My Friend the Chauffeur Part 39

If Aunt Kathryn had listened to Mr. Barrymore and me we would have gone from Zara inland to a place called Knin, to visit the cataract of Krka, described as a combination of Niagara and the Rhine Falls. But she said that the very sound of the names would make a cat want to sneeze, and she was sure she would take her death of cold there. So the proposal fell to the ground, and we kept to the coast route, the shortest way of getting to Ragusa and Cattaro.

When we had climbed out of Zara by the old post road, begun by Venice and finished by Austria, our way lay among the famous cherry-trees which have made Zara rich. There were miles of undulating country and fields of wheat, interspersed with vines and almond trees which mingled with the cherries. The pastures where sheep and goats grazed were blue and pink with violets and anemones; here and there was an old watch-tower, put up against the Turks; and the rich peasants drove in quaint flat chaises, which looked as if the occupants were sitting in large pancakes.

With a motor it was not far to Sebenico, which called itself modestly a "little Genoa;" and it was so pretty, lying by the sea, with its narrowest streets climbing up a hill to an ancient fortress, that I should have loved to linger, but Aunt Kathryn was for pus.h.i.+ng on; and, of course, it is her trip, so her wishes must be obeyed when they can't be directed into other channels. We stopped only long enough for an omelette, and pa.s.sed on after a mere glimpse of close-huddled houses (with three heads for every window, staring at the motor) and a cathedral with an exquisite doorway. Then we were out of the town, spinning on through the wild, unreal-looking country towards Spalato.

"What new ground for honeymooners!" exclaimed Sir Ralph, enchanted with everything, in his half-boyish, half-cynical way. "I shall recommend it in _The Riviera Sun_ for a wedding trip _en automobile_. Shouldn't you like to do it, Miss Beechy--dawdling, not scorching?"

"I think when I get married," Beechy replied judicially, "I shan't want to _go_ anywhere. I shall just _stay_ somewhere for a change."

"It's early to decide," remarked Sir Ralph.

"I don't know. It's always well to be prepared," said Beechy, with the enigmatical look she sometimes puts on, which (in spite of her ankle-short dresses and knee-long tails of hair) makes her appear at least sixteen.

Beyond Sebenico the Dalmatian landscape frowned upon us, but we liked its savage mood. The road, winding inland, was walled with mountains which might have struck a chill to the heart of Childe Roland on his way to find the Dark Tower. On a rocky shoulder here and there crouched a sinister little hamlet, like a black cat huddling into the neck of a witch. Sometimes, among the stony pastures where discouraged goats browsed discontentedly, we would spy a human inhabitant of one of those savage haunts--a shepherd in a costume more strange than picturesque, with a plait of hair almost as long as Beechy's, hanging down his back--a sullen, Mongolian-faced being, who stared or scowled as we flew by, his ragged dog too startled by the rush of the motor even to bark, frozen into an att.i.tude of angry amazement at his master's feet. One evidence only of modern civilization did we see--the railway from Sebenico to Spalato, the first we had come near in Dalmatia; and we congratulated ourselves that we were travelling by automobile instead.

No tunnels to shut out some wonderful view, just as our eyes had focussed on it, no black smoke, no stuffy air, no need to think of time tables!

When at last we sighted the Adriatic again, a surprise awaited us. The land of desolation lay behind; beyond, a land of beauty and full summer.

We ran beside an azure sea, transparent as gauze, fringing a tropical strand; and so came into the little town of Trau, which might have been under a spell of sleep since mediaeval days. Its walls and gates, its ornate houses, its fort and Sanmicheli tower, all set like a mosaic of jewels in a ring of myrtles, oleanders, and laurels, delighted our eyes; and the farther we went on the way to Spalato, keeping always by the glittering sea, the more beautiful grew the scene. The walls along our road were well-nigh hidden with agaves and rosemary. Cacti leered impudently at us; palms and pomegranates made the breeze on our faces whisper of the south and the east. Not a place we pa.s.sed that I would not have loved to spend a month in, studying in the carved stones of churches and ruined castles the history of Venetian rule, or the wild romance of Turkish raids.

Spalato we reached at sunset, as the little waves which creamed against the pink rocks were splashed with crimson; and Spalato was by far the most imposing place Dalmatia had shown us yet. As in Italy, the ancient and modern towns held themselves apart from one another, as if there could be no sympathy between the two, though the new houses were pus.h.i.+ng and would have encroached now and then if they could. We stayed all night; and by getting up at sunrise Beechy and I, with Mr. Barrymore and Sir Ralph, had time for a glimpse of Diocletian's palace, grand in ruinous desolation.

