Sir John Constantine by Prosper Paleologus Constantine

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My father nodded. "You will promise me not to set foot outside the
camp?"

"I will promise more," said I. "At the smallest warning I am going
to let off my piece. You must not be annoyed if I fetch you back on
a false alarm, or even an absurd one. I shall sit here with my
musket across my knees, and half a dozen others, all loaded, close
around me: and at the first sign of something wrong--at the crackling
of a twig, maybe--I shall fire. You, on your way to the creek, will
keep your eyes just as wide open and fire at the first hint of
danger."

"I don't like it," my father persisted.

"But you see the wisdom of it," said I. "We must stay here: that's
agreed. So long as we stay here we shall be desperately
uncomfortable, fearing we don't know what: that also is agreed.
Then, say I, for God's sake let us clear this business up and get it
over."

My father nodded, stood up and shouldered his piece. I knew that his
eyes were on me, and avoided meeting them, afraid for a moment that
he was going to say something in praise of my courage, whereas in
truth I was horribly scared. That last word or two had really
expressed my terror. I desired nothing but to get the whole thing
over. My hand shook so as I turned to load the first musket that I
had twice to shorten my grasp of the ramrod before I could insert it
in the barrel.

From the gateway leading to the lane my father watched till the
loading was done.

"Good-bye and good luck, lad!" said he, and turned to go. A pace or
two beyond the gateway he halted as if to add a word, but thought
better of it and resumed his stride. His footsteps sounded hollow
between the walls of the narrow lane. Then he reached the turf of
the meadow, and the sound ceased suddenly.

I wanted--wanted desperately--to break down and run after him.
By a bodily effort--something like a long pull on a rope--I held
myself steady and braced my back against the bole of the ilex tree,
which I had chosen because it gave a view through the gateway towards
the forest. Upon this opening and the glade beyond it I kept my
eyes, for the first minute or two scarcely venturing to wink, only
relaxing the strain now and again for a cautious glance to right and
left around the deserted enclosure. I could hear my heart working
like a pump.

The enclosure--indeed the whole valley--lay deadly silent in the
growing heat of the morning. On the hidden summit behind the wood a
raven croaked; and as the sun mounted, a pair of buzzards, winging
their way to the mountains, crossed its glare and let fall a
momentary trace of shadow that touched my nerves as with a whip.
But few birds haunt the Corsican bush, and to-day even these woods
and this watered valley were dumb of song. No breeze sent a shiver
through the grey ilexes or the still paler olives in the orchard to
my right. On the slope the chestnut trees massed their foliage in
heavy plumes of green, plume upon plume, wave upon wave, a still
cascade of verdure held between jagged ridges of granite. Here and
there the granite pushed a bare pinnacle above the trees, and over
these pinnacles the air swam and quivered.

The minutes dragged by. A caterpillar let itself down by a thread
from the end of the bough under which I sat, in a direct line between
me and the gateway. Very slowly, while I watched him, he descended
for a couple of feet, swayed a little and hung still, as if
irresolute. A butterfly, after hovering for a while over the wall's
dry coping, left it and fluttered aimlessly across the garth,
vanishing at length into the open doorway of the church.

The church stood about thirty paces from my tree, and by turning my
head to the angle of my right shoulder I looked straight into its
porch. It struck me that from the shadow within it, or from one of
the narrow windows, a marksman could make an easy target of me.
The building had been empty over-night: no one (it was reasonable to
suppose) had entered the enclosure during Billy's sentry-go; no one
for a certainty had entered it since. Nevertheless, the fancy that
eyes might be watching me from within the church began now to worry,
and within five minutes had almost worried me into leaving my post to
explore.

I repressed the impulse. I could not carry my stand of muskets with
me, and to leave it unguarded would be the starkest folly. Also I
had sworn to myself to keep watch on the gateway towards the forest,
and this resolution must obviously be broken if I explored the
church. I kept my seat, telling myself that, however the others had
vanished, they had vanished in silence, and therefore all danger from
gunshot might be ruled out of the reckoning.

I had scarcely calmed myself by these reflections when a noise at
some distance up the glade fetched my musket halfway to my shoulder.
I lowered it with a short laugh of relief as our friends the hogs
came trotting downhill to the gateway.

