The Pobratim Part 45

What could he do to help him? Was life ebbing? had it ebbed all away?

he asked himself. Was he dead, or only fainting? could he do nothing to recall him to life?

As he was lost in these thoughts he heard the heavy tramp of approaching feet, and before he could realise the predicament in which he had placed himself, the night-watch had come up to the spot and had arrested him as the murderer.

"Why do you arrest me?" said he. "I have only come here by chance to help this poor man."

"I daresay you have," said the sergeant, taking the blood-stained dagger from his hand.

"But I tell you I do not even know this poor man."

"Come, it's useless arguing with us; you'll have to do that with your judges. March on."

"But when I tell you that I only heard a scuffle and ran up----"

"Then where's the murderer?" asked one of the guards.

"He's just run off."

"What kind of a man was he?"

"I hardly saw him."

"And where do you come from?" asked the sergeant.

"From on board my boat, the _Spera in Dio_, now lying at Gravosa."

"And where were you going to?"

"Nowhere."

"Oh! you were taking a little stroll at this time of the night?"

The men laughed.

"Come, we're only wasting time----"

"But----"

"Stop talking; you'll have enough of that at Ragusa."

"But I tell you I'm innocent of that man's death."

"You are always innocent till you are about to be hanged, and even then sometimes."

Milenko shuddered.

Thereupon the guards, taking out a piece of rope, began tying the young man's hands behind his back.

"Leave me free; I'll follow you. I've nothing on my conscience to frighten me."

Still, they would not listen to him, but led him away like a murderer. They walked on for a little more than half-an-hour on the dark road, and at last they arrived at Porta Pilla, one of the gates of Ragusa. They crossed the princ.i.p.al street, called the Stradone, and soon reached the Piazza dei Signori. The quiet town was quieter than ever at these early dawning hours. The heavy steps of the guards resounded on the large stone flags with which the town is paved, and re-echoed from the granite walls of the churches and palaces.

Poor Milenko was conducted to the guard-house, and when the sergeant stated how he had been found clasping the dead man, holding, moreover, the blood-stained dagger in his hand, he, without more ado, was thrust into the narrow cell of the prison.

Alone, in utter darkness, a terrible fear came over him. How could he ever prove that he had not murdered the unknown man with whose blood his clothes were soaked?

The a.s.sa.s.sin was surely far away now, and, even if he were not, he doubtless knew that another man had been caught in his stead, and he, therefore, would either keep quiet or stealthily leave the town. If he had at least caught a glimpse of the murderer's face, then he might recognise him again; but he had seen little more than two dark forms struggling together. Nothing else than that.

Then he asked himself if G.o.d--if the good Virgin--would allow them to condemn him to death innocently? He fell on his knees, crossed himself, and uttered many prayers; but, during the whole time, he saw his body hanging on the gallows, and, with that frightful sight before his eyes, his prayers did not comfort him much.

Then he began to fancy that he must have been guilty of some sin for which he was now being punished. Though he recalled to mind all his past life, though he magnified every little misdemeanour, still he could not find anything worthy of such a punishment. He had kept all the fasts; he had gone to church whenever he had been able to do so; he had lighted a sufficient number of candles to the saints to secure their protection. If, at times, he had been guilty of cursing, of calling the blessed Virgin Mary opprobrious names, he only had done so as a mere habit, as everybody else does, quite unintentionally.

The priest--at confession--had always admonished him against this bad habit; but he had duly done penance for these trifling sins, and he had got the absolution.

He asked himself why he was so unlucky. He had not fallen in love with his neighbour's wife, nor asked for impossible things. Why could not life run on smoothly for him, as it did for everybody else? What devil had prompted him to leave his s.h.i.+p at a time when he might have been quietly asleep? Then the thought struck him that, after all, this was only a bewildering dream, from which he would awake and laugh at on the morrow.

He got up, walked about his narrow cell, feeling his way in the darkness. Alas! this was no dream.