Still we went on beside the sea, and from Spalato to Almissa--sheltered under high rocks at the mouth of a river, was a splendid run leading us by the territory of an ancient peasant republic--Poljica; one of those odd little self-governing communities, like San Marino, which have flourished through troubled centuries under the very noses of great powers. Poljica had had its Jeanne d'Arc, who performed wondrous feats of valour in wars against the Turks, and I bought a charming little statuette of her.

At Almissa we bade good-bye to the blue water for a while to run by the banks of the Cetina, a big and beautiful river; for the range of the Biokovo Hills had got between us and the sea; but we threaded our way out to it again, after switchbacking up and down an undulating road close to the frontier of Herzegovina; and at the end of a wonderful day descended upon a harbour in an almost land-locked basin of water. It was Gravosa, the port of Ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of land. It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting s.h.i.+ps were unloading their queer cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered s.h.i.+rts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in the port.

All this we saw in the moment or two that we halted by the quay, before turning up the road to Ragusa. It was a mile-long road, and like a pleasure garden all the way, with the whiteness of wild lilies flung like snow drifts against dark cedars, and trails of marvellous roses, strangely tinted with all shades of red and yellow from the palest to the deepest, clambering among the branches of umbrella pines. There were villas, too, with pergolas, and two or three dignified old houses of curious architecture, of which we had a flas.h.i.+ng glimpse through doorways in enormous walls.

We bounded up the saddle of a hill, then down again, and so came to a charming hotel, white, with green verandahs, set in a park that was half a garden. We were to spend the night and go on next day, after seeing the town; but the Chauffeulier said that we should not see it to the same advantage by morning light as in this poetic flush of sunset. So after greeting Signore Bari and his sister, who were painting in the park, we drove on, through a crowded _place_ where music played, crossed a moat, and were swallowed by the long shadow of the city gate, black with a twisted draping of ancient ivy.

A throng of loungers, theatrically picturesque, fell back in astonishment to give us pa.s.sage, and a moment later we were caught in a double row of fortifications with a sharp and difficult turn through a second gate. It was almost like a trap for a motor-car, but we got out, and sprang at the same instant into the main street of a town that might have been built to please the fancy of some artist-tyrant.

"It's a delicious mixture of Carca.s.sonne and Verona set down by the sea, with something of Venice thrown in, isn't it?" said Mr. Barrymore: and I thought that part of the description fitted, though I had to be told about splendid, fortified Carca.s.sonne with its towering walls and bastions, before I fully understood the simile.

"Yes, a Verona and Venice certainly," I answered, "with a sunny coast like that of the French Riviera, and inhabited by people of the Far East."

I think one might search the world over in vain to find just such another fascinating street as that broad street of Ragusa, with its exquisitely proportioned buildings that gave one a sense of gladness, the extraordinary great fountain, the miniature palace of the Doges, the n.o.ble churches and the colourful shops brilliant with strange, embroidered costumes exposed for sale, Eastern jewelry, and quaint, ferocious-looking weapons. And then, the queer signs over the shops, how they added to the bewildering effect of unreality! Many of the letters were more like hooks and eyes, buckles and bent pins, than respectable members of an alphabet, even a foreign one. And the people who sold, and the people who bought, were more wonderful than the shops themselves.

There were a few ordinary Europeans, though it was past the season now; and plenty of handsome young Austrian officers in striking uniforms, pale blue and bright green; but the crowd was an embroidered, sequined, crimson and silver, gold and azure crowd, with here and there a sheepskin coat, the brown habit of a monk, and the black veil of a nun.

Through half-open doorways we peeped into courtyards where fountains flashed a diamond spray, all pink with sunset, between arcaded columns.

We saw the cathedral planted on the site of the chapel where Richard Coeur de Lion wors.h.i.+pped; then, wheeling at the end of the street, we returned as we had come while the rose-pink air was full of chiming church bells and cries of gulls, whose circling wings were stained with sunset colour.

Altogether this day had been one of the best days of my life. So good a day, that it had made me sad; for I thought as I leaned on the rail of my balcony after dinner, there could not be many days so radiant in my life to come. Many thoughts came to me there, in the scented darkness, and they were all tinged with a vague melancholy.