For the moment I was glad; on second thoughts, vexed. They explained
the noise and eased my immediate fear. They brought back--absurd as
it may sound--a sense of companionship: for although half-wild, they
showed a disposition to be sociable, and we had found that a wave of
the arm sufficed to drive them off when their advances became
embarrassing. On the other hand, they would certainly distract some
attention which I could very ill afford to spare.

But again I calmed myself, reflecting that if any danger lurked close
at hand, these friendly nuisances might give me some clue to it by
their movements. They came trotting down to the entrance, halted and
regarded me, pushing up their snouts and grunting as though uncertain
of their welcome. Apparently reassured, they charged through, as
hogs will, in a disorderly mob, rubbing their lean flanks against the
gateposts, each seeming to protest with squeals against the crush to
which he contributed.

One or two of the boldest came running towards me in the hope of
being fed; but, seeing that I made no motion, swerved as though their
courage failed them, and stood regarding me sideways with their
grotesque little eyes. Finding me still unresponsive, they began to
nose in the dried grasses with an affected unconcern which set me
smiling; it seemed so humanlike a pretence under rebuff. The rest,
as usual, dispersed under the trees and along the nettle-beds by the
wall. It occurred to me that, if I let these gentlemen work round to
my rear, they might distract my attention--perhaps at an awkward
moment--by nosing up to the forage-bags or upsetting the
camp-furniture, so with a wave of my musket I headed them back.
They took the hint obediently enough, and, wheeling about, fell to
rooting between me and the entrance. So I sat maybe for another five
minutes, still keeping my main attention on the gateway, but with an
occasional glance to right and left, to detect and warn back any
fresh attempt to work round my flanks.

Now, in the act of waving my musket, I had happened to catch sight of
one remarkably fine hog among the nettles, who, taking alarm with the
rest, had winced away and disappeared in the rear of the church,
where a narrow alley ran between it and the churchyard wall. If he
followed this alley to its end, he would come into sight again around
the apse and almost directly on my right flank. I kept my eye
lifting towards this corner of the building, Waiting for him to
reappear, which by-and-by he did, and with a truly porcine air of
minding his own business and that only.

His unconcern was so admirably affected that, to test it, instead of
waving him back I lifted my musket very quietly, almost without
shifting my position, and brought the butt against my shoulder.

He saw the movement; for at once, even with his head down in the
grasses, he hesitated and came to a full stop. Suddenly, as my
fingers felt for the trigger-guard, my heart began to beat like a
hammer.

_There_ lay my danger; and in a flash I knew it, but not the extent
of it. This was no hog, but a man; by the start and the quick
arrested pose in which the brute faced me, still with his head low
and his eyes regarding me from the grasses, I felt sure of him.
But what of the others? Were they also men? If so, I was certainly
lost, but I dared not turn my eyes for a glance at them. With a
sudden and most natural grunt the brute backed a little, shook his
head in disgust, and sidled towards the angle of the building.
"Now or never," thought I, and pulled the trigger.

As the musket kicked against me I felt--I could not see--the rest of
the hogs swerve in a common panic and break for the gateway.
Their squealing took up the roar of the report and protracted it.
They were real hogs, then.

I caught up a second musket, and, to make sure, let fly into the mass
of them as they choked the gateway. Then, without waiting to see the
effect of this shot, I snatched musket number three, and ran through
the drifting smoke to where my first victim lay face-downwards in
the grasses, his swine's mask bowed upon the forelegs crossed--as a
man crosses his arms--inwards from the elbow. As I ran he lifted
himself in agony on his knees--a man's knees. I saw a man's hand
thrust through the paunch, ripping it asunder; and, struggling so, he
rolled slowly over upon his back and lay still. I stooped and tore
the mask away. A black-avised face stared up at me, livid beneath
its sunburn, with filmed eyes. The eyes stared at me unwinking as I
slipped his other hand easily out of its case, which, even at close
view, marvellously resembled the cleft narrow hoof of a hog. I could
not disengage him further, his feet being strapped into the disguise
with tight leathern thongs: but having satisfied myself that he was
past help, I turned on a quick thought to the gateway again, and ran.

A second hog--a real hog--lay stretched there on its side, dead as a
nail. Its companions, scampering in panic, had by this time almost
reached the head of the glade. Forgetting my promise to my father, I
started in pursuit. The thought in my mind was that, if I kept them
in sight, they would lead me to my comrades; a chance unlikely to
return.

