The Net Part 11

"If you fail, as you fear, she might feel bound to take up the task where you leave it."

"And she might succeed. But--"

"But what?"

"Revenge is a cold bedfellow, and women are designed to cherish finer sentiments. As for Lucrezia, she will doubtless swear a vendetta, like those Sardinians."

"She has."

"Indeed! Well, she is the kind to nourish hatred, for she is like her father, silent, somber, unforgiving, whereas the Contessa is all suns.h.i.+ne. But hear me talk! I am dying of fatigue. The funeral is at twelve? It will be very sad and the poor girl will be under the greatest strain then, so we must be with her, you and I. And then I must be off again upon the trail of this infamous Cardi, who is, and who is not. Ah, well!" He yawned widely. "We may accomplish the impossible, or if not we may press him so closely that he will sail for your America, which would not be so bad, after all."

Of course the country people turned out for the funeral, but for the most part they came from curiosity. To Norvin the presence of such spectators at the last sacred rites for the dead seemed sacrilegious, indecent, and he knew that it must add to Margherita's pain. It was an endless, heart-rending ordeal, a great somber, impressive pageant, of which he remembered little save a tall, tawny girl crushed beneath a grief so great that his own seemed trivial in comparison.

She was in such a state of physical collapse after the service that she did not send for him until the second day following. He came timidly even then, for he was at a loss how to comfort her, vividly conscious as he was of his own guilt and shame. He found her crouched upon one of the old stone benches in the garden in the full hot glare of the sun. It relieved him to find that she had lost her unnatural self-control, having fallen, it seemed, into much the same mood he would have expected in any woman. It had been so hard to find what to say heretofore--for she was braver than those about her and her grief was so deep as to render words of comfort futile. Her eyes now were heavy and full of haunting shadows, her ivory cheeks were pale, her lips tremulous, and she seemed at last to crave sympathy.

"I do not know why I have summoned you," she said, leaving her hand in his, "unless it is because my loneliness has begun and I lack the courage to face it."

"I have been waiting. It will always be so, Contessa. I shall come from across the world whenever you need me."

She smiled listlessly. "You are very good. I knew you were waiting. It seems so strange to know that he is gone"--her voice caught, her eyes filled, then cleared without overflowing--"and that the world is moving on again in the same way and only I am left standing by the wayside. You cannot wait with me; you must move on with the rest of the world. You had planned to go home, and you must, for you have your work and it calls you."

"Please don't think of it. I sha'n't leave you for a long time. I promised Martel--"

"You promised? Then he had reason to suspect?"

"He would not acknowledge the possibility, and yet he must have had a premonition."

"Oh, why will men trust themselves when women know! If he had told me, if he had confided his fears to me, I could have told him what to do."

"I couldn't leave now, even if I wished, for I might be needed by the--the law. You understand? It isn't finished with me yet."

"The law will not need you," she told him bitterly. "The law will do nothing. The task is for other hands."

After a pause he said, "I had news from home to-day,--rather bad news." Then at her quick look of inquiry he went on: "Nothing serious, I hope, nothing to take me away. My mother is ill and has cabled me to come."

"Then you will go at once, of course?"

"No. I've tried to explain to her the situation here, and the necessity of my remaining for a time at least. Unless she grows worse I shall stay and try to help Neri in his search."

"It is a great comfort to have you near, for in you I see a part of-- Martel. You were his other half. But there are other aching hearts, it seems. That mother calls to you, and you ought to go. Besides, I must begin my work."

"What work?"

She met his eyes squarely. "You know without asking. Neri will fail; no Italian could succeed; no one could succeed except a Sicilian. I am one."

"You mean to bring those men to justice?"

She nodded. "Certainly! Who else can do it?"

"But, my dear Signorina, think what that means. They are of a cla.s.s with which you can have no contact. They are the dregs; there is the Mafia to reckon with. How will you go about it?"

"I will become one of them, if necessary."

He answered her in a shocked voice. "No, no! You are mad to think of it. If you were a man you might have some chance for success, but you--a girl, a gentlewoman!"

