The prisoner stood for a moment with his eyes cast down, in an att.i.tude of deep thought. The flush died out of his face, leaving it whiter than before; presently he pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead with a convulsive movement, and raised his head.

"This is it," he began in a low tone. "I--I----" but again his voice failed; then, suddenly clenching his fists, he turned towards the lawyer, and burst out in a voice of thunder: "But I am innocent! I tell you I am innocent!"

The lawyer hastily motioned with his hand to quiet him; the judge raised his eyebrows, as though to say: "And suppose he had said so a hundred times, is it our fault that we are not convinced?" And a woman's sob was heard through the courtroom.

Giovanna had broken down, and Aunt Bachissia at once dragged her towards the door, reluctant and tearful. Every one but the public prosecutor watched the struggle between the two women.

A little later the court withdrew to deliberate.

Aunt Bachissia, followed by two of the neighbours, hauled Giovanna into the square, where, instead of trying to comfort her, she fell to scolding her roundly. Was she quite mad? Did she want to be removed by force? "If you don't behave yourself," she concluded, "I declare I'll give you a good beating!"

"Mamma, oh! mamma," sobbed the other. "They are going to condemn him!

They are going to take him from me, and I can do nothing, I can do nothing----!"

"What do you expect to do?" asked one of the neighbours. "As sure as I am alive there is nothing for you to do. Be patient, though, and wait a little longer----"

At this moment three figures in black appeared, one of them laughing and limping. They were Paolo Porru and two young priests, friends of his.

"There she is now," said the student. "It looks as though he had been sentenced already!"

"Upon my word," remarked one of the priests, "she is indeed a young colt! One that knows how to kick, too! She looks----"

The other one, meanwhile, was staring curiously at Giovanna, and as they all three approached the Eras, Paolo asked if the argument had closed.

"It's the man who murdered his uncle, isn't it?" enquired one of the priests. The other continued to stare at Giovanna, who had begun to regain her self-control.

"He has murdered no one at all," said Aunt Bachissia haughtily.

"Murderer yourself, black crows that you are!"

"Crows, are we? Well, you are a witch!" retorted the priest. Upon which the bystanders began to laugh.

Giovanna, meanwhile, at the solicitation of Paolo, had become quite calm, and she now promised not to make a scene if they would let her return to the courtroom. They all, accordingly, went in together, and found that the jury, after a brief deliberation, were already taking their seats. A profound silence fell upon the dim, hot room. Giovanna heard an insect humming and buzzing against one of the windows; her limbs grew heavy; she felt as though her body, her arms, her legs, were strung on rods of ice-cold iron. Then the judge p.r.o.nounced the sentence in a low, careless voice, while the prisoner looked at him fixedly and held his breath. Giovanna kept hearing the buzzing of the fly, and was conscious of a feeling of intense dislike for that rosy, white-bearded man, not so much on account of what he was saying, but because he said it with such an air of indifference. And this was what it was:

A sentence of twenty-seven years' imprisonment "for the homicide who, after long premeditation, had at last committed the crime upon the person of his guardian and own uncle by blood!"

Giovanna had so entirely prepared her mind to expect thirty years, that for the first moment twenty-seven seemed a respite, but it was only for a moment; then, swiftly realising that in thirty years three count for nothing, she had to bite her lips violently to keep back the shriek that rose to them. Everything grew dim before her; by a desperate effort of the will she forced herself to look at Costantino, and saw, or thought she saw, his face old and grey, his eyes, dim and vacant, wandering aimlessly about him. Ah! he was not looking at her, he was not even looking at her any more! Already he was parted from her forever. He was dead, though still among the living; they had killed him! Those fat, self-satisfied men, who sat there in perfect indifference, awaiting their next victim. She felt her reason forsaking her, and suddenly a succession of piercing shrieks rent the air; some one seized her, and she was dragged out again into the sunlit square.

"Daughter! daughter! Do you know what you are doing? You must be mad!

You are howling like a wild beast!" cried Aunt Bachissia, grasping her by the arm. "And what good will it do? There is the appeal still,--the Court of Ca.s.sation,--do be quiet, my soul!"

