Chapter XXXVIII: Chiara's Hut

Phyllis was gone to bed, but Dorothy was waiting for Sidney in the bare and comfortless dining room of the hotel. She looked up wistfully as he entered, for all day her thoughts had been anxious and troubled by the mystery which had so suddenly surrounded her; and seeing his pale and haggard face she ran to meet him, and put her arms round his neck, kissing him fondly as a daughter might have done. He kept her hand in his as he sank down weariedly into the chair next to him, and he bowed his head upon the small, fond fingers, and she felt his tears falling on them. Presently he looked up at her.

"Dorothy," he said, "you will never forsake me!"

"Never!" she exclaimed vehemently, "never! not if all the world forsook you."

"Even if you heard I was a base scoundrel, a selfish villain?" he asked.

"Oh, but you are not that!" she answered, kissing him again; "there would be some mistake. But if it was true, I should never forsake you; you would want me all the more."

"That is true," he said.

"There has been a priest here," she continued, after a pause, "asking for Philip, and saying he must see him about some letter, and a man called Martino."

"I know all about it," said Sidney, "and I will send him a message."

At sunrise the next morning Sidney set out for the hamlet where Chiara had lived. It was the fourth day since she died. Martino had followed the funeral procession, which he was not allowed to join, and had stood aloof seeing the coffin laid in the open grave. This woman had never been kind to him, she had led him the life of a dog, but she was the only person to whom he had in any way belonged. He knew no other home than the squalid hut, in which all his life had passed. In a dim sense it was as dear to him as a den is to a wild creature that inhabits it. The litter of leaves and straw in the corner where he always slept seemed the only place where he could sleep. Chiara's hand had been the hand that fed him. There was a void left by her death, a blank that his dull mind could in no way imagine filled up. But he was shrewd enough to know that his enemies would not let him return to the hut if they could help it, and as soon as he saw Chiara's coffin lowered into the grave, he stole away from the cemetery, and hastening up the mountain he secured possession of the wretched hovel, barricading the door, which was the only means of entrance. Here he remained deaf and dumb to the threats of his neighbors and to the entreaties and commands of the priest. The long years of persecution and tyranny which he had undergone had produced the ordinary result of a dull and embruted nature. Those among whom he lived were little better than savages, with the lowest conceptions of duty and religion. Of humanity either to man or beast they knew nothing. Some of them were less cruel and harsh toward Martino than the rest; there were women who had never struck him; but he had been the miserable butt of the others until his bodily strength was great enough for his own defense, excepting from the brute force of men stronger than himself.

At the bottom of his soul there was a profound sadness, a certain susceptibility inherited from his educated and civilized parentage, which had made him less callous under tyranny, than he would have been if he had been a foundling of their own race. In his childhood this susceptibility had displayed itself in bursts of passion and almost insane excitement; in his manhood it changed to long fits of dumb and sullen lethargy. Since Chiara's funeral he had lain motionless on the litter of straw in the hut, regarding the attacks of his neighbors outside with as much indifference as he would have felt under one of the terrific thunderstorms which now and then threatened the little hamlet with imminent destruction. His benumbed mind was almost as lethargic as his body. But this morning his enemies had exhausted their small stock of patience, which so far had been eked out by the presence of the padre, who wished to enter the hut alone and peacefully, in order to make sure that Chiara had given up the whole of her penurious savings to the Church. He had urged upon her in the last solemn moments before death the duty of withholding no portion of her beloved booty; but he knew the peasant nature too well to trust implicitly even to the power of superstition where money was concerned, and he was anxious to search for himself among the accumulated rubbish of her last home. He had been compelled, however, to return to Cortina the night before, leaving strict commands that Martino should be left unmolested.

When Sidney entered the high, secluded valley and the hamlet came in sight, a strange scene lay before him. Round one of the wretched hovels the whole population was assembled in a wild circle of yelling savages, attacking it in every direction. There were not more than five or six men, but there was twice the number of women, as muscular and sinewy as the men, and a host of children. All of them were scantily clothed and their sunburnt limbs looked as hard as iron. A heap of enormous stones was piled up near the door of the hut, and the heavy thud as they were flung against it by brawny arms was echoed by the wall of rock behind. Sidney was still at a little distance when a loud shout of triumph reached his ears. One of the women was coming out of a neighboring hut with a lighted fagot in her hand, which she thrust up into the dried thatch of the roof. In another minute half a dozen other fagots were fetched from the hearths, and the reek of the smoke rose up in a column in the pure morning air.

