The Call of the Blood

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The voice was not in the house. Delarey was sure of that now. He was
almost sure, too, that it was the same voice which had cried out to him
from the rocks. Moving with precaution, he stole round the house to the
farther side, which looked out upon the open sea, keeping among the
trees, which grew thickly about the house on three sides, but which left
it unprotected to the sea-winds on the fourth.

A girl was standing in this open space, alone, looking seaward, with one
arm out-stretched, one hand laid lightly, almost caressingly, upon the
gnarled trunk of a solitary old olive-tree, the other arm hanging at her
side. She was dressed in some dark, coarse stuff, with a short skirt, and
a red handkerchief tied round her head, and seemed in the pale and almost
ghastly light in which night and day were drawing near to each other to
be tall and slim of waist. Her head was thrown back, as if she were
drinking in the breeze that heralded the dawn--drinking it in like a
voluptuary.

Delarey stood and watched her. He could not see her face.

She spoke some words in dialect in a clear voice. There was no one else
visible. Evidently she was talking to herself. Presently she laughed
again, and began to sing once more:

"Maju viju, e maju cogghiu,
A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vogghiu;
Ciuri di maju cogghiu a la campia,
Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"

There was an African sound in the girl's voice--a sound of mystery that
suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at
ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the
first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young
countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and,
turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to
the east and the rising sun, lift their hands full of the flowers above
their heads, and, making the sign of the cross, murmur devoutly:

"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvviditimi;
Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulatimi;
Divina Pruvidenza e granni assai;
Cu' teni fidi a Diu, 'un pirisci mai!"

[Illustration: "HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE DRINKING IN THE
BREEZE"]

Delarey knew neither song nor custom, but his ears were fascinated by the
voice and the melody. Both sounded remote and yet familiar to him, as if
once, in some distant land--perhaps of dreams--he had heard them before.
He wished the girl to go on singing, to sing on and on into the dawn
while he listened in his hiding-place, but she suddenly turned round and
stood looking towards him, as if something had told her that she was not
alone. He kept quite still. He knew she could not see him, yet he felt as
if she was aware that he was there, and instinctively he held his breath
and leaned backward into deeper shadow. After a minute the girl took a
step forward, and, still staring in his direction, called out:

"Padre?"

Then Delarey knew that it was her voice that he had heard when he was in
the sea, and he suddenly changed his desire. Now he no longer wished to
remain unseen, and without hesitation he came out from the trees. The
girl stood where she was, watching him as he came. Her attitude showed
neither surprise nor alarm, and when he was close to her, and could at
last see her face, he found that its expression was one of simple, bold
questioning. It seemed to be saying to him quietly, "Well, what do you
want of me?"

Delarey was not acquainted with the Arab type of face. Had he been he
would have at once been struck by the Eastern look in the girl's long,
black eyes, by the Eastern cast of her regular, slightly aquiline
features. Above her eyes were thin, jet-black eyebrows that looked almost
as if they were painted. Her chin was full and her face oval in shape.
She had hair like Gaspare's, black-brown, immensely thick and wavy, with
tiny feathers of gold about the temples. She was tall, and had the
contours of a strong though graceful girl just blooming into womanhood.
Her hands were as brown as Delarey's, well shaped, but the hands of a
worker. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and brimful of lusty life.

After a minute of silence Delarey's memory recalled some words of
Gaspare's, till then forgotten.

"You are Maddalena!" he said, in Italian.

The girl nodded.

"Si, signore."

She uttered the words softly, then fell into silence again, staring at
him with her lustrous eyes, that were like black jewels.

"You live here with Salvatore?"

She nodded once more and began to smile, as if with pleasure at his
knowledge of her.

Delarey smiled too, and made with his arms the motion of swimming. At
that she laughed outright and broke into quick speech. She spoke
vivaciously, moving her hands and her whole body. Delarey could not
understand much of what she said, but he caught the words mare and
pescatore, and by her gestures knew that she was telling him she had been
on the rocks and had seen his mishap. Suddenly in the midst of her talk
she uttered the little cry of surprise or alarm which he had heard as he
came up above water, pointed to her lips to indicate that she had given
vent to it, and laughed again with all her heart. Delarey laughed too. He
felt happy and at ease with his siren, and was secretly amused at his
thought in the sea of the magical being full of enchantment who sang to
lure men to their destruction. This girl was simply a pretty, but not
specially uncommon, type of the Sicilian contadina--young, gay, quite
free from timidity, though gentle, full of the joy of life and of the
nascent passion of womanhood, blossoming out carelessly in the sunshine
of the season of flowers. She could sing, this island siren, but probably
she could not read or write. She could dance, could perhaps innocently
give and receive love. But there was in her face, in her manner, nothing
deliberately provocative. Indeed, she looked warmly pure, like a bright,
eager young animal of the woods, full of a blithe readiness to enjoy,
full of hope and of unself-conscious animation.

