Chapter 15. I Become Hostage To The Princess Camilla

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XV. I BECOME HOSTAGE TO THE PRINCESS CAMILLA

"Silvis te, Tyrrhene, feras agitare putasti?
Advenit qui vestra dies muliebribus armis
Verba redarguerit."

VIRGIL, Aeneid, xi.

Ahead of us, beyond the rises and hollows of the _macchia_, rose a bare mountain summit, not very tall, the ascent to it broken by granite ledges, so that from a distance it almost appeared to be terraced. On a heathery slope at the foot of the first terrace the Corsicans set down poor Nat and spoke a word to their mistress, who presently halted and exchanged a few sentences with them in _patois_; whereupon they stepped back a few paces into the _macchia_, and, having quickly cut a couple of ilex-staves, fell to plaiting them with lentisk, to form a litter.

While this was doing I stepped back to my friend's side. His eyes were closed; but he breathed yet, and his pulse, though faint, was perceptible. A little blood--a very little--trickled from the corner of his mouth. I glanced at the girl, who had drawn near and stood close at my elbow.

"Have you a surgeon in your camp?" I asked. "I believe that a surgeon might save him yet."

She shook her head. I could detect no pity in her eyes; only a touch of curiosity, half haughty and in part sullen.

"I doubt," she answered, "if you will find a surgeon in all Corsica. I do not believe in surgeons."

"Then," said I, "you have not lived always in Corsica."

Her face flushed darkly, even while the disdain in her eyes grew colder, more guarded.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"Why," said I, "you are not one, I believe, to speak so positively in mere ignorance. But see!" I went on, pointing down upon the bay over which this higher slope gave us a clear view, "there goes the ship that brought us here."

She gazed at it for a while, with bent brow, evidently puzzled.

"No," said I, watching her, "I shall not tell you yet why she goes, nor where her port lies. But I have something to propose to you."

"Say it."

"It leaves one man behind, and one only, in our camp below. He is my father, and he has some knowledge of surgery; I believe he could save my friend here."

She stood considering. "So much was known to me," she answered at length; "that, after you, there would be but one left. Three of my men have gone down to take him. He will be here before long."

"But, pardon me--for as yet I know not whether your aim is to kill us or take us alive--"

She interrupted me with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I have no wish to kill you. But I must know what brings you here, and the rest can talk nothing but English. As for this one"--with a gesture of the hand towards Nat--"he was foolish. He tried to run away and warn you."

"Then, signorina, let me promise, who know my father, that you will not take him alive."

"I have sent three men."

"You had done better to send thirty; but even so you will not succeed."

"I have heard tell," she said, again with a little movement of her shoulders, "that all Englishmen are mad."

I laughed; and this laugh of mine had a singular effect on her. She drew back and looked at me for an instant with startled eyes, as though she had never heard laughter in her life before, or else had heard too much.

"Tell me what you propose," she said.

"I propose to send down a message to my father, and one of your men shall carry it with a white flag (for that he shall have the loan of my handkerchief). I will write in Italian, that you may read and know what I say."

"It is unnecessary."

"I thank you." I found in my pockets the stump of a pencil and a scrap of paper--an old Oxford bill--and wrote--

"DEAR FATHER,

"We are prisoners, and Nat is wounded, but whether past help or not I cannot say. I believe you might do something for him. If it suit your plans, the bearer will give you safe conduct: if not, I remain your obedient son,"

"PROSPER."

I translated this for her, and folded the paper.

"Marc'antonio!" she called to one of the three men, who by this time had finished plaiting the litter and were strewing it with fern.

Marc'antonio--a lean, slight fellow with an old scar on his cheek-- stepped forward at once. She gave him my note and handkerchief with instructions to hurry.

"Excuse me, principessa"--he hesitated, with a glance at me and another at his comrades--"but these two, with the litter, will have their hands full; and this prisoner is a strong one and artful. Has he not already slain 'l Verru?"

"You will mind your own business, Marc'antonio, which is to run, as I tell you."

The man turned without another word, but with a last distrustful look, and plunged downhill into the scrub. The girl made a careless sign to the others to lay Nat on his litter, and, turning, led the way up the rocky front of the summit, presenting her back to me, choosing the path which offered fewest impediments to the litter-bearers in our rear.

The sun was now high overhead, and beat torridly upon the granite crags, which, as I clutched them, blistered my hands. The girl and the two men (in spite of their burden) balanced themselves and sprang from foothold to foothold with an ease which shamed me. For a while I supposed that we were making for the actual summit; but on the second terrace my captress bore away to the left and led us by a track that slanted across the northern shoulder of the ridge. A sentry started to his feet and stepped from behind a clump of arid sage-coloured bushes, stood for a moment with the sun glinting on his gun-barrel, and at a sign from the girl dropped back upon his post. Just then, or a moment later, my ears caught the jigging notes of a flute; whereby I knew Mr. Badcock to be close at hand, for it was discoursing the tune of "The Vicar of Bray"!

