The Lure of the Mask, Harold MacGrath [best beach reads of all time .txt] 📗

I didn't see any porter."

"Why, the chap who took your luggage from the customs."

"Good Lord! was that the porter? Why, I thought he was a personal friend of yours and an admiral in the Italian navy. I shook hands with him!"

Hillard shouted with laughter.

What a noisy, smelly, picturesque city it was! The cries of the hawkers, the importunities of the guides, the venders and cabmen, the whining beggars; the clatter of horses and carriages and carts; strolling singers, goats with tinkling bells, the barking of outcast dogs, and the brawling and bawling of children, hundreds upon hundreds of children! Merrihew grew dizzy trying to absorb the whole canvas at once. How the sturdy little campagna ponies ran up and down the narrow winding streets! Crack-crack! went the driver's lash. It possessed a language all its own. It called, it warned at the turning of the corners, it greeted friends, it hurled curses at rivals. Crack-crack! till Merrihew's ears ached. It was all very crowded and noisy till they reached the upper terrace of the Corso Vittorio; then the sounds became murmurous and pleasing.

Their rooms were pleasantly situated, looking out upon the sparkling bay. Giovanni began at once to unpack the trunks, happy enough to have something to occupy him till after dark, when he determined to venture forth. The dreaded carabinieri had paid him not the slightest attention; so far he was as safe as though he were in New York.

It was yet so early in the day that the two young men sallied forth in quest of light adventure. Besides, Merrihew was very eager to find some Roman and Florence newspapers. The American Comic Opera Company was somewhere north. They found stationed outside the hotel a rosy-cheeked cabby who answered to the name of Tomasso, or Tomass', as the Neapolitans generally drop the finals. He carried a bright red lap-robe and blanket, spoke a little English, and was very proud of the accomplishment. He was rather disappointed, however, when Hillard bargained with him in his own tongue. He saw at once that there would be no imposing on the young Americano. The two harangued for a while, on general principles. Twice words rose so high that Merrihew thought they were about to come to blows. Tomass' shook his fingers under Hillard's nose and Hillard returned the compliment. Finally Tomass' compromised on one-lira-fifty per hour, with fifty centesimi pourboire. Crack-crack! Down the hill they went, as if a thousand devils were after them.

"By George!" gasped Merrihew, clutching his seat; "the fool will break our necks!"

"They are always like this," laughed Hillard. "Slowly, slowly!" he called.

Tomass' grinned and cracked his whip. He did not understand the word slowly in his own tongue or in any other; at least, not till he reached the shops. It was business to go slowly there. A dozen times, on the Via Roma, Merrihew yelled that they would lose a wheel. But Tomass' knew the game. A man on foot could not have eluded collisions more skilfully. Merrihew never saw such driving. Nor had he ever seen such shops. Coral, coral, wherever the eye roamed. Where did they get it all and to whom did they sell it? Necklaces, tiaras, rings, brooches, carved and uncarved; were there women enough in the world to buy these things?

"If I had a wife..." he began.

"Well?"

"I'd feel devilish sorry for her husband at this moment."

"But isn't the color great?" said Hillard. It was good to be in Naples again.

Indeed, on a sunny afternoon, the traveler will find no other street offering such a kaleidoscope of luxuriant colors as the Via Roma of Naples. Behold the greens, the flowers, the cheeses, the shining fish, the bakestuffs, the silver- and goldsmiths, the milliners, the curio-dens! And the people! Dark-eyed beauties on foot or driving, handsome bearded men, monks, friars, priests, an archbishop in his splendid carriage, a duke driving tandem, nuns, and children. And uniforms as thick as poppies in a wheat-field. Officers rode past in their light blue capes, their gold and scarlet braids and polished scabbards; the foot-soldiers with their flowing green cock-feathers, policemen with their short swords, the tall and dignified carabinieri (always in pairs) with their cocked hats and crimson pompons towering above the sea of hats. It seemed to Merrihew that a rainbow had been captured and trained accordingly.

"I never saw so many kids," he observed; "so many dirty ones," he added. "Herod would have had his work cut out for him here. Now, where can we get some newspapers? I must know where she is."

"Presently," said Hillard. "The Piazza dei Martin," he directed Tomass'. Then he turned to Merrihew solemnly. "My boy, if you are to travel with me, beware of the Tauchnitz edition."

"What's that?"

"It's good reading in paper-covers. It is easier to sit in the hotel all day and read Tauchnitz than it is to tramp through churches and galleries and museums."

"No Tauchnitz; I promise." And Merrihew was an inveterate novel reader.

At the book-shop in the Piazza they found the Rome and Florence papers. Hillard went through them thoroughly, but nowhere did he see anything relative to the doings of the American Comic Opera Company.

"Not a line, Dan."

"But there must be something in the Florence paper. They should be playing there yet."

"Nothing; these papers are two weeks old."

Merrihew stared blankly at the sheet. "I should like to know what it means."