Delarey wondered why she was not sleeping, and strove to ask her,
speaking carefully his best Sicilian, and using eloquent gestures, which
set her smiling, then laughing again. In reply to him she pointed towards
the sea, then towards the house, then towards the sea once more. He
guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that
she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed.

"Niente piu sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes.

"Niente! Niente!"

He feigned fatigue. She took his travesty seriously, and pointed to the
house, inviting him by gesture to go in and rest there. Evidently she
believed that, being a stranger, he could not speak or understand much of
her language. He did not even try to undeceive her. It amused him to
watch her dumb show, for her face spoke eloquently and her pretty, brown
hands knew a language that was delicious. He had no longer any thought of
sleep, but he felt curious to see the interior of the cottage, and he
nodded his head in response to her invitation. At once she became the
hospitable peasant hostess. Her eyes sparkled with eagerness and
pleasure, and she went quickly by him to the door, which stood half open,
pushed it back, and beckoned to him to enter.

He obeyed her, went in, and found himself almost in darkness, for the big
windows on either side of the door were shuttered, and only a tiny flame,
like a spark, burned somewhere among the dense shadows of the interior at
some distance from him. Pretending to be alarmed at the obscurity, he put
out his hand gropingly, and let it light on her arm, then slip down to
her warm, strong young hand.

"I am afraid!" he exclaimed.

He heard her merry laugh and felt her trying to pull her hand away, but
he held it fast, prolonging a joke that he found a pleasant one. In that
moment he was almost as simple as she was, obeying his impulses
carelessly, gayly, without a thought of wrong--indeed, almost without
thought at all. His body was still tingling and damp with the sea-water.
Her face was fresh with the sea-wind. He had never felt more wholesome or
as if life were a saner thing.

She dragged her hand out of his at last; he heard a grating noise, and a
faint light sputtered up, then grew steady as she moved away and set a
match to a candle, shielding it from the breeze that entered through the
open door with her body.

"What a beautiful house!" he cried, looking curiously around.

He saw such a dwelling as one may see in any part of Sicily where the
inhabitants are not sunk in the direst poverty and squalor, a modest home
consisting of two fair-sized rooms, one opening into the other. In each
room was a mighty bed, high and white, with fat pillows, and a
counterpane of many colors. At the head of each was pinned a crucifix and
a little picture of the Virgin, Maria Addolorata, with a palm branch that
had been blessed, and beneath the picture in the inner room a tiny light,
rather like an English night-light near its end, was burning. It was this
that Delarey had seen like a spark in the distance. At the foot of each
bed stood a big box of walnut wood, carved into arabesques and grotesque
faces. There were a few straw chairs and kitchen utensils. An old gun
stood in a corner with a bundle of wood. Not far off was a pan of
charcoal. There were also two or three common deal-tables, on one of
which stood the remains of a meal, a big jar containing wine, a flat loaf
of coarse brown bread, with a knife lying beside it, some green stuff in
a plate, and a slab of hard, yellow cheese.

Delarey was less interested in these things than in the display of
photographs, picture-cards, and figures of saints that adorned the
walls, carefully arranged in patterns to show to the best advantage. Here
were colored reproductions of actresses in languid attitudes, of peasants
dancing, of babies smiling, of elaborate young people with carefully
dressed hair making love with "Molti Saluti!" "Una stretta di Mano!"
"Mando un bacio!" "Amicizia eterna!" and other expressions of friendship
and affection, scribbled in awkward handwritings across and around them.
And mingled with them were representations of saints, such as are sold at
the fairs and festivals of Sicily, and are reverently treasured by the
pious and superstitious contadine; San Pancrazio, Santa Leocanda, the
protector of child-bearing women; Sant Aloe, the patron saint of the
beasts of burden; San Biagio, Santo Vito, the patron saint of dogs; and
many others, with the Bambino, the Immacolata, the Madonna di Loreto, the
Madonna della Rocca.

