When he awoke, the great, shining face of the moon was still high in the heavens; with its flood of steely light there came a fall of dew.

Enormous shadows, like vast black veils, hung over certain parts of the mountains, but every crag, every thicket and flower even, stood clearly out wherever the moonlight fell. The owl still gave his penetrating cry, sharp and metallic, cutting through the silence like a blade of steel.

Costantino shivered; he was wet with dew, and getting up, he yawned loudly; the prolonged "Ah--ah-h-h" fairly resounded in the intense stillness. He scrutinised the heavens to find out the hour. The _Star_, that is to say, Diana, had not yet lifted her emerald-gold face above the sea; dawn therefore was still a long way off, and Costantino resumed his journey, hoping to reach the village before the people should be about. He did not want to meet the gaze of the curious, and above all else he dreaded being seen by Giovanna or her mother. He had made up his mind to avoid them, if possible not even to see them or pa.s.s by their cottage; what good would it do? Everything was over between them.

So he trudged on, and on; now up, now down; along the moonlit mountain-side. The heaps of slate-stone, the asphodels heavy with dew, the very rocks themselves, gave out a damp, penetrating odour, and here and there a rill of water stole in and out between fragrant beds of pennyroyal. As far away as the eye could reach, blue, vapoury skies overhung blue, misty mountains, until, in the extreme distance, they met and melted into one shimmering sea of silver. The man walked on, and on; his brain yet only half awake, but his body refreshed and active. Now and then he would take a short-cut, leaping from rock to rock, then pausing breathless, with straining heart and pulses. In the moon's rays his limpid eyes showed flecks of silver light.

The further he went the more familiar the way became; now he was inhaling the wild fragrance of his native soil; he recognised the melancholy _salti_ sown with barley, the grain not yet turned; the beds of lentisks, the spa.r.s.e trees whispering in some pa.s.sing breath of wind, like old people murmuring in their sleep; and there, far off, the range of mighty sphinxes blue in the moonlight; and further still, the flash of the sea, that sea that he was so proud to have crossed in no matter what fashion. On reaching the little church of San Francisco he paused, and, cap in hand, said a prayer, a perfectly honest and sincere one, for at that moment his freedom gave him a sense of happiness such as he had not as yet experienced at any time since leaving the prison.

Day had hardly begun to break when Isidoro heard a tapping at his door.

For fifteen--twenty days, for four months, in fact, he had been waiting for that sound, and he was on his feet before his old heart had started its mad beating against his breast.

He opened the door; in the dim light he saw, or half saw, a tall figure not dressed in the costume of the country, but wearing a fustian coat as hard and stiff as leather, out of which emerged a long, pallid face. He did not know who it was.

Costantino burst into a harsh laugh, and the fisherman, with a pang, recognised his friend. Yes, at last; it was Costantino come back, but in that very first moment he knew it was not the Costantino of other days.

He threw his arms around him, but without kissing him, and his heart melted into tears.

"Well, you didn't know me, after all," said Costantino, unstrapping his wallet. "I knew you wouldn't."

Even his voice and accent were strange; and now, after his first sensations, first of chill and then of pity, Isidoro felt a sort of diffidence. "What are you dressed that way for?" he asked. "If you had let me know I would have brought you your clothes to Nuoro, and a horse too. Did you come all the way on foot?"

"No; San Francisco lent me a horse. What are you about, Uncle Isidoro? I don't want any coffee. Have you got any brandy?"

The fisherman, who had begun to uncover the fire, got up from his knees, embarra.s.sed and mortified at having nothing better to offer his guest than a little coffee.

"I didn't know," he stammered, spreading out his hands, "but just wait a moment, I'll go right off--you see I expected you, and I didn't expect you----" And he started for the door.

"Stop; where are you going?" cried the other, seizing hold of him. "I don't want anything at all. I only said it for a joke. Sit down here."

Isidoro seated himself, and began to look furtively at Costantino; little by little he grew more at ease with him, and presently pa.s.sing his hand over his trousers he asked if he intended to go on dressing that way. In the early morning light streaming through the open door, Costantino's face looked worn and grey.

"Yes," he said, with another of those disagreeable laughs, "I am going on dressing this way. I am going away soon."

"Going away soon! Where to?"

"Oh! I have met so many people," began Costantino, in the tone of one reciting a lesson. "And I have friends who will help me. What is there for me to do here, anyhow?"

"Why, shoemaking! Didn't you write to me that that was what you wanted to do?"

"I know a marshal named Burrai," continued Costantino, who always thought of the _King of Spades_ as still holding office. "He lives in Rome now, and he's written me a letter; he's going to get me a position in the King's household to be shoemaker."

Isidoro looked at him pitifully. "Ah, the poor fellow, he was altogether different. What made him talk like that, and tell all those foolish little things when there were such heartrending topics to discuss." Thus Uncle Isidoro to his own heart.