Sure enough, as we rounded the slope we came upon him, Mr. Fett, and Billy Priske, the trio seated within a semi-circle of admiring Corsicans, and above a scene so marvellous that I caught my breath. The slope, breaking away to north and east, descended sheer upon a vast amphitheatre filled with green acres of pine forest and pent within walls of porphyry that rose in tower upon tower, pinnacle upon pinnacle, beyond and above the tree-tops; and these pillars, as they soared out of the gulf, seemed to shake off with difficulty the forest that climbed after them, holding by every nook and ledge in their riven sides--here a dark-foliaged clump caught in a chasm, there a solitary trunk bleached and dead but still hanging by a last grip.

On the edge of this green cauldron the Corsicans and my comrades sat like so many witches, their figures magnified uncannily against the void; and far beyond, above the rose-coloured crags, deep-set in miles of transparent blue, shone the snow-covered central peaks of the island.

As I rounded the corner, Mr. Fett hailed me with a shout and a vocal imitation of a post-horn.

"Another," he cried, and slapped his thigh triumphantly. "Another blossom added to the posy! Badcock, my flosculet, you owe me five shillings. Permit me to explain, sir"--he turned to me--"that Mr. Badcock has been staking upon an anthology, I upon the full basket and the whole hog. It is cut and come again with these Corsicans; and, talking of hogs--"

His chatter tailed off in a pitiful exclamation as the litter-carriers came around the angle of the ridge with Nat's body between them.

"Poor lad! Ah, poor lad!" I heard Billy say. Mr. Badcock nervously disjointed his flute. "I warned him, sir. Believe me, my last words were that, being in Rome, so to speak, he should do as the Romans did--"

"There is one more," announced the girl, to her Corsicans, "and I have sent for him. He will come under conduct; and, meanwhile, I have to say that any man who offers to harm this prisoner, here, will be shot."

"But why should we harm him, principessa?" they asked; and, indeed, I felt inclined to echo their question, seeing that she pointed at me.

"Because he has killed Giuseppe," she answered simply.

"Giuseppe? He has slain Giuseppe?" The simultaneous cry went up in a wail, and by impulse the hand of each one moved to his knife.

"Your pardon, principessa--" began one black-avised bandit, dropping the haft of his knife and feeling for the gun at his back.

She waived him aside and turned to me. "I should warn you, sir, that we are of one clan here, though I may not tell you our name; and against the slayer of one it is vendetta with us all. But I spare you until your father arrives."

"I thank you," answered I, feeling blue, but fetching up my best bow. (Here was a pleasant prospect!) "I only beg to observe that I killed this man--if I have killed him--in self-defence," I added.

"Do you wish me to repeat that as your plea?" she asked, half in scorn.

"I do not," said I, with a sudden rush of anger. "Moreover, I dare say that these savages of yours would see no distinction."

"You are right," she replied carelessly, "they would see no distinction."

"But excuse me, principessa," persisted the scowling man, "a feud is a feud, and if he has slain our Giuse--"

"Attend to me, sir," I broke in. "Your Giuseppe came at me like a hog, and I gave him his deserts. For the rest, if you move your hand another inch towards that gun I will knock your brains out." I clubbed my musket ready to strike.

"Gently, sir!" interposed the girl. "This is folly, as you must see."

I shrugged my shoulders. "You will allow me, Princess. If it come to vendetta, you have slain my friend."

She gave her back to me and faced the ring. "I tell you," she said, "that Giuseppe's death rests on the prisoner's word alone. Marc'antonio and Stephanu have gone down and will bring us the truth of it. Meanwhile I say that this one is our prisoner, like as the others. Give him room and let him wait by his friend. Does any one say 'nay' to that?" she demanded.

The scowling man, with a glance at his comrades' faces, gave way. I could not have told why, but from the start of the dispute I felt that this girl held her bandits, or whatever they were, in imperfect obedience. They obeyed her, yet with reserve. When pressed to the point between submission and mutiny, they yielded; but they yielded with a consent which I could not reconcile with submission. Even whilst answering deferentially they appeared to be looking at one another and taking a cue.

For the time, however, she had prevailed with them. They stood aside while Billy and I lifted the litter and bore it to the shade of an overhanging rock. One even fetched me a panful of water which he had collected from a trickling spring on the face of the cliffs hard by, and brought me linen, too, when he saw me preparing to tear up my own shirt to bind Nat's wound.

