The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

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СКАЧАТЬ to the door. We sat down at a little table and called for drink. They served us one of those foul Italian imitations of liqueurs that taste like hair-wash.

      But instead of nauseating us, it exalted us; we enjoyed it as part of the game. Dressed as low-class Neapolitans, we threw ourselves heartily into the part.

      We threw the fiery filth down our throats as if it had been Courvoisier '65. The drink took effect on us with surprising alacrity. It seemed to let loose those swarming caravans of driver ants that eat their way through the jungle of life like a splash of sulphuric acid flung in a woman's face.

      There was no clock in the den, and of course we had left our watches at home. We got a little impatient. We couldn't remember whether Feccles had or had not told us how long he was likely to be. The air of the room was stifling. The lowest vagabonds of Naples crowded the place. Some were jabbering like apes; some singing drunkenly to themselves; some shamelessly caressing; some sunk in bestial stupor.

      Among the last was a burly brute who somehow fascinated our attention.

      We thought ourselves quite safe in speaking English; and for all I know we were talking at the top of our voices. Lou maintained that this particular man was English himself.

      He was apparently asleep; but presently he lifted his head from the table, stretched his great arms, and called for a drink, in Italian.

      He drained his glass at a gulp, and then came suddenly over to our table and addressed us in English.

      We could tell at once from his accent that the man had originally been more or less of a gentleman, but his face and his tone told their own story. He must have been going downhill for many years-reached the bottom long ago, and found it the easiest place to live.

      He was aggressively friendly in a brutal way, and warned us that our disguises might be a source of danger; any one could see through them, and the fact of our having adopted them might arouse the quick suspicion of the Neapolitan mind.

      He called for drinks, and toasted King and Country with a sort of surly pride in his origin. He reminded me of Kipling's broken-down Englishman.

      " Don't you be afraid," he said to Lou. " I won't let you come to any harm. A little peach like you ? No blooming feir! "

      I resented the remark with almost insane intensity, To hell with the fellow!

      He noticed it at once, and leered with a horrible chuckle.

      " All right, mister," he said. " No offence meant," and he threw an arm round Lou's neck, and made a movement to kiss her.

      I was on my feet in a second, and swung my right to his jaw. It knocked him off the bench, and he lay flat.

      In a moment the uproar began. All my old fighting instincts flashed to the surface. I realised instantly that we were in for the very row that Feccles had so wisely warned us to avoid.

      The whole crowd-men and women-were on their feet. They were rushing at us like stampeding cattle. I whipped out my revolver. The wave surged back as a breaker does when it hits a rock.

      "Guard my back!" I cried to Lou.

      She hardly needed telling. The spirit of the true Englishwoman in a crisis was aflame in her.

      Fixing the crowd with my eyes and my barrel, we edged our way to the door. One man took up a glass to throw; but the Padrone had slipped out from behind the bar, and knocked his arm down.

      The glass smashed to the floor. The attack on us degenerated into a volley of oaths and shrieks. We found ourselves in the fresh air-and also in the arms of half a dozen police who had run up from both ends of the street.

      Two of them strode into the wine-shop. The uproar ceased as if by magic.

      And then we found that we were under arrest. We were being questioned in voluble, excited Italian. Neither Lou nor I understood a word that was said to US.

      The sergeant came out of the dive. He seemed an intelligent man. He understood at once that we were English.

      " Inglese ? " he asked. " Inglese ? " and I forcibly echoed " Inglese, Signore Inglese," as if that settled the whole matter.

      English people on the Continent have an illusion that the mere fact of their nationality permits them to do anything soever. And there is a great deal of truth in this, after all, because the inhabitants of Europe have a settled conviction that we are all harmless lunatics. So we are allowed to act in all sorts of ways which they would not tolerate for a moment in any supposedly rational person.

      In the present instance, I have little doubt that, if we had been dressed as ourselves, we should have been politely conducted to our hotel or put into an automobile, without any more fuss, perhaps, than a few perfunctory questions intended to impress the sergeant's men with his importance.

      But as it was, he shook his head doubtfully.

      " Arme vietate," he said solemnly, pointing to the revolvers which were still in our hands.

      I tried to explain the affair in broken Italian. Lou did what was really a much more sensible thing by taking the affair as a stupendous joke, and going off into shrieks of hysterical laughter.

      But as for me, my blood was up. I wasn't going to stand any nonsense from these damned Italians. Despite the Roman blood that is legitimately the supreme pride of our oldest families, we always somehow instinctively think of the Italian as a nigger.

      We don't call them " dagos " and " wops, " as they do in the United States, with the invariable epithet of "dirty " ; but we have the same feeling.

      I began to take the high hand with the sergeant and that, of course, was quite sufficient to turn the balance against us.

      We found ourselves pinioned. He said in a very short tone that we should have to go to the Commissario.

      I had two conflicting impulses. One to shoot the dogs down and get away ; the other to wish, like a lost child, that Feccles would turn up and get us out of the mess.

      Unfortunately for either, I had been very capably disarmed, and there was no sign of Feccles.

      We were marched to the police station and thrown into separate rooms.

      I cannot hope to depict the boiling rage which kept me awake all night. I resented ill-temperedly the attempts of the other men to be sympathetic. I think they recognised instinctively that I had got into trouble through no fault of my own, and were anxious to show kindness in their own rough way to the stranger.

      The worst of the whole business was that they had searched us and removed our stand-by, the dear little gold-topped bottle ! I might have got myself into a mood to laugh the whole thing off, as had so often happened before ; and I realised for the first time the dreadful sinking of heart that comes from privation.

      It was only a hint of the horror so far. I had enough of the stuff in me to carry me through for a bit. But, even as things were, it was bad enough.

      I had a feeling of utter helplessness. I began to repent having repulsed the advances of my fellow prisoners. I approached them and explained that I was a " Signor Inglese " with " molto danaro " ; and if any one could oblige me with a sniff of cocaine, as I explained by gesture, I should be practically grateful.

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