Gold buys!Silver pays!Lead slays!
Gold buys!Silver pays!Lead slays!
"Ain't she the hand," exclaimed Mrs. Pascoe, "for monkey-shines! Don't you wonder what they do with these here, Filly? Mr. Gumama asked Ally to get him these new ones fur to-day. She'd have to fancy a thing up if 't was only to take a pill out of. Comin' in las' night without the car, what with luggin' these here an' the paul-parrot—'t ain't spoke a word, that bird ain't, since it left here!—I dunno but I'd ha' broke my neck hadn't been fur M'ree. I do hate turrible to part from M'ree—I declare, if ever anything happens to my Ally, I'll come back here an' put up with these Dagoes on M'ree's account—Now, for mercy's sake, Filly, don't howl!"
For the mention of parting had brought on a still more violent attack of the young man's anguish. The smile—wan but touched with the charm of Sicilian plaintiveness—with which he had been reconciling himself to life utterly disappeared; he ceased half-way through an excellent polish and casting himself down as from the Tarpeian rock, blubbered into the bedspread.
The old lady regarded him with contempt passing again into suspicion and then into a softening weariness that rose in her manner like an anxiety that all the time had barely been held down. "Filly," said Mrs. Pascoe with sudden friendliness and such an uneasy, furtive look of dread as quite transformed her face, "what'er they goin' to do with that girl?"
He lay quiet a moment, as if discomfortably arrested by the question. Then he asked, how did he know? Take her, leave her; what was it to him?
"Well, 't ain't hardly likely they're goin' to take her—an' her feller on the boat! An' I should jus' like to know how they could leave her!" A strange, helpless tremor passed across that firm mouth. "Oh, why was she ever brought away? I allus knoo what it 'ud come to! Times there I did hope she was goin' to die, poor thing! But it war n't to be!" There was no sound but the sound of Filly, growling moistly into the bed.
Mrs. Pascoe,—or, according to her own reference, Mrs. Ansello—looked at the clock and began to fold up her knitting. But her long pent-up broodings burst from her again in a new channel. "One while I was scared Nick was kind o' losin' his head about the little piece. What with him gettin' more an' more stuck on her, all the time, an' her sick with love uv another feller, even to the farm I didn't know from one day to the next what he would do. But when he made out 't was safer to take her alone with him up t' the old place—Well, we all had to scuttle there that very same night, an' when she begun to take on for that letter I guess he forgot all them feelin's. He ain't never let a human bein' stand in his sister's way an', however pretty that little neck o' hers might strike him, 't wouldn't take him two minutes t' wring it if he got scared she'd shoot her mouth against Allegra. I've had bad dreams before you ever was born, but I ain't ever had any like waitin' fur the bunch to come home that night an' the river so handy! I never thought I'd be glad to see my son half-bled to death—but there, there's allus mercies! I expect he wishes, though, he'd come straight home from the post-office, instead o' snoopin' round that hotel! The sea-voyage'll fix him up all right, an' he's strong enough an' cross enough an' sick enough to pull the whole house down 'cause he can't get back an' forth without the car. Filly," she shot forth, "sure as you live he's got something made up fur to-night about that girl!"
The Italian gentleman taking this as a still further personal degradation, inquired aloud why he ever was born. But Mrs. Pascoe did not attempt the obvious retort.
She rose, fetched paper and string and, with an impotence foreign to her whole nature, fumbled in tying up the jugs. "I've allus said I wouldn't stand fur it, allus! But what can I do? I tell him I'll curse the last breath he draws—but can I stop him? Yeh know what he is—can anybody stop him? I tell yeh what 't is, Filly, I'm gettin' scared uv him! Yes, now I'm past sixty, I'll say it fur oncet—I'm scared uv him! And then, poor boy, so far forth as what that goes, what can he do, himself? When you come down to it, what can any uv us do? The girl knows everything—nobody knows that better'n you!—an' what she knows she'll blab. She's soft-lookin' but she's got a chin an' she's in love! If her feller's done fur, we're goin' to be done fur, too! There's my daughter to consider an' every last one uv us. Jus' now, too, when Ally's goin' to get her divorce an' be so happy! What can I do?"
There was the sound of doors opening and closing and of some one coming upstairs. But Mrs. Pascoe paid no heed. Her unaccustomed garrulity, which had hitherto seemed the result of mere strain, began to appear as her idea of conciliation for the ushering in of a plan. "I've only one thing I can say favorable to you, Filly," she urged him, "yeh ain't rough an' yeh was a gentleman. Yeh don't want screamin' an' hurtin', I'll be bound. She's a little lady, Filly, an' she's 'n American girl. Well, what I'm gettin' at is, would yeh dare do this? Now she's conscious, they won't lemme near her. But they'll never suspect you. I want yeh should tell her there's a bottle o' laudanum fur M'ree's tooth in my closet an' if she wants it, give it to her. Give it to her quick!"
The Italian gentleman giving no sign of finding consolation in this prospect, "Oh, yeh'll never in the world do it!" Mrs. Pascoe groaned. "Yeh ain't got the nerve uv a sick worm! Why, it's different,—can't yeh see, Filly?—if she asks fur it herself—it's different, ain't it? It's what she promised to do in the beginnin'. An' now, jus' out o' spitework, she won't. But I bet she will to-night. Whatever's up, she'll know it before they get her feller out there to-night. Give it to her, Filly!"
There was a knock at the door and the proprietress of the table d'hôte entered cheerfully. "They come?" inquired Mrs. Pascoe. "Well, time I went. There, get up, Filly, an' blow yer nose, do! Come, come, yeh don't want the gentleman yer wife's goin' to marry to be brought up an' find yeh wallerin' on yer stomach!—Well, stay where yeh be! But now yeh mind what I was tellin' yeh, awhile back, about bein' anyways treacherous. 'T wouldn't be the first time but 't would be the last! My daughter's my daughter, an' as fur my son—I never said there was anythin' so rough I wouldn't stand fur it, when it come to Dagoes!"
