The Title Market Part 24

The duke's unctuous smile was not wholly pleasant to see. "That is for you to decide. To-morrow morning you intend to go. That is not far off; but you have until then to reconsider your refusal to sell me your patents. I made you a fair offer, which I should in your place accept.

However, if you go to Sicily"--he spread out his hands with a shrug--"I shall have warned you, and whatever comes will be off my conscience."

For answer Derby spoke quietly, but with clear, level distinctness. "I go to-morrow to Vencata, to work a piece of land which is the property of the Prince and Princess Sansevero. As their representative, I am vested with every legal right to apply my invention to the mine known as the 'Little Devil.' And I may add"--he put it casually--"that back of me is the full strength and protection of the United States Government." He looked straight into the small rat-like eyes nearly a foot below his own. Then with a smile he bowed to the Contessa Zoya and went in search of the Princess Sansevero, to say good-by.

He found her in the adjoining room, absorbed in the music; and luckily there was an empty chair beside her, into which he quietly dropped. She smiled her welcome as he sat down beside her, but she had accepted her young countryman into too good a friends.h.i.+p to make either of them feel the need of rus.h.i.+ng into speech. After a little she turned to him; even then her sentence seemed to complete a conversation interrupted rather than a new one begun, "Above all, do not forget to present Sandro's letter to the Archbishop! I know you will be drawn to him. His Eminence is one of those rare persons who have not waited to die to become angels." She smiled. "I am sure you will be safe under his protection."

"I wish you would tell me, Princess, why there is so much talk of protection--it sounds as though I were going to explore the interior of Africa! I shall be, at most, twenty-four hours away from Rome."

"There is no knowing what you are going to explore"--a shade of anxiety had come into her face. "The Mafia is there, the people are ignorant, and the lava wastes are as desolate and wild as any spot in Africa. I hope there will be no danger, but it is well to take precautions before going into such a country. You will promise me won't you?--to follow the directions of his Eminence." Unconsciously she put her hand against her heart.

Derby gave his promise easily, and she held out her hand. He kissed it after the European custom; and as he did so he felt her fingers tighten over his, as she whispered with a little underlying emotional vibration, "G.o.d bless you, my dear boy!--and a safe return."

Vaguely, as he went through the rooms in search of Nina, the princess's words echoed through his mind, and through some unknown train of suggestion he remembered that Miller, the butler in New York, had wished Nina a "safe return." The a.s.sociation of the two seemed ridiculous, yet a thought held: Was it at all certain that she was going to return home?

Was he, perhaps, not going to return from Sicily? He put himself in the category of idiots and banished the idea. But the echo of the blessing that the princess had given him settled softly upon his sensibilities.

"G.o.d bless _her_!" he said almost aloud.

Presently he found Nina, unapproachably hemmed in, and too near the music to talk. For a moment she hesitated, on the verge of extricating herself or encouraging him to enter the circle despite the general disturbance it must cause. But the moment pa.s.sed. His lips framed "Good-by" and hers answered, both smiled brightly--and that was the parting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HIS LIPS FRAMED 'GOOD-BY' AND HERS ANSWERED, BOTH SMILED BRIGHTLY--AND THAT WAS THE PARTING"]

Derby was in many ways a fatalist--not one of those who thought that by sitting still the gifts from the horn of fortune would tumble into his lap; but one of those who believe (to use his own expression), in pegging away at the thing in hand; further than that, what was to be, would be.

As Derby descended the stairs he encountered the Countess Masco. "h.e.l.lo, John!" she exclaimed, and then as she held him by the arm, her voice came down to what for her was a low whisper; at twenty feet any one could have overheard her, but fortunately the hall was deserted, save for a couple of footmen standing at the green baize door that led to the outer stairs of the courtyard. "Have you heard the news? Giovanni Sansevero agreed to go on a cruise to Malta with Rosso, and Rosso won't let him out of it! You may imagine he does not relish leaving Rome just now, especially with you again out of the field!"

Derby was not given an opportunity either to accept or to resent her intrusion into his affairs, for the das.h.i.+ng lady immediately fled, and Derby went on. As he waited for his cab, he felt inclined to go back and try to see Nina. He was letting her drift very, very far away. But while he was hesitating, his cab drove up, and without more ado he jumped into it and drove to his hotel. As soon as he reached his room, he began a letter to Nina; but all the things he had vowed to himself not to say, swarmed to the very tip of his pen. He threw it down, therefore, and tore up the paper that showed, under "Dear Nina," an erased "Darl--"

After pacing the floor a while, he again picked up the pen, but this time he wrote to Mr. Randolph. At the end of a letter of details relating to the mines, he added:

"There are rumors now agitating people over here and likely to become public property, that the Sansevero Madonna has been smuggled out of the country. I have reason to believe that the Raphael you showed me in New York is not the duplicate you were led to suppose, but the Sansevero picture.

