Collecting herself to know that she must not cry out or alarm her aunt, Marcia hurried to the front staircase and stood a moment on the landing, hesitating what to do. Sybert was lounging in the leading on to the loggia. She leaned over the balustrade and called to him softly so as not to attract the attention of the others. He turned with a start at the sound of his name, and in response to her summons crossed the hall in his usual stroll. But at the foot of the stairs, as he caught sight of her face in the dim candle-light, he came springing up three steps at a time.
‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’ he cried.
‘Gerald!’ Marcia breathed in a whisper.
‘Gerald!’ he repeated, anxious lines showing in his face. ‘Good heavens, Marcia! What’s happened?’
‘I don’t know; he’s gone,’ she said wildly. ‘Come up here, where Aunt Katherine won’t hear us.’ She led the way up into the hall again and explained in broken sentences.
Sybert turned without a word and strode back to Gerald’s room. He stood upon the threshold, looking at the empty little crib and tossed pillows.
‘It will simply kill Uncle Howard and Aunt Katherina if anything has happened to him,’ Marcia .
‘Nothing has happened to him,’ Sybert returned shortly. ‘The scoundrels wouldn’t dare steal a child. Every police spy in Italy would be after them. He must be with Bianca somewhere.’
He turned away from the room and went on down the stone passage toward the rear of the house. He paused 228 at the head of the middle staircase, thinking the matter over with frowning brows, while Marcia anxiously studied his face. As they stood there in the dim moonlight that streamed in through the small square window over the stairs they suddenly heard the patter of bare feet in the passage below, and in another moment Gerald himself came up the stone stairway, looking like a little white rat in the dimness.
Marcia uttered a cry of joy, and Sybert squared his shoulders as if a weight had dropped from them. Their second glance at the child’s face, however, told them that something had happened. His little white nightgown was draggled with dew, his face was , and his eyes were wild with terror. He reached the top step and into Marcia’s arms with a burst of sobbing.
‘Gerald, Gerald, what’s the matter? Don’t make such a noise. , dear; you will frighten mamma. Marcia won’t let anything hurt you. Tell me what’s the matter.’
Gerald clung to her, crying and trembling and pouring out a of Italian. Sybert down, and taking him in his arms, carried him back to his own room. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. Stop crying and tell us what’s the matter,’ he said .
Gerald caught his breath and told his story in a mixture of English and Italian and . It had been so hot, and the nightingales had made such a noise, that he couldn’t go to sleep; and he had got up very softly so as not to disturb mamma, and had crept out the back way just to get some cherries. (A group of scrub trees, cherry, almond, and pomegranate, grew close to the walls in the rear.) While he was sitting under the tree eating cherries, some men came up and stopped in the bushes close by, and he could hear what they said, and one of them was Pietro. Here he began to cry again, and the had to be done over.
‘Well, what did they say? Tell us what they said, Gerald,’ Sybert broke in, in his low, tones.
‘Vey said my papa was a bad man, an’ vey was going to kill him ‘cause he had veir money in his pocket—an’ I don’t want my papa killed!’ he .
Marcia’s eyes met Sybert’s in silence, and he emitted a low breath that was half a whistle.
229 ‘What else did they say, Gerald? You needn’t be afraid. We won’t let them hurt your papa, but you must remember everything they said, so that we can catch them.’
‘Pietro said he was going to kill you, too, ‘cause you was here an’ was bad like papa,’ Gerald .
‘Go on,’ Sybert urged. ‘What else did they say?’
‘Vey didn’t say nuffin more, but went away in ve . An’ I was scared an’ kept still, an’ it was all nero under ve trees; an’ ven I cwept in pianissimo an’ I found you—an’ I don’t want you killed, an’ I don’t want papa killed.’
‘Don’t be afraid. We won’t let them hurt us. And now try to remember how many men there were.’
‘Pietro an’—some uvers, an’ vey went away in ve trees.’
They questioned him some more, but got merely a variation of the same story; it was evidently all he knew. Marcia called Granton to sit with him and tremulously explained the situation. Granton received the information calmly; it was all she had ever expected in Italy, she said.
Out in the hall again, Marcia looked at Sybert questioningly; she was quite composed. Gerald was safe at least, and they knew what was coming. She felt that her uncle and Sybert would bring things right.
‘What shall we do?’ she asked.
Sybert, with folded arms, was considering the question.
