He fought with the trees and conquered them. His trampling feet sent the
stones leaping downward to be drowned in the sea. His swift eyes found
the likely places for a foothold. His sinewy hands forced his enemies to
assist him in the enterprise they hated. He came out on to the plateau at
the summit of the island and stood still, panting, beside the house that
hid there.
Its blind, gray wall confronted him coldly in the dimness, one shuttered
window, like a shut eye, concealing the interior, the soul of the house
that lay inside its body. In this window must have been set the light he
had seen from the terrace. He wished there were a light burning now. Had
he swum across the inlet and fought his way up through the wood only to
see a gray wall, a shuttered window? That cry had come from the rocks,
yet he had been driven by something within him to this house,
connecting--he knew not why--the cry with it and with the far-off light
that had been like a star caught in the sea. Now he said to himself that
he should have gone back to the rocks and sought the siren there. Should
he go now? He hesitated for a moment, leaning against the wall of the
house.
"Maju torna, maju veni
Cu li belli soi ciureri;
Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;
Maju torna, maju è ccà!
"Maju torna, maju vinni,
Duna isca a li disinni;
Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,
Maju viva! Maju è ccà!"
He heard a girl's voice singing near him, whether inside the house or
among the trees he could not at first tell. It sang softly yet gayly, as
if the sun were up and the world were awake, and when it died away
Delarey felt as if the singer must be in the dawn, though he stood still
in the night. He put his ear to the shuttered window and listened.
"L'haju; nun l'haju?"
The voice was speaking now with a sort of whimsical and half-pathetic
merriment, as if inclined to break into laughter at its own childish
wistfulness.
"M'ama; nun m'ama?"
It broke off. He heard a little laugh. Then the song began again: "Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,
Bona sorti di Diù vògghiu;
Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,
Diù, pinzàticci vu a la sorti mia!"
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.