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For they were galantuomini, and even thought themselves something better, and sometimes, when the wine was new, they talked of noble blood and said that their first ancestor had indeed been a son of a king who had given him all Verbicaro for his own. True it is, at least, that they had no other name.
He has been boatswain on board of many a good ship and there are few ports from Batum to San Francisco where he has not cast anchor. The boys saw him from a long way off, and their courage rose. He often came to Verbicaro to buy wine and had known their father, and knew them. He would certainly give them a piece of bread.
"We can go back to Verbicaro when we please," observed Ruggiero with a smile. "Lend a hand on board, will you?" said the sailor. So Ruggiero made the boat fast with the painter and both brothers scrambled over the side of the felucca.
Verbicaro was all asleep behind Don Pietro Casale's house, and in front, from the terrace before the guest-room, one could see the great valley far below beyond the cabbages, deep and mysterious, with silver-dashed shadows and sudden blacknesses, and bright points of white where the moon's rays fell upon a solitary hut.
Out of breath and utterly worn out he stood still and steadied himself against a crooked olive-tree. He could no longer hear even the footsteps of the lads before him. They were beyond his reach now. The last of the Children of the King had left Verbicaro, where their fathers had lived and died since darker ages than Calabrian history has accurately recorded.
He produced a little flat parchment case from his pocket, untied the thong and showed Beatrice the first page on which, was inscribed his name in full. "Ruggiero of the Children of the King, son of the late Ruggiero, native of Verbicaro, province of Calabria you see, Excellency. It is the truth." "I never doubt anything you say, Ruggiero," said Beatrice quietly.
Perhaps it is not very clerical to smoke in the streets. But who cares? This is Verbicaro and besides, it is not a pipe. Monks smoke pipes. Priests smoke cigars. One more turn down a narrow lane darkest and dirtiest of all the lanes, the cobble stones only showing here and there above the universal black puddle.
And so we ran away from Verbicaro, because we had no one and we had to eat, and had beaten Don Pietro Casale, who would have had us put in prison if he had caught us. But thanks to Heaven we had good legs. And so we ran away, Excellency." "It is very interesting. But what were those stories they told about you in Verbicaro?" "Silly stories, Excellency.
And this makes one, who knows something more about your country than you do, Luigione though in a less practical way I confess this makes one think that they may be the modern descendants of some Norman knightling who took Verbicaro for himself one morning in the old days, and kept it; or perhaps even the far-off progeny of one of those bright-eyed, golden-locked Goths who made slaves of the degenerate Latins some thirteen centuries ago or more, and treated their serfs indeed more like cattle than slaves until almost the last of them were driven into the sea with their King Teias by Narses.
Good this year, like all the fruit. The figs and grapes will not be dry for another month. They nod and move on, as you pass by them. Verbicaro is a commercial centre, in spite of the pigs. A tall, thin priest meets you, with a long black cigar in his mouth. When he catches your eye he takes it from between his teeth and knocks the ash off, seeing that you are a stranger.
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