There was no moon, but the high dome of the sky was crusted with stars, that flashed like an intricate embroidery of diamonds on velvet. From the garden the scent of lilies came up with the warm breeze, so poignant-sweet that it struck at my heart, and made it beat, beat with a strange tremor in the beating that was like vague apprehension, and a kind of joy as strange and as inexplicable.

Far away in the _place_ some one was singing a wild, barbaric air, with a wonderful voice that had in its _timbre_ the same quality the lilies had in their fragrance. For some reason that I didn't understand, my whole spirit was in a turmoil, yet nothing had happened. What was the matter? What did it mean? I couldn't tell. But I wanted to be happy. I wanted something from life that it had never given, never would give, perhaps. There was a voice down below in the garden--Mr. Barrymore talking to Sir Ralph. I listened for an instant, every nerve tingling as if it were a telegraph wire over which a question had been sent, and an answer was coming. The voice died away. Suddenly my eyes were full of tears; and surprised and frightened, I turned quickly to go in through my open window, but something caught my dress and drew me back.

"Maida!" said another voice, which I knew almost as well as that other I had heard--and lost.

Prince Dalmar-Kalm had come out of a window onto a balcony next mine, and leaning over the railing had s.n.a.t.c.hed at a fold of my gown.

"Let me go, please," I said. "And that name is not for you."

"Don't say that," he whispered, holding me fast, so that I could not move. "It must be for me. _You_ must be for me. You shall. I can't live without you."

His words jarred so upon my mood that I could have struck him.

"If you don't let me go, I'll cry out," I said, in a tone as low as his, but quivering with anger. "I would be nothing to you if you were the last man in the world."

"Very well. I _will_ be the last man in your world. Then--we shall see,"

he answered; and dropped my dress.

In another instant, I was in my room and had fastened the shutters. But the words rang in my ears, like a bell that has tolled too loud.

XXIII

A CHAPTER OF KIDNAPPING

Beechy was ill next morning; nothing serious; but the Prince, it seemed, had brought her in the evening a box of some rich Turkish confection; and though she doesn't care for the man, she couldn't resist the sweet stuff. So she had eaten, only a little, she said; but the box contradicted her, and the poor child kept her bed.

Aunt Kathryn and I were with her until eleven o'clock. Then she was sleepy, and told us to go away. So we went, and took a drive to the pretty harbour of Gravosa, with Mr. Barrymore and Sir Ralph in the motor, unaccompanied by the Prince, whose car was said to be somehow disabled.

We expected, if Beechy were well, to get on next day; but the Chauffeulier was troubled about the road between Ragusa and Cattaro--and no proper "route-book" existing for that part of the world, unexplored by motors, he could find out surprisingly little from any one. Prince Dalmar-Kalm was as ignorant as others, or appeared to be, although this was his own land; and so it seemed doubtful what would be our next adventure.

The spin was a very short one, for the day was hot, and we didn't care to leave Beechy long alone. But when we came back she was asleep still; and I was getting rid of my holland motor-coat in my own room when Aunt Kathryn tapped at the door. "Don't take off your things," she said, "but come out again--that's a dear--for a drive to Gravosa."

"We've just come back from Gravosa," I answered, surprised.

"Yes, but we didn't see the most interesting thing there. You know the yacht standing out at a little distance in the harbour, that I said looked like the Corraminis'? Well, it _is_ the Corraminis'. The Prince wants us to drive with him--not on the automobile, for it isn't mended yet, but in a cab, and go on board the yacht for lunch with the County and Contessa."

"Oh, you'd better go without me," I said.

Aunt Kathryn pouted like a child. "I can't," she objected. "The Prince _says_ I can't, for it would be misunderstood here if a lady drove out alone with a gentleman. Do come."

"I suppose I shall have to, then," I answered ungraciously, for I hated going. At the last minute little Airole darted after me, and to save the trouble of going back I caught him up in my arms. I was rewarded for the sacrifice I had made by being let alone during the drive. The Prince was all devotion to Aunt Kathryn, and scarcely spoke a word to me.

At the harbour there was a little boat sent out from the Corraminis'

"Arethusa" to fetch us, so it was evident that we had been expected and this was not an impromptu idea of the Prince's.

On board the yacht, which we had visited once or twice in Venice, Count Corramini met us, his scarred face smiling a welcome.

"I am more than sorry that my wife is suddenly indisposed," he said, in his careful English. "She is subject to terrible headaches, but she sends messages and begs that Countess Dalmar will take the head of the table in her absence."

We lunched almost at once, and as it was a simple meal, finished soon.