Mrs. Pascoe had some last minute shopping on hand, including farewell gifts for her niece's family and a special token for Maria Rosa, and she was quite unaware that it would have been a godsend for her daughter's plans had she kept her sharp eyes, that day, on the interior of the table d'hôte. But even had this occurred to her the number of figures on the background of her son's life had lately so increased that she could scarcely have been expected to recognize that the friendly Italians who arrived at the appointed time were not a guard of Nicola's choosing, sent to carry a willing captive to the freedom of Allegra's waiting ship, but plain clothes men, who bore their prisoner back to jail. She and little Maria Rosa shopped successfully, refreshed themselves at an ice-cream parlor, returned home for a distribution of the farewells and, re-emerging from the house in mid-afternoon, walked briskly enough eastward, though now laden with heavier packages. Mrs. Pascoe carried so many bottles of wine that even the stout wrappings threatened to give way and, wrapped in many folds of clean dust-cloth, Maria bore the pretty jugs.
"I did lay out you should wait an' take those home," said Mrs. Pascoe to the little girl, "since your cousin Ally's fixed 'em up so pretty! But it'll be too late, likely, an' I don't like you should be crossin' the street after dark. You better tell me good-by an' run home soon 's I get the loft cleaned up fer the meetin'. I told yer ma you an' me 'd unpack that barrel o' backyard party truck an' the boys could bring a bundle of it over when they leave to-night. No use it settin' in a empty garradge. Don't fergit yer old great-aunt, now will you, M'ree?—an' I'll send you somepun' reel pretty from furrin' parts, where yer parrot come from." She added, as they crossed under a bend of the Elevated Road into South Fifth Avenue, "Remember, I've told yer ma ye're always to go out an' visit my folks, same as if I was there. Mercy, I hope it don't rain with all of us trapesin' out there fer our last night! I don't see how the boys are goin' to get that feller out, with them fools skiddin' round the roads the way they be—an' Filly'll faint away most likely!"
They turned in at the door of a small dingy structure, which had been something else before it became a garage and that now looked vaguely out of use; from its obscure depths emerged the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama, who relieved her of the wine. She and the child mounted a ladder-like staircase and emerged through a sort of hatchway, scarcely more than an opening in the boards, with its lid tipped back against the wall.
It was not yet four in the afternoon, but the September light was already failing under the low roof of the loft. The windows were built close to the floor and that at the rear had a little, begrimed straggle of vine waving in at it. For the window looked out upon a triangle of trodden earth, heaped as with the rubbish of an old machine-shop but producing spears of grass and black, stunted bushes to show it had once been part of a yard. In front the loft gave directly upon a turning of the Elevated Road, and when a deafening train roared by the whole flimsy structure rattled and shook; the walls were irregularly studded with nails and hooks from which hung lengths of rope and buckled straps as of old harness that shook, too. Among these, from a cleared space of honor, a head of Garibaldi, in gaily colored lithograph, confronted the flyspecked grandeur of the Italian royal family, domestically grouped; the pink paper of cheap gazettes brightened some of the murkier boards with woodcuts of prizefighters or disrobing ladies. Three or four stools stood about on the dingy boards and rather a greater number of worn out chairs; a couple of heaping barrels in one corner were covered with an old awning; there was a small bureau, once yellowishly glazed, without any glass; a kitchen table, stained with al fresco dinners, had been brought in from the yard; in another corner, torn rubber curtain-flaps, collapsed tires and threadbare leather cushions supported each other. Suddenly Mrs. Pascoe uttered a little hiss. She had perceived, sitting in the frame of the front window, a listless, undersized, undeveloped lad with the delicate, soft-eyed face of a young seraph, who looked seventeen and had probably turned twenty.
This young person was reading an Italian newspaper and sucking a limp cigarette which hung from between his teeth and occasionally scattered sparks down the slim chest which his inconceivably filthy shirt left open to his belt. He was greeted devotedly by Maria as Cousin Beppo and, though he was evidently the old lady's abomination, when she accosted him with the unconciliatory greeting, "Here, you! You stir yourself!" he reared himself slowly to his feet and, with a good-natured smile, sagged amicably toward her.
"I don't s'pose you think so," snapped Mrs. Pascoe, "but this place's got to be swep' out!"
Fortunately, the tidying of the loft did not depend upon the sweet-smiling indolence which remained unbroken while she swept and rubbed; when the barrels were despoiled of their green and pink netting, their feast-day lanterns and paper flowers Beppo nosed ingratiatingly up; but long before the old woman had laid clean oil-cloth over table and bureau he was playing charmingly with Maria, whom he coaxed to carry a chair to the rear window, to fill and set upon it a tin basin, and to filch him a clean dust-cloth.
Then he began cautiously to wash his face, down almost to the black rim midway of his pretty throat; cleansing his hands, too, but not so as to disturb the fingernails. Out from the top drawer of the bureau he took a broken bit of mirror, also richly scented pomatum with which he smoothed his hair well down over his brows and then he brought forth a velvet jacket and a waistcoat sprigged with embroidered flowers. He handled them as if they were vestments and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, their weight did not appal him. To these, over the filthy shirt, he added a silk neckerchief of robin's egg blue and a glittering scarfpin; there came forth, from its hiding-place about his person, a very graceful little knife which he stuck with airy bravado in his belt. Lastly, he lighted a huge cigar and assumed, though for indoor display only, a soft hat balanced on the left side of the head, and a light cane swung from the left hand. Standing thus, full-costumed, with a hip-swaying swagger, he was more picturesque though less fashionable than his confreres of northern races, but his infamous profession was none the less proclaimed in every line of him. And once more he turned the sweet beam of his smile upon the little girl.