In the faint light cast by the flickering candle, the faces of saints and
actresses, of smiling babies, of lovers and Madonnas peered at Delarey as
if curious to know why at such an hour he ventured to intrude among them,
why he thus dared to examine them when all the world was sleeping. He
drew back from them at length and looked again at the great bed with its
fat pillows that stood in the farther room secluded from the sea-breeze.
Suddenly he felt a longing to throw himself down and rest.

The girl smiled at him with sympathy.

"That is my bed," she said, simply. "Lie down and sleep, signorino."

Delarey hesitated for a moment. He thought of his companions. If they
should wake in the cave and miss him what would they think, what would
they do? Then he looked again at the bed. The longing to lie down on it
was irresistible. He pointed to the open door.

"When the sun comes will you wake me?" he said.

He took hold of his arm with one hand, and made the motion of shaking
himself.

"Sole," he said. "Quando c'e il sole."

The girl laughed and nodded.

"Si, signore--non dubiti!"

Delarey climbed up on to the mountainous bed.

"Buona notte, Maddalena!" he said, smiling at her from the pillow like a
boy.

"Buon riposo, signorino!"

That was the last thing he heard. The last thing he saw was the dark,
eager face of the girl lit up by the candle-flame watching him from the
farther room. Her slight figure was framed by the doorway, through which
a faint, sad light was stealing with the soft wind from the sea. Her
lustrous eyes were looking towards him curiously, as if he were something
of a phenomenon, as if she longed to understand his mystery.

Soon, very soon, he saw those eyes no more. He was asleep in the midst of
the Madonnas and the saints, with the blessed palm branch and the
crucifix and Maria Addolorata above his head.

The girl sat down on a chair just outside the door, and began to sing to
herself once more in a low voice:

"Divina Pruvidenza, pruvviditimi;
Divina Pruvidenza, consulatimi;
Divina Pruvidenza e granni assai;
Cu' teni fidi a Diu, 'un pirisci mai!"

Once, in his sleep, Delarey must surely have heard her song, for he began
to dream that he was Ulysses sailing across the purple seas along the
shores of an enchanted coast, and that he heard far off the sirens
singing, and saw their shadowy forms sitting among the rocks and
reclining upon the yellow sands. Then he bade his mariners steer the bark
towards the shore. But when he drew near the sirens changed into devout
peasant women, and their alluring songs into prayers uttered to the
Bambino and the Virgin. But one watched him with eyes that gleamed like
black jewels, and her lips smiled while they uttered prayers, as if they
could murmur love words and kiss the lips of men.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

Delarey stirred on the great, white bed. A hand grasped him firmly, shook
him ruthlessly.

"Signorino! C'e il sole!"

He opened his eyes reluctantly. Maddalena was leaning over him. He saw
her bright face and curious young eyes, then the faces of the saints and
the actresses upon the wall, and he wondered where he was and where
Hermione was.

"Hermione!" he said.

"Cosa?" said Maddalena.

She shook him again gently. He stretched himself, yawned, and began to
smile. She smiled back at him.

"C'e il sole!"

Now he remembered, lifted himself up, and looked towards the doorway. The
first rays of the sun were filtering in and sparkling in the distance
upon the sea. The east was barred with red.

He slipped down from the bed.

"The frittura!" he said, in English. "I must make haste!"

Maddalena laughed. She had never heard English before.

"Ditelo ancora!" she cried, eagerly.

They went but together on to the plateau and stood looking seaward.

"I--must--make--haste!" he said, speaking slowly and dividing the words.

"Hi--maust--maiki--'ai--isti!" she repeated, trying to imitate his
accent.

He burst out laughing. She pouted. Then she laughed, too, peal upon peal,
while the sunlight grew stronger about them. How fresh the wind was! It
played with her hair, from which she had now removed the handkerchief,
and ruffled the little feathers of gold upon her brow. It blew about her
smooth, young face as if it loved to touch the soft cheeks, the innocent
lips, the candid, unlined brow. The leaves of the olive-trees rustled and
the brambles and the grasses swayed. Everything was in movement, stirring
gayly into life to greet the coming day. Maurice opened his mouth and
drew in the air to his lungs, expanding his chest. He felt inclined to
dance, to sing, and very much inclined to eat.

"Addio, Maddalena!" he said, holding out his hand.

