As they sat that evening in the garden of the hotel drinking their after-dinner coffee, which the gentlemen accompanied with cigarettes, they discussed the news from home contained in a batch of letters Mrs. Fairhew and her niece had found awaiting them on their return from the yacht. The announcement of an engagement, rumors of flirtations which might end in others, the latest gossip about people they all knew, were mingled with chat about an extraordinary yacht race at Northeast Harbor, a Russian princess at Nahant, an automobile accident at Lenox, and a fresh divorce at Newport.
"Everything else," Mrs. Fairhew said at length, "is simply nothing at all in comparison to a piece of business news I received. Have you heard of the Tillington failure?"
"What!" cried Jack. "R. B. Tillington?"
"Yes. Their own notice was with the othermail this afternoon," she responded. "Liabilities something like a third of a million and their assets nothing."
"How in the world did it happen?" asked Tab. "I knew they had a lot to do with mines, and of course those are always risky; but Tillington always had the name of being awfully clever."
"Perhaps he was too clever," Jack suggested.
"Clever or not," Mrs. Fairhew said, "he has come to grief, and, I am ashamed to confess, he has lost some money for me."
"I am very sorry for that," Jack responded. "I'll wager you'll have plenty of distinguished company. I'm awfully afraid Uncle Randolph got his fingers burned. He's had dealings with Tillington for ever so long. I never took kindly to the man myself, but Uncle Randolph had a great opinion of his business sagacity."
"I'll wager Mrs. Fairhew's bound to be in good company even in misfortune," Jerry declared with his usual somewhat clumsy gallantry.
Mrs. Fairhew smiled, and made a little sweeping gesture with her fan as if the subject were a disagreeable one and should be waved aside.
"Even that," she said, "doesn't soothe my wounded vanity. The money I've lost isfortunately not very much, but I pride myself on my business head, and I made this investment in spite of the advice of my banker. Think how he will chuckle! I'd rather have lost three times as much on an investment he selected."
"How thoroughly feminine!" Jack laughed.
"Of course you can't understand," Katrine struck in. "I agree with Aunt Anne entirely. Of course one would rather lose money than to give a man a chance to crow over her."
The talk was thus drawn into the inexhaustible discussion of feminine and masculine characteristics, that topic about which revolves two thirds of all the small talk of the world. Then it drifted back to the personal news of the letters.
"I don't think Billy Rafton's to be congratulated," announced Tab emphatically, in reference to a recent wedding. "Edna Leighton has plenty of money of course, and is a stunning girl and all that; but she's so horribly ambitious that she won't give poor Billy a minute's peace."
"And Billy is one of the most quiet men alive," put in Jack.
"Ambitious?" queried Katrine. "How? I've known her pretty well, and to me she always seemed nice. Certainly she's clever."
"So she is clever," Jerry assented; "but ofcourse that'll make it harder for Billy to stand out against her."
"She naturally would have the instinct to get ahead in the world," commented Castleport. "Her mother was a Farquhar."
"Mr. Castleport," remonstrated Mrs. Fairhew, "that remark is too feminine to be worthy of you."
"Do you regret that I didn't leave it for you to say?" he asked saucily. "I know you entirely agree with me."
"Her father, Stephen Leighton," Mrs. Fairhew continued, making no answer but a hardly perceptible smile to his statement, "was a thoroughly charming man and of very good family. You can't deny that, Mr. Castleport."
"I haven't any wish to. I'm not trying to run down Edna Leighton—Rafton, that is."
"I always thought," began Katrine. Then she stopped, with an involuntary movement of the eyes in the direction of Taberman.
"Oh, I was hit there once," Tab said jovially, "if that's what you mean. I got over it at a boat race."
They all laughed, and the topic seemed exhausted, when the elder lady said:—
"We shall have sight of them at Florence, Isuppose. They are to be at the Villa Foscagni for the summer. It belongs to the Raftons."
"When do you expect to get there?" Tab inquired carelessly.
"Florence? In five or six days."
"Five or six days!" cried Jack. "Why, when do you leave here?"
"To-morrow afternoon," answered Katrine in a tone of which the indifference might have struck Jack as a little overdone had he not been too perturbed to notice.
"Why—but—" Jack began; "I had no idea"—
"Did you fancy we were here for the summer?" queried Katrine with demure interest.
The hint of teasing in her tone brought Castleport to himself. Half his social success lay in the fact that he was not easily disconcerted.
"As Mrs. Fairhew was good enough to tell me her plans," he returned coolly, "I naturally understood that you were to leave here before long, but I admit I hadn't thought you would go so soon."
"You see," Mrs. Fairhew explained, "we really must get on. Katrine has to do museums and things, as I told you. When I was a girl it wouldn't have been thought respectable for a girlto come out before she'd seen the Pitti and Uffizzi; but it's all different now."
"What nonsense, Aunt Anne! I don't believe you'd seen the galleries yourself when you came out."
"Indeed I had. I'll make you read all the finest print in the guide-books if you are impertinent. We take," she added, turning to Castleport, "the 3.08 for Genoa."
Jack was by nature quick and resolute; and before Mrs. Fairhew had got to this remark he had conceived a plan, and resolved to follow it out. Gravely regarding the thicket of oleanders behind Miss Marchfield, yet with the tail of his eye on the face of Jerry, which was alternately lighted and obscured as his cigarette glowed or waned, the captain remarked coolly:—
"That's a curious coincidence."
"Coincidence?" repeated Mrs. Fairhew questioningly.
"It would seem so," Jack almost drawled. "You said the 3.08, didn't you? How far do you go? All the way to Genoa?"
"Yes. What is there extraordinary about that?"
"Why, nothing much," returned Jack in a brisker tone, throwing away the butt of his cigarette; "only—yes—that's the very train I goon myself. Same destination, too, unless I decide to stop at Bordighera."
There naturally was a sensation at this unexpected announcement. Katrine drew in her breath audibly; in the very nick of time Jerry caught himself in the act of saying profanely what he would be; Mrs. Fairhew closed her fan quickly, but she was too much mistress of herself to give any indication of her feelings beyond a little quick laugh.
"I had not remembered that you spoke of going," she said.
"No?" Jack said politely.
"But," gasped Jerry, "I say—you know, I say"—
Evidently his feelings were too much for him, and he collapsed. So sudden a move on the part of Jack was sure to disconcert his slower-witted comrade, and the captain had fortunately been prepared by previous experiences for some mental confusion on the part of the mate.
"Yes, Jerry?" he asked.
"Nothing—I—I don't remember what I was going to say," murmured the bewildered Tab.
"Really," observed Mrs. Fairhew, "it hadn't occurred to me that you could or would leave the yacht. What becomes of her?"
"Oh, you don't doubt Jerry, do you? He's going to take her in charge."
