XXII

The news of Violante’s death met Clive and Sefton at Caréno, one of the nest of little villages they had to pass through on their way to the Sila Mountains.

From Naples they had travelled to Buffaloria direct, there they had changed trains for Cosenza, and at Cosenza they had again changed for Caréno, a tiny place that had been half-wrecked by the earthquake of 1870.

They arrived here in the middle of the night, and found the one little inn astir to meet the arrival of passengers by that train. The landlord, an energetic little man, was profuse in his recommendation of his sleeping accommodation, which he said had been expressly arranged to meet the requirements of English travellers.

Clive and Sefton had, however, taken all the sleep they intended to take as they had jolted in their train over the marshes and across the plains of tamarisk.

Supper they must have⁠—yes, that was a necessity; and also provisions must be put together for their tramp through the Sila Mountains. Also mules and guides must be found for them; but beyond this they would not trouble the landlord of the albergo.

While the little man busied himself in carrying out their directions in these respects, the two men arranged their plans for the continuation of their journey.

Sefton, who had travelled the same road before, laid down the law on the matter.

“The sooner we start the better,” he said, “if we wish to reach Alta Lauria before nightfall. It is at least twelve hours from here on the best of mules. We have over six thousand feet to mount; the mountain paths are atrocious; we can’t do with less than two mules each.”

“And we have to think of the return journey,” said Clive. “If Ida should be well, and able to travel, the less delay in getting back the better.”

He spoke moodily. The nearer it came, the harder seemed the necessity of seeing Sefton and Ida side by side as husband and wife once more.

Sefton did not for the moment reply. When his answer came, it was a gloomy one.

“Let the return journey alone,” he said; “the getting there is all we can think of now. It will be impossible to arrange the details of our return till we know what awaits us there.”

The landlord came in to announce that he had succeeded in procuring for them two of the best guides the district could supply⁠—Ditta and Andrea Capelli. He had sent and roused them up from their sleep, and they would be ready to start so soon as the sun rose. But the mules! There were only two in the place that a gentleman could ride, and one of these had lamed himself only yesterday, and would be fit for nothing for more than a week. He would have to send all round in search of others. Now would the gentlemen be pleased to wait and rest while he did so?

And then, to deprecate the angry impatience which he could see in the faces of his guests, the little man proceeded to retail a few scraps of gossip which he thought might be likely to interest them.

The gentlemen were going to Alta Lauria to the Palazzo, not a doubt. Now had they heard the sad news which had been told him only yesterday night, that the Marchese’s only daughter was dead? The Marchese himself had died only a year or so ago, and now his daughter was dead. Was it not sad? And the Palazzo and all the Marchese’s land would go now to a distant relative who had been born and brought up in Naples, and knew nothing of Calabria and its people.

Violante dead! Sefton’s face grew white. He rose a little unsteadily from the table and walked away to the window. The landlord seemed to feel that he had somehow conveyed unwelcome news, and, after asking Clive if he would like to see the guides so soon as they arrived, he discreetly left the room.

Clive drew a long breath.

“This explains Ida’s letter,” he exclaimed. And at the moment he could not have said whether the thought brought him the most of joy or of pain.

Sefton made no reply. He was standing at the half-open casement, his head thrown back, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes, with a strange, unseeing look in them, fixed upon the distant landscape.

The inn stood on rocks a little above the small cluster of houses dignified by the title of village. Below these the valley lay in depths of purple gloom; straight in front towered the ridges of La Sila, crag over crag, spire over spire, till they lost themselves in the clouds.

The moon had set, and above these fantastic crags and spires faintly showed the beautiful white light which precedes the dawn.

On this Sefton’s unseeing eyes seemed fixed.

A remark which he presently made seemed to show that he was following a curious train of thought.

“I dare say, after all,” he said, in a vague, dreamy tone, “a man never gets anyone to love him better than his mother does. Now if anything were to happen to me, no one would grieve for me like my poor old mother!”

Assuredly Captain Culvers’s late associates at No. 15, Rue Vervien, would have found some difficulty in identifying this absent, gloomy man, with their débonnaire if somewhat haughty companion of two or three days back.

Clive was puzzled. What did this new mood taking possession of the man mean? The entrance of the guides⁠—the brothers Capelli⁠—at this moment prevented further talk.

They presented a somewhat ferocious appearance with their guns and tall, brigand hats. Their faces, however, were prepossessing, their manner respectful. The elder brother, Ditta, was a man of about forty years of age, Andrea some six or eight years younger.

Sefton interrogated them as to their knowledge of the mountain passes, and whether it would be possible to arrive at Alta Lauria before nightfall.

They shrugged their shoulders. If they set off at once it would be possible; but where there were mules to find! And then they shrugged their shoulders again. Clive, standing near the open window, had his attention for a moment diverted from these men by a voice which reached his ear coming up out of the darkness in the courtyard below.

“Have those Englishmen gone on yet,” it said, “or do they stay here for sunrise?”

The landlord’s voice replied telling the story of the search for mules, and that most probably the travellers would be delayed for an hour or so.

Then followed an animated colloquy⁠—sympathy on one side, complaint on the other respecting the hard fate of innkeepers who had to keep their houses open all day and all night to meet the uncertain hours of the trains.

Clive, leaning slightly forward, saw a man emerge from the courtyard, and turn his steps towards the road that wound upward to the mountains. He could just make out in the semidarkness that his figure was young and slight, and that he carried a gun.

Knowing the fondness for gossip which exists in Italian villages, he laid no stress upon the circumstance.

Later on, however, it was to be recalled to his memory.