How it was sold, I have not yet discovered, though I do not believe the prince guilty of violating the laws. But I know the Government has its secret agents at work upon the case because of the seeming luxury of the princess, whose new furs and automobile are known to be far beyond her present income. I more than suspect that these luxuries are the result of Nina's generosity, but if the Sansevero picture _is_ the one you have, the affair will end badly for the prince. At all events, I consider it best to carry the matter direct to you."

While Derby was writing to Mr. Randolph, an animated conversation was taking place in a little room on the ground floor of the gigantic palace of the Scorpas. The doors were bolted, and the two inmates of the apartment talked in whispers.

"You understand your instructions?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Repeat them."

"I take the boat to-morrow--go to Vencata. Keep watch upon the Americano--the one whose name I have here."

"John Derby, yes. But he is very big--a giant. Make no mistake, find the one who is the _padrone_! And----? Continue!"

"I am to watch if it is true that he begins working the 'Little Devil,'

and if so--I know the rest. It is nothing! A pig's skin is thick--a man's thin!" As he said this he glanced at the duke, and there was a sinister gleam in the man's deep-set eyes, and beneath the sharp nose the mouth was hard and straight, like a seam across the face.

The duke nodded as though satisfied. "It may be well for you to remember," he observed impressively, "that the reward will make you and yours easy for life."

The man saluted respectfully, but with a dogged surliness that revealed no loyalty. Yet there was in his look a hint of fanatical intensity.

Outside in the pa.s.sageway he smiled grimly. For once the errand on which the duke had sent him fell in with his own inclinations. He opened a window and looked out through the gratings into the night. In his heart he bore no love for the duke, but he was by race and inheritance a dependent of the house of Scorpa. It had always been so--the dukes had been masters since time immemorial. The present duke had made the lives of Sicilians terrible enough, but he, Luigi Calluci, would have no stranger Americano forcing his people to work that h.e.l.l-mine of the "Little Devil"!

CHAPTER XX

HIS EMINENCE THE ARCHBISHOP OF VENCATA

Barely two days after the evening at the Palazzo Sansevero, Derby was driving up the Sicilian hills towards the palace--courtesy gave it the name--of the venerable Archbishop of Vencata. Porter, in company with Tiggs and Jenkins--Derby's American a.s.sistants--had been left at the inn in the town, but Derby was anxious to present his letter as soon as possible, in order that there might be no delay in commencing work at the mines.

The carriage in which Derby sat had at first sight seemed liable to tumble apart, like so many separate pieces of mosaic puzzle, and he had taken his place on the old cloth cus.h.i.+on rather dubiously. But the driver gayly, and with every appearance of confidence in himself and his equipage, had cracked his whip and shouted all the names in the calendar to the horses, whose muscles gradually became sufficiently taut to impel them onward. A few dozen yards having been made without mishap, Derby felt that the special protection of Providence must be over them, and he leaned back contentedly, puffing at his pipe and enjoying to the full the witchery of a Sicilian sunset. The rickety conveyance clattered slowly up a winding road that seemed like a white band tied about the mountainside, holding here little terraced vineyards, there a huddling group of houses that else would surely have slipped into the ravine. For a short distance it hung out over the sea, then cut inward, as though the band of white had been laced in and out among the silvery sprays of the olive leaves.

Below it all, and beyond, lay the Mediterranean, its blue waters now deepened to indigo, shading into wide lakes of purple, under the reflection of the setting sun, which, like a great red lantern, seemed sinking into the sea. A sharp turn inward and upward brought the conveyance shambling into a little courtyard. It halted before the doorway of a low, white-washed house smothered in semi-tropical vines, which extended from the eaves over a pergola built along the wall at the terrace edge. Beneath this arbor was a rustic seat, on the cus.h.i.+ons of which a big gray cat sat up slowly, and stared at the intruders with insolent, unwinking eyes.

A woman's voice droned a dirgeful song that had a half Oriental, half negro suggestion in its monotonous pitch, while from afar, like an echo over the mountainside, came faintly the wailing cadence of the _caramella_ of some shepherd boy, and the tinkle of goat bells, interrupted by the hoot of little owls crying through the dusk.

The bells of the flapping harness settled into silence, the droning sing-song ceased, and from the stone flagging within came the shuffle of wooden shoes. An old woman, in the inevitable dark stuff dress of her cla.s.s, and the blue ap.r.o.n gay-bordered with red and white, stood in the doorway. Her big hoop earrings fell to her shoulders, but were partly hidden by the kerchief which she held over her head with one hand, as if in fear of a draught, while with the other she still grasped the door latch.