Beppo had not, however, dressed himself for professional purposes. The coming occasion was more solemn and his toilette an act of the purest piety. Perhaps that was why, when Mrs. Pascoe turned her contempt on him again, he was no longer amused.
The old woman, as she set out the jugs, was saying, "Fetch up them bottles, M'ree. An' Becky or whatever your name is—"
She turned and beheld the basin of dirty water. "You take that right down stairs!" cried she, in outrage. "An' the rest o' yer trash with yeh! When I clean a place, I want it left clean!"
He said something, sulkily, about emptying it herself.
"Well, when I come to emptyin' swill, 't won't be no Dago swill! Here—"
For he had furiously snatched the basin above his head to dash it on the floor.
She caught at and somehow prevented him, but not from whirling it through the window into the back yard. He was smiling again at this assuagement to his dignity when he suddenly perceived that the struggle had sprinkled his vest; spots appeared also upon his scarf's cerulean blue! He became, on the instant, a maniac, not human; he raved, he shrieked, his delicate skin flamed, tears suffused his eyes, he ran up and down scattering prayers, howls and curses. Until, one of these voyages bringing him close to Mrs. Pascoe's small disgusted figure, he seized her by the wrist and with the deliberate, systematic skill of custom began to wrench her arm.
Mrs. Pascoe very promptly kicked him in the shins. "If my son Nick was here he'd take the buckle-end o' one o' those straps an' spank the life out o' yeh! Yeh wax-face! Yeh—" For once stooping to Italian she shot forth the word, "Ricondoterro!"
It was his calling and he should not have objected to it. None the less, pursing his soft lips he spat a fine spray over her face. She jumped at him in such a fury that Maria threw protecting arms about her playfellow; then they were all parted by the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama.
This imposing person had, with dramatic quiet, brought up the wine; and now, holding Beppo by one wrist, he listened to Mrs. Pascoe's angry cluckings. Then he seemed merely to put out one fist. The boy fell on his back without even a cry and lay as he fell. "Why, you beast, you!" cried Mrs. Pascoe. "Mebbe you've killed him!"
"No. But no matter," said Mr. Gumama. "Go and make your guard. Come not up again till I call you. Take the child."
She went, holding Maria's hand and looking back, with her old mingling of curiosity and reluctance at the prone figure of the pretty ricondoterro, from whose nostrils blood had begun copiously to gush on her clean floor. The tall Mr. Gumama was evidently not one to be defied.
It was half-past four and those who were expected began to come. First a couple of laborers, warm from their work; the next had the proud bearing of a chauffeur; after him came a respectable professional man, probably a dentist, wearing a black suit, a full beard and glasses; then a plump and coquettish little beau, the owner of a fruit-and-candy stand, who bore a flower in his light, ornamental coat and the scar of a knife across his rosy left cheek. He was followed by his cousin, who had only a fruit cart and sold for him on commission. One and all were obliged to halt before Mrs. Pascoe, who sat on a stool at the foot of the stairs, playing solitaire on a couple of orange boxes.
She bent her tongue Italianwards and asked of each the same question.
"What do you want here?"
"Justice!"
"How can you get it?"
"By the Arm of God."
"Who is your enemy and mine and your children's children's?"
"A traitor!"
"Y' can g'won up."
As they emerged into the loft they were each greeted by Mr. Gumama and then dropped themselves awkwardly about on stools and window-sills, with the whispering stiffness of people in their best clothes. Beppo, moaning, now lay huddled on his side and, as occasion arose, they stepped about and over him without the slightest interest or even malign amusement in his plight. By-and-by he got to his hands and knees and crawled into a corner, where, with the now fatally ruined blue scarf held to his nose, he shivered himself slowly quiet. But his pomatum came into play with the laborers, who sat seriously down by the still bright rear window and beautified their heads with it, cheerfully assisting each other's toilet as amiable monkeys often do and even smearing themselves a little from the communal mercies of the water-pitcher. "Enough!" Mr. Gumama sternly rebuked them. "Business alone!"
They looked meekly at him, stricken, and he called one of them by name—"Take the stairs!"
The man crossed to the opening in the floor and seated himself a little back from where it gave into the room; the knife which he drew from inside his clothes seemed a trifle clouded and he sat idly polishing it. Mr. Gumama looked at his large silver watch and, stepping to the front window, glanced out. A certain anxiety in him began to make itself felt.
More and more men arrived, but evidently not the looked-for men. A strapping youth began unconcernedly to converse with Beppo about a duel they were to fight. "I cannot remain forever a picciotto. If I do not fight the next duel how shall I ever get to be a member?"
"Me they will not yet let fight again." Beppo stopped sniffling and displayed, a bit above his knee, a wound that might have been made with a knife like that in his belt or a short dagger. "In two duels have I lost, and if I lose the third I lose my entry."
The strapping youth began to get excited. "With whom, then, can I fight? How long do they intend to keep me waiting? See, now, I want my rights—I want to be promoted—"
A man with turned-up red mustaches, sporting a carnation and a pair of highly polished boots, interrupted his complaint that the bootblack under the Elevated had overcharged him and reproved Beppo for kicking his chair. The fruit-vendors also stopped quarreling over the accusation of the huckster that the merchant had supplied him with decayed fruit; the merchant allying himself with the strapping youth and declaring that his wife's brother was right and ought to be promoted. Then, with the one word, "Peace!" Mr. Gumama struck them into abject silence.
