost to me even before the report rang on my ears across the hollow.

I dropped on my knees for a grip on the creepers, swung myself down the face of the crag, and within ten seconds was lost in the _macchia_ again, fighting my way through it to the spot where Nat lay. Wherever the scrub parted and allowed me a glimpse I kept my eye on the bush above the chine; and so, with torn clothes and face and hands bleeding, crossed the dip, mounted the slope and emerged upon a ferny hollow ringed about on three sides with the _macchia_.

There face-downward in the fern lay Nat, shot through the lungs.

I lifted him against one knee. His eyelids flickered and his lips moved to speak, but a rush of blood choked him. Still resting him against my knee, I felt behind me for my musket. The flint was gone from the lock, dislodged no doubt by a blow against the crags.

With one hand I groped on the ground for a stone to replace it.

My fingers found only a tangle of dry fern, and glancing up at the ridge, I stared straight along the barrel of a musket. At the same moment a second barrel glimmered out between the bushes on my left.

"_Signore, favorisca di rendersi_," said a voice, very quiet and polite. I stared around me, hopeless, at bay: and while I stared and clutched my useless gun, from behind a rock some twenty paces up the slope a girl stepped forward, halted, rested the b.u.t.t of her musket on the stone, and, crossing her hands above the nozzle of it, calmly regarded us.

Even in my rage her extraordinary wild beauty held me at gaze for a moment. She wore over a loose white s.h.i.+rt a short waist-tunic of faded green velvet, with a petticoat or kilt of the same reaching a little below her knees, from which to the ankles her legs were cased in tight-fitting leathern gaiters. Her stout boots shone with toe-plates of silver or polished steel. A sad-coloured handkerchief protected her head, its edge drawn straight across her brow in a fas.h.i.+on that would have disfigured ninety-nine women in a hundred.

But no head-dress availed to disfigure that brow or the young imperious eyes beneath it.

"Are you a friend of this man?" she asked in Italian.

"He is my best friend," I answered her, in the same language.

"Why have you done this to him?"

She seemed to consider for a moment, thoughtfully, without pity.

"I can talk to you in French if you find it easier," she said, after a pause.

"You may use Italian," I answered angrily. "I can understand it more easily than you will use it to explain why you have done this wickedness."

"He was very foolish," she said. "He tried to run away. And you were all very foolish to come as you did. We saw your s.h.i.+p while you were yet four leagues at sea. How have you come here?"

"I came here," answered I, "being led by your hogs, and after shooting an a.s.sa.s.sin in disguise of a hog."

"You have killed Giuseppe?"

"I did my best," said I, turning and addressing myself to three Corsicans who had stepped from the bushes around me. "But whatever your purpose may be, you have shot my friend here, and he is dying.

If you have hearts, deal tenderly with him, and afterwards we can talk."

"He says well," said the girl, slowly, and nodded to the three men.

"Lift him and bring him to the camp." She turned to me. "You will not resist?" she asked.

"I will go with my friend," said I.

"That is good. You may walk behind me," she said, turning on her heel. "I am glad to have met one who talks in Italian, for the rest of your friends can only chatter in English, a tongue which I do not understand. Step close behind me, please; for the way is narrow.

For what are you waiting?"

"To see that my friend is tenderly handled," I answered.

"He is past helping," said she, carelessly. "He behaved foolishly.

You did not stop for Giuseppe, did you?"

"I did not."

"I am not blaming you," said she, and led the way.

CHAPTER XV.

I BECOME HOSTAGE TO THE PRINCESS CAMILLA.

"Silvis te, Tyrrhene, feras agitare putasti?

Advenit qui vestra dies muliebribus armis Verba redarguerit."

VIRGIL, Aeneid, xi.

Ahead of us, beyond the rises and hollows of the _macchia_, rose a bare mountain summit, not very tall, the ascent to it broken by granite ledges, so that from a distance it almost appeared to be terraced. On a heathery slope at the foot of the first terrace the Corsicans set down poor Nat and spoke a word to their mistress, who presently halted and exchanged a few sentences with them in _patois_; whereupon they stepped back a few paces into the _macchia_, and, having quickly cut a couple of ilex-staves, fell to plaiting them with lentisk, to form a litter.

While this was doing I stepped back to my friend's side. His eyes were closed; but he breathed yet, and his pulse, though faint, was perceptible. A little blood--a very little--trickled from the corner of his mouth. I glanced at the girl, who had drawn near and stood close at my elbow.

"Have you a surgeon in your camp?" I asked. "I believe that a surgeon might save him yet."

She shook her head. I could detect no pity in her eyes; only a touch of curiosity, half haughty and in part sullen.

"I doubt," she answered, "if you will find a surgeon in all Corsica.

I do not believe in surgeons."

"Then," said I, "you have not lived always in Corsica."

Her face flushed darkly, even while the disdain in her eyes grew colder, more guarded.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"Why," said I, "you are not one, I believe, to speak so positively in mere ignorance. But see!" I went on, pointing down upon the bay over which this higher slope gave us a clear view, "there goes the s.h.i.+p that brought us here."

She gazed at it for a while, with bent brow, evidently puzzled.

"No," said I, watching her, "I shall not tell you yet why she goes, nor where her port lies. But I have something to propose to you."

"Say it."