‘It’s evidently a mixture of robbery and revenge and mistaken all rolled into one. It would be convenient if we knew how many there were; Pietro and Gervasio’s stepfather and your man with the crucifix we may safely count upon, but just how many more we have no means of knowing. However, there’s no danger of their beginning operations till they think we’re asleep.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It is a quarter to ten. We have a good two hours still, and we’ll prepare to surprise them. We won’t tell the people downstairs just yet, for it won’t do any good, and their talk and laughter are the best protection we could have. You don’t know where your uncle keeps his revolver, do you?’
‘Yes; in the top drawer of his writing-table.’ She stepped into Mr. Copley’s room and pulled open the drawer. ‘Why, it’s gone!’
‘I say, the plot thickens!’ and Sybert, too, uttered a short, low laugh, as Copley had done on the terrace.
230 ‘And the rifle’s gone,’ Marcia added, her glance wandering to the corner where the gun-case usually stood.
‘It’s evident that our friend Pietro has been himself; but if he thinks he’s going to shoot us with our own arms he’s mistaken. We must get word to the soldiers at Palestrina—did you tell me the servants were gone?’
‘I couldn’t find any one but Granton. The whole house is empty.’
‘It’s the Camorra!’ he exclaimed softly.
‘The Camorra?’ Marcia paled a trifle at the name.
‘Ah—it’s plain enough. We should have suspected it before. Pietro is a member and has been as a spy from the inside. It appears to be a very worked out plot. They have waited until they think there’s money in the house; your uncle has just sold a big of wheat. They have probably dismissed the servants with their usual formula: “Be silent, and you live; speak, and you die.” The servants would be more afraid of the Camorra than of the police.—How about the stablemen?’
‘Oh, I can’t believe they’d join a plot against us,’ Marcia cried. ‘Angelo and Giovanni I would trust anywhere.’
‘In that case they’ve been silenced; they are where they won’t give until it is too late. I dare say the fellows are even planning to ride off on the horses themselves. By morning they would be well into the mountains of the Abruzzi, where the Camorrists are at home. We’ll have to get help from Palestrina. If we could reach those guards at the cross-roads, they would ride in with the message. It’s only two miles away, but——’ He frowned a trifle. ‘I suppose the house is closely watched, and it will be difficult to get out unseen. We’ll have to try it, though.’
‘Whom can we send?’
He was silent a moment. ‘I don’t like to leave you,’ he said slowly, ‘but I’m afraid I’ll have to go.’
‘Oh!’ said Marcia, with a little . She stood looking down at the floor with troubled eyes, and Sybert watched her, careless that the time was passing.
Marcia suddenly raised her eyes, with an of relief. ‘Gervasio!’ she cried. ‘We can send Gervasio.’
‘Could we trust him?’ he doubted.
‘Anywhere! And he can get away without being seen 231 easier than you could. I am sure he can do it; he is very intelligent.’
‘I’d forgotten him. Yes, I believe that is the best way. You go and wake him, and I’ll write a note to the soldiers.’ Sybert turned to the writing-table as he , and Marcia hurried back to Gervasio’s room.
The boy was asleep, with the moonlight streaming across his pillow. She bent over him hesitatingly, while her heart reproached her at having to wake him and send him out on such an errand. But the next moment she had reflected that it might be the only chance for him as well as for the rest of them, and she laid her hand gently on his forehead.
‘Gervasio,’ she whispered. ‘Wake up, Gervasio. Sh—silenzio! Dress just as fast as you can. No, you haven’t done anything; don’t be frightened. Signor Siberti is going to tell you a secret—un segreto,’ she repeated impressively. ‘Put on these clothes,’ she added, hunting out a dark suit from his wardrobe. ‘And never mind your shoes and stockings. Dress subito, subito, and then come on tiptoe—pianissimo—to Signor Copley’s room.’
Gervasio was into his clothes and after her almost before she had got back. When undirected by Bianca, his was a simple matter.
Sybert drew him across the threshold and closed the door. ‘What shall we tell him?’ he questioned Marcia.
‘Tell him the truth. He can understand, and we can trust him.’ And dropping on her knees beside the boy, she laid her hands on his shoulders. ‘Gervasio,’ she said in her slow Italian, ‘some bad, naughty men are coming here to-night to try to kill us and steal our things. Pietro is one of them’ (Pietro had that very afternoon boxed Gervasio’s ears for stealing sugar from the tea-table), ‘and your stepfather is one, and he will take you back to Castel Vivalanti, and you will never see us again.’
Gervasio listened, with his eyes on her face and his lips parted in horror. Sybert here broke in and explained about the soldiers, and how he was to reach the guard at the corners, and he ended by hiding the note in the front of his blouse. ‘Do you understand?’ he asked, ‘do you think you can do it?’