"Peace! Ludovisi, your wife's brother may win all three duels and yet endure years of probation. Beppo, let your squeal rise once more and you are suspended for a month.—Have you, then, no wits at all? Let the result of this meeting go a little wrong and promotion it will be no more! At least for us, fellow members of the old-days Arm of Justice, for we shall be no more!"
A number of men cast glances of horror. But after a few lightning-shot growls even this number returned to its knitting, being accustomed to obey and not to ask questions. Again Mr. Gumama looked at his watch.
More and more men arrived till the loft was crowded. The unknown persons who had so long so strangely shadowed the pathway of Christina Hope were beginning to mass for action and to detach themselves from the background. And still as the loft darkened with the passage of each train and relightened less and less when that was gone, another presence seemed to enter and abide; the growing, shadowy presence of suspense. It was in the air, for the ignorant many as well as for the few who understood. There were brief silences so deep that the little vine, spying in at the window, could be heard tapping on the upper pane. Then a cab stopped outside and a startled thrill passed through the assembly. The man who had been told to take the stairs rose with a soft, business-like precision and drew his knife. He stood, waiting. Something in his attitude defined his duty as preventative not of an entrance, but an exit. Any unwelcome comer who got past Mrs. Pascoe's guard would get farther; he would enter the loft, but he would never leave it. He would not even turn round. Mr. Gumama, watching the cab avidly, opened his fateful mouth. But the men disgorged from its disreputable depths were friends to that house.
The first two tumbled into the garage, glanced round, saluted Mrs. Pascoe, and returned to the assistance of those on the sidewalk. These manœuvered between them a man with his hat pulled down over his eyes and an overcoat hanging about his shoulders whom they supported like a drunkard. A fascinated crowd stopped to wink and advise. As soon as the two men were inside they threw their burden flat on the floor and returned to the cab for another. The man on the floor was gagged, his arms were tied behind him and even his thighs were bound.
Swarthy as was the man's face Mrs. Pascoe was still observing with annoyance these signs of roughness when a second human bundle was brought in from the cab and the cavalcade somehow hoisted itself upstairs. In the loft the human bundles were propped against the wall and the meeting came to attention.
"The eighth district, members of the Honorable Society," said Mr. Gumama, bowing to the assembly as if he were ascending a throne, "it is my duty to inform you that, for reasons which you shall presently know, Nicola Pascoe is no longer our capo d'intini. Unworthy that I am," he continued with pomp, "be pleased to signify by the vote whether it is your pleasure that I assume this post of glory."
It was their pleasure and the vote acclaimed it. Instantly Beppo, the merchant's brother-in-law and three or four other lads ranged chairs and barrels in a circle nearly as might be round the kitchen-table and all of the assembly that could find seats sat quietly down. Mr. Gumama filled the earthen jugs with wine and they were passed from hand to hand, each man taking a ceremonial draught; then the man at Mr. Gumama's right rose and, with dramatic gesture and winy mouth, kissed him on the forehead. So, in turn, did each of those to whom, by some mystic precedence, the seats at the table had been spontaneously allotted. All was accomplished with due ceremony, but rapidly and with an undertone of nervous expectation, the weight of some unusual circumstance. It was another and less flowery version of the festivity which had so amused Herrick that evening, a month ago, when it had frothed round Nicola Pascoe under the sail-cloth of the table d'hôte. Almost immediately the meeting proceeded to business.
The man with the carnation and the resplendent shoes rose ponderously and began to hurry through a fortnightly financial report. This report was starred with titles—capos of various departments, first voters, senior members, cashiers, secretaries—and with references to local districts, twelve or fourteen of them, into which that blundering mammoth baby, New York City, would have been surprised to find itself divided. The administrative looting of these departments was again crossed off into eight sub-divisions—paranze, the treasurer called them, each of which had, apparently, its own committee and procedure; for each paranza had turned over its earnings to its capo d'intini, these capos in turn had passed them to the capo in testa who had turned them into the treasurer in exchange for a receipt. One of these receipts Mr. Gumama now produced. The fortnightly gains were deposited upon the table in two cigar-boxes; in one the baratolo, won at games and swindling; the other held the sbruffo, more heroically acquired from extortion or theft. Every one began to praise what he had himself contributed, and it became evident that the apprentices, like Beppo, were expected to do most of this light work. However, save for a glass of wine to each, which they were told to drink thankfully, they did not share in the spoils they had so largely produced. These were apportioned by Mr. Gumama without the protestation of a single voice. Percentages for three funds were set aside; one for what was politely called "social expenses," which, to a gross mind, might have suggested corruption; one for legal defense; the other for pensioners—retired members, families of those unfortunately detained in jail, and widows of members deceased while in good standing. Not till then was the remainder paid equally into each individual hand, in a model of just and scrupulous dealing.—As, in various dialects, a foam of pent-up exclamations now rose, Mr. Gumama again looked at his watch and, with an awe-inspiring contraction of his beautiful brows, once more betook himself to the window.
A slick, sleek oily youth in a gray derby began to deliver some mail which he had just collected from the branch post-office in Marco Morello's drug-store down the street; among the innocent pleasantries of indecent post cards there seemed to be at least two enigmatic warnings in dirty envelopes and a happy suggestion of workable scandal about a rich jeweler; one postal, demanding in scarcely legible and very illiterate Neapolitan slang the "suppression" of a woman who had turned the writer out of his job in her fake employment agency, was frowned upon by Mr. Gumama as unnecessarily careless. Directly the meeting had formed itself into a rough semblance of a court, the writer of the careless postal was condemned to be suspended for six months, so that his earnings were cut off from both sources.