All this had happened in a few moments. The witnesses, the lawyer, Paolo Porru, and the others now came crowding around the women, trying to think of something to say to comfort them. Giovanna, dry-eyed and staring, was sobbing in a heartbroken way, disjointed sentences falling from her lips, expressions of pa.s.sionate tenderness for Costantino, and wild threats and imprecations addressed to the jury. She begged so hard to be allowed to remain until the condemned man should be brought out, that they agreed. At last he appeared; bent, livid, sunken-eyed; grown prematurely old.

Giovanna rushed forward, and, as the carbineers made no motion to stop, she went ahead of them, walking backwards, smiling into her husband's face, telling him that it would all be set right in the Court of Ca.s.sation, and that she would sell everything, to the very clothes on her back, in order to save him. But he only stared back at her, wide-eyed, unseeing; and when the carbineers pushed her gently aside, one of them saying: "Go away, my good woman, go off now, and try to be patient," he too said: "Yes, go away, Giovanna, try to get permission to see me before I am taken away, and--bring the child, and take courage."

So Giovanna and her mother went back to the house, where Aunt Porredda embraced and wept over them; then, however, appearing to repent of such weakness, she set about to remedy it.

"Well," said she. "Twenty-seven years, what is that after all? Suppose he had been sentenced to thirty, would not that have been worse? What!

You are going away? In this heat! Why, you must be crazy, both of you; upon my word, I shan't let you go."

"Yes," said Aunt Bachissia; "we must get off; the others are all going back now, and will be company for us. But if it won't be putting you out too much, Giovanna will return in a few days and bring the boy."

"Why, bless you! is not this house the same as your own?"

They sat down to dinner, but Giovanna, though now perfectly calm, would touch nothing. Two or three times Aunt Porredda attempted to talk on indifferent subjects: she asked if the boy had cut his first teeth; remarked that travelling in such heat might make them ill; and enquired about the barley-crop in their neighbourhood.

Profound peace brooded over the courtyard. The sun poured down on the grape-vines overhead, and traced delicate lacework patterns on the paving where it filtered through the leaves. The swallows flew hither and thither, singing joyously. Paolo sat reading the newspaper as he ate his dinner. Grazia and Minnia,--the boy had gone off with his grandfather,--in their spa.r.s.e, tumbled little black dresses, kept falling asleep over theirs, overpowered by the noontide somnolence. Aunt Porredda's words floated dreamily out into all this sunlight and peace, into which Aunt Bachissia's tragic mien, and Giovanna's mute air of woe, seemed to strike a note of discord.

The moment the meal was ended, the visitors packed their wallet, saddled their horse, and said farewell. Paolo promised to see their lawyer about the appeal to the Court of Ca.s.sation, and as soon as they were well out of sight, began to play with Minnia, forcing her to shake off her drowsiness, and pretending that he was crazy. He would first laugh uproariously, shaking in every limb; then, suddenly become perfectly silent, staring ahead of him with wild fixed gaze; then break forth once more into peals of laughter.

The girls were highly diverted; they too fell to laughing immoderately; and the sun-bathed courtyard and tranquil house, freed at last from the gloomy presence of the guests, was filled with sunshine, and merriment, and peace.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] An enclosed pasture, but of vast extent.

CHAPTER III

Meanwhile, the Eras pursued their journey under the burning July sun.

The road at first led downwards to the bottom of the valley; then crossed it and ascended the violet-coloured mountains that, shutting in the horizon beyond, lost themselves in the haze that rose from the heated earth. It was a melancholy progress. The two women rode one horse, a dejected-looking beast, tractable and mild. Their travelling companions had gradually drifted away; some riding on ahead; others falling behind, but all alike were silent and depressed, overpowered by the suffocating heat, the stillness, and the sad outcome of their journey. They felt Costantino's misfortune almost as keenly as the women themselves, and out of respect for Giovanna's dumb agony, either remained silent, or, if they spoke, did so in undertones that awoke no echoes, and failed even to break the intense silence.