The glade ran up between two contracting spurs of the hill. As I
climbed, the belt of woodland narrowed on either side of the track,
until the side-valley ended in a cross ridge where the chestnuts
suddenly gave place to pines and the turf to a rocky soil carpeted
with pine needles. Here, in the spaces between the tree-trunks, I
caught my last glimpse of the hogs as two or three of the slowest ran
over the ridge and disappeared. I followed, sure of getting sight of
them from the summit. But here I found myself tricked. Beyond the
ridge lay a short dip--short, that is, as a bird flies. Not more
than fifty yards ahead the slope rose again, strewn with granite
boulders and piled masses of granite, such as in Cornwall we call
"tors"; and clear away to the mountain-tops stretched a view with
never a tree, but a few outstanding bushes only. Yet from ridge to
ridge green vegetation filled every hollow, and in the hollow between
me and the nearest the hogs were lost.

I heard, however, their grunting and the snapping of boughs in the
undergrowth: and in that clear delusive air it seemed but three
minutes' work to reach the next ridge. I followed then, confidently
enough--and made my first acquaintance with the Corsican _macchia_ by
plunging into a cleft twenty feet deep between two rocks of granite.
I did not actually fall more than a third of the distance, for I
saved myself by clutching at a clematis which laced its coils, thick
as a man's wrist, across the cleft. But I know that the hole cannot
have been less than twenty feet deep, for I had to descend to the
bottom of it to recover my musket.

That fall committed me, too. Within five minutes of my first
introduction to the _macchia_ I had learnt how easily a man may be
lost in it; and in less than half of five minutes I had lost not only
my way but my temper. To pursue after the hogs was nearly hopeless:
all sound of them was swallowed up in the tangle of scrub. Yet I
held on, crawling through thickets of lentisk, tangling my legs in
creepers, pushing my head into clumps of cactus, here tearing my
hands and boots on sharp granite, there ripping my clothes on prickly
thorns. Once I found what appeared to be a goat-track. It led to
another cleft of rock, where, beating down the briers, I looked down
a chasm which ended, thirty feet below, in a whole brake of cacti.
The scent of the crushed plants was divine: and I crushed a plenty of
them.

After a struggle which must have lasted from twenty minutes to half
an hour, I gained the ridge which had seemed but three minutes away,
and there sat down to a silent lesson in geography. I had given up
all hope of following the hogs or discovering my comrades. I knew
now what it means to search for a needle in a bottle of hay, but with
many prickles I had gathered some wisdom, and learnt that, whether I
decided to go forward or to retreat, I must survey the _macchia_
before attempting it again.

To go forward without a clue would be folly, as well as unfair to my
father, whom my two shots must have alarmed. I decided therefore to
retreat, but first to mount a craggy pile of granite some fifty yards
on my left, which would give me not only a better survey of the bush,
but perhaps even a view over the tree-tops and down upon the bay
where the _Gauntlet_ lay at anchor. If so, by the movements on board
I might learn whether or not my father had reached her with his
commands before taking my alarm.

The crags were not easy to climb: but, having hitched the musket in
my bandolier, I could use both hands, and so pulled myself up by the
creepers which festooned the rock here and there in swags as thick as
the _Gauntlet's_ hawser. Disappointment met me on the summit.
The trees allowed me but sight of the blue horizon; they still hid
the shores of the bay and our anchorage. My eminence, however,
showed me a track, fairly well defined, crossing the _macchia_ and
leading back to the wood.

I was conning this when a shout in my rear fetched me right-about
face. Towards me, down and across the farther ridge I saw a man
running--Nat Fiennes!

He had caught sight of me on my rock against the skyline, and as he
ran he waved his arms frantically, motioning to me to run also for
the woods. I could see no pursuer; but still, as he came on, his
arms waved, and were waving yet when a bush on the chine above him
threw out a little puff of grey smoke. Toppling headlong into the
bushes he was lost to me even before the report rang on my ears
across the hollow.

I dropped on my knees for a grip on the creepers, swung myself down
the face of the crag, and within ten seconds was lost in the
_macchia_ again, fighting my way through it to the spot where Nat
lay. Wherever the scrub parted and allowed me a glimpse I kept my
eye on the bush above the chine; and so, with torn clothes and face
and hands bleeding, crossed the dip, mounted the slope and emerged
upon a ferny hollow ringed about on three sides with the _macchia_.
There face-downward in the fern lay Nat, shot through the lungs.