"We will write to the consulate in Rome. If there has been any trouble he will certainly notify us. I'll write to-night. Now, here's Cook's next door. We'll ask if there is any mail for Kitty Killigrew."

But there wasn't, nor had there been; and the name was not on the forwarding books.

"Looks as if your Kitty were the needle in the haystack."

"Hang the luck!" Merrihew jammed his hands into his pockets and sulked with the world.

"It is evident that Kitty will not have you."

"Cut it!" savagely. Pictures and churches and museums were all well enough, but Merrihew wanted Kitty Killigrew above all the treasures of earth. It was no longer a passing fancy; he was downright in love.

When they turned down to the Via Caracciolo, with the full sweep of the magnificent bay at their feet, Merrihew's disappointment softened somewhat. It was the fashionable hour. The band was playing near-by in the Villa Nazionale. Americans were everywhere. Occasionally a stray princess or countess flashed by, inert and listless against the cushions, and invariably over-dressed. And when men accompanied them, the men (if they were husbands) lolled back, even more listless. And beggars of all sorts and descriptions besieged the "very great grand rich Americans." To the Neapolitan all Americans are rich; they are the only forestieri who are always ready to throw money about, regardless of results. The Englishman, now, when the poveretto puts out his unlovely hand, looks calmly over his head and drives on. The German (and in the spring there are more Germans in Italy than Italians!) is deep in his Koran, generally, his Karl Baedeker, or too thrifty to notice. It is to the American, then, that the beggar looks for his daily macaroni.

They were nearly a week in Naples. They saw the galleries, the museums and churches; they saw underground Naples; they made the weary and useless ascent of Vesuvius; and Merrihew added a new smell to his collection every hour. Pompeii by moonlight, however, was worth a thousand ordinary dreams; and Merrihew, who had abundant imagination, but no art with which to express it-happily or unhappily-saw Lytton's story unfold in all its romantic splendor. In the dark corners he saw Glaucus, and Sallust, and Arbaces; he could hear the light step of the luxurious Julia, and the tramp of the gladiators; he could hear Ione's voice in song and the low whisper of Nydia with her roses. "To the lions! Glaucus to the lions!" It would have been perfect had Vesuvius blown off the top of its head at that moment.

They lingered at Amalfi three days, and dreamed away the hours under the white pergola. Merrihew was loath to leave; but Hillard was for going on to Sorrento, for which his heart was always longing.

A spring rain fell as they took the incline, and it followed them over the mountains and down into Sorrento. The ruddy oranges hung in clusters over the old walls which lined both sides of the road, walls so old that history stops before them doubtfully. And the perfume of the sweet rain mingling with that of the fruit was like nothing Merrihew had ever sensed before. They finally drew up in the courtyard of the Hotel de la Sirena, and the long ride was at an end. The little garden was white and pink with roses and camellias, and the tubbed mandarins were heavy with fruit.

"And this is March!" said Merrihew, his thought traveling back to his own bleak country, where winter is so long and summer is so short.

Their rooms were on the northeast corner, on the first floor; and from the windows they could look down upon the marina piccola and the tideless sea, a sheer hundred and fifty feet below. Everybody welcomed the Signore Hillard; the hotel was his, and everything and everybody in it. Fire? It was already burning in the grate; orange wood, too, the smoke of which leaves no strong acidulous odor on the air. The Signore Hillard had only to speak, he had only to express a wish; they would scour the village to gratify it. Hillard accepted all these attentions as a matter of course, as a duke or a prince might have accepted them.

"By George!" whispered Merrihew; "they treat you like a prince here."

Later, when they were alone, Hillard began to explain.

"They remember my father; he used to live like a prince in Sorrento. Every time I come here I do the best I can to keep the luster to his name. To-morrow I shall point out to you the villa in which I was born. A Russian princess owns it now. You will know the place by the pet monkey which is always clambering about the balconies near the porter's lodge. More than that, if the princess is not on the Riviera, I'll take you there to tea some afternoon."

"A real live princess!" said Merrihew. "Is she beautiful?"

"Once upon a time," returned Hillard, laughing. "And, now, what do you say to a game of penuchle till dinner, a penny a point?"

Merrihew found two decks of cards, arranged them, and the game began. It was all very cheerful, the fire in the grate, the rain on the casement-windows, the blur on the bay, and the fragrance of two well-filled pipes.

There is very little to do in Sorrento at night; no theaters, no bands, no well-lighted cafés, nothing save wandering companies who dance the tarantella in the lobbies of the hotels, the men clumsy in their native costumes and the girls with as much grace and figure as so many heifers. It is only in Sicily that the Latin has learned to dance. But the tarantella is a novelty to the sight-seeing tourist, who believes he must see everything in order to be an authority when he gets back home.

Giovanni did not return till late that night, and on the morrow Hillard questioned him.

"I have been to see a cousin," said Giovanni, "who lives on the way to El Deserta."

"Ah! So you have a cousin here?"

"Yes, signore."

How old he looked,