Thus they travelled on, and on; descending steadily towards the bed of a torrent, whose course ran through the bottom of the valley. The path, though not very steep, was rugged and at times difficult to follow as it wound its way between rocks, stretches of barren, dusty ground, and yellow stubble. At long intervals a scraggy tree would raise its solitary head; lifeless, immovable in the breathless atmosphere, like some lonely hermit of the wilderness; its shadow falling athwart the sun-baked earth, like that of a little wandering cloud, lost and frightened in the great expanse of light its presence alone seems to mar. Occasionally the shrill note of a wild bird would issue from one of these oases of shade, only to die away instantly, choked and overpowered by the weight of the all-embracing silence. Big purple thistles, pink-belled convolvuluses, and lilac mallows, rearing themselves here and there in defiance of the sun, seemed only to enhance the general air of desolation; while below and above stretched endless lines of ancient grey stone-walls, covered with dry yellow moss. Fields of uncut grain, with spears like yellow pine-cones, closed in the distance.

On, and on, they went. Giovanna's head was burning beneath her woollen kerchief upon which the sun's rays beat mercilessly; and big tears coursed silently down her cheeks. She tried to hide them from her mother, who was riding on the saddle, while she was seated on the crupper, but Aunt Bachissia heard, Aunt Bachissia saw, even out of the back of her head; and presently she could contain herself no longer.

"Look here, my soul," said she suddenly, as they traversed the bottom of the valley, between great thickets of flowering oleanders; "will you have the goodness to stop? What are you crying for, anyhow? Haven't you known it for months and months?"

Instead of stopping, however, Giovanna only burst forth into loud sobs.

Aunt Bachissia glanced around; the others had all gone on ahead, and they were quite alone.

"Haven't you known all along how it would be?" she repeated, in low, even tones that seemed to Giovanna to come from an immeasurable distance and, sweeping by them, to be swallowed up in the surrounding void. "Are you such a fool, my soul, as not to have known it from the first? Did he or did he not kill that infamous Vulture? If he killed him----"

"But he never said he had done it!" interrupted Giovanna.

"Well! that was all that was needed, for him to be crazy enough to say so. My soul! just think for a moment, nothing more was wanting! For my own part, I always expected that some time or other he would crush that Vulture as one crushes a wasp that has stung him. You say Costantino is a good Christian! My soul! one would have thought that by this time you would begin to have some idea of what it means to hate! Would you, yes or no, if you had the chance, murder those men back there who condemned him? Very well, then. He murdered the Vulture, and to a certain extent I sympathise with him, because I know the human heart. But I have not forgiven him, and I never will forgive him, for taking the risks he did.

No, that I will not, not for the love of G.o.d! He had a wife and a child, and if he were going to do it he should have gone about it more carefully. And now, that's enough of it. Let the whole matter drop. You are still young, Giovanna; you must think of him as of one who is dead."

"But he is not dead!" wailed Giovanna desperately.

"Very well, then," said Aunt Bachissia angrily. "Go and hang yourself.

There, do you see that tree over yonder? Well, go and hang yourself from it; but don't torment me any more. You have always been a torment. If you had married Brontu Dejas everything would have been right; but no, you must have that beggar; very well, the best thing for you to do now is to hang yourself!"

Giovanna made no reply. In the bottom of her heart she too believed Costantino to be guilty, but she had long ceased to care. In her present misery all she took note of was the central fact of his condemnation, and she could not understand why ordinary mortals should have the power so to dispose of a fellow-creature. Ah, how she hated that mysterious, invincible power! She felt towards it as she did towards those horrible spirits, unseen, but _felt_, which fly abroad on stormy nights!

On, and on, they went. Now they had crossed the valley and were slowly ascending the mountain on its further side. The sun began to sink towards the west, the horizon to open; the sky grew soft, and the landscape lost its look of utter desolation. The shadows of the mountain-peaks stretched down now, clear into the dim depths of the valley, where a few late dog roses still bloomed; a little breeze sprang up and filled the air with the odour of wild growing things.

Insensibly every one's spirits revived under the influence of this unlooked-for shade and coolness. One of their companions, joining the two women, began to recount an adventure a friend of his had had close to that very spot; at one point the story became so entertaining that even Giovanna smiled faintly.