E. W. Hornung_A J Raffles 02 (6 page)

Raffles was soon clinking his glass against mine.

"The Queen," said he. "God bless her!"

"Mar—ga—ri,
e perzo a Salvatore! Mar—ga—ri,
Ma l'ommo e cacciatore! Mar—ga—ri,
Nun ce aje corpa tu!
Chello ch' e fatto, e fatto, un ne parlammo cchieu!"

A piano-organ was pouring the metallic music through our open
windows, while a voice of brass brayed the words, which I have
since obtained, and print above for identification by such as
know their Italy better than I. They will not thank me for
reminding them of a tune so lately epidemic in that land of
aloes and blue skies; but at least it is unlikely to run in
their heads as the ribald accompaniment to a tragedy; and it
does in mine.

It was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the
lawful and necessary siesta for such as turn night into day. I
was therefore shutting my window in a rage, and wondering
whether I should not do the same for Raffles, when he appeared
in the silk pajamas to which the chronic solicitude of Dr.
Theobald confined him from morning to night.

"Don't do that, Bunny," said he. "I rather like that thing, and
want to listen. What sort of fellows are they to look at, by
the way?"

I put my head out to see, it being a primary rule of our quaint
establishment that Raffles must never show himself at any of the
windows. I remember now how hot the sill was to my elbows, as
I leant upon it and looked down, in order to satisfy a curiosity
in which I could see no point.

"Dirty-looking beggars," said I over my shoulder: "dark as dark;
blue chins, oleaginous curls, and ear-rings; ragged as they make
them, but nothing picturesque in their rags."

"Neapolitans all over," murmured Raffles behind me; "and that's
a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other
grinds; they always have that out there."

"He's rather a fine chap, the singer," said I, as the song
ended. "My hat, what teeth! He's looking up here, and grinning
all round his head; shall I chuck him anything?"

"Well, I have no reason to love the Neapolitans; but it takes me
back—it takes me back! Yes, here you are, one each."

It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my hand,
but I had thrown them into the street for pennies before I saw
what they were. Thereupon I left the Italians bowing to the mud,
as well they might, and I turned to protest against such wanton
waste. But Raffles was walking up and down, his head bent, his
eyes troubled; and his one excuse disarmed remonstrance.

"They took me back," he repeated. "My God, how they took me
back!"

Suddenly he stopped in his stride.

"You don't understand, Bunny, old chap; but if you like you
shall. I always meant to tell you some day, but never felt
worked up to it before, and it's not the kind of thing one talks
about for talking's sake. It isn't a nursery story, Bunny, and
there isn't a laugh in it from start to finish; on the contrary,
you have often asked me what turned my hair gray, and now you
are going to hear."

This was promising, but Raffles's manner was something more. It
was unique in my memory of the man. His fine face softened and
set hard by turns. I never knew it so hard. I never knew it
so soft. And the same might be said of his voice, now tender as
any woman's, now flying to the other extreme of equally unwonted
ferocity. But this was toward the end of his tale; the beginning
he treated characteristically enough, though I could have wished
for a less cavalier account of the island of Elba, where, upon
his own showing, he had met with much humanity.

"Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for that glorified snag,
or for the mollusks, its inhabitants. But they started by
wounding my vanity, so perhaps I am prejudiced, after all. I
sprung myself upon them as a shipwrecked sailor—a sole
survivor—stripped in the sea and landed without a stitch—yet
they took no more interest in me than you do in Italian
organ-grinders. They were decent enough. I didn't have to pick
and steal for a square meal and a pair of trousers; it would
have been more exciting if I had. But what a place! Napoleon
couldn't stand it, you remember, but he held on longer than I
did. I put in a few weeks in their infernal mines, simply to
pick up a smattering of Italian; then got across to the
mainland in a little wooden timber-tramp; and ungratefully glad
I was to leave Elba blazing in just such another sunset as the
one you won't forget.