"I am a Sicilian. I am rich, too. I have resources." She took him by the arm as she had done that first time when the thought of Martel's danger had roused her. "I told you no power could save them; no hiding-place could be so secret, no lies so cunning that I would not know. Well! Those soldiers have failed and will continue to fail. But you see they did not love Martel. I shall live for this thing."

"I won't allow you to dwell on the subject; it isn't natural, and it isn't good for you. The desire to see justice done is commendable and proper, but the desire for revenge isn't. You must not sacrifice your life to it. There is a law of compensation; those men will be apprehended."

"Where is my compensation? What had Martel done to warrant this?"

He fell silent, and she shook her head as if to indicate the hopelessness of answering her. After a moment of meditation he began again, gravely:

"If you feel that way, I shall make you an offer. Give up your idea of taking an active personal part in this quest, and I will a.s.sume your place. We will work together, but you will direct while I face the risks."

"You are a stranger. We would be sure to fail. I thank you, but my mind is made up."

"If it becomes known, you will be in great danger. Think! Life is before you, and all its possibilities. Please let other hands do this."

"It is useless to argue," she said, firmly. "I am like rock. I have begun already and I have accomplished more than Colonel Neri and his carbineers. I see Aliandro coming now, and I think he has news. He knows many things of which the soldiers do not dream, for he is one of the people. You will excuse me?"

"Of course, but--I can't let you undertake so dangerous a task without a protest. I shall come back, if I may."

He rose as the old man shuffled down the path, and went in search of the Donna Teresa, for he was determined to offer every discouragement in his power to what struck him as an extremely rash and perilous course. Men like Belisario Cardi, or Narcone the Butcher, would hesitate no more in attacking a woman than a man. He knew the whole Sicilian country to be a web of intrigue and secret understandings, sensitive to the slightest touch and possessed of many means of communication. It was a great ear which heard the slightest stir, and its unfailing efficiency was shown by the ease with which the bandits had forestalled every effort of the authorities.

In the hall of the manor house he encountered Lucrezia and stopped to speak to her.

"You would do a great deal to protect the Countess, would you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Signore. She has been both a sister and a mother to me. But what do you mean?"

Ferara's daughter was a robust girl of considerable physical charm, but although her training at Terranova had done much for her, it was still evident that she was a country woman. She had nursed her grief with all the sullen fierceness of a peasant, and even now her face and eyes were swollen from weeping.

Blake explained briefly his concern, but when he had finished, the girl surprised him by breaking forth into a furious denunciation of the a.s.sa.s.sins. She surrendered to her pa.s.sion with complete abandon, and began to curse the names of Cardi and Gian Narcone horribly.

"We demand blood to wash our blood," she cried. "I curse them and their souls, living and dead, in the name of G.o.d who made my father, in the name of Christ who died for him, in the name of the holy saints who could not save him. In the name of the whole world I curse them.

May they pray and not be heard. May they repent unforgiven and lie unburied. May every living thing that bears their names die in agony before their eyes. May their women and unborn children be afflicted with every unclean thing until they pray for death at my hands--"

"Lucrezia!" He seized her roughly and clapped his hand over her mouth, for her voice was rising steadily and threatened to rouse the whole household. Her cheeks were white, she was shaking with long, tearless sobs. She would have broken out again when he released her had he not commanded her to be silent. He tried to explain that this work of vengeance was not for her or for the Countess, and to point out the ruin that was sure to follow any attempt on their part to take up the work of the carabinieri, but she shook her head, declaring stubbornly:

"We have sworn it."

The more he argued the more obstinate she became, until, seeing the ineffectiveness of his pleas, he gave up any further effort to move her, sorry that he had raised such a storm. He went on in search of Madam Fazello, with Lucrezia's parting words ringing ominously in his ears:

"If we die, we shall be buried; if we live, we shall give them to the hangman."

From Margherita's aunt he got but little comfort or hope of a.s.sistance.