Once determined upon his plan, Jack felt it best to carry matters off with a high hand. He did not in the least care whether Mrs. Fairhew and Katrine suspected that his resolution to go on by land had been taken on the spot or not; but he liked to play the game well, and to put a good face on things. He spoke as though his mind had been made up long before, although all the time his brain was working with furious energy, as he tried to shape the scheme thoroughly and to foresee all possible contingencies. To give over to Jerry the care of the President's yacht was a bold stroke, but he said to himself that he was confident his friend was entirely competent to manage her for the comparatively short run to Naples; and his thought nimbly disposed of objection after objection as they rose in his mind.
Rapid as had been his decision, it was less wild than it might seem; and by the time he spoke again Jack had all the details pretty well mastered.
"Do you leave the Merle here?" inquired Mrs. Fairhew.
Katrine, Jack noted, had said nothing, but he had heard that quick, indrawn breath, and he did not believe that her silence arose from indifference.
"Oh, no; Jerry's going to take her to Naples," was Castleport's cool reply.
It was to Tab's credit that at this astounding piece of intelligence he did not make a violent demonstration; but he was not unaccustomed to the rapidity with which Jack came to a decision, and he had before been trained in accepting what his captain said. Now he only dropped his cigarette, and on picking it up put the lighted end between his lips, spluttered and smothered a profane comment, and hurled the offending butt as far as he could.
"Have another?" asked Jack, unruffled, as he pushed his case across the little table by which they were sitting.
"Thank you, no!" replied Tab with quite unnecessary emphasis.
"You've no need to touch your lips with fire, Mr. Taberman," Mrs. Fairhew observed, opening and closing her fan in a way which she had when amused; "you have been sufficiently eloquent in compliments ever since you arrived. May we hope, then," she went on, turning to Castleport, "for the pleasure of your company on the journey?"
"If you and Miss Marchfield do not object, I shall be delighted."
"It will be a great pleasure to me. Of course I can't speak for Katrine."
Jack turned to look at Katrine. On her face the soft light of a Japanese lantern fell between a couple of trees, but she at once moved so that the shadows hid her expression.
"Nothing could please me more, Aunt Anne, than that you should be pleased," she responded.
"Then you had better bring Mr. Taberman and your luggage ashore, and come to luncheon to-morrow," the aunt said, rising. "In that way we can take our time and be comfortable. Does that suit your plans, Mr. Castleport?"
Jack detected the suspicion of mirth in her voice, but he felt that if she had disapproved she would not only have shown no amusement but that she was clever enough to have thwarted his scheme.
"I don't want to abuse your hospitality," he said.
"Oh, we shall make you useful as an escort, and get enough service out of you on the journey to pay that," spoke Katrine, with the air of feeling that she had been too noticeably silent.
"We're only too delighted to come, of course," Jerry said with boyish enthusiasm. "Anybody'd be glad of a chance to lunch with you, Mrs. Fairhew."
"Your compliments are rather direct, Mr. Taberman," that lady answered with a laugh. "We'll say 1.30, then. That will give us plenty of time. I hate to be hurried; it is so undignified."
As Mrs. Fairhew had risen the others were of course on their feet, and as Jack stood aside for Katrine to pass him, the elder lady took his arm. By this she detained him an instant, until her niece and Jerry were a few yards away. When they approached the door of the hotel and it was light enough for him to see her clearly, she dropped his arm; and as he turned his face toward her at the movement, she regarded him through her lorgnette with a look quizzical though kindly.
"You are a clever boy," she said after a little, and with a peculiar faint stress on the adjective. "Do you want to marry my niece?"
Jack of course recognized that the question would never have been asked had there been any doubt of the answer, and even in the confusion of the moment he had a dim perception that Mrs. Fairhew was, with kindly whim, helping him to ask her sanction to his wooing. He felt his cheeks grow hot, but he faced his inquisitor frankly, and he spoke with a manner which though instinctively subdued was full of energy and feeling.
"You know I do," he said. "You know I'd die the worst of deaths for her. I—As God's above me," he burst out, breaking off and feeling himself strangle with his emotion, "I'll win her or die trying! I—I— Of course I want to marry her! What do you suppose I came to Europe for?"
Mrs. Fairhew's face softened, for no true woman could have heard the passion of his voice unmoved; but she laughed at the sudden change with which he ended.
"I hope you may succeed," she said softly. "I think you will." Then she took his arm again, and spoke in her ordinary voice: "Come, we must go in."
"Now, then, Jack, in the name of heaven," demanded Jerry, as soon as he and the captain were out of hearing of the ladies, "what is this awful josh of yours about leaving the yacht?"
"I'll tell you when we get aboard," his friend answered. "Don't bother me now; I'm thinking."
Tab snorted contemptuously, and in silence the pair held on until they reached the quay. The cutter awaited them, and still in silence they were pulled out to the Merle. There was not a breathof wind now; the stars blazed brilliantly above them, and not a cloud-blot was to be seen. In a stillness broken only by the rhythmical oar-strokes the pair watched the myriad star-points which dotted the heavens as they had adorned it centuries before when old Nice was new Nicæa, and some brown Sicilian pilot may have gazed up at them and made haven by their faithful guidance.
No sooner were they aboard than Gonzague came to ask if they would have supper.
"Oh, I don't know," Jack answered, still in a dream from the spell of Mrs. Fairhew's words.
"Well, I do," put in Jerry. "We'll have some caviare sandwiches, Gonzague, and a glass of sherry."
The supper was eaten almost in silence, and it was not until Gonzague had taken away the things and left them with pipes lighted that the inevitable explanation was reached.
"Now then?" said Tab impatiently.
His face wore a sober expression, full of expectancy, but not without a hint of annoyance and reproach. Jack blew a large smoke-ring at him, and laughed to see how in dodging it Jerry kept his solemnity unchanged.
"Well, Tab," he began, "I don't suppose it's necessary to say that the idea of leaving the yachtnever came into my head till I knew Mrs. Fairhew and Katr—Miss Marchfield were off to-morrow."
"Heave ahead," grumpily retorted Jerry. "Don't mind me. Of course I shall be delighted to be left alone on the yacht."
"Come, cheer up, old man," Jack exhorted. "Don't be grouchy. I'm awfully sorry to leave you; but of course it's only for a little while, and we shall both have compensations. I hope I shall be coming nearer to—to—well, to something definite, you know; and you'll have the Merle to do what you jolly well please with."
"That's all very well, of course," Tab responded, his face relaxing a little; "but what's your game? We've beastly little money, you know; and this shore cruise of yours is bound to sop up a lot of tin."
"We've money enough to carry us through," Jack declared. "I'll go to Genoa, of course. I know Italy pretty well, and I can make myself useful,—sort of 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' and courier all in one. When they go on to Naples,—well, from something Mrs. Fairhew said to-night, I think I shan't have any difficulty going on to Naples with them. A man's a handy article in traveling, you see, especially if he knows the language."