Gervasio nodded, his eyes now shining with excitement. ‘I’ll bring the soldiers,’ he whispered, ‘sicure, signore, 232sicurissimo! And if they catch me,’ he added, ‘I’ll say the padrone has whipped me and I’m running away.’
‘You’ll do,’ Sybert said with a half-laugh, and taking the boy by the hand, he led the way back to the middle staircase, and the three crept down with as little noise as possible.
They traversed on tiptoe the long brick passageway that led to the kitchen, and paused upon the threshold. The great stone-walled room was empty and quiet and echoing as on the first day they had come to the villa. The doors and windows were swinging wide and the moonlight was streaming in.
Sybert shook his head in a puzzled frown. ‘What I can’t make out,’ he said in a low tone, ‘is why they should leave everything so open. They must have known that we would find out before we went to bed that the servants were missing. Who usually locks up?’
‘Pietro.’
‘You and I will lock up to-night.’ He considered a moment. ‘We mustn’t let him out within sight of the grove. A window on the eastern side of the house would be best, where the shrubbery grows close to the walls.’
Marcia led the way into a little store-room opening from the kitchen, and Sybert gave Gervasio his last directions.
‘Keep well in the shadow of the trees across the driveway and down around the lower terrace. Creep on your hands and knees through the wheat field, and then strike straight for the cross-roads and run every step of the way. Capisci?’
Gervasio nodded, and Marcia bent and kissed him and whispered in his ear, ‘If you bring the soldiers, Gervasio, you may live with us always and be our little boy, just like Gerald.’
He nodded again, fairly trembling with anxiety to get started. Sybert carefully swung the window open, and the little fellow dropped to the ground and crept like a cat into the shadows. They stood by the open window for several minutes, straining their ears to listen, but no sound came back except the peaceful music of a summer night—the of insects and the songs of nightingales. Gervasio had got off safely.
‘Now we’ll lock the house,’ Sybert added in an undertone, 233 ‘so that when our friends come to call they will have to come the front way.’
He closed the window softly and examined with approval the inside . They were made of solid wood with heavy iron bolts and hinges. The villa had been planned in the old days before the police force was as efficient as now, and it was quite prepared to stand a siege.
‘It will take considerable strength to open these, and some noise,’ he remarked as he swung the shutters to and shot the bolts.
They groped their way out and went from room to room, closing and bolting the windows and doors with as little noise as possible. Sybert appeared, to Marcia’s astonished senses, to be in an unusually light-hearted frame of mind. Once or twice he laughed softly, and once, when her hand touched his in the dark, she felt that same warm thrill run through her as on that other moonlight night.
They came last to the big dining-room which had served as in the devotional days of the Vivalanti. The three glass doors at the end were open to the moonlight, which flooded the apartment, the crude outlines of the on the ceiling to the beauty of old masters. Sybert paused with his back to the doors to look up and down approvingly.
‘Do you know, it isn’t half bad in this light,’ he remarked to Marcia. ‘That old fellow up there,’ he nodded toward Bacchus reclining among the vines in the central panelling, ‘might be a Michelangelo in the moonlight, and in the sunlight he isn’t even a Carlo Dolci.’
Marcia stared. What could he be thinking of to choose this time of all others to be making art criticisms? Never had she heard him express the slightest interest in the subject before. She had been under so great a strain for so long, such a succession of shocks, that she was nearly at the end of her self-control. And then to have Sybert acting in this way! She looked past him out of the door toward the black shadow of the ilexes, and as she thought of what they might . The next moment Sybert had stepped out on to the balcony.
‘Mr. Sybert!’ she cried aghast. ‘They may be watching us. Come back.’
He laughed and seated himself sidewise on the iron railing. 234 ‘If they’re watching us, they’re doubtless wondering why we’re closing the house so carefully. We’ll stop here a few minutes and let them see we’re unsuspicious; that we’re just shutting the doors for fear of and not of burglars.’
‘They’ll shoot you,’ she , her eyes upon his white suit, which made a shining target in the moonlight.
‘Nonsense, Miss Marcia! They couldn’t hit me if they tried.’ He marked the distance to the grove with a calculating eye. ‘There’s no danger of their trying, however. They won’t risk giving their plot away just for the sake of nabbing me; I’m not King Humbert. They don’t hate me as much as that.’ He leaned forward with another laugh. ‘Come out and talk to me, Miss Marcia. Let me see how brave you are.’
Marcia herself against the wall. ‘I’m not brave. Please come back, Mr. Sybert. We must tell Uncle Howard.’
If Marcia did not know Sybert to-night, he did not know himself. He was under a greater strain than she. He had sworn that he would not see her again, and he had weakly come to-night; he had promised himself that he would not talk to her, that he woul............