One of the laborers rose to complain that the capo of his paranza had sentenced him to a week's suspension for quarreling with a companion; the evidence showed injustice and the complaint was sustained. A saloon-keeper broke into passionate appeal against another sentence of suspension, this time for a year, because he had shed a tear of pity for the child of a wine-merchant which had died while held for ransom. But his capo d'intini, the head of a whole district, had seen the tear and the punishment was confirmed. A picciotto di sgarro, a novice, who had passed two duels with credit, was found to have hesitated in obedience and was expelled from possible membership for all time. Now popped up a red, bushy stub of a man, with a full tuck under his chin and a certain unshaven dinginess, to declare that something outrageous was going on in his neighborhood: there were rowdies who hung about the street corners and offended the female foundlings of the good sisters, making remarks when these took exercise! The gentle ladies had appealed to the police in vain, but to the Honorable Society they could now in tranquillity trust. The Honorable Society, shocked and indignant, assumed the future immunity of the female foundlings for a slight consideration. Finally amidst an ominous silence Balbo the Wolf, a chauffeur, a full member, was convicted of having practised extortion without orders and on his own account.
"Lupo Balbo," said Mr. Gumama, in the profound chest notes of an outraged parent, "you deserve to sleep forever. You have broken your oath of humility, you have rebelled against your father and scandalized your mother, you have taken food from the mouth of your family, for the Society is your family and your father and your mother.—Tommaso Antonelli—" He spoke low and quick to a man near him, who sprang forward, there was an instant's sharp, half-voluntary struggle and then Antonelli drew back with a dripping razor in his hand. Lupo, the chauffeur, covered a face marked forever with a double slash. And Mr. Gumama somewhat unnecessarily added, "The spreggio is for you the punishment, you wolf Balbo. Bathe your face, there in the pitcher by the innocent vine, and leave the council." Lupo Balbo, no more than his predecessors, winced, argued, nor rebelled. Against the decree of the capo no appeal was possible.
All this time—so much shorter a time than any agreeable social club would have taken to despatch a single item of business—the human bundles had remained propped against the wall; silent perforce and wrapped in the indifference of their own doom. Mr. Gumama now turned an attentive eye upon these lumps of misery, and a kind of brightening glimmered through the assemblage; the duller preliminaries were disposed of at last.
The poor souls being brought forward the capo pronounced their names with scorn. "Luigi Pachotto and Carlo Firenzi, you deserve no trial. But the Society honors its strict laws and does not condemn without justice. Beppo, Chigi, remove those gags." The eyes of the human bundles goggled avidly forward; their mouths puffed moistly in physical relief. Still, they made no complaint.
"Full members of the Society, alas!" Mr. Gumama tragically continued, "members, also, of our Arm of Justice, ere the Society accepted that Arm as part of its own body, we have received demands for your suppression and, from our camorrista scelto, proof of your guilt. Luigi Pachotto, of the eight crimes against the Society which incur the penalty of death you are charged with the first—Number one, to reveal the secrets of the Society. And you, Carlo Firenzi, with the second,—spying on behalf of the police. It is true that Lupo Balbo was guilty of the sixth, and I made his penalty little. But of such crimes, like disobedience, the punishment at its worst is death. Yours are the crimes of treachery, for which the death is slow. Most for you, Carlo Firenzi, there can be no excuse. When you began to suspect the news which I am about to break to the paranza you turned police operative and betrayed the system by which our unfortunate friends communicate in horrible prisons and become properly organized. And when, last night, you were set by the paranza to do a service this morning to your basista you gave notice to the police. So that they came and took back the friend of our basista and now guard the nest of our social gatherings. Did you think the Arm of Justice had grown too weak to punish? Carlo Firenzi, what have you to say?"
He had nothing to say; only, hanging his head, he ground his teeth. Yet the form—the form? the very core and gist—of a trial was put through; the evidence heard and questioned, the witnesses confronted with the mute despair of a guilt taken red handed and making no denial; fifteen minutes of the truth passionately sought and no law-game played.
The conclusion, however, was foregone and Firenzi was soon stood back out of the way. "Luigi Pachotto, you have, I believe, affirmed good intention. You knew that the old-days' Arm of Justice, now the fifth paranza of this eighth district of the Honorable Society, had long sheltered in its midst, all unknowing, a traitor to the Honorable Society." He had touched a spring that vibrated through the whole room. Unable to proceed he waited till the murmur of incredulous horror that had risen to a growl should die away. "You betook yourself to the capo in testa of the Honorable Society rather than to your old friends of the Arm or even to this district, and to him pointed out the whereabouts of the traitor. Did you dare to insinuate that the Arm itself would not have punished had it known? What good to it or to the Society did you expect of this?"
It was more a slur than a question and he answered it in a hopeless mumble. "I did it for the good of the Arm and to make our peace with the Honorable Society. I say it, who am about to die—I thought to resign the traitor, to give him into its hand who sullies ours, to be done with him and at peace."
"Luigi Pachotto, you took too much upon yourself! It is for the Arm to make its own terms. I think it was your private peace you wished to make, thus to save your own throat. But you have cut it." Mr. Gumama paused and sententiously expanded his beautiful brows. "Nevertheless, it may be that you are to be shown strange mercy!"
The murmur rose again, humming with amazement.
"The Society can be merciful for its own just ends. There is a service to be rendered, a deed to be done, beyond the skill of any garzione di mala vita, its apprentice, or yet of its novice, the picciotto di sgarro, the young one. It should be done by one who is past life. Therefore, the Society, yet a little while, suspends your execution." Pachotto was thrust into the background and Mr. Gumama, who all this time had been seated at the table, rose and leaned forward, indicating that the meeting had reached its climax.