Jerry regarded the captain as if his slower wits found it somewhat hard to follow the swift flights of his friend's mind.
"But the Merle?" he objected. "It's bad enough for you to be skylarking about the world with the President's yacht, but when it comes to turning it over to me—Why, the old gentleman would throw five hundred fits at the bare idea."
"Oh, I'll trust you there," Jack said lightly, consciously trying to make his confidence as flattering as possible. "You can manage, and do as you please for the next month. Who ever heard of a mate that didn't jump at the chance of taking command for a while. I'd advise you to stop, say, at Elba, if you're for doing the sights. Then, if you like, while you're on the Napoleonic tack, you might run 'round to Ajaccio. It's an out-of-the-way place, rather, but it's jolly when you get there. As for Elba, I've never been ashore there, though I've passed it and know the chap that owns it. I'll give you a letter in case you want to go ashore."
"But, Jack—Damn it!" broke out Jerry, as if exasperated by the very feasibility of his friend's sudden change of tactics, "I can't speak a word of their blessed lingo!"
"Pooh! Your French will carry you about wellenough, and if worst comes to worst, you can fall back on Gonzague. At Naples you'll find them speaking English all over the lot."
"Jack Castleport, you're certainly the damnedest man to handle I ever came across," Jerry said in despairing tones. "A fellow might as well try to bully-rag a sea-cow as to argue you out of any of your confounded schemes."
"That's because they're so good," laughed Jack. "You see their profound wisdom carries me away so completely that objections can't touch me." Then he stretched his hand across the table corner, and caught hold of Jerry's. "I'm deuced sorry to give you the slip like this," he said, "but you know the reason."
The good-natured Tab melted at once. He returned the pressure of his friend's hand and tried to quote
"But when a woman's in the case,All other things, you know, give place;"
"But when a woman's in the case,All other things, you know, give place;"
"But when a woman's in the case,All other things, you know, give place;"
"But when a woman's in the case,
All other things, you know, give place;"
but made so hopeless a mess of it that he could only break out into one of his boisterously jovial guffaws.
"Well, by George," he cried, "if she only knew how devoted you are, Jack, she'd let you wait a dog's age, just to try you."
They spent an hour or so in arranging details, going over charts, dividing their funds, and so on. Jack gave Tab addresses at Genoa, Florence, and Rome by which he might be reached, and told him that at Naples he should go to the Hôtel du Vesuve. On the twentieth of August Jerry was to inquire for him there. These and other affairs having been arranged, the pair smoked a final pipe, and turned in.
Jack was very wakeful. He lay thinking of this and of that, restlessly tossing about in his berth. Just as at last he was dropping off to sleep, he was aroused by the voice of Jerry, who called softly across the passage:—
"I say, Jack,—are you awake?"
"Almost," replied Jack; "but I shouldn't have been, if you'd let me alone."
"I say, Jacko, do you fancy the President came a cropper in that Tillington smashup?"
"Don't know," Jack answered. "He's pretty shrewd, and Mrs. Fairhew would have been likely to hear of it, I should think, if he had come seriously to grief."
"Well, you know, it struck me that perhaps that beastly letter from Tillington might have been something important, and"—
"Oh, take a liver-pill!" interrupted Jack."You've got an attack ofConscientia Novanglicana."
"What's that?"
"Forerunner of nervous pros.," replied the captain with a chuckle. "Go to sleep or you'll get it."
"Well, good-night."
"Good-night, boy."
Silence again reigned, but Jack, once more aroused, threshed about uneasily until far into the night. Resolutely as he might determine not to think of the possible consequences of the carrying off of that big blue letter, he could not prevent doubt from recurring constantly to his mind, and something not so far removed from remorse mingled with his thoughts of Katrine and of the delight of traveling in her company. He was so long awake that on the next afternoon Mrs. Fairhew, when he had installed her and her niece comfortably in a first-class compartment on the 3.08 train, and they were beginning to see the olive groves and the villas slip picturesquely past the windows, noted the shadows beneath his eyes, and smiled to herself discreetly and unseen.
For two weeks the Merle had been lying at anchor at Naples. From Nice she had run first to Elba; thence she had doubled north again and rounded Corsica; she had touched at Calvi and Ajaccio; and lastly, running through the Straits of Bonifacio, she had held on east-southeasterly to her present anchorage off the Castle.
Despite the novel pleasures of command, Taberman felt Jack's absence so much as at times to be almost unhappy, even at times a little inclined to be resentful. He was still too boyish not to feel that to leave a yacht for a girl was the height of madness, if not of idiocy; and while he was too loyal to Jack to confess this feeling even to himself, it would at times rise in his mind, especially when he felt more than usually lonely. On his arrival at any port Jerry experienced to the full the excitement which even the oldest traveler feels in some degree at entering a new town. Wheneverthe port officer appeared in his official dignity, another sensation was added in the fear of detection and apprehension. A reaction would set in with the departure of the easily satisfied official, and Jerry would go mooning about with his hands in his pockets, whistling some spiritless tune until the time came to get up anchor and sail anew.
At Naples, however, things went somewhat better with Jerry than at any of his previous ports. In the first place even Jerry, unæsthetic as he was, could not escape the magic of the beautiful bay and the surroundings which opened up before him in the morning light as he approached the city. He said to himself, half as if in excuse for being so much pleased by mere scenery, that it looked as it should. It had, as it were, kept faith with him; and its beauty was to him an honest fulfillment of its fame. The gray cone of Vesuvius, palpably and gratifyingly like the pictures, stood at the head of the bay, crowned with an inky cloud of smoke. Away from it to the south stretched the cliffs of blue Sorrento and bluer Capri, melting magically into a background of hills or of the azure sky. On the north of the smoking cone a stretch of shadow-wrought shore, and then Naples itself, from the old Spanish fort on the water-front to the Castle of St. Elmo, longand gray, crowning the summit of the ridge behind, and the stone-pines silhouetted like palms against the sapphire sky. Naples, with its great four-square houses of pink, and white, and yellow, heaped, as it were, one above another; its red-tiled roofs, its terraces tricked out with vines or fig-trees; Naples, with its church roofs of variegated tiles, its long quays yellowish gray about the shore—Jerry could well have believed himself in some enchanted picture city, a city which might almost be expected to vanish suddenly if one should close the book it graced.
Behind the Government Mole were lying five Italian battleships, their big red, white, and green flags floating over their sterns, and everywhere over the liquid blue of the bay sailed fisher-craft and small boats, gilded with the morning light.