Sidney hurried forward, wondering if he should find his son amid this maddened crew, when the door of the hovel was flung open suddenly from within, and a man stood in the low doorway--a man, a wild beast rather! His long, matted hair hung about his face like a mane, and his bare limbs, scorched almost black with heat, and frost-bitten into long furrows by cold, looked hardly human. He was gasping for air, as if all but smothered by the suffocating smoke; and as he stood there, blinded by the sudden light, a sharp stone flung by one of the women struck him on the temple. A yell of mingled exultation and abhorrence followed the successful blow, and the miserable creature would have been stoned to death like a dangerous wild beast if Sidney had not cried out in a tone of authority, to the utter surprise of the assailants.

The lull would have lasted only a moment if Sidney had not bethought himself of a ready and effective means of diverting the angry mob. He thrust his hand into his pocket and flung into the midst of them a handful of bronze and silver coins. There was an instant diversion and scramble for the money, and before any of them gave heed to him Martin rushed away, and with the speed of a scared and hunted animal fled up the precipitous rocks near at hand. When all the coins were picked up his enemies looked round for him in vain.

"I have no more money with me now," said Sidney in Italian, "but there is plenty more in Cortina for those who come down for it; and the man who tells me where Martino is, Martino who was Chiara's adopted son, shall have a golden-----"

"Martino!" interrupted the most intelligent looking of the men, "that was Martino we were burning out."

"Oh, my God!" cried Sidney, staggering as if he had been struck by a blow as heavy as that which had wounded his son. For a moment or two he felt faint and stunned, unable to move or speak, and the circle of faces and figures around him appeared to whirl dizzily about him. He was conscious of the stare of their inquisitive and savage eyes, which were fastened upon him with unfriendly gaze, and he could hear the muttering of their uncouth voices. The hovel was blazing behind them, and the thick smoke was blown down in clouds upon him and them. He felt almost suffocated. Was it possible that he was about to die here among these terrible men and women? He made a superhuman effort to shake off the deadness that was creeping over him.

With his consciousness there returned to him the habit of authority and command. He drew himself up and looked round at them all with a keen gaze, from which they shrank a little, sulkily and abjectly. His knowledge of their language came back fluently to his aroused brain, and made it easy to address them.

"Your padre told me I should find Martino here, in Chiara's house. What right have you to set that house on fire? It is not yours."

"He would not come out," answered one of the women, for all the men were silent. Certainly they had no right to destroy the hut, and the law was stern on offenders such as they were.

"And why did you want him to come out?" asked Sidney.

"Because he shall not live among us any longer," replied the man who had spoken to him before; "he is accursed, and he has the evil eye. His mother is in hell, and no mass can be said for her soul; and he does not belong to us. No man of us will give him a hand, and no woman will give him a look. Would any woman here be the wife of Martino?"

There was a roar of contempt and abhorrence, a laugh such as Sidney had never heard before.

"But where is he gone?" he asked.

"Up yonder," answered the man, pointing to a peak standing high and clear in the morning sky; "there is a cave up there good enough for a wolf like him. Let him stop there."

"I am come here to take him away," said Sidney; "he is my son."

The words sounded in his own ears as if spoken by some other voice. This poor, hunted, despised and wounded outcast his son! It seemed as if before him was unrolled the record of the sad, desolate, neglected, most unhappy years through which his first-born son had passed, while every year of them had been crowned with prosperity and happiness to himself. The thought of it passed swiftly though vividly through his brain, as such remembrances do in the hour of death. A profound and uneasy silence had fallen upon the crowd around him. This rich Englishman had caught them in an unlawful act, and had witnessed their savage treatment of Martino. They knew how much influence such wealthy foreigners had with the mayor in the town below, where such men were treated with servile respect, and they were in dread of some terrible vengeance for their treatment of his son.

"I did not know he was living till the day before yesterday," said Sidney at last, speaking to himself rather than to them.

Was it only so short a time ago? It appeared to be ages. He had lived through a century of troubled emotion since he reached Toblach.

"I will reward any man well who brings him to me," he added, "and now you had better put out this blazing thatch, if you wish to save your own huts."