Pretty soon, however, he began to suspect that Costantino was putting all this on, and that his apparent indifference was a.s.sumed. But why? If he could not be open and natural with him, with whom could he be?

"Come," said he, "let us talk of other things now; we can discuss all that later. Really, though, won't you have a little coffee? It would do you good."

"What do you want to talk about?" asked Costantino drearily. "I knew you would think it strange that I don't cry, but I've cried until I haven't the wish to any more. And I am going away; one can't stay in this place after having crossed the sea--who is that going by?" he asked suddenly, as the sound of footsteps was heard outside. "I don't want any one to see me," and he jumped up and shut the door.

When he turned, his whole expression had changed and his features were working.

"I walked by _there_," he said, his voice sinking lower and lower, "on my way here. I didn't want to, but somehow I found myself there before I knew it. How can I--how can I stay here? Tell me--you----"

He clasped both hands to his forehead and shook his head violently; then, throwing himself at full length on the ground, he writhed and twisted in an agony of sobs, his whole body shaking with the vehemence of his grief. He was like a young bull caught and held fast in the leash, and made to submit to the red-hot iron.

The old fisherman turned deathly white, but made no attempt whatever to calm him. At last, at last, he recognised his friend.

CHAPTER XVI

No sooner had news of Costantino's return got abroad than visitors began to stream to Isidoro's hut. Throughout the entire day there was an incessant coming and going of friends and relatives, and even of persons who had never in their lives so much as interchanged a word with the late prisoner, but who now hastened with open arms to invite him to make his home with them. The women wept over him, called him "my son," and gazed at him compa.s.sionately; one neighbour sent him a present of bread and sausages. All these kindly demonstrations seemed, however, only to annoy their object.

"Why on earth should they be sorry for me?" he said to Isidoro. "For Heaven's sake, send them about their business, and let's get away into the country."

"Yes, yes, we will go, all in good time, child of the Lord, only have a little patience," said the other, bending over the fireplace, where he was cooking the sausage. "How naughty you are, I declare!"

Since witnessing that paroxysm of grief in the morning, Uncle Isidoro had felt much more at ease with his guest, and even took little liberties with him, scolding him as though he had been a child. During the short intervals when they found themselves alone, he told him the _facts_. Costantino listened eagerly, and was annoyed when the arrival of fresh visitors interrupted the narrative. Among these visitors came the syndic, he who was a herdsman, and looked like Napoleon I. His call was especially trying.

"We will give you sheep and cows," he began, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. "Yes, every herdsman will give you a _pecus_,[9] and if there is anything you need, just say so; are we not all brothers and sisters in this world, and especially in a small community like this?"

Costantino, thinking of the treatment he had received at the hands of his "brothers and sisters" of this particular small community, shook his head.

"Yes," he said; "my brothers have treated me as Cain treated Abel; it would take a good deal more than sheep and cows to make it up to me."

"Oh, well! that has nothing to do with it," replied the syndic, absorbed in his idea. "You have travelled; tell me now, have you never stood on the top of some high mountain, and looked down on the villages scattered about in the plain below? Well, didn't they seem to you like so many houses, each with its little family living inside?" Costantino, who was tired of the conversation, merely replied that all he wanted was to leave this village and never come back to it again.

"Oh, no! You mustn't do that!" urged the other. "Where would you go? No, no; you must stay here, where we are all brothers."

The next to arrive was Doctor Puddu, carrying a large, dirty, grey umbrella. He at once peered into the earthenware saucepan to see what was cooking.

"You are all degenerates, every one of you," he announced in his harsh voice, rapping the saucepan with his umbrella. "And I'll tell you the reason: it's because you will eat pork."

"Don't break the saucepan, please," said Uncle Isidoro. "And I beg your pardon, but that is not pork; it's beans, and bacon, and sausage."

"Well, isn't bacon pork? You're all pigs. Well----," turning to Costantino. "And so, good sheep, you've come back? I saw him die--what's his name?--Giacobbe Dejas. He died a miserable death, as he deserved to.

You had better take a purgative to-morrow; it's absolutely necessary after a sea voyage."

Costantino looked at him without speaking.

"You think I'm crazy?" shouted the doctor, going close to him, and shaking his umbrella. "A purgative! do you understand? A purgative!"

"I heard you," said Costantino.

"Oh, so much the better! Well, I've heard that _you_ say you want to go away. Go-o-o----! Go, by all means. Go to the devil. But first of all, go to the cemetery, go to that dunghill you call a cem-e-te-ry; and dig and scratch like a dog, and tear up Giacobbe Dejas's bones, and gnaw them."

He ground his teeth as though he were crunching bones; it was both grotesque and horrible, and Costantino could do nothing but stare at him in utter amazement.