Scarcely was the Merle's anchor down than the yacht was surrounded by a gay flotilla of boats, all laden with piles of fruit or vegetables, and manned by crews as noisy as they were picturesque. Baskets heaped with figs, great piles of green melons, lemons, citrons, plums, fresh vegetables of all sorts, were there; and each ware was extolled by the vendors with vociferous volubility, until the ears of Jerry fairly sang with the din. From the crowding boats screamed blowsy,dark-eyed women with brown oval faces and raiment of reds and yellows; boys with Greek faces and slim bare arms yelled with shrill voices; doddering old men, sitting in the stern-sheets of skiffs pulled by impish youngsters, waved impotent hands and moved toothless mouths whose sounds were lost in the feverish uproar; stalwart market-men, with brown, wrinkled faces and hairy bosoms exposed, fought their way through the press, disregarding age, sex, and condition in their effort to be nearest the possible purchasers on the Merle; all around the yacht the piratical water-peddlers made a floating Pandemonium, at which the Yankee crew stared not only in surprise but with some appearance of not unnatural alarm.
As an opposing bulwark to this flood of southern vivacity, old Gonzague alone stood as the spokesman of the yacht. Requested by Jerry to make the vendors "stow their jaw," he laid about him right and left with a profane volubility which outdid even that of the assailants. The old man had not spoken Italian for so long that he might well be supposed to have forgotten it, but the occasion found him splendidly adequate to all the requirements of the situation. The Neapolitans raved and pleaded, execrated and lowered their prices, with appeals to the Madonna and all thesaints to witness their honesty and their liberality; but once the floodgates of Gonzague's Italian were opened, he dealt with them so eloquently and so roundly, his objurgations were so much more picturesque and more emphatic than any they could compass, that one by one they drew away baffled, calling on high Heaven and the blessed Virgin to protect them when Vesuvius should belch forth a torrent of fire to overwhelm this blasphemous and impiousvecchiastro.
Gonzague was perhaps sustained under the volleys of curses which the defeated bumboat men and women threw back at him, by the admiration with which he was regarded by the crew of the Merle. They had come to idolize the old man, and to look upon him with roughly affectionate wonder. The beauty of the scenes through which they had been passing in the Mediterranean had of course impressed them very little æsthetically, and Naples with its matchless bay they saw only with the eyes of Isle au Haut fishermen. They were, however, never tired of wonders. The childlike sailor nature is always easily touched by the marvelous, and a real volcano was something worth seeing. As long as the Merle was in sight of Vesuvius they would hang over the rail and watch it for hours. If the smoke ceased theywould cluster together and discuss the probable causes; they would talk of the mountain as if it were a conscious monster, lying in wait for prey, whose every movement was to be watched with a view to detecting the sinister design that must lie behind it. When a great dun cloud would suddenly puff up from the cone, the men would greet it with deep exclamations half of awe and half of applause. Continually they beset Gonzague with questions, as if he were the keeper or the high priest of this fiery monster. They apparently had complete confidence that Gonzague could explain it all if he would. His knowledge of the language and such use of it as he made in dispersing the voluble rabble of vendors were exactly in the line of their understanding, and they followed his every movement with an admiration amusingly tinged with something not unlike uncouth reverence.
On the afternoon of his arrival at Naples Taberman had gone ashore. He had landed at the steamship quay, and passed half the night in an aimless ramble. There is something about Naples at night which goes to the head like wine; especially if the head is young and set on the shoulders of one who has never before known the life of southern cities. Jerry walked from the railroad station to the Public Gardens, and from the Molato the Hôtel Britannique upon the heights. He attempted no systematic exploration, but simply wandered with no other object than the simple delight of rambling. By daylight the picturesque streets; the variegated rabble, ragged, dirty, beautiful, impudent, at once repulsive and enchanting; the crooked, crowded ways that climb the hill; the awnings, the heaps of fruit, the strange wares, the familiar air of the family life which made of the streets a home, and seemed to turn all the inhabitants of the town into one huge family; the unconsciously artistic groups, the tumblingbambini, the women, bold, piquant, handsome, or ugly with a hideousness of which Jerry had never conceived,—all these things passed before him like the whirling shows of an opium dream. As night fell, and the lights appeared, the scenes through which he went half dazed and wholly delighted took on a new quality of the weird and fantastic. The flaring lamps, the mysterious shadows, the blazing colors which not even the night could subdue, the theatrical effects seen down the narrow streets as on a stage set for opera, the inexhaustible vivacity, which seemed not to diminish with the lateness of the hour, all blended in an intoxicating experience such as Taberman had never known, and indeed such as had never come into his liveliest fancy.
The next day Jerry went ashore in the morning, and set himself to more regular sight-seeing under the care of a professional guide. He went over the famous Museum, saw Vergil's Tomb, Posilipo, Sanazar's house, and Marti'spozzo. After a capital luncheon in one of the cafés in the Arcade, he rejoined his guide, who took him to the Aquarium. On the way they stopped at the Royal Palace and the Morro, Tab being duly impressed by the grandeur of royalty and the majesty of the law. Continually he wished that Jack were with him, for he had so fallen into the habit of depending on Jack for opinions that without his friend his impressions seemed to lack the clearness of sanction. When it came to the Aquarium, however, not only did the things he had seen in his day's explorations fade from his mind, but he was too delighted not to know exactly what he felt.
The Aquarium of Naples is by far the most wonderful in the world. It is smaller and less elaborate than others, as, for instance, that of the Trocadero, but it outranks all in interest and impressiveness. The virtue of the place lies in its simplicity of construction and in the rarity of its exhibits. A sense of restful shadow and coolness succeeding to outside glare and heat; a dim greenish light in broad, glass-faced tanks of sea-water;an odd feeling of being fathoms deep in a tropical sea,—these are the sensations the visitor has first in this wonderful home of strange fish in exile.
Tab made the rounds half a dozen times before he could bring himself to leave. Quite unscientific, but as enthusiastic as a boy, he stood in front of each tank, and tried vainly to determine which was most fascinating. Here were spiny lobster-like crustacea, spotted with a dozen colors; there were beautiful fish with shining iridescent sides and waving filmy, vaporous tails; one tank was inhabited by repulsive, warty octopi, splotched with dull browns and plague-spots of ugly red, which melted and slimed about, so disgusting that they seemed almost obscene; from another a huge sea python, with body as large as the thigh of a man and a head like that of a bald wolf, seemed to grin with sinister, snarling face at Jerry, while all about the monster bloated globe-fish and distorted marine shapes swam and circled; in a corner tank a brood of asp-like fish, with skins that seemed of richest velvet, dusky and wonderful in hue, lay heaped like incarnate poison; and near by the angel-fish went waving and trailing their way about the sand. Jerry was perhaps most impressed, however, by the mysterious life which went on in a tank to which he came among the last. Thin, slow-wavingfilaments of colorless jelly, crowned with diaphanous cups, not differing greatly from the poppy-flower in shape; and near them other forms, transparent, hardly more than condensed sea-water in appearance, yet with slow pulsations, continuous and wonderful, of phosphoric sparks,—as if one saw life itself throbbing rhythmically in the pellucid hairs of jelly.