We could not trace the course of the bullet, and judged it best to spare meddling with a hurt we could not help. So, having bathed away the clotted blood and bandaged him, we strewed a fresh bed of fern, and watched by him, moistening his lips from time to time with water, for which he moaned. The sun began to sink on the far side of the mountain, and the shadow of the summit, falling into the deep gulf at our feet, to creep across the green tree-tops massed there. While it crept, and I watched it, Billy related in whispers how he had been sprung upon and gagged, so swiftly that he had no chance to cry alarm or to feel for the trigger of his musket. He rubbed his hands delightedly when in return I told the story of my lucky shot. In his ignorance of Italian he had caught no inkling of the peril that lucky shot had brought upon me, nor did I choose to enlighten him.

The shadow of the mountain was stretching more than halfway across the valley, and in the slanting light the rosy tinge of the crags appeared to be melting and suffusing the snow-peaks beyond, when my father walked into the camp unannounced. He carried a gun and a folding camp-stool, and was followed by Marc'antonio, who fluttered my white handkerchief from the ramrod of his musket.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen!" said my father, lifting his hat and looking about him.

I could see at a glance that his stature and bearing impressed the Corsicans. They drew back for a moment, then pressed around him like children.

"Mbe! E bellu, il Inglese," I heard one say to his fellow.

After quelling the brief tumult against me, and while I busied myself with Nat, the girl had disappeared--I could not tell whither. But now one of the band ran up the slope calling loudly to summon her. "O principessa, ajo, ajo! Veni qui, ajo!" and, gazing after him, I saw her at the entrance of a cave some fifty feet above us, erect, with either hand parting and holding back the creepers that curtained her bower.

She let the curtains fall-to behind her, and, stepping down the hillside, welcomed my father with the gravest of curtsies.

"Salutation, O stranger!"

"And to you, O lady, salutation!" my father made answer, with a bow. "Though English," he went on, slipping easily into the dialect she used with her followers, "I am Corsican enough to forbear from asking their names of gentlefolk in the _macchia_; but mine is John Constantine, and I am very much at your service."

"My men call me the Princess Camilla."

"A good name," said my father, and seemed to muse upon it for a moment while he eyed her paternally. "A very good name, O Princess, and beloved of old by Diana--

"'Aeternum telorum et virginitatis amorem
Intemerata--'

"But I come at your bidding and must first of all apologize for some little delay; the cause being that your messenger found me busy patching up a bullet-hole in one of your men."

"Giuseppe is not dead?"

"He is not dead, and on the whole I incline to think he is not going to die, though you will allow me to say that the rogue deserved it. The other three gentlemen-at-arms despatched by you are at this moment bringing him up the hill, very carefully, following my instructions. He will need care. In fact, it will be touch-and-go with him for many days to come."

While he talked, my father, catching sight of me, had stepped to Nat's couch. Nodding to me without more ado to lift the patient and cut away his shirt, he knelt, unrolled his case of instruments, and with a "Courage, lad!" bent an ear to the faint breathing. In less than a minute, as it seemed, his hand feeling around the naked back came to a pause a little behind and under the right arm-pit.

"Courage, lad!" he repeated. "A little pain, and we'll have it, safe as a wasp in an apple."

The Corsicans under his orders had withdrawn to a little distance and stood about us in a ring. While he probed and Nat's poor body writhed feebly in my arms, I lifted my eyes once with a shudder, and met the Princess Camilla's. She was watching, and without a tremor, her face grave as a child's.

With a short grunt of triumph, my father caught away his hand, dipped it swiftly into the pan of water beside him, and held the bullet aloft between thumb and forefinger. The Corsicans broke into quick guttural cries, as men hailing a miracle. As Nat's head fell back limp against my shoulder I saw the Princess turn and walk away alone. Her followers dispersed by degrees, but not, I should say, until every man had explained to every other his own theory of the wound and the operation, and how my father had come to find the bullet so unerringly, each theorist tapping his own chest and back, or his interlocutor's, sometimes a couple tapping each other with vigour, neither listening, both jabbering at full pitch of the voice with prodigious elisions of consonants and equally prodigious drawlings of the vowels. For us, the dressing of the wound kept us busy, and we paid little attention even when a fresh jabbering announced that the litter-bearers had arrived with Giuseppe.

By-and-by, however, my father rose from his knees and, leaving me to fasten the last bandages, strolled across the slope to see how his other patient had borne the journey. Just at that moment I heard again a voice calling to the Princess Camilla: "Ajo, ajo! O principessa, veni qui!" and simultaneously the voice of Billy Priske uplifted in an incongruous British oath.

My father halted with a gesture of annoyance, checked himself, and, awaiting the Princess, pointed towards an object on the turf--an object at which Billy Priske, too, was pointing.