"The tramp was bound for Naples, but first it touched at
Baiae, where I carefully deserted in the night. There are
too many English in Naples itself, though I thought it would
make a first happy hunting-ground when I knew the language
better and had altered myself a bit more. Meanwhile I got a
billet of several sorts on one of the loveliest spots that ever
I struck on all my travels. The place was a vineyard, but it
overhung the sea, and I got taken on as tame sailorman and
emergency bottle-washer. The wages were the noble figure of a
lira and a half, which is just over a bob, a day, but there were
lashings of sound wine for one and all, and better wine to bathe
in. And for eight whole months, my boy, I was an absolutely
honest man. The luxury of it, Bunny! I out-heroded Herod,
wouldn't touch a grape, and went in the most delicious danger of
being knifed for my principles by the thieving crew I had
joined.

"It was the kind of place where every prospect pleases—and all
the rest of it—especially all the rest. But may I see it in my
dreams till I die—as it was in the beginning—before anything
began to happen. It was a wedge of rock sticking out into the
bay, thatched with vines, and with the rummiest old house on the
very edge of all, a devil of a height above the sea: you might
have sat at the windows and dropped your Sullivan-ends plumb
into blue water a hundred and fifty feet below.

"From the garden behind the house—such a garden, Bunny—
oleanders and mimosa, myrtles, rosemarys and red tangles
of fiery, untamed flowers—in a corner of this garden was the top
of a subterranean stair down to the sea; at least there were
nearly two hundred steps tunnelled through the solid rock; then
an iron gate, and another eighty steps in the open air; and last
of all a cave fit for pirates, a-penny-plain-and-two-pence-
colored. This cave gave upon the sweetest little thing in coves,
all deep blue water and honest rocks; and here I looked after the
vineyard shipping, a pot-bellied tub with a brown sail, and a
sort of dingy. The tub took the wine to Naples, and the dingy
was the tub's tender.

"The house above was said to be on the identical site of a
suburban retreat of the admirable Tiberius; there was the old
sinner's private theatre with the tiers cut clean to this day,
the well where he used to fatten his lampreys on his slaves, and
a ruined temple of those ripping old Roman bricks, shallow as
dominoes and ruddier than the cherry. I never was much of an
antiquary, but I could have become one there if I'd had nothing
else to do; but I had lots. When I wasn't busy with the boats
I had to trim the vines, or gather the grapes, or even help make
the wine itself in a cool, dark, musty vault underneath the
temple, that I can see and smell as I jaw. And can't I hear it
and feel it too! Squish, squash, bubble; squash, squish,
guggle; and your feet as though you had been wading through
slaughter to a throne. Yes, Bunny, you mightn't think it, but
this good right foot, that never was on the wrong side of the
crease when the ball left my hand, has also been known to

'crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.'"

He made a sudden pause, as though he had stumbled on the truth
in jest. His face filled with lines. We were sitting in the
room that had been bare when first I saw it; there were
basket-chairs and a table in it now, all meant ostensibly for
me; and hence Raffles would slip to his bed, with schoolboy
relish, at every tinkle of the bell. This afternoon we felt
fairly safe, for Theobald had called in the morning, and Mrs.
Theobald still took up much of his time. Through the open
window we could hear the piano-organ and "Mar—gar—ri" a few
hundred yards further on. I fancied Raffles was listening to it
while he paused. He shook his head abstractedly when I handed
him the cigarettes; and his tone hereafter was never just what
it had been.

"I don't know, Bunny, whether you're a believer in transmigration
of souls. I have often thought it easier to believe than lots
of other things, and I have been pretty near believing in it
myself since I had my being on that villa of Tiberius. The
brute who had it in my day, if he isn't still running it with a
whole skin, was or is as cold-blooded a blackguard as the worst
of the emperors, but I have often thought he had a lot in common
with Tiberius. He had the great high sensual Roman nose, eyes
that were sinks of iniquity in themselves, and that swelled with
fat-ness, like the rest of him, so that he wheezed if he walked
a yard; otherwise rather a fine beast to look at, with a huge
gray moustache, like a flying gull, and the most courteous
manners even to his men; but one of the worst, Bunny, one of
the worst that ever was. It was said that the vineyard was only
his hobby; if so, he did his best to make his hobby pay. He
used to come out from Naples for the week-ends—in the tub when
it wasn't too rough for his nerves—and he didn't always come
alone. His very name sounded unhealthy—Corbucci. I suppose I
ought to add that he was a Count, though Counts are two-a-penny
in Naples, and in season all the year round.