Jerry had not been so completely happy since he parted from Jack. He reveled in a boyish delight, and let no wonder of the place escape him. He tipped the keeper to feed the octopi with young crabs, lowered on a string; he took a smart electric shock from a morose torpedo which lay sulkily in a small open tub with a pebbly bottom; he had the big anemones and the coral-polyps "put to sleep," in the words of his guide,—an operation consisting simply of the moving in the water of a small stick which caused them to close in alarm; he did, in a word, everything his guide could think of for him to do, and went away in the end only half content to leave.
After the Aquarium, Jerry turned a deaf ear to the alluring speeches of the guide, the burden of whose song was all of curiosities unseen and of pleasures untasted. He paid the importunate manikin, and made his way back to the Merle.The truth was that he had seen something which thoroughly pleased him, and after that it was impossible to return to the perfunctory seeing of regulation sights which really did not take hold of him in the least.
Before the first week was ended, Jerry had visited Pompeii and Baiæ, and what was to be seen of Herculaneum. He had made some purchases; and then he began to wait about, ashore or aboard, for Jack. That gentleman had written no response to Tab's letter announcing the arrival of the Merle at Naples, and Jerry could only think of him as so absorbed in his wooing as to have forgotten all about his friend. Some not unnatural jealousy began to ferment in his mind, and did not add to his comfort. By the advice of Gonzague he took the market-boat, and setting out early one morning he sailed with a couple of the men across the bay to Capri, where he passed the day. The only thing which cheered him on his lonely expedition was a tarantella, which was danced for his diversion by a romantic-lookingraggaza, with black eyes and short petticoats. The moonlight sail back would have pleased him more had it not been necessary to keep the men rowing for two thirds of the way. On the whole, Jerry could find nothing to please him on land or sea.
The major part of the next week he had spent stretched out in a canechaise longuein the cockpit, drinking iced sangaree and reading Didron'sArtémise. He had a fly stretched over the awning for increased coolness, and the "dusters" put up to shut out the glare from the water; there, like some melancholy monarch beneath his canopy, he read, dozed, and grumbled—without even the satisfaction of any fit audience—from morning to sundown.
In the cool of the evening he usually went ashore, and one night he was strolling along the water-front, stick in hand and his Panama set well back on his head. As he passed the Hôtel du Vesuve, wondering when Jack would arrive, a small figure moved quickly in front of him and bowed. At first he was startled, but almost instantly he saw that it was the valet de place who had gone about with him in the early days of his stay at Naples.
"Hello," said Jerry in surprise, yet not without a feeling of satisfaction at finding even this apology for a companion.
"Buon' sera, signor," responded the little man vivaciously. "How do? You tek-a de night air?É verament' un' bellissima notte.It mek-a cool, eh?"
And he waved his arms expressively.
He might have been thirty or thirty-five, and had coarse black hair, with fiery eyes. He was not ill-looking, but his clothes were hopelessly threadbare and his face pinched. He bore dark circles under his eyes, and was in no way markedly different from others of his numerous and futile class, who, with a smattering of French, German, or English, struggle desperately for a livelihood by acting, not always very virtuously, as guides for travelingforestieri.
"You busy?" Jerry asked, a sudden thought striking him.
"No—no," replied the Neapolitan, his face as eager as his tone. "What-a you like see? Eh? Some of dose oder curiositiesforse?" he asked with a suggestive smile.
"Thanks, no," Jerry returned dryly; "but if you aren't busy, I wish you'd walk along with me. I'm bored—tired—'most to death, and I fancy you might tell me how I may best kill time for the next few days."
The little guide was delighted. He suggested a multitude of things which might be done,—visits to Castellmare and Sorrento or Amalfi; wonders the signor had neglected in the museum; thepastashops; and so on for a variety of possible and impossible diversions. But still Tabermanshook his head. He wanted to be amused, but he was lonely and rather homesick, so that while he regretted being so difficult, nothing appealed to him. Finally, the guide, quite at his wit's end but still bland, smiling, patient, obsequious, and apparently unruffled by the careless way in which the American rejected all his suggestions one after the other, mentioned Pesto.
"Pesto?" queried Tab carelessly. "What is that?"
"Si!Pesto. It ees dere dey hav-a de gret-a temple; t'ree gret-a temple, all put een de row-a,—uno, due, tre." And he held up three fingers to make his statement at once clearer and more emphatic.
"Temples? Real ones?" asked Jerry. "I mean are they old—Roman, that is—or just churches?"
"Ma verament'," laughed the valet de place, "ci son' tre templi; bot-a dey not-a Roman; dey Gre'k. Fin-a, big-a temple; big-a like Hôtel du Vesuve!"
He waved his spread arms as if he would embrace the universe. Jerry laughed at the little man's enthusiasm, but his interest was excited.
"Greek, eh?" he said. "How far is it? How do you get there?"
The guide explained volubly, told the time of trains to Pæstum, declared that the trip was easily made in a day, and proffered his services as escort. This Jerry declined, quite as much from motives of economy as from any other reason; but he invited the little guide to sit down at one of the small tables on the sidewalk before Zinfoni's, where he furnished him with refreshments and made him repeat his account of the temples, the details of the journey, and whatever information he could furnish. Jerry was really lonely enough to be amused by the company of the Neapolitan, and as he sat listening and watching the people drifting past, he was soothed with the feeling of being not so entirely alone. From Zinfoni's the pair sauntered down to the quay, where they parted. The Italian was profuse in his thanks and protestations, and Jerry was considerate enough to act in such a manner as to make the little man think him the most affable ofInglesi.
When he was aboard again, Jerry got out a chart, and after some searching located Pæstum. As it was not too far from Naples to be possible in a day, he determined upon the expedition. Jack was not due for two or three days yet, and the time must be killed somehow. He summoned Gonzague, ordered an early breakfast, told him heshould be absent all the next day, and that he should leave him in charge. He had a sort of mild exhilaration at his boldness in thus venturing off into the midst of a land whose language he could not speak, and he went to bed that night with a great feeling of relief. The doldrums were over; he had something to do to bridge the time until Jack came.
On the following morning, as, a few minutes after nine, the southbound train from Naples to Tarento drew out of the station, Taberman, winking a little at the sudden glare of the sun, began to look about him. The morning promised a hot day, and his comfort in traveling was likely to be lessened by the fact that in the second-class compartment with him were five Italians. They had already settled themselves back against the cushions, turning upward sunburnt, perspiring faces, and allowing themselves to be jolted by the train like so many dead-weights. Their ugly straw hats, high-crowned and narrow-brimmed, were set on their knees or wedged beside them on the seat; two of the travelers had gay bandannas tucked into their collars about their throats. One man—a pursy old codger in the corner—had lighted, after a mumbled "con permesso," a long Virginia, which filled the compartment with a thin blue haze and an acrid smell as of burning leather.
