A Spirit in Prison. Robert Hichens

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СКАЧАТЬ of whales in the Bay, or have you sighted the sea-serpent coming from Capri?”

      “No, no! But—you see that boat?”

      “Yes. The men are diving for frutti di mare, aren’t they?”

      Vere nodded.

      “The men are nothing. But there is a boy who is wonderful.”

      “Why? What does he do?”

      “He stays under water an extraordinary time. Now wait. Have you got a watch, Madre?”

      “Yes.”

      “Take it out, there’s a darling, and time him. I want to know—there he is! You see!”

      “Yes.”

      “Have you got your watch? Wait till he goes under! Wait a minute! There! He’s gone! Now begin.”

      She drew into her lungs a long breath, and held it. The mother smiled, keeping her eyes obediently on the watch which lay in her hand.

      There was a silence between them as the seconds passed.

      “Really,” began the mother presently, “he must be—”

      “Hush, Madre, hush!”

      The girl had clasped her hands tightly. Her eyes never left the sea. The tick, tick of the watch was just audible in the stillness of the May morning. At last—

      “There he is!” cried the girl. “Quick! How long has he been under?”

      “Just fifty seconds.”

      “I wonder—I’m sure it’s a record. If only Gaspare were here! When will he be back from Naples with Monsieur Emile?”

      “About twelve, I should think. But I doubt if they can sail.” She looked out to sea, and added: “I think the wind is changing to scirocco. They may be later.”

      “He’s gone down again!”

      “I never saw you so interested in a diver before,” said the mother. “What made you begin to look at the boy?”

      “He was singing. I heard him, and his voice made me feel—” She paused.

      “What?” said her mother.

      “I don’t know. Un poco diavolesca, I’m afraid. One thing, though! It made me long to be a boy.”

      “Did it?”

      “Yes! Madre, tell me truly—sea-water on your lips, as the fishermen say—now truly, did you ever want me to be a boy?”

      Hermione Delarey did not answer for a moment. She looked away over the still sea, that seemed to be slowly losing its color, and she thought of another sea, of the Ionian waters that she had loved so much. They had taken her husband from her before her child was born, and this child’s question recalled to her the sharp agony of those days and nights in Sicily, when Maurice lay unburied in the Casa del Prete, and afterwards in the hospital at Marechiaro—of other days and nights in Italy, when, isolated with the Sicilian boy, Gaspare, she had waited patiently for the coming of her child.

      “Sea-water, Madre, sea-water on your lips!”

      Her mother looked down at her.

      “Do you think I wished it, Vere?”

      “To-day I do.”

      “Why to-day?”

      “Because I wish it so much. And it seems to me as if perhaps I wish it because you once wished it for me. You thought I should be a boy?”

      “I felt sure you would be a boy.”

      “Madre! How strange!”

      The girl was looking up at her mother. Her dark eyes—almost Sicilian eyes they were—opened very wide, and her lips remained slightly parted after she had spoken.

      “I wonder why that was?” she said at length.

      “I have wondered too. It may have been that I was always thinking of your father in those days, recalling him—well, recalling him as he had been in Sicily. He went away from me so suddenly that somehow his going, even when it had happened, for a long time seemed to be an impossibility. And I fancied, I suppose, that my child would be him in a way.”

      “Come back?”

      “Or never quite gone.”

      The girl was silent for a moment.

      “Povera Madre mia!” at last she said.

      But she did not seem distressed for herself. No personal grievance, no doubt of complete love assailed her. And the fact that this was so demonstrated, very quietly and very completely, the relation existing between this mother and this child.

      “I wonder, now,” Vere said, presently, “why I never specially wished to be a boy until to-day—because, after all, it can’t be from you that the wish came. If it had been it must have come long ago. And it didn’t. It only came when I heard that boy’s voice. He sings like all the boys, you know, that have ever enjoyed themselves, that are still enjoying themselves in the sun.”

      “I wish he would sing once more!” said Hermione.

      “Perhaps he will. Look! He’s getting into the boat. And the men are stopping too.”

      The boy was very quick in his movements. Almost before Vere had finished speaking he had pulled on his blue jersey and white trousers, and again taken the big oars in his hands. Standing up, with his face set towards the islet, he began once more to propel the boat towards it. And as he swung his body slowly to and fro he opened his lips and sang lustily once more,

      “O Napoli, bella Napoli!”

      Hermione and Vere sat silently listening as the song grew louder and louder, till the boat was almost in the shadow of the islet, and the boy, with a strong stroke of the left oar turned its prow towards the pool over which San Francesco watched.

      “They’re going into the Saint’s Pool to have a siesta,” said Vere. “Isn’t he a splendid boy, Madre?”

      As she spoke the boat was passing almost directly beneath them, and they saw its name painted in red letters on the prow, Sirena del Mare. The two men, one young, one middle-aged, were staring before them at the rocks. But the boy, more sensitive, perhaps, than they were to the watching eyes of women, looked straight up to Vere and to her mother. They saw his level rows of white teeth gleaming as the song came out from his parted lips, the shining of his eager dark eyes, full of the careless merriment of youth, the black, low-growing hair stirring in the light sea breeze about his brow, bronzed by sun and wind. His slight figure swayed with an easy motion that had the grace of perfectly controlled activity, and his brown hands gripped the great oars with a firmness almost of steel, as the boat glided under the lee of the island, and vanished from the eyes of the watchers СКАЧАТЬ