Sir John Constantine Part 34

At the shut of night he left me and went his way up the mountain path, and an hour later, having attended to Nat's wants, tired as in all my life I had never been, I stretched myself on the turf and slept under the stars.

The grunting of the hogs awakened me, a little before dawn. I went to the pen, and as soon as I opened the hatch they rushed out in a crowd, all but upsetting me as they jostled against my legs.

Then, after listening for a while after they had vanished into the undergrowth and darkness, I crept back to my couch and slept.

That day, though the sun was rising before I awoke again and broke fast, I caught up with it before noon: that is to say, with the work I had promised myself to accomplish. Before sunset I had sc.r.a.ped over and cleaned the entire area of the sty. Also I had fetched fern in handfuls and strewn the floor of the hut, which was now dry and clean to the smell.

In the evening I blew my horn for the hogs, and they returned to their pen obediently as the Princess had promised. I had scarcely finished numbering them when Marc'antonio came down the track, this time haling a recalcitrant she-goat by a halter.

He tethered the goat and instructed me how to milk her.

The next evening he brought, at my request, a saw. I had cleaned out the sty thoroughly, and turned-to at once to enlarge the window-openings to admit more light and air into the hut.

Still, as I worked, my spirits rose. Nat was bettering fast.

In a few more days, I promised myself, he would be out of danger.

To be sure he shook his head when I spoke of this hope, and in the intervals of sleep--of sleep in which I rejoiced as the sweet restorer--lay watching me, with a trouble in his eyes.

He no longer disobeyed my orders, but lay still and watched. My last rag of s.h.i.+rt was gone now, torn up for bandages. Marc'antonio had promised to bring fresh linen to-morrow. By night I slept with my jacket about me. By day I worked naked to the waist, yet always with a growing cheerfulness.

It was on the fourth afternoon, and while yet the sun stood a good way above the pines, that the Princess Camilla deigned to revisit us.

I had carried Nat forth into the glade before the hut, where the sun might fall on him temperately, after a torrid day--torrid, that is to say, on the heights, but in our hollow, pight about with the trees, the air had clung heavily.

Marc'antonio, an hour earlier than usual, came down the track with a bundle of linen under his left arm. I did not see that any one followed him until Nat pulled himself up, clutching at my elbow.

"Princess! Princess!" he cried, and his voice rang shrill towards her under the boughs. "Help her . . . I cannot--"

His voice choked on that last word as she came forward and stood regarding him carelessly, coldly, while I wiped the blood and then the b.l.o.o.d.y froth from his lips.

"Your friend looks to be in an ill case," she said.

"You have killed him," said I, and looked up at her stonily, as Nat's head fell back, with a weight I could not mistake, on my arms.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIRST CHALLENGE.

"The remedye agayns Ire is a vertu that men clepen Mansuetude, that is Debonairetee; and eek another vertu, that men callen Patience or Suffrance. . . . This vertu disconfiteth thyn enemy. And therefore seith the wyse man, 'If thou wolt venquisse thyn enemy, lerne to suffre.'"-- CHAUCER, _Parson's Tale_.

"You have killed him." I lowered Nat's head, stood up and accused her fiercely.

She confronted me, contemptuous yet pale. Even in my wrath I could see that her pallor had nothing to do with fear.

"Say that I have, what then?" She very deliberately unhitched the gun from her bandolier, and, after examining the lock, laid it on the turf midway between us. "As my hostage you may claim vendetta; take your shot then, and afterwards Marc'antonio shall take his."

"No, no, Englishman!" Marc'antonio ran between us while yet I stared at her without comprehending, and there was anguish in his cry.

"The Princess lies to you. It was I that fired the shot--I that killed your friend!"

The girl shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "Ah, well then, Marc'antonio, since you will have it so, give me my gun again and hand yours to the cavalier. Do as I tell you, please," she commanded, as the man turned to her with a dropping jaw.

"Princess, I implore you--"

"You are a coward, Marc'antonio."

"Have it so," he answered sullenly. "It is G.o.d's truth, at all events, that I am afraid."

"For me? But I have this." She tapped the barrel of her gun as she took it from him. "And afterwards--if that is in your mind-- afterwards I shall still have Stephanu."

She said it lightly, but it brought all the blood back to his brow and cheek with a rush. Not for many days did I learn the full meaning of the look he turned on her, but for dumb reproach I never saw the like of it on man's face.

Her foot tapped the ground. "Give him the gun," she commanded; and Marc'antonio thrust it into my hands. "Now turn your back and walk to that first tree yonder, very slowly, pace by pace, as you hear me count."

Her face was set like a flint, her tone relentless. Marc'antonio half raised his two fists, clenching them for a moment, but dropped them by his side, turned his back, and began to walk obediently towards the tree.

"One--two--three--four--five," she counted, and paused. "Englishman, this fellow has killed your friend, and you claim yourself worthy to be King of Corsica. Prove it."

"Excuse me, Princess," said I, "but before that I have some other things to prove, of which some are easy and others may be hard and tedious."

"Seven--eight--nine." With no answer, but a curl of the lip, she resumed her counting.

"Marc'antonio!" I called--he had almost reached the tree.

"Come here!"

He faced about, his eyes starting, his cheeks blanched. As he drew nearer I saw that his forehead shone with sweat.

"I have a word for you," I said slowly. "In the first place an Englishman does not shoot his game sitting; it is against the rules.

Secondly, he is by no means necessarily a fool, but, if it came to shooting against two, he might have sense enough to get his first shot upon the one who held the musket--a point which your mistress overlooked perhaps." I bowed to her gravely. "And thirdly," I went on, hardening my voice, "I have to tell you, Ser Marc'antonio, that this friend of mine, whom you have killed, was not trying to escape you, but running to seek help for the Princess."

Marc'antonio checked an exclamation. He glanced at the girl, and she at him suspiciously, with a deepening frown.

"Help?" she echoed, turning the frown upon me, "What help, sir, should I need?"

It was my turn now to shrug the shoulders. "Nay," I answered, "I tell you but what he told me. He divined, or at least he was persuaded, that you stood in need of help."

She threw a puzzled, questioning look at the poor corpse, but lifted her eyes to find mine fixed upon them, and shrank a little as I stepped close. Her two hands went behind her, swiftly. I may have made a motion to grip her by the wrists; I cannot tell. My next words surprised myself, and the tone of my voice speaking and the pa.s.sion in it.

"You have killed my friend," said I, "who desired only your good.

You have chosen to humiliate me, who willed you no harm. And now you say 'it shall be vendetta.' Very well, it shall be vendetta, but as _I_ choose it. Keep your foolish weapons; I can do without them.

Heap what insults you will upon me; I am a man and will bear them.

But you are a woman, and therefore to be mastered. For my friend's sake I choose to hate you and to be patient. For my friend's sake, who discovered your need, I too will discover it and help it; and again, not as you will, but as I determine. For my friend's sake, mistress, and if I choose, I will even love you and you shall come to my hand. Bethink you now what pains you can put on me; but at the last you shall come and place your neck under my foot, humbly, not choosing to be loved or hated, only beseeching your master!"

I broke off, half in wonder at my own words and the flame in my blood, half in dismay to see her, who at first had fronted me bravely, wince and put up both hands to her face, yet not so as to cover a tide of shame flus.h.i.+ng her from throat to brow.

"Give me leave to shoot him, Princess," said Marc'antonio. But she shook her head. "He has been talking with some one. . . .

With Stephanu?" His gaze questioned me gloomily. "No, I will do the dog justice; Stephanu would not talk."