I lifted him against one knee. His eyelids flickered and his lips
moved to speak, but a rush of blood choked him. Still resting him
against my knee, I felt behind me for my musket. The flint was gone
from the lock, dislodged no doubt by a blow against the crags.
With one hand I groped on the ground for a stone to replace it.
My fingers found only a tangle of dry fern, and glancing up at the
ridge, I stared straight along the barrel of a musket. At the same
moment a second barrel glimmered out between the bushes on my left.
"_Signore, favorisca di rendersi_," said a voice, very quiet and
polite. I stared around me, hopeless, at bay: and while I stared and
clutched my useless gun, from behind a rock some twenty paces up the
slope a girl stepped forward, halted, rested the butt of her musket
on the stone, and, crossing her hands above the nozzle of it, calmly
regarded us.

Even in my rage her extraordinary wild beauty held me at gaze for a
moment. She wore over a loose white shirt a short waist-tunic of
faded green velvet, with a petticoat or kilt of the same reaching a
little below her knees, from which to the ankles her legs were cased
in tight-fitting leathern gaiters. Her stout boots shone with
toe-plates of silver or polished steel. A sad-coloured handkerchief
protected her head, its edge drawn straight across her brow in a
fashion that would have disfigured ninety-nine women in a hundred.
But no head-dress availed to disfigure that brow or the young
imperious eyes beneath it.

"Are you a friend of this man?" she asked in Italian.

"He is my best friend," I answered her, in the same language.
"Why have you done this to him?"

She seemed to consider for a moment, thoughtfully, without pity.

"I can talk to you in French if you find it easier," she said, after
a pause.

"You may use Italian," I answered angrily. "I can understand it more
easily than you will use it to explain why you have done this
wickedness."

"He was very foolish," she said. "He tried to run away. And you
were all very foolish to come as you did. We saw your ship while you
were yet four leagues at sea. How have you come here?"

"I came here," answered I, "being led by your hogs, and after
shooting an assassin in disguise of a hog."

"You have killed Giuseppe?"

"I did my best," said I, turning and addressing myself to three
Corsicans who had stepped from the bushes around me. "But whatever
your purpose may be, you have shot my friend here, and he is dying.
If you have hearts, deal tenderly with him, and afterwards we can
talk."

"He says well," said the girl, slowly, and nodded to the three men.
"Lift him and bring him to the camp." She turned to me. "You will
not resist?" she asked.

"I will go with my friend," said I.

"That is good. You may walk behind me," she said, turning on her
heel. "I am glad to have met one who talks in Italian, for the rest
of your friends can only chatter in English, a tongue which I do not
understand. Step close behind me, please; for the way is narrow.
For what are you waiting?"

"To see that my friend is tenderly handled," I answered.

"He is past helping," said she, carelessly. "He behaved foolishly.
You did not stop for Giuseppe, did you?"

"I did not."

"I am not blaming you," said she, and led the way.

CHAPTER XV.

I BECOME HOSTAGE TO THE PRINCESS CAMILLA.

"Silvis te, Tyrrhene, feras agitare putasti?
Advenit qui vestra dies muliebribus armis
Verba redarguerit."
VIRGIL, Aeneid, xi.

Ahead of us, beyond the rises and hollows of the _macchia_, rose a
bare mountain summit, not very tall, the ascent to it broken by
granite ledges, so that from a distance it almost appeared to be
terraced. On a heathery slope at the foot of the first terrace the
Corsicans set down poor Nat and spoke a word to their mistress, who
presently halted and exchanged a few sentences with them in _patois_;
whereupon they stepped back a few paces into the _macchia_, and,
having quickly cut a couple of ilex-staves, fell to plaiting them
with lentisk, to form a litter.

While this was doing I stepped back to my friend's side. His eyes
were closed; but he breathed yet, and his pulse, though faint, was
perceptible. A little blood--a very little--trickled from the corner
of his mouth. I glanced at the girl, who had drawn near and stood
close at my elbow.

"Have you a surgeon in your camp?" I asked. "I believe that a
surgeon might save him yet."

She shook her head. I could detect no pity in her eyes; only a touch
of curiosity, half haughty and in part sullen.

"I doubt," she answered, "if you will find a surgeon in all Corsica.
I do not believe in surgeons."

"Then," said I, "you have not lived always in Corsica."