He looked into her eyes and added:

"Addio, Maddalena mia!"

She smiled and looked down, then up at him again.

"A rivederci, signorino!"

She took his hand warmly in hers.

"Yes, that's better. A rivederci!"

He held her hand for a moment, looking into her long and laughing eyes,
and thinking how like a young animal's they were in their unwinking
candor. And yet they were not like an animal's. For now, when he gazed
into them, they did not look away from him, but continued to regard him,
and always with an eager shining of curiosity. That curiosity stirred his
manhood, fired him. He longed to reply to it, to give a quick answer to
its eager question, its "what are you?" He glanced round, saw only the
trees, the sea all alight with sun-rays, the red east now changing slowly
into gold. Then he bent down, kissed the lips of Maddalena with a laugh,
turned and descended through the trees by the way he had come. He had no
feeling that he had done any wrong to Hermione, any wrong to Maddalena.
His spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to
the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he
stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into
the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the
cold, bracing water seized him, he heard far above him the musical cry
of the siren of the night. He answered it with a loud, exultant call.

That was her farewell and his--this rustic Hero's good-bye to her
Leander.

When he reached the Caffe Berardi its door stood open, and a middle-aged
woman was looking out seaward. Beyond, by the caves, he saw figures
moving. His companions were awake. He hastened towards them. His morning
plunge in the sea had given him a wild appetite.

"Frittura! Frittura!" he shouted, taking off his hat and waving it.

Gaspare came running towards him.

"Where have you been, signorino?"

"For a walk along the shore."

He still kept his hat in his hand.

"Why, your face is all wet, and so is your hair."

"I washed them in the sea. Mangiamo! Mangiamo!"

"You did not sleep?"

Gaspare spoke curiously, regarded him with inquisitive, searching eyes.

"I couldn't. I'll sleep up there when we get home."

He pointed to the mountain. His eyes were dancing with gayety.

"The frittura, Gasparino, the frittura! And then the tarantella, and then
'O sole mio'!"

He looked towards the rising sun, and began to sing at the top of his
voice:

"O sole, o sole mio,
Sta 'n fronte a te,
Sta 'n fronte a te!"

Gaspare joined in lustily, and Carmela in the doorway of the Caffe
Berardi waved a frying-pan at them in time to the music.

"Per Dio, Gaspare!" exclaimed Maurice, as they raced towards the house,
each striving to be first there--"Per Dio, I never knew what life was
till I came to Sicily! I never knew what happiness was till this
morning!"

"The frittura! The frittura!" shouted Gaspare. "I'll be first!"

Neck and neck they reached the caffe as Nito poured the shining fish into
Madre Carmela's frying-pan.

VIII

"They are coming, signora, they are coming! Don't you hear them?"

Lucrezia was by the terrace wall looking over into the ravine. She could
not see any moving figures, but she heard far down among the olives and
the fruit trees Gaspare's voice singing "O sole mio!" and while she
listened another voice joined in, the voice of the padrone:

"Dio mio, but they are merry!" she added, as the song was broken by a
distant peal of laughter.

Hermione came out upon the steps. She had been in the sitting-room
writing a letter to Miss Townly, who sent her long and tearful effusions
from London almost every day.

"Have you got the frying-pan ready, Lucrezia?" she asked.

"The frying-pan, signora!"

"Yes, for the fish they are bringing us."

Lucrezia looked knowing.

"Oh, signora, they will bring no fish."

"Why not? They promised last night. Didn't you hear?"

"They promised, yes, but they won't remember. Men promise at night and
forget in the morning."

Hermione laughed. She had been feeling a little dull, but now the sound
of the lusty voices and the laughter from the ravine filled her with a
sudden cheerfulness, and sent a glow of anticipation into her heart.

"Lucrezia, you are a cynic."

"What is a cinico, signora?"

"A Lucrezia. But you don't know your padrone. He won't forget us."

Lucrezia reddened. She feared she had perhaps said something that seemed
disrespectful.

"Oh, signora, there is not another like the padrone. Every one says so.
Ask Gaspare and Sebastiano. I only meant that--"

"I know. Well, to-day you will understand that all men are not forgetful,
when you eat your fish."

Lucrezia still looked very doubtful, but she said nothing more.

"There they are!" exclaimed Hermione.