"Dear friends, you observed well what Pachotto said? For this have we come together. We of the Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, we, in particular, must take heed to ourselves." He paused, collecting attention. But it was already in his pocket. "He who used the Arm of Justice to shelter a traitor, is its long-time chief, Nicola Pascoe—called in the country from which he carried his bowed head, Nicola Ansello! Ah, you know the name! Then you know well that the serpent whom he nourished in our bosom is the traitor at whose word, ten years ago in Italy, four members perished!"
A shudder shook the assembly. Many crossed themselves. Mr. Gumama, in the relish of his own rhetoric, grew increasingly impressive. He was, moreover, extremely pale. "The Society passes sentence—that Arm still enfolds the traitor!"
The assembly cried out as against a sacrilege and its cry was menacing. The Hands of the Arm were now easily distinguishable by their very long faces.
"Ah, my friends," wailed Mr. Gumama with a sudden shrillness, "the Society falters not, but strikes—Fifth paranza, Hands of the Arm, it condemns us, every one!"
A horrible yelling broke loose like a storm. Sobs and hysterical curses strangled together amidst the revilements of the now inimical district. One man was seized with convulsions and had to have wine and water dashed over him, another fainted and got stepped on. Mr. Gumama remained superior and at last made himself heard. "But was it not from the Society I learned lenience to Pachotto? Does it not, in wisdom, leave me in place to address you? On one condition the Society withdraws its condemnation."
The very melody of howling rose. "The condition! Tell! Tell!"
"First, lest too great the shock, listen a moment. You know well how in this America where, since Italy drove her forth, she grows so great, the conditions of the Mother Society are greatly relaxed; so that, in a new country, she may strengthen herself with all her children. When heads of small societies, existing ere here she had waxed great, came to be absorbed in her she accepted the members for whom they vouched without requiring the apprenticeship nor the novitiate. So it was with the Arm of Justice. Of all the small societies we were the most distinguished. It was not seemly so superior a collection should exist outside the Honorable Society. So much truth do I speak that in accepting us it made our chief, Nicola Pascoe, chief of this district, made ourselves into one paranza where we are yet a unit with our own rules, fifth paranza of the eighth district. The Society decrees that after to-day this paranza shall be broken up and scattered among the others and that name, the Arm of Justice, be spoken no more. So shall the true forget the traitor!"
His breath failed him. But fortunately his audience came to his rescue with a hissing snarl—"Traditore! Traditore!"
"Fellow members, it is nothing. We who are innocent expect to suffer for the guilt of friends. What I entreat, it is that you examine what kind of a friend Nicola Pascoe has been to us. It is true he found us little and made us great. It is true he taught us, formed us and was our leader. But knew we who he was? Did he tell us he had fled from Naples to this place carrying in his arms a traitor? Now that we know, to us what is he?—Ah, we, guileless, true shoot of the parent vine, branch of her root, of the Honorable Society the pious children!" Mr. Gumama, sincerely overcome by this pastoral vision, rolled up his eyes for a long pause. But as he had to sneeze he continued, "Hands of the Arm, for to-day we are still ourselves. For to-day I might have called one last meeting of the fifth paranza and we, all alone, have discussed our own affairs. But that there may be no stain on us of secret counsel we show our hand to the whole district.—How may we again be dear children of the Mother from Naples, held safe in her embrace? Hands of the Arm, to save the Arm cut off always the Hand, one, three, how many, it is no matter! Hear the one condition of the Honorable Society: We divulge the whereabouts this night of Nicola Pascoe, the basista and all their house; we offer them neither warning, shelter nor defense; we lead, ourselves, this district in their suppression!" And he leaned towards them, glaring and sweating, his voice still cautiously lowered and waited their answer with open mouth.
They who never yet had disobeyed Nicola Pascoe stared at him a trifle wanly, huddling one on the other. Astonished gutturals mingled hoarsely with shrill peeps; "Body of Bacchus!" "Woe, woe! Beware!" "Presence of the devil!" clashed with gobs of thieves' slang and the less amiable expressions that were overwhelmed by the general assurances of the district that the paranza had no choice.
Then a well-to-do little soul with a black beard rose to speak. "Listen to the voice of reason. If we condemn ourselves, can we save Nicola Pascoe? But if we condemn Nicola Pascoe, we still do save ourselves! All must not die—a few it is better to die! It is well I should say this, for I am a man of gentle speech. I do not wish to be thought like a bad murderer nor the companion of murderers. I am a business-man—a dealer in tortoise-shells which I send mostly to Chicago, and I am unique for the perfection of my wares. I have now the one hope for the support of my family and small children—that the Society if it suppresses us all will leave upon each of us its mark. That would cause a sensation and perhaps advertise my unique tortoise-shells to improve the business for my wife. But this hope is not enough. Nicola Pascoe, the basista, all, all, suppress them! Me, I wish to live!" He sat down.
But then, from Nicola's closer brethren immediate and violent opposition arose, with arguments that Nicola himself had done no wrong and pleading for a lighter sentence. The meeting was in scarcely less than an apoplectic fit when, from its outskirts, a young farmhand shrieked out that they must take the counsel of the good priest, the Angel of the Society.
A tall man at once began to weep and to utter horrible invectives against the last speaker, while Mr. Gumama exhorted him to be more calm. It turned out that the Angel of the Society was in jail for perjury and that the tall man was his brother. "I must leave the room! I must have air! How could he, the bad of heart, the pig, mention my brother before me—"
"Angelo, you are a man and must show more strength! Antonio was not aware of the trouble of your brother—"
"Not aware of—He who celebrated masses for the soul of King Humbert, he who remained tender to us though all other fathers refused us absolution while we practised our profession, he who among us was best for plausible defenses, that holy man!"
"We revere him. But it is impossible to allow you to leave the room every time he is mentioned! You have disordered in that way the last four meetings!"
