The Call of the Blood - Page 155/317

The boy smiled, at last would sometimes laugh. He loved his padrona, but

he was a male and a Sicilian. And the signora had gone across the sea to

her friend. These visits to the sea seemed to him very natural. He would

have done the same as his padrone in similar circumstances with a light

heart, with no sense of doing wrong. Only sometimes he raised a warning

voice.

"Signorino," he would say, "do not forget what I have told you."

"What, Gaspare?"

"Salvatore is birbante. You think he likes you."

"Why shouldn't he like me?"

"You are a forestiere. To him you are as nothing. But he likes your

money."

"Well, then? I don't care whether he likes me or not. What does it

matter?"

"Be careful, signorino. The Sicilian has a long hand. Every one knows

that. Even the Napoletano knows that. I have a friend who was a soldier

at Naples, and--"

"Come, now, Gaspare! What reason will there ever be for Salvatore to turn

against me?"

"Va bene, signorino, va bene! But Salvatore is a bad man when he thinks

any one has tried to do him a wrong. He has blood in his eyes then, and

when we Sicilians see through blood we do not care what we do--no, not if

all the world is looking at us."

"I shall do no wrong to Salvatore. What do you mean?"

"Niente, signorino, niente!"

"Stick the cloth on Tito, and put something in the pannier. Al mare! Al

mare!"

The boy's warning rang in deaf ears. For Maurice really meant what he

said. He was reckless, perhaps, but he was going to wrong no one, neither

Salvatore, nor Hermione, nor Maddalena. The coming of Artois drove him

into the arms of pleasure, but it would never drive him into the arms of

sin. For it was surely no sin to make a little love in this land of the

sun, to touch a girl's hand, to snatch a kiss sometimes from the soft

lips of a girl, from whom he would never ask anything more, whatever

leaping desire might prompt him.

And Salvatore was always at hand. He seldom put to sea in these days

unless Maurice went with him in the boat. His greedy eyes shone with a

light of satisfaction when he saw Tito coming along the dusty white road

from Isola Bella, and at night, when he crossed himself superstitiously

before Maria Addolorata, he murmured a prayer that more strangers might

be wafted to his "Paese," many strangers with money in their pockets and

folly in their hearts. Then let the sea be empty of fish and the wind of

the storm break up his boat--it would not matter. He would still live

well. He might even at the last have money in the bank at Marechiaro,

houses in the village, a larger wine-shop than Oreste in the Corso.