Then he thought of his parents; he pictured to himself the grief they would feel at hearing of his misfortune. His mother's heart would surely burst should he be found guilty and be condemned to be hanged.

And his father--would he, too, believe him to be a murderer?

He again sank on his knees, and uttered a prayer; not the usual litanies which he had been taught, but a _Kyrie Eleison_, a cry for help rising from the innermost depths of his breast.

The darkness of the prison was so oppressive that it seemed to him as if his prayer could never go through those ma.s.sive stone walls; therefore, instead of being comforted, doubt and dread weighed heavily upon him. In that mood he recalled to his mind all the incidents of a gloomy story which had once been related to him about a little Venetian baker-boy, who, like himself, had been found guilty of manslaughter. This unfortunate youth had been imprisoned, cruelly tortured, and then put to death. When it was too late, the real murderer confessed his guilt; but then the poor boy was festering in his grave.

Still, he would not despair, for surely Uros must, on the morrow, hear of his dreadful plight, and then he would use every possible and impossible means to save him.

But what if the s.h.i.+p started on the morrow, leaving him behind, a stranger in an unknown town?

The tears which had been gathering in his eyes began to roll down his cheeks in big, burning drops, and now that they began to flow he could not stop them any more. He crouched in a corner, and, as the cold, grey gloaming light of early dawn crept through the grated window of his cell, his heavy eyelids closed themselves at last; sleep shed its soothing balm on his aching brain.

Not long after Milenko had gone on sh.o.r.e, Uros woke suddenly from his sleep. He had dreamt that a short, dark-haired, swarthy, one-eyed man, with a face horribly pitted by small-pox, was murdering his friend; and yet it was not Milenko either, but some one very much like him.

He jumped up, groped his way to his mate's hammock and was very much astonished not to find him there. Having lost his sleep, he lit a cigarette and went to look down into the waters below. The sea on that side of the s.h.i.+p was as smooth and as dark as a black mirror. He had not been gazing long when, as usual, he began to see sparks, then fiery rods whirling about and chasing each other. The rods soon changed into snakes of all sizes and colours, especially greenish-blue and purple. They twirled and twisted into the most fantastic shapes; then they all sank down in the waters and disappeared. All this was nothing new; but, when they vanished, he was startled to behold, in their stead, the face of the pitted man he had just seen in his sleep stare at him viciously with his single eye. He drew back, frightened, and the face vanished. After an instant, he looked again; he saw nothing more, but the inky waters seemed thick with blood.

The next morning Milenko was looked for everywhere uselessly. Uros, who was the last person that had seen him, related how he had gone off to sleep and had left him leaning on the main-yard. At first, every one thought that he had gone on sh.o.r.e for something, and that he would be back presently; but time pa.s.sed and Milenko did not make his appearance. The wind was favourable, the sails were spread, they had only to heave the anchor to start; everybody began to fear that some accident had happened to him to detain him on sh.o.r.e. Uros was continually haunted by his dream, especially by the face of the single-eyed man. He offered to go in search of his friend.

"Well," replied the captain, "I think I'll come with you; two'll find him quicker than one alone, for now we have no time to lose."

They went on sh.o.r.e and enquired at a coffee-house, but the sleepy waiters could not give them any information. They asked some boatmen lounging about the wharf, still with no better success. A porter from Ragusa finally said that he had heard of a murder committed that night on the road, but all the particulars were, as yet, unknown.

Doubtless it was a skirmish between some smugglers and the watch.

Anyhow, when Uros heard of bloodshed, his heart sank within him, and the image of the swarthy man appeared before the eyes of his mind, and he fancied his friend weltering in a pool of dark blood.

"Had we not better go at once to Ragusa? we might hear something about him there?" said the captain to Uros.

"But do you think he can have been murdered?"

"Murdered? No; what a foolish idea! He had no money about him; he was dressed like a common sailor; he could not have been flirting with somebody's sweetheart. Why should he have been murdered?"