instead of the arrogant negative that he had returned to bertino’s anxious inquiry day after day, the postmaster of jamaica this morning threw out a yellow-enveloped letter.
“your uncle died to-day.”
he did not stay to read further, but thrust the paper into his pocket, fearful that some one might be looking over his shoulder. the blind terror of the hunted murderer was full upon him. at first he moved away almost on a run, but checked himself suddenly to a dawdling swing, and put on a comic air of unconcern. not until he was far beyond the town, crossing the brushwood solitude, did he take out the writing and read [pg 279]juno’s wily admonition: “fly from america. the man-hunters are after you!”
with sharper stride he pressed on, unmindful whither his course lay if only he widened the distance between him and the city. he had walked to the post office twice a day for a week, and from habit now he took the wagon track that zigzagged toward the iron villa. the green bower forming the roof of that matchless dwelling rose to view as he turned into the road by the railway track. a few yards onward the penetrating whistle of a quail startled him, and a flash of his affrighted fancy revealed police rising from ambush on every side and closing in. for the first time since leaving the town he turned about, and beheld what he had not dared look behind for dread of seeing—men coming after him. there were six or seven of them, all in a group, and gliding along so strangely. gran dio! his wife’s warning had come too late. why had she waited until the hounds were fairly sniffing at his heels? what giants his pursuers[pg 280] were! he could see their heads and shoulders above the quivering foliage. now the ears of two horses showed, and the rumble of wheels reached him. ah! thus it was these men could glide after him without moving their bodies. courage! maybe they were not man-hunters at all. he would see if they kept on in his track, or turned the opposite way at the corner. yes; they had struck into the road by the railway and were galloping after him. idiot that he was to stand so long! but he would elude them. he knew the trails and secret hollows in the bush that would cover his flight and shelter him until they should give up the search. what a fool he had been to run! now they must know he was the murderer! on he sped past the iron villa, not even glancing to see if bridget and the children were there. he reached the point on the edge of the thicket where he intended to plunge into its shielding labyrinth, but a look behind told him that this was needless, for the two-horse truck had come to a halt [pg 281]at the villa, and the men were moving about the pipes, some kneeling and looking in. the wind bore to him their shouts of laughter and inarticulate talk. screened by the dwarf oaks he crept nearer, until the confusion of human voices became the dialect of sicily.
that the men were all italians did not drive away his fear of them. his racial faith in the sanctity of the vendetta was not blind enough to make the genovese trust himself to the siciliani, although the knowledge that they were no emissaries of the questura of police was somewhat of relief.
the gang stripped both pipes of their green mantle, and tore out the bedding and soap-box furniture of the dormitory tube. full of wonder, bertino looked on. he did not know that the letters “d. p. w.” painted boldly on the truck stood for department of public works, and that new york was merely gathering up its half-forgotten property. in his wrath at this desecration of the tomato domicile he would [pg 282]have sprung from his concealment and protested, but the thought that he was a murderer held him back. he lurked at such close range now that he recognised two of the men as residents of mulberry. one, the foreman of the gang, he knew for a distinguished political captain of a sicilian election district, and a prominent figure in the social life of that quarter. so bertino dared not show himself even when they dragged forth the box containing the last lady.
“beautiful!” said the foreman.
“beautiful!” was the united echo.
“listen, andrea,” the foreman went on, addressing the other man whom bertino knew, “i find this thing on the city’s property, and i shall keep it. to mulberry you will carry it, my friend, for i have a famous idea for the feast of springtide.”
with block and tackle and much hauling of ropes and singing of hee-hoo! they loaded the pipe on the truck. then the foreman and andrea lifted on the bust, and [pg 283]before bertino’s eyes the last lady was abducted.
he did not rise from his covert until the truck, its big horses straining at the traces and the wheels glucking under their heavy burden, had gone a quarter of a mile. then he started after it, keeping a safe distance between himself and the men who might recognise him at closer range. only a vague sense had he at first of the purpose that impelled him onward; he could not bear to see his friend’s precious work of months, upon which he had built his very life hope, thus carried away without doing something, and that something, whatever it pleased fate to provide, could not be done unless he kept the bust in sight. later the clearer design came to him of following the last lady to her destination, and letting the banker know, so that he might go forward and reclaim her from the abductors.
over dusty roads of the burning plains, through woodland passes, in village streets, and on the crazy pavements of long island [pg 284]city he kept in her wake. with a feeling of relief he saw the truck drive into a gateway, and while he waited to make sure that she was to lodge there for the night andrea came out with a push-cart, and on it the well-known pine box. again he took up the pursuit, which led this time to the ferry and across to new york. for a moment he shrank from trailing on through the city, which his fancy filled with man-hunters peering into every face to find the murderer of signor di bello. but an impulse of fidelity to armando conquered his fears, and, turning up his coat collar and drawing his soft hat over his eyes, he went on, dogging the push-cart in all its fits and starts through the lighted highways that he was sure teemed with detectives.