Her face flushed darkly, even while the disdain in her eyes grew
colder, more guarded.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"Why," said I, "you are not one, I believe, to speak so positively in
mere ignorance. But see!" I went on, pointing down upon the bay over
which this higher slope gave us a clear view, "there goes the ship
that brought us here."

She gazed at it for a while, with bent brow, evidently puzzled.

"No," said I, watching her, "I shall not tell you yet why she goes,
nor where her port lies. But I have something to propose to you."

"Say it."

"It leaves one man behind, and one only, in our camp below. He is my
father, and he has some knowledge of surgery; I believe he could save
my friend here."

She stood considering. "So much was known to me," she answered at
length; "that, after you, there would be but one left. Three of my
men have gone down to take him. He will be here before long."

"But, pardon me--for as yet I know not whether your aim is to kill us
or take us alive--"

She interrupted me with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I have no
wish to kill you. But I must know what brings you here, and the rest
can talk nothing but English. As for this one"--with a gesture of
the hand towards Nat--"he was foolish. He tried to run away and warn
you."

"Then, signorina, let me promise, who know my father, that you will
not take him alive."

"I have sent three men."

"You had done better to send thirty; but even so you will not
succeed."

"I have heard tell," she said, again with a little movement of her
shoulders, "that all Englishmen are mad."

I laughed; and this laugh of mine had a singular effect on her.
She drew back and looked at me for an instant with startled eyes, as
though she had never heard laughter in her life before, or else had
heard too much.

"Tell me what you propose," she said.

"I propose to send down a message to my father, and one of your men
shall carry it with a white flag (for that he shall have the loan of
my handkerchief). I will write in Italian, that you may read and
know what I say."

"It is unnecessary."

"I thank you." I found in my pockets the stump of a pencil and a
scrap of paper--an old Oxford bill--and wrote--

"DEAR FATHER,

"We are prisoners, and Nat is wounded, but whether past help or
not I cannot say. I believe you might do something for him.
If it suit your plans, the bearer will give you safe conduct:
if not, I remain your obedient son,"
"PROSPER."

I translated this for her, and folded the paper.

"Marc'antonio!" she called to one of the three men, who by this time
had finished plaiting the litter and were strewing it with fern.

Marc'antonio--a lean, slight fellow with an old scar on his cheek--
stepped forward at once. She gave him my note and handkerchief with
instructions to hurry.

"Excuse me, principessa"--he hesitated, with a glance at me and
another at his comrades--"but these two, with the litter, will have
their hands full; and this prisoner is a strong one and artful.
Has he not already slain 'l Verru?"

"You will mind your own business, Marc'antonio, which is to run, as I
tell you."

The man turned without another word, but with a last distrustful
look, and plunged downhill into the scrub. The girl made a careless
sign to the others to lay Nat on his litter, and, turning, led the
way up the rocky front of the summit, presenting her back to me,
choosing the path which offered fewest impediments to the
litter-bearers in our rear.

The sun was now high overhead, and beat torridly upon the granite
crags, which, as I clutched them, blistered my hands. The girl and
the two men (in spite of their burden) balanced themselves and sprang
from foothold to foothold with an ease which shamed me. For a while
I supposed that we were making for the actual summit; but on the
second terrace my captress bore away to the left and led us by a
track that slanted across the northern shoulder of the ridge.
A sentry started to his feet and stepped from behind a clump of arid
sage-coloured bushes, stood for a moment with the sun glinting on his
gun-barrel, and at a sign from the girl dropped back upon his post.
Just then, or a moment later, my ears caught the jigging notes of a
flute; whereby I knew Mr. Badcock to be close at hand, for it was
discoursing the tune of "The Vicar of Bray"!

Sure enough, as we rounded the slope we came upon him, Mr. Fett, and
Billy Priske, the trio seated within a semi-circle of admiring
Corsicans, and above a scene so marvellous that I caught my breath.
The slope, breaking away to north and east, descended sheer upon a
vast amphitheatre filled with green acres of pine forest and pent
within walls of porphyry that rose in tower upon tower, pinnacle upon
pinnacle, beyond and above the tree-tops; and these pillars, as they
soared out of the gulf, seemed to shake off with difficulty the
forest that climbed after them, holding by every nook and ledge in
their riven sides--here a dark-foliaged clump caught in a chasm,
there a solitary trunk bleached and dead but still hanging by a last
grip.

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