Angelo threw himself on the ground with cries of injustice, and an equally angry person started up from his corner. "What is he screaming about? Has he the only feelings to be considered? Do I thus weep like a woman? I, too, have a brother in a dark prison—and if I were with him I would be more safe! While that one there slobbers do I wish to die? And to thus make a martyr not only of me, but of that holy soul, my mother! Who, at eighty-four would weep for me and tear her sacred hair, all gray!" A chorus of sympathetic wails responded to this touching reference. "Me, I see in this room one who once took my lock of that hair for another woman's!" Hisses arose. "Yet do I ask to leave the room? Let it be the house of Pascoe which forever leaves this room. Rather than meet in the dark with the agent of the Honorable Society I will surrender me to the police!"
This, indeed, achieved tumult, breaking into personal rancors in which the issue of Nicola seemed to vanish.
"You are a liar! He did not—"
"I will swear on the ashes of my father and of my dead son!"
"You would swear on anything!"
"Beware! Beware the anathema!"
"I am sorry for you—I take you to my bosom!"
"I curse you down to the seventh generation!"
"Once you dug, quiet, in my sewer! But now you are proud and a gentleman—"
"I was always more of a gentleman than you are!"
"I remind you that you must die!"
At last the voice of Mr. Gumama was able to make itself heard. "Beautiful friends, the vote, the vote!—Ah! Now, attention! This is what you do not know. Who thinks to be faithful to Nicola Pascoe, is Nicola Pascoe faithful to him? Nicola Pascoe flees away! A-a-ah! Doubt you that the Society will havesomeatonement? He flees to Brazil, this coming sunrise, he and his, and leaves us to bear his blame!"
It was enough. The meeting could not speak; it could only shake and froth in one united epilepsy. As the fifth paranza found voice it groaned, "We have been betrayed! We are innocent! We have been cast like lambs to the slaughter! He has trampled not only on the human but the divine law! He leaves us to perish in this infamous market—" And a very old man, as he called down upon the Pascoes all the curses of heaven mixed with descriptions of his sufferings from nightmare as a child, put up insane appeals for their punishment. He rose from hysteria to hysteria; sobbing with exhaustion he buried his face in his hands after summoning God, personally, to convince Nicola's friends; suddenly he raised his head and, plucking at one of his wild eyes, with a sweeping movement he cast a small object apparently at Jehovah's feet. His magnificent gesture defying their mercies, he lifted to their gasp of amazement the seared, empty, gaping socket in his ancient, bearded face, and, uttering a choking shriek, he fell to the ground. A stampede of horror was averted by Mr. Gumama, who picked up the eye-ball, cast it down again and ground it under foot. It was glass.
There being no hope of capping this climax they got down to business and surrendered Nicola in a wink. There remained to be dealt with a flourish of Mr. Gumama's. "This is all demanded by our kind Mother. But shall we not give a little more? Shall she herself be obliged to slay the serpent that we have fed and made strong? Will she not be pleased by a little more zeal on our part, while still we are ourselves? My friends, I have made a little arrangement." Fortunately for Mr. Gumama's climax as he now sent another of his impatient glances out of the window he gave an uncontrollable cry of relief. "Here they come!"
Strolling along the sidewalk appeared three men, all evidently Italians; but two, in their rough clothes, lumpish sailors. The slenderer and finer-made came sauntering between them; he had a charming smile with which he listened attentively to some oath embroidered anecdote. As they entered the garage one of the sailors, looking up, caught the eye of Mr. Gumama and made a quick signal. "Bene! They have not been followed!" Mr. Gumama exclaimed. "By the grace of heaven they have not been followed! And he has no suspicion!" The confidential aides purred aloud, the whole meeting slightly relaxed and the man with the knife decided to sit down. But he kept his knife in his hand.
Mr. Gumama stationed two men at the window to watch the sidewalk and then motioned half a dozen distinguished members to the stairs. Crouching forward they could see the slight man leaning in the doorway, whistling, and glancing up and down the swarming street with quick, dark eyes. Mr. Gumama squatted until he was in danger of falling through the opening and pointing a long, soiled finger at the slight man, "Il traditore," hissed Mr. Gumama. "He whom Nicola and the basista shelter in our midst! Alieni, o' n'infama! Traditore! He, Filippi Alieni!"
Once more a hand had touched the spring. Once more the meeting vibrated to a universal shock. Mr. Gumama signed to the fruit-peddler and a brace of laborers that they provide themselves with lengths of rope and the three withdrew to a position across the stairhead from the man with the knife, where they, too, waited in the shadow of the walls. Confiding in the sharpshooters at the window Mr. Gumama had the sailors called upstairs.
Meanwhile the man at the door, happily unaware of the preparations for receiving him above, came lounging inside with his hands in his pockets; and Mrs. Pascoe, whose greeting had shown some slight surprise at his appearance, laughed aloud. "It's funny how it does become you! I can't deny it!"
For he had doffed his gentleman's attire and was dressed like the shabbiest laborer, the tawny, earth-stained shirt open at his throat against a red cotton handkerchief; his loose, frayed, dingy jacket had once been of square, seafaring cut.
"I bet she picked them out fur yeh!" Mrs. Pascoe jeered. "She ain't one to miss the artistic touch!" Her mockery took him all in. "She'd be sure t' have yeh more uv a Dago organ-grinder 'n any Dago organ-grinder ever was! But I will say you wear 'em t' the manner born!"