It appeared that while his comrades had been attending on Giuseppe, the third Corsican (whom they called Ste, or Stephanu) had filled up his time by rifling our camp; and of all our possessions he had chosen to select our half-dozen spare muskets and a burst coffer, from which he now extracted and (for his comrade's admiration) held aloft our chiefest treasure--the Iron Crown of Corsica.

"Princess," said my father, coldly, "your men have broken faith. I came to you under no compulsion, obeying your flag of truce. It was no part of the bargain that our camp should be pillaged."

For a while she did not seem to hear; but stood at gaze, her eyes round with wonder.

"Stephanu, bring it here," she commanded.

The man brought it. "O principessa," said he, with a wondering grin, "who are these that travel with royal crowns? If we were true folk of the _macchia_, now, we could hold them at a fine ransom."

She took the crown, examined it for a moment, and turning to my father, spoke to him swiftly in French.

"How came you by this, O Englishman?"

"That," answered my father, stiffly, "I decline to tell you. It has come to your hands, Princess, through violation of your flag of truce, and in honour you should restore it to me without question."

She waved a hand impatiently. "This is the crown of King Theodore, O Englishman. See the rim of mingled oak and laurel, made in imitation of that hasty chaplet wherewith the Corsicans first crowned him in the Convent of Alesani. Answer me, and in French, for all your lives depend on it; yet briefly, for the sound of that tongue angers my men. For your life, then, how did you come by this?"

"You must find some better argument, Princess," said my father, stiffly.

"For your son's life then."

I saw my father lift his eyes and scan her beautiful face.

"My son is not a coward, Princess; the less so that--" Here my father hesitated.

"Quickly, quickly!" she urged him.

He threw up his head. "Yes, quickly, Princess; and in no fear, nor upon any condition. You are islanders; therefore you are patriots. You are patriots; therefore you hate the Genoese and love the Queen Emilia, whose servant I am. As I was saying, then, my son has the less excuse to be a coward in that he hopes, one day, with the Queen Emilia's blessing, to wear this crown bequeathed to him by the late King Theodore."

"_He?_" The girl swung upon me, scornfully incredulous.

"Even he, Princess. In proof I can show you King Theodore's deed of gift, signed with his own hand and attested."

For the first time, then, I saw her smile; but the smile held no correspondence with the tone of slow, quiet contempt in which she next spoke.

"You are trustful, O sciu Johann Constantine. I have heard that all Englishmen tell the truth, and expect it, and are otherwise mad."

"I trust to nothing, Princess, until I have the Queen Emilia's word. That I would trust to my life's end."

She nodded darkly. "You shall go to her--if you can find her."

"Tell me where to seek her."

"She lies at Nonza in Capo Corse; or peradventure the Genoese, who hold her prisoner, have by this time carried her across to the Continent."

"Though she were in Genoa itself, I would deliver her or die."

"You will probably die, O Englishman, before you receive her answer; and that will be a pity--yes, a great pity. But you are free to go, you and your company--all but your son here, this King of Corsica that is to be, whom I keep as hostage, with his crown. Eh? Is this not a good bargain I offer you?"

"Be it good or bad, Princess," my father answered, "to make a bargain takes two."

"That is true," said I, stepping forward with a laugh, and thrusting myself between the Corsicans, who had begun to press around with decided menace in their looks. "And therefore the Princess will accept me as the other party to the bargain, and as her hostage."

Again at the sound of my laugh she shrunk a little; but presently frowned.

"Have you considered, cavalier," she asked coldly, "that Giuseppe is not certain of recovery?"

"Still less certain is my friend," answered I, and with a shrug of the shoulders walked away to Nat's sick-couch. There, twenty minutes later, my father took leave of me, after giving some last instructions for the care of the invalid. In one hand he carried his musket, in the other his camp-stool.

"Say the word even now, lad," he offered, "and we will abide till he recovers."

But I shook my head.

Billy Priske carried an enormous wine-skin slung across his shoulders; Mr. Fett a sack of provender. Mr. Badcock had begged or borrowed or purchased an enormous gridiron.

"But what is that for? I asked him, as we shook hands.

"For cooking the wild goose," he answered solemnly, "which in these parts, as I am given to understand, is an animal they call the _mufflone_. He partakes in some degree of the nature of a sheep. He will find me his match, sir."

One by one, a little before the sun sank, they bade me farewell and passed--free men--down the path that dipped into the pine forest. On the edge of the dip each man turned and waved a hand to me. The princess, with Marc'antonio beside her, stood and watched them as they passed out of sight. _

Read next: Chapter 16. The Forest Hut

Read previous: Chapter 14. How By Means Of Her Swine I Came To Circe

Table of content of Sir John Constantine


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book