She waved her hand and cried out. Life suddenly seemed quite different to
her. These moving figures peopled gloriously the desert waste, these
ringing voices filled with music the brooding silence of it. She murmured
to herself a verse of scripture, "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy
cometh with the morning," and she realized for the first time how
absurdly sad and deserted she had been feeling, how unreasonably forlorn.
By her present joy she measured her past--not sorrow exactly; she could
not call it that--her past dreariness, and she said to herself with a
little shock almost of fear, "How terribly dependent I am!"

"Mamma mia!" cried Lucrezia, as another shout of laughter came up from
the ravine, "how merry and mad they are! They have had a good night's
fishing."

Hermione heard the laughter, but now it sounded a little harsh in her
ears.

"I wonder," she thought, as she leaned upon the terrace wall--"I wonder
if he has missed me at all? I wonder if men ever miss us as we miss
them?"

Her call, it seemed, had not been heard, nor her gesture of welcome seen,
but now Maurice looked up, waved his cap, and shouted. Gaspare, too, took
off his linen hat with a stentorian cry of "Buon giorno, signora."

"Signora!" said Lucrezia.

"Yes?"

"Look! Was not I right? Are they carrying anything?"

Hermione looked eagerly, almost passionately, at the two figures now
drawing near to the last ascent up the bare mountain flank. Maurice had a
stick in one hand, the other hung empty at his side. Gaspare still waved
his hat wildly, holding it with both hands as a sailor holds the
signalling-flag.

"Perhaps," she said--"perhaps it wasn't a good night, and they've caught
nothing."

"Oh, signora, the sea was calm. They must have taken--"

"Perhaps their pockets are full of fish. I am sure they are."

She spoke with a cheerful assurance.

"If they have caught any fish, I know your frying-pan will be wanted,"
she said.

"Chi lo sa?" said Lucrezia, with rather perfunctory politeness.

Secretly she thought that the padrona had only one fault. She was a
little obstinate sometimes, and disinclined to be told the truth. And
certainly she did not know very much about men, although she had a
husband.

Through the old Norman arch came Delarey and Gaspare, with hot faces and
gay, shining eyes, splendidly tired with their exertions and happy in the
thought of rest. Delarey took Hermione's hand in his. He would have
kissed her before Lucrezia and Gaspare, quite naturally, but he felt that
her hand stiffened slightly in his as he leaned forward, and he forbore.
She longed for his kiss, but to receive it there would have spoiled a
joy. And kind and familiar though she was with those beneath her, she
could not bear to show the deeps of her heart before them. To her his
kiss after her lonely night would be an event. Did he know that? She
wondered.

He still kept her hand in his as he began to tell her about their
expedition.

"Did you enjoy it?" she asked, thinking what a boy he looked in his
eager, physical happiness.

"Ask Gaspare!"

"I don't think I need. Your eyes tell me."

"I never enjoyed any night so much before, out there under the moon. Why
don't we always sleep out-of-doors?"

"Shall we try some night on the terrace?"

"By Jove, we will! What a lark!"

"Did you go into the sea?"

"I should think so! Ask Gaspare if I didn't beat them all. I had to swim,
too."

"And the fish?" she said, trying to speak, carelessly.

"They were stunning. We caught an awful lot, and Mother Carmela cooked
them to a T. I had an appetite, I can tell you, Hermione, after being in
the sea."

She was silent for a moment. Her hand had dropped out of his. When she
spoke again, she said:

"And you slept in the caves?"

"The others did."

"And you?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I went out on to the beach. But I'll tell you all
that presently. You won't be shocked, Hermione, if I take a siesta now?
I'm pretty well done--grandly tired, don't you know. I think I could get
a lovely nap before collazione."

"Come in, my dearest," she said. "Collazione a little late, Lucrezia, not
till half-past one."

"And the fish, signora?" asked Lucrezia.

"We've got quite enough without fish," said Hermione, turning away.

"Oh, by Jove!" Delarey said, as they went into the cottage, putting his
hand into his jacket-pocket, "I've got something for you, Hermione."

"Fish!" she cried, eagerly, her whole face brightening. "Lucre--"

"Fish in my coat!" he interrupted, still not remembering. "No, a letter.
They gave it me from the village as we came up. Here it is."

He drew out a letter, gave it to her, and went into the bedroom, while
Hermione stood in the sitting-room by the dining-table with the letter in
her hand.

It was from Artois, with the Kairouan postmark.

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