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Updated: May 16, 2025
Across the court, in the chamber over the archway, some one was playing very prettily upon a mandolin. In spite of the cold I stepped to the outer door to listen, and stood there gazing out upon the thick-falling snow, busy with my thoughts. Yes, decidedly Marc'antonio's manner had been strange. . . . While I stood there, a clock, down in the city, chimed out the half-hour.
The sun had sunk behind the range, and the herbage at our feet lay in a bronze shadow; but light still bathed the sea behind us, and over it a company of gulls kept flashing and wheeling and clamouring. While I listened, following Marc'antonio's example, it seemed to me that an echo from the summit directly above us took up the gull's cry and repeated it, prolonging the note.
If you meet Marc'antonio upon the road, give him this message for me. 'But where, O Princess, I asked, 'are we to await your pleasure? 'Fare north, if you will, to Cape Corso, she said, 'where that old mad Englishman boasts that he will reach my mother in her prison at Giraglia. He has gone thither alone, refusing help; and you may perhaps be useful to him." Marc'antonio's growl grew deeper.
There on my enchanted mountain summit, ringed about day after day by the silent land, removed from all human company but Marc'antonio's, with no clock but the sun and no calendar but the creeping change of the season upon the macchia, what wonder if I forgot human probabilities at times in piecing and unpiecing solutions of a riddle which itself cried out against nature?
To my amazement the wretched youth drew himself up, his cowardice gone, his face twisted with sudden venomous passion. "You? You will protect me? Dog, I can die, but not owe that!" I leapt forward, disregarding him, seeing that Marc'antonio's hand was lifted, and that in it a dagger glittered. But before I could leap the Prince had snatched one of the steel rods from the brazier a charcoal rake.
And as I struck up Marc'antonio's arm, the rake crashed down on my skull, tearing the scalp with its white-hot teeth. I staggered back with both hands held to my head. I did not see the stroke itself; but between my spread fingers I saw the Prince sink to the floor with the handle of Marc'antonio's dagger between his shoulder-blades. I saw the blood gush from his mouth.
I inquired. Stephanu appeared to search his memory. "Now I come to think of it she did let fall a word. . . . But I for my part supposed you to be dead; and, by the way, signore, you will accept my compliments on your recovery." Marc'antonio's frown had deepened. "You mean to tell me, Stephanu," he persisted, "that the Princess will have none of us?"
So the Gauntlet sailed for the island of Giraglia; and we two, having watched her for a while as she stood out to make her offing, trod out our camp-fire and turned our faces northward. Marc'antonio's last action before starting was to unhobble the goats and free the hogs from their wooden collars and headpieces.
"The first time that I crossed the Alps" great Hannibal might have envied the roll in Marc'antonio's voice "I bore the King tidings of his good fortune. It was Stephanu who followed, a week later, with the tale that the children were stolen." "Then Theodore did believe them dead." "At the time, cavalier; at the time, no doubt.
"Mbe, but he was a great liar, that Theodore? Always when it profited, and sometimes for the pleasure of it." "Nevertheless, to disinherit his own son!" Marc'antonio's shoulders went up to his ears. "He knew well enough what comedy he was playing. Disinherit his own son? We Corsicans, he might be sure, would never permit that: and meanwhile your father's money bought him out of prison.
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