at bleecker street and the bowery andrea turned, and with a sinking of courage bertino guessed that the last lady was bound for the very heart of mulberry. here every man and woman would know him for a murderer, and not a doorway or alley that [pg 285]would not have a law-hound in its shadow! but it was too late to falter. if the bust were lost now he could never again look armando in the face. bah! he knew a trick that would fool the police. he tied his gingham handkerchief over his mouth and struck forth, wholly confident that his disguise was impenetrable.
another turn into elizabeth street, where the tribes of sicily forgather, and bertino found himself amid the boisterous throng in the flare of light and colour that of ages belong to the feast of springtide. the new world memory of the sicilians’ agricultural festival was in the last of its three days and nights of fantastic gaiety. all the colony was out of doors. on both sides of the way the house fronts were lost in a jungle of american and italian flags. in drooping garlands that reached from window to window across the street, dim-burning lights in red and purple glasses gave the barbaric scene a strange, sombre note. men as dark as parsees, and their women decked with [pg 286]paper flowers, and little girls in white frocks crowned with real and make-believe blossoms, stood about, each bearing a lighted candle, waiting eagerly to march in the procession that would go singing through mulberry. here and there, apart from the gabbling collection, was the face of a silent, pensive one who looked on at the doings of these wage slaves of the sweat-shop, building scaffold, river tunnel. did he see a thorn on the rose of their festivity—a plaintive satire of fate in this clinging to the poetic shadows of their native vineyard and field after the substance had been despised and forsaken?
the foreman had come to town by rail, swelling with the political significance of his find in the pipe. first he sounded a few comrades in the wine-shop, and their approving “bravoes” told him that his idea for a queen of the feast would hit the bull’s-eye of public opinion. then with inflated chest he proclaimed that he, the leader of the election district, had not only an idea but its marble [pg 287]embodiment as well. yes, a beautiful bust, the masterpiece of a renowned sculptor, who had been induced, at vast expense to him, the leader of the election district, to do this high honour to the brave sicilian voters. from tongue to tongue the news flew, and when andrea appeared with his push-cart the expectant people, to whom symbolism were ever precious, shouted a delighted welcome all along the line.
“long live the queen of springtide!”
by the time the procession was ready to start, the last lady had been lifted out and set upon a flower-strewn throne made of a large packing-case that rested on the push-cart. then a crown of tinsel, typing the sovereign power of the season over bread and wine, was lowered from the wire whereon it had hung above the middle of the street—somewhat oversized for the brow of her stony majesty, but held in place by a padding of paper roses. the brass band blared, and the pageant advanced, to the cock-a-hoop strain of italy’s national quickstep.
[pg 288]
bertino had looked on silently during the metamorphosis of the bust, and when the long column of candle-bearers moved he kept abreast of the head. at length they wheeled into mulberry street and passed by casa di bello. he had expected to see his uncle’s home in darkness and crape on the door. but the windows showed light, and, standing on the stoop to see the procession, like all the populace of mulberry, were aunt carolina and—he pushed the hat from his brow at the risk of liberty and life, to make sure that his eyes did not beguile him—yes, marianna and armando! all in america! what did it mean? surely this was no house of mourning. and these jeers of the paraders, who jerked their thumbs at casa di bello:
“a bridegroom without a bride!”
“ha! signor di bello must hunt another wife!”
“he’d better ask her first if she has a husband!”
“the stable of the genovese donkey!”
[pg 289]
no, no; even these sicilian pigs could not be making game of a dead man. pulling the handkerchief from his mouth, he dashed across the street, breaking through the ranks and exploding a volley of hisses and wrathful epithets from marchers and bystanders.
“aunt carolina! marianna! armando!”
“bertino!”
they all tried to hug and kiss him at once.
“are you juno’s husband?” were the first coherent words.
“yes; miserable that i am!”
“bravo!” exulted carolina. “the napolitana shall not enter.”
“and my uncle? he lives?”
“lives! by the mass! he is too much alive.”
“grazie a dio! i thought i had killed him. she told me he was dead; to fly, that the police were after me.” the others did not understand just then.
“and the bust?” breathed armando.
“it is here.”
[pg 290]
the band had relapsed into silence, and the air was filled with the drone of a weird island chant that lacked only the tom-tom to perfect its hindu cadence. the lips of the marchers scarcely moved as they gave forth their hymn of praise to the genius of spring. and there was the queen, wabbling along in her push-cart chariot, the idol of mulberry’s rabble—the “presidentessa” whom her creator had dreamed—oh, so trustfully!—to see enthroned upon a porphyry pedestal in the white house, admired of the rich and great. armando would have dived into the cortège, pushed aside the candle-bearers who guarded the queen, and striven to reclaim his own, but the grip of carolina’s hands on his arm held him back. she had guessed his death-courting purpose. a picture of knife-blades gleaming in the candlelight flashed in her mind, and she put all her strength in her grasp.
“let go!” he cried, tugging hard, but bertino clutched his other arm at the command of carolina. “magnificent god! [pg 291]am i to stand here and see them carry it away?”
“fool!” said carolina. “do you think they will let you take their queen? a hundred knives would stop you.”
he ceased struggling. “but what shall i do?”
“patience! here, bertino; follow on, learn whither the sicilian swine take the bust, and when their feast is over we shall demand it.”
again bertino took up the trail.