Well, truly, the swinging gold earrings, rounder than Mr. Gumama's, had been carefully tarnished; his bracelet shot its golden gleam from under a ragged cuff; the cord of a scapular, scarlet against his olive skin, had been torn and knotted, and a handkerchief in the Sicilian colors was thrust into a belt supple with age. But, truly again, they became him mightily. For in those weathered boots, of which the soles were almost gone, his feet gripped the earth with a loping, elastic tread like a young animal's; and when, at the disconcerting coldness of her greeting, he snatched off his old cap and stood with it crushed flat in his nervous fingers the smooth and coal-black glitter of his head called her attention to the alertness of its carriage, like some prowler's scouting in the woods. Doubtless morning-coats and starched British linen are very discreet garments. But the worn softness of those old borrowed properties, in loosing the movement and the poise of his lithe body, had released some other change in him; something wild, light and strong, with the strength of a hound and the lightness of a cat, which, in the dense jungle where he was about to enter, might yet stand him in good stead. After all, one does not dress as a Sicilian for nothing!
Particularly when there are ladies about! Mrs. Pascoe was as much a woman as any silkier petticoat and it must have been some such momentary glimmer of the national presence, of the primitive equation, which had won her forgotten girlhood as it had once wooed and won her daughter's fancy. "Well, I vum!" said she again with tart amusement. Was he going to turn out a man? She leaned toward him all intentness.Was he?
"What yeh got up yer sleeve?" she whispered, for she thought she saw an impulse flickering in his eyes. "Look here, my lad, you pluck up heart an' mebbe yeh'll win through yet. She ain't God A'mighty, whoever she is; she ain't got rid o' that Cornish girl yet, nor, p'raps she ain't goin' to. She'll fin' she's gotta answer t' somebody in this world—she's got her ma. An' I don't see but what, when all's said, she's got her husband!"
He drew back with that little viperish black motion of his head and she cautioned him, "Now, now! Don't yer go puttin' those fellers' back up! I got no doubt they mean well by yeh if yeh keep quiet. But they're natcherul born devils—she's a natcherul born devil, as seems to me yeh had oughtta know by this time! An' only thing fur you is to jus' lay low an' squirm through.—Yeh goin' to do what yeh can fur that girl out there?"
He turned from her with the impatience of a man tested beyond his strength and as she went back to her solitaire her lips twitched. A man came down past her and quietly but with tremendous dramatic consciousness touched the arm of the slim figure in the doorway. "You will, above, attend the council!"
Without a sign to her he followed the messenger. Putting out one claw she clutched his cuff in her hold like a parrot's. She was looking in his face for her answer and he made that motion, palm downwards, with which an Italian dismisses some slight unpleasantness. "Ah, che voul pazienza!" he intoned as the messenger turned round, shrugging and pulling mildly at his cuff.
The claw held. "Ah, let 'em wait! An' don't yeh gimme none o' that gibberish—I been altogethertoopatient, this good while!" The messenger beckoned and she lowered her voice. "Yeh claim yer a gentleman an', as far forth as what that goes, I dun't say but yeh be. I never thought one o' yer kind was a man, exactly, but if yer be, be one now. I hadn't ought to let yer do it, but, if yeh can, do! An' if not, yeh got all the rest o' yer life to think what kind uv a gentleman y' are!—Yeh can g'won up."
Did she feel a pressure of his hand? Did she imagine a sharp breath through his whole body, like an outcry, like a pledge? Under his guide's disapproving glance his face was merely sulky and she could only gape wistfully after him as he was swallowed up into the dusky loft.
At any rate it was with these words in his ears that he found himself standing, facing the light, and between it and him a blurred sea of faces. The air, heavy from so many lungs, was thick with cigarette smoke and the odors of cheese, garlic and cheap scent; here and there the cruder and uglier features, expressions of gutter enmity or degenerate glee, sprang out like exclamations; here and there a jaunty pose, a bright tie, the treasurer's carnation or a pair of earrings reassured him of a peaceful and joyous gathering. No! As he stood there, facing that assemblage, there crept through his nerves a sense of being on trial, of being a satisfaction to its lust and fear. The poor fellow looked from one to the other of those fervid, luscious faces, great-eyed and full-mouthed, smiling a little, festivally decked, oiled and curled; he was groping for some unguessed doom in their amusement, as if he were thrown into an arena which they watched, pleasantly; surrounding him not with harsh horrors but with that horror of softness which hardness can never equal. A nausea, a blind faintness, crept in upon him; where were the hopes of Mrs. Pascoe, now?—A satisfied, panting breath, full of heat, rose from the crowd.
"Filippi Alieni?"
"Suor servitor, signor."
He did not deny it!
"Filippi Alieni, are you duly grateful that you, an outsider, are admitted to the Council of the Arm of Justice?"
"Si, Signor."
"Filippi Alieni, twelve years ago was it not you who were admitted to another council? You, who were brother in the law to Nicola Ansello, were not you in Naples received into the bosom of the Honorable Society?"
"Si, signor."
"He admits it, he admits it!" The cry broke forth, quickening dead wires and releasing muffled sparks. The old murmur swelled and grew and beat in little waves of angry, of fearful sound, trembling about the name of Alieni. Black looks, shudders of repulsion and denial began to translate themselves into the curses of a dozen dialects; against Alieni all the accents of the south crossed fingers. Then there was a low whistle from somewhere without. Every one started on guard. The lid of the hatch was softly lifted. The voice of Mrs. Pascoe was heard, dryly bargaining. It was only some one come in to buy gasoline. The baited guest still stood sulky and utterly bewildered, searching their faces.
"So, you admit it! You, brother in the law of our chief, husband of our basista, you joined the Honorable Society! You received the kiss upon both cheeks, you accepted the salutation on the brow, you took the oath of the Omerta! That oath of humility and obedience, that oath never to reveal to any one, brother nor sister, father nor mother, wife of your bosom nor child of your loins, the secrets of the Society! Never to avenge but by the Society's permission and your own hand any wrong done you by any brother in the Society, nor ever, even on the bed of your death, dying from his knife, to denounce him to the police! You sang the sacred song