The train rumbled along over a dubious roadbed, flanked by its cinder-strewn berms; and Tab, looking through the window on his right, recognized the line as that by which he had gone to Pompeii. At times the train went close to where the curling ripples of the sapphirine bay were breaking gently on the shore; sometimes it ran through small hamlets, and again passed country places where the busy peasants were at work in the rich vineyards, the orchards, or the tilled fields.
At the end of half an hour, they stopped at Pompeii for a moment, and Jerry, through the opposite window, recognized the station and the paltry inn beyond. As the train drew out again, he caught brief glimpses of the ancient city, dull red-brown walls among the silver-gray of the olive-trees.
The train sped on southward. It dipped into little vales, and wound its way up and into the hills that ring themselves around the plain of Pæstum. In an hour's time they pulled up at a small town on the left of the track. Jerry made out the name of the station, enameled in big white letters on a blue field, Battapaglia. The guard came by, unlocking the compartment doors, and as the men in his compartment got out and left their luggage behind them, Jerry concludedthat here was to be a wait of some minutes. He therefore followed the example of his fellow travelers, and stepped down upon the sunny platform. It was very hot. Tab mopped his face with his handkerchief and turned down the brim of his Panama all around.
"Graniti, signor? Citron? Orang'?"
A small boy had singled him out, probably because he was the onlyforestiereon the platform, and was offering him syrupy drinks cooled with cracked ice. For a soldo Tab secured a glass of sherbet, fruit-juice and water half frozen and very delicious. It was so refreshing that he bestowed an extra soldo on the vender in sheer gratitude. The lad rewarded him with a curt "grazie," and a look half grateful and half suspicious, and then hastened on to urge his wares on other travelers. Jerry looked after him in amusement at the fringe made by the tatters of his trousers, and in lazy admiration of the sinewy brown arms left bare by the sleeveless cotton shirt and of the jaunty poise of the curly head.
The train still waited.
Jerry lighted a cigarette and got into the shadow of the cars. Presently a big express came thundering out of the pass in the hills with a roar, and rushed away to southward on the main track.
"Pronto! Partenza! Partenza!" cried the guard, with a blast of his horn.
The road was again clear, the express-mail having passed. The passengers clambered aboard, and settled themselves in their former places. The old man with the Virginia had purchased a copy of "Il Papagallo," though it was a mystery how he could have got hold of it in such a place. He clucked oilily as he read, occasionally calling the attention of his nearest neighbor to some gaudy cartoon or some political pasquinade. Jerry speculated in regard to what it might all be about, and was filled with that vague sense of baffled irritation which comes from seeing others enjoying jokes in a language one cannot understand.
Mile after mile of level track, flanked by the interminable cinder-covered berms. Once in a while the level was broken by clumps of dusty cactus, ugly and forbiddingly aggressive in the sun. To the right, beyond a flat, gorse-grown waste, relieved only by an occasional palm or oleaster, Tab could discern the blue shimmer of the sea. To the left, he could see only the same dull plain, bounded by bluish hills, which rose about it like the seats of some titanic amphitheatre. Now and again two or three buffaloes, their black hides caked with patches of yellow mud, lay intheir wallows or stood contemptuously indifferent to the noisy train, which beside them seemed so impertinently modern.
At last the train, with a screaming of gritty brakes on the wheels, and the inevitable clanking and banging of cars and couplings, drew up beside a tiny station on the right of the track.
"Pesto! Pesto!"
The guard unlocked the compartment door, and Jerry stepped out. The station was smaller than any they had passed, and Tab smilingly reflected that the lodge at the entrance of his father's place at Dedham was bigger. He was the only passenger to alight, and no sooner was he out than the guard, like an overgrown mechanical toy, called out his "Pronto! Partenza!" blew his toy horn, and swung himself aboard again. The long train, with bitter metallic complaint at being obliged to go farther, drew past the little station, and rolled away toward a gap in the southern hills, far beyond which lies Tarento.
Taberman turned to the station master, a discouraged-looking individual who stood on the platform with his truncheon tucked under his arm, examining a batch of dispatches as if this were the first time such papers had ever come under his notice. Jerry's Italian vocabulary was limited tosome score of words, with a few expressions, such asdolce far nienteand the like, more ornamental than useful. As, however, he could perceive no sign of any temples,—or town either, for the matter of that,—he determined to question thecapo.
"Bonn giorno," he began with a painful sense of effort, but with a mild self-congratulatory thrill at having said something in Italian.
"Buon' giorno," responded the station master, turning a pair of dull eyes and an emaciated face from the dispatches to Taberman.
Jerry spoke French moderately well, and resolved to address the official in that tongue, in the hope that the Italian might understand.
"Peut-être vous parlez Français?" he began.
"Cosa?" asked the Italian, obviously puzzled, as he stepped out of the sun into the shadow of the little station.
"What?" demanded Jerry in English, and with much the same puzzled air.
"Non capisco," said the man, with a sort of dull finality.
Conversation languished. Jerry felt himself pretty well baffled, yet he had no choice but to go on with the unpromising attempt to elicit information here, as no other human being was in sight.He considered a moment, and then in an explosive tone, demanded:—
"Templi?"
"Bruto Inglise!" murmured thecapounder his breath. "Che volete?" he added aloud.
"What?" asked Jerry, again scared over the dubious boundary of his Italian into English.
"Non capisco," repeated the Italian morosely, wetting his dingy forefinger, and going over his papers for at least the third time.
"Damn it!" cried Jerry, in complete exasperation, "if you say that again I'll punch your head!"
The other started back in such obvious terror that Tab hastened to propitiate him by putting on quickly his most ingratiating smile, and nodding as if he had made a merry joke. The other seemed reassured, although he edged away a little, as if he were doubtful of the sanity of this foreign brute; and Tab fell again to the effort to rally all the words in his Italian vocabulary about one idea.
"Dove," he began in one grand final attempt to wring information out of this sullen and taciturn official, "dove"— He was so pleased with himself for having remembered the word that he came near forgetting all the rest, but with a desperate rally, he went blundering on. "Dove, I say, is—is—la via per i templi?"
Thecapolooked at him, apparently in mingled curiosity and disgust. Then he beckoned him to the edge of the platform on the other side of the station, whence stretched westward a ribbon of dust-heaped road.
"Ecco-la" he ejaculated, waving his truncheon vaguely toward the distance.
"Ah," said Jerry, "grazie."
