The Call of the Blood - Page 39/317

Hermione was to be his possession here, in this strange and far-off land,

among these simple peasant people. So he thought of them, not versed yet

in the complex Sicilian character. He listened, and he looked at Gaspare.

He saw a boy of eighteen, short as are most Sicilians, but straight as an

arrow, well made, active as a cat, rather of the Greek than of the Arab

type so often met with in Sicily, with bold, well-cut features,

wonderfully regular and wonderfully small, square, white teeth, thick,

black eyebrows, and enormous brown eyes sheltered by the largest lashes

he had ever seen. The very low forehead was edged by a mass of hair that

had small gleams of bright gold here and there in the front, but that

farther back on the head was of a brown so dark as to look nearly black.

Gaspare was dressed in a homely suit of light-colored linen with no

collar and a shirt open at the throat, showing a section of chest tanned

by the sun. Stout mountain boots were on his feet, and a white linen hat

was tipped carelessly to the back of his head, leaving his expressive,

ardently audacious, but not unpleasantly impudent face exposed to the

golden rays of which he had no fear.

As Delarey looked at him he felt oddly at home with him, almost as if he

stood beside a young brother. Yet he could scarcely speak Gaspare's

language, and knew nothing of his thoughts, his feelings, his hopes, his

way of life. It was an odd sensation, a subtle sympathy not founded upon

knowledge. It seemed to now into Delarey's heart out of the heart of the

sun, to steal into it with the music of the "Pastorale."

"I feel--I feel almost as if I belonged here," he whispered to Hermione,

at last.

She turned her head and looked down on him from her donkey. The tears

were still in her eyes.

"I always knew you belonged to the blessed, blessed south," she said, in

a low voice. "Do you care for that?"

She pointed towards the terrace.

"That music?"

"Yes."

"Tremendously, but I don't know why. Is it very beautiful?"

"I sometimes think it is the most beautiful music I have ever heard. At

any rate, I have always loved it more than all other music, and

now--well, you can guess if I love it now."

She dropped one hand against the donkey's warm shoulder. Maurice took it

in his warm hand.

"All Sicily, all the real, wild Sicily seems to be in it. They play it in

the churches on the night of the Natale," she went on, after a moment. "I

shall never forget hearing it for the first time. I felt as if it took

hold of my very soul with hands like the hands of the Bambino."