To Derby's inquiry as to whether His Eminence were at home, she responded suspiciously--almost contemptuously, as she looked him over from head to toe. Certainly, His Exaltedness was at home. What should one of his venerability be doing abroad at such an hour!

Derby's bow was apologetic. Would Signora have the kindness to deliver the letter which he tendered her?

She turned the envelope over in her hands, looked again at the stranger, and at last stood aside so that he might enter.

Derby waited in the dim, low-ceilinged pa.s.sageway, which suggested anything but the antechamber of an archbishop's palace. Presently a door opened, a feeble yellow haze filtered into the corridor, and the old woman reappeared and led Derby into a small, stone-paved apartment illumined by a single flickering lamp of the most primitive design, by the light of which the archbishop had evidently been reading. As soon as Derby entered, the venerable prelate arose. In his long _sottana_ of violet he looked strangely diminutive and feminine; his pale skin and mild eyes, and the soft white hair like a fringe beneath his velvet cap--all gave an impression of great gentleness, an impression heightened by contrast with the bare, white-washed walls and rigorously meager furnis.h.i.+ng of the cell-like room. With the courteous manner of all southern countries, the archbishop placed the best chair for his guest, and said smilingly:

"Do you speak Italian? Ah--I am glad you understand that language! My French is very failing, and as for Inglese--_non lo conosco_. It is too difficult at my age. If I were younger I should like to learn your tongue." He said this with inimitable grace, and added with a gentle inclination: "You are Americano, are you not? Your land has done much for my people! But tell me, Signore, in what way may I serve you? Sua Eccellenza il Principe Sansevero places you under our protection, but he does not tell us what it is that has brought you to us." The archbishop, leaning back in his chair, might so have sat for his portrait--his white hands folded one over the other, and the great amethyst ring on the third finger of his right hand seeming to reflect the paler shadings in the folds of his gown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'YOU ARE AMERICANO, ARE YOU NOT? YOUR LAND HAS DONE MUCH FOR MY PEOPLE!'"]

"I have come, your Eminence," said Derby, going to the point at once, "to work the 'Little Devil' mine." Before the archbishop could utter a protest, he continued very quickly and distinctly: "I know just such mines as that which are being operated now without danger or suffering to the miners."

Then, briefly as possible, he went on to outline his system of mining.

There was no necessity, he said, for miners to descend below the surface of the earth, and he would need only a dozen men--instead of the many workers, including women and children, that were now employed. To Derby's surprise, the old man seemed troubled.

"I grow old, Signore; one does not easily take in new ideas! By your method--am I right?--you will employ a dozen men in place of a hundred.

That troubles me, though your plan seems good. If there are but a small handful needed, it must put the others out of work. The mines are hard.

A harder existence cannot well be imagined--but the good G.o.d must know it is for the best, since he allows it to continue. To be sure," he interrupted himself sadly, "he calls them to him soon!"

"You mean they die young in the mines? That is what I have been told."

"Yes, Signore, in their twenty-eighth year the people are at the end of life; at the age of twelve they are already stooped and wrinkled old men and women. For the children it is most terrible; it is they who climb up the high ladders out of the pits in the earth--it gives one a foretaste of inferno to see such things. _Cosi Dio, m' ajuti_, it is true! Yet so they live--otherwise they must die. What can we do? Since the Santa Maria does not intervene, the poor must work or starve. They have not the money to go away to the country beyond the sea, to America, the land of plenty! If some of the rich abundance might be brought to my people----" He shook his head, looking, it seemed, beyond the white walls of the room, as though he saw a vision.

Then slowly, carefully, Derby explained. It was to bring some of the customs of the land of plenty that he had come. He would pay the men--the father, the brother, the big son--more money than had been earned hitherto by the whole family. No, His Eminence did not understand--the work was not to be harder, but easier! And for the reason that he had already explained: Machinery would take the place of children's hands; steel pipes, and not human beings, would descend into the stifling fumes. He wanted to get a few intelligent men to go with their families to the deserted village cl.u.s.tered about the "Little Devil."

Still the old man sat, looking straight before him.

"All that you tell me, Signore," he said at last, his voice echoing a sweetness, a cheerful patience that was doubtless the keynote to his nature--"it all sounds very beautiful; but, indeed, it cannot be! The great Duke Scorpa has given the matter much thought. The mine owners cannot pay the people more--there is scarcely any profit as it is. The duke has often told me this himself, so I know it to be true."