"He had a little English, and liked to air it upon me, much to
my disgust; if I could not hope to conceal my nationality as yet,
I at least did not want to have it advertised; and the swine had
English friends. When he heard that I was bathing in November,
when the bay is still as warm as new milk, he would shake his
wicked old head and say, 'You are very audashuss—you are very
audashuss!' and put on no end of side before his Italians. By
God, he had pitched upon the right word unawares, and I let him
know it in the end!

"But that bathing, Bunny; it was absolutely the best I ever had
anywhere. I said just now the water was like wine; in my own
mind I used to call it blue champagne, and was rather annoyed
that I had no one to admire the phrase. Otherwise I assure you
that I missed my own particular kind very little indeed, though
I often wished that YOU were there, old chap; particularly when
I went for my lonesome swim; first thing in the morning, when
the Bay was all rose-leaves, and last thing at night, when your
body caught phosphorescent fire! Ah, yes, it was a good enough
life for a change; a perfect paradise to lie low in; another
Eden until . . .

"My poor Eve!"

And he fetched a sigh that took away his words; then his jaws
snapped together, and his eyes spoke terribly while he conquered
his emotion. I pen the last word advisedly. I fancy it is one
which I have never used before in writing of A. J. Raffles, for
I cannot at the moment recall any other occasion upon which its
use would have been justified. On resuming, however, he was not
only calm, but cold; and this flying for safety to the other
extreme is the single instance of self-distrust which the
present Achates can record to the credit of his impious AEneas.

"I called the girl Eve," said he. "Her real name was Faustina,
and she was one of a vast family who hung out in a hovel on the
inland border of the vineyard. And Aphrodite rising from the
sea was less wonderful and not more beautiful than Aphrodite
emerging from that hole!

"It was the most exquisite face I ever saw or shall see in this
life. Absolutely perfect features; a skin that reminded you of
old gold, so delicate was its bronze; magnificent hair, not
black but nearly; and such eyes and teeth as would have made
the fortune of a face without another point. I tell you, Bunny,
London would go mad about a girl like that. But I don't believe
there's such another in the world. And there she was wasting
her sweetness upon that lovely but desolate little corner of it!
Well, she did not waste it upon me. I would have married her,
and lived happily ever after in such a hovel as her people's
—with her. Only to look at her—only to look at her for the
rest of my days—I could have lain low and remained dead even to
you! And that's all I'm going to tell you about that, Bunny;
cursed be he who tells more! Yet don't run away with the idea
that this poor Faustina was the only woman I ever cared about.
I don't believe in all that 'only' rot; nevertheless I tell you
that she was the one being who ever entirely satisfied my sense
of beauty; and I honestly believe I could have chucked the world
and been true to Faustina for that alone.

"We met sometimes in the little temple I told you about,
sometimes among the vines; now by honest accident, now by
flagrant design; and found a ready-made rendezvous, romantic as
one could wish, in the cave down all those subterranean steps.
Then the sea would call us—my blue champagne—my sparkling
cobalt—and there was the dingy ready to our hand. Oh, those
nights! I never knew which I liked best, the moonlit ones when
you sculled through silver and could see for miles, or the dark
nights when the fishermen's torches stood for the sea, and a red
zig-zag in the sky for old Vesuvius. We were happy. I don't
mind owning it. We seemed not to have a care between us. My
mates took no interest in my affairs, and Faustina's family did
not appear to bother about her. The Count was in Naples five
nights of the seven; the other two we sighed apart.

"At first it was the oldest story in literature—Eden plus Eve.
The place had been a heaven on earth before, but now it was
heaven itself. So for a little; then one night, a Monday night,
Faustina burst out crying in the boat; and sobbed her story as
we drifted without mishap by the mercy of the Lord. And that
was almost as old a story as the other.