As thecaporesponded to this speech not at all, Tab set out on the dusty road without more ado. The way was inches deep in loose, gray dust, and spiny cacti bristled on either hand. Jerry had not gone far before, turning a bend, he saw at no great distance ahead of him an arched gateway through which the road passed. The arch, broken and crumbled, was set in a ruined wall, which trailed away on either hand, now rising to the height of something like a dozen feet, now razed to the very ground.
"That's a forlorn-looking piece o' work," commented Tab aloud.
Had Jerry been blessed with the education of his forefathers, instead of having brought out of school and college a hodgepodge smattering of physics and economics, he might have known and reflected that the wall he thus carelessly characterized had been standing some two thousandyears, and gloriously attested the puissance of old Rome. With no such thought, however, he passed beneath the crumbling gateway and continued his march. At some distance ahead he now perceived signs of life in the shape of a few dwellings.
As he looked at them he became aware of two horsemen, who were cantering toward him on the crest of the little slope made by the road just inside the old gateway. Their horses' hoofs stirred up light clouds of yellow dust. Even at first glance the riders showed themselves to be ruggedly dressed, and with something of a thrill Jerry noticed instantly that slung across their shoulders they carried carbines. Wild tales of brigands flashed confusedly through his brain, and especially a tale the Neapolitan guide had related of the capture and murder at this very place of an English gentleman and his wife. The guide had said that that was sixteen years ago, but the place seemed so lonely, so remote, Tab's ideas of rural Italy were so vague, the effect of the landscape and of these wild figures was so startling as, riding toward him, they stood out against the sky, that it was no wonder Jerry involuntarily cast a quick glance around to note the lay of the land and to see if any possible help were in sight in case of need.
The horsemen rode down to him on a lazy lope.They were big, bronzed fellows, smoking cigarettes, and riding with their feet out of the stirrups. They nodded to him pleasantly and smiled, showing large white teeth. They had about them, these big fellows, a look so engaging that Tab was won at once, and the vague mist of his suspicions vanished like smoke in air. He grinned to himself at the idea of brigands.
"Dove templi?" he asked, returning their salutation.
The big men smiled more broadly, and one of them replied in French.
"Vous ne parlez pas beaucoup d'italien?" he asked in a pleasant voice.
"Ne pas de tout!" responded Jerry heartily, with a laugh.
Having found some one with whom he could talk, he at once began a lively conversation. He found the two men to be the custodians appointed by the government to look after the temples and to collect the fees of travelers. They explained that at this season it was extremely rare for a visitor to appear, and that they were therefore not particular about being exactly at their posts. They had heard some rumor of the discovery of antiques by peasants, and were setting out to investigate. They explained, however, that the chances offinding out anything were very small; the peasants all held together, and would all lie for one another. Jerry inferred, moreover, that they were by no means anxious to make discoveries. It was part of their duty to investigate such a rumor, for the government claimed the right to have a hand in the disposal of any treasure-trove; but the custodians seemed to have a good deal of sympathy with the wretched peasants, who tried to conceal anything they might find, in order to sell it for a fraction of its value to any strayforestierewho might appear. Now that a visitor had come, one of the men went alone on this errand, and the custode who spoke French returned toward the temples, which were near at hand, that he might formally take Tab's lira at the gate.
The Italian walked his horse beside Taberman past the two or three ruinous and apparently deserted houses, and in a few minutes the pair came to where their road ended in a broad turnpike which ran at right angles to it. On the other side of this turnpike, a little distance to his left, Jerry saw the ruins of a couple of temples, and beyond them the sea. His guide disregarded them, and led him to the right hand, where, a hundred yards or so along the highway, they came to a square two-story building of gray rubble. On its dingyfront was painted in black letters the word "Osteria."
"V'là l'auberge," announced the jovial custodian. "If Michu is fatigued, he can get eggs and polenta within. The wine is rough, but not so bad as the water. This way, Michu."
And leaving his horse to crop the rank grass by the doorway, he strode into the building, Tab following.
The inn was a poor place, even for southern Italy. The floor was of trampled clay; the walls were unfinished within as without, but like the ceiling, from which hung bunches of garlic and black and dusty herbs, they were garnished with abundant cobwebs and a generous coating of soot and dirt. At the back of the room was a counter, above which a grimy sign announced the right of the proprietor to sell salt and tobacco. In the left-hand corner of the back of the place was one of the altar-like ranges of Italy, upon which glowed a minute heap of charcoal. Tab smiled to find himself recognizing its use from its resemblance to the cooking-places he had seen in the ruins of Pompeii, and reflected, with the superiority of a youth born in a young land, upon the conservatism which keeps its kitchen arrangements practically the same as they were two thousand yearsago. The room was lighted simply by the door through which the visitors had entered. Another doorway at the left simply yawned blackly like the mouth of a cavern. The furniture consisted of a small square table and three stools. Over the entire place was spread an appearance of squalor and neglect, depressing, but in key with the air of poverty and of deadness which had been more evident to Tab with every step he had taken in Pæstum.
The room was empty when they entered it, but after the custode had bellowed lustily once or twice for "Angelo," the innkeeper appeared suddenly. He was a little man doubled up as if with rheumatism, and with a face as yellow as a dried lemon. On seeing Taberman he croaked something to the custode, and bowed to his guest again and again, rubbing his hands and all but losing his crooked balance with each genuflection.
With the air of an archduke ordering a banquet for his retainers, Jerry's companion gave some rapid instructions to the innkeeper, told the Michu to make the place his own, and then departed to attend to his horse and other trifles, saying that he would be back in half an hour.
Tab seated himself on a stool to await his luncheon. His host puttered about the altar,occasionally mumbling to himself, like the devotee of some Stygian power making sacrifice. Jerry was watching him with amusement, and wondering what would be the outcome of his incantations in the way of food, when on a sudden the doorway was darkened, and a man entered the room. At a glance Jerry saw that the newcomer was, like himself, a traveler. The stranger was of medium height, rather inclined, hardly to stoutness, but certainly to plumpness; he was well proportioned, with broad shoulders, but had a carriage curiously shuffling and insignificant. He held a stiff-brimmed straw hat in his hand, and Tab could see, where the outer light fell upon his crown, that his hair was slightly touched with gray. His face, Jerry decided, would have been handsome, had it not been marred by two deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which gave an appearance of sinister suspicion not without a hint of selfish cruelty. Except for a very silky mustache, he was clean-shaven.
The traveler threw Taberman a quick, almost furtive glance, and then, turning to the innkeeper, addressed that individual sharply in Italian. The crooked host bowed furiously, made apologetic and deprecatory gestures with the rapidity of a mountebank, skipped about in feverishexcitement, and jerked his head more and more frantically. The gentleman—for he seemed one—continued his objurgations unappeased by all these demonstrations, and ended by swearing roundly in English.
"Oh!" exclaimed Taberman involuntarily.
The stranger turned to him.
"I beg your pardon," he said in a curious sing-song voice with a markedly rising inflection, "but this brute has not prepared my luncheon. Do you mind sharing the table with me?"
"Not the least in the world," replied Jerry. "I'm sure it will give me great pleasure."
"Good," said the stranger. "I see you are an American," he flung out as an addition.
"I am," returned Taberman, feeling a simple pride in the fact.
"Thank God I'm not," remarked the stranger. His voice showed no trace of truculence; it was murmured as if to himself. Before Jerry had time to explode the gentleman continued: "I'm English. What does that mean? Celt, Angle, Saxon, and ages of tradition—ages of it. By the bye, you mustn't mind the things I say, you know; your pernicious self-respect would force you to resent them if you did. May I ask your name?"
"My name is Taberman," Jerry replied,struggling with a mingling of indignation, amazement, and amusement, "Jerrold Taberman. I live in Boston."
"Dedham rather," returned the other easily. "I knew a Taberman when I was in college. Curious chap. I— My name's Wrenmarsh, Gordon Wrenmarsh. Fact is, I was an American, but I couldn't stand the place. Bostonians have good manners; but New York is a vile spot. So is Boston; that is— Well, perhaps you see the difference."
The tricks this extraordinary man played with his voice were astonishing, and as he went on talking he quite dizzied Tab by the cryptic, baffling nature of his nervous speeches. He had, too, a curious and disconcerting habit of displaying great emotional intensity—opening his eyes to their greatest extent and distending his nostrils—in dealing with trifles of the slightest consequence; while whenever, as happened once or twice in the course of the luncheon, they touched even remotely on subjects of really vital importance, the extraordinary Mr. Wrenmarsh fairly oozed indifference. His conduct was so thoroughly strange that once or twice Jerry felt a puzzled doubt whether the man were entirely sane.
"I'll tell you," said Mr. Wrenmarsh, whentheir slight repast was over, "we'll do the temples together. I've been camping in this abominable hole of anosteriafor over a week, so that I know them pretty well. One of them is in my period, moreover."
Jerry looked at him as if to ask if the stranger claimed to be a contemporary of the ruins.
"Your period?" he echoed confusedly.
"Yes; you see, I'm an archæologist—collector, in fact. Hello; here's the custode."
The custodian entered as Mr. Wrenmarsh spoke, and Taberman had somehow the idea that the look he gave the Englishman was not very friendly.
"Ah, Michu, have you found a friend?" he asked in his queer French.
"I don't know," Jerry returned, with a half laugh.
"Well," responded the Italian, "if Michu is ready to see the temples, I am waiting."
"Bien," responded Jerry; and then turning to the archæologist, he asked, "Are you coming?"
"Of course," the Englishman answered. "Never mind this custode; he's only an ignorant pig."
Jerry secretly felt that, ignorant or not, the big Italian, with his merry face and open smile, would be a much more companionable guide than the eccentric collector; but without comment he paidthe reckoning, and they set out. They went down the road to a gate, paid a lira each to the custode, and entered upon a field of ploughed land, planted with maize. The Italian, who had more and more the air of not liking the Englishman, made some remarks to the effect that Michu l'Anglaise was a very learned man, and one much better fitted to explain the marvels of ancient architecture than he, a plain man who had had to pick up his education in the army. On these grounds he excused himself and went into a little lodge, while the others walked on to the temples which stood before them, ideal in their beauty.
The two pushed their way across the field and entered the nearest temple. Jerry's was not an impressionable nature, and in one way to him these august colonnades meant little; yet despite a certain sophomoric exuberance which he had never outgrown, his nature was fundamentally too refined to fail to respond to the silent grandeur of this solemn harmony in stone. The roofless enclosure, after all the indignities a score of centuries had been able to inflict upon it, possessed still a nobility and a beauty which seemed almost personal and conscious. One feels in seeing the ruins at Pæstum as if a certain inherent and indestructible loveliness would pervade the very stoneswere they thrown down to the last one; and while the columns stand, the place is one to make the visitor catch his breath with admiration and almost with awe. Taberman did not analyze, and indeed he was instinctively so occupied in concealing from his companion how profoundly he was impressed as to have little attention left for introspection; but he was more deeply stirred than he could have conceived possible.
He walked about with Mr. Wrenmarsh, who talked along in his curious voice, expatiating upon styles and orders, influence and epochs, with all sorts of things of which Jerry understood at best not more than a quarter; until at last, instead of going on to the neighboring temple, the strangely assorted pair sat down on the western steps of the ruin through which they had come. Taberman looked away westward, where the rim of the sea shone like a fillet of molten silver. For some time neither spoke; but at length Mr. Wrenmarsh broke in upon Tab's train of thought with a question.
"Are you traveling alone?" he asked quite suddenly.
Taberman explained that he had come over from America in a yacht. It is to be feared that it was vanity which led him to make the unluckyaddition that he was in command of her until his friend should rejoin him at Naples.
"Ah," commented the archæologist, with a new appearance of interest; "you're cruising."
"Yes," said Jerry.
The spell of the temple was upon him, and he had no inclination to talk. He was conscious of a half-defined desire to have this stranger take himself off, and not bother him further with questions.
"And what do you suppose I am doing here?" queried the collector in a tone of almost fierce intensity.
"Why," Jerry responded rather absently, "I supposed you were studying or something."
"Why, yes, to be sure I am; haven't I told the custode so?" chuckled Mr. Wrenmarsh. His laughter was as extraordinary as his speech and manner. He would double up as if with a sort of a spasm and snigger gastrically. "But that's not all," he went on, as Jerry turned to look at him questioningly; "that's not all. I'm doing something else. I'm waiting."
"What for?" asked Taberman, seeing that he was expected to speak.
"Help," replied Wrenmarsh laconically.
"Help?" repeated Jerry blankly.
"Yes, help; waiting. Collecting is nothing butwaiting anyway,—waiting for news, waiting for funds, waiting for auctions, waiting for old countesses to die, waiting for some fool of a peasant to discover something; waiting, waiting, waiting all along the line. It's the man who waits with his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut that gets what he wants. He's the man."
"But—but what sort of help do you want now?" Tab inquired.
He was sympathetic by nature, and this extraordinary individual had aroused not only his curiosity, but in some mysterious manner stimulated him to a desire to be of service. He had come to Pæstum for amusement. He felt that in meeting the collector he had been amply repaid. The unwonted emotion which had been stirred by the temple melted in his boyish heart before the warmer human interest which the collector aroused, and it was perhaps with some unrealized relief at getting back to more familiar levels of feeling that he now began to enter into the affairs of his companion. It came over him that he was being appealed to, and he was ready to take the position that if any aid of his could bring relief to Mr. Wrenmarsh, that eccentric gentleman should no longer need to go on waiting for help.