CHAPTER EIGHT

BY five o’clock the island was all alert again, the picnic sites reoccupied, bottles of limonado had been brought from the cool shade, there were baskets of sweetmeats, sugared chestnuts, almonds in honey, little cream cheeses set out on green fig leaves, to eat with little ginger cakes … The sun shone merrily overhead no longer oppressively hot, the rim of the arena was banked with oleander, silver and pink and green. El Exaltida came out from his pavilion with La Bellissima at his side, both in their gay fiesta dress, two magical figures removed from the cares of everyday man: the people waved and cheered and they bowed unsmilingly back. There was a faint, faraway hooting, a drift of music across the dancing waters of the Mediterranean; and, black as a threat, a blot of doom between blue sea and blue sky, the Vaporetto de Muerte hove into sight. The fun had begun.

The Vaporetto de Muerte plies, in the ordinary way, between Puerto de Barrequitas and the mainland of Italy where the Juanese burying grounds are. In the long ago days, when a couple of B-class galleons could starve out the island in as many weeks, every inch of the land on San Juan el Pirata was of value, and land which could be dug to the depth of a grave, of incalculable worth. Lacking space for a burial site, therefore, San Juan had applied to Italy for rental in perpetuity of a suitable patch, northof Piombino; and this being refused, resorted with immediate success to a delicate piece of blackmail: having happily discovered a current which could be relied upon to deposit a corpse, in not less than five days from its launching, at the very spot selected for the cemetery. The necessity of transporting the dead by sea has resulted in the Vaporetto de Muerte, the Ship of Death; which, splendid with black plumes and bunting and hung all about with elaborately beaded wreaths, toots its way back and forth from the mainland upon this errand alone. On the Hangman’s Sabbath, however, it is pressed into service, its resident band lugubriously playing, as conveyance for the ‘condemned.’

If El Gerente de Politio was indeed anxious for the assassination of the Grand Duke, he was at least assiduous to prevent its marring the pleasures of that day. His men, resplendent in blue cloaks and flat, black, circular hats, sped hither and thither in their dirty sand-shoes, administering the law with the butts of their silver-chased rifles, which could slap or jab according to how they were presented. By this means, a broad lane was formed from the landing-stage to the gallows and along this, dreadfully dancing, the nine hooded men and their gaolers, masked, made their way. They were covered, as the Major had promised, from head to foot in black, with cone-shaped hoods dropped over their heads, their hands manacled with chains so heavy that they could barely lift them in the dance. The dances themselves were impromptu, the dancers choosing steps and movements indicative of reluctance to approach the gibbets, and terror at approaching dissolution, but otherwise improvising. The little band ground out a funeral dirge of desolate tunelessness that mingled with the moans and groans of the victims, the laughter of the spectators. The crowd was delighted, shouting and clapping, helping on the blinded and stumbling felons with thumps on the back or ticklings of their chained, bare feet with pieces of stick or ferrules of parasols. In the body of the arena, the ‘relatives’ of the condemned, danced in sympathy at the approach of their loved ones, feigning acute distress. From the gallows, nine nooses spelled out a welcome, dangling from their scarred old posts in the gentle breeze.

Clustered about the Major, the touristi looked on, half-appalled, half-entertained. Not so long ago, these men would have been real people, real felons, really convicted, on their way to abominable death; one could not help wondering if the fun then had been any less whole-hearted; and doubting that it had. The Major, urged on by Miss Cockrill, barked out a running commentary on events. “Climbing up to the rock now. Group of ‘relatives’ trying to drag one feller back. ‘Nother old chap—can’t make it—guards prodding him on. Wonder what he’s supposed to have done?” ruminated Major Bull: the crimes for which death was—indeed, still is—the penalty on the island of San Juan, are many and various and are listed, as the Major had discovered to his great delight, in a large book in the museum which makes delicious, though gruesome, reading. “‘Shuffling dance’ now. Choosing which to hang first. Just listen to the next of kin!”

From the marble terrace of their pavilion, the Grand Duke and Duchess looked down, indifferently. On the top of the gallows rock, the guards chased their half-blinded victims in a sort of a grand chain of ordered pursuit; at the foot of the rock, little bands of people danced their despair, alternately howling with pretended grief or uncontrollable laughter, as each outdid the other in extremes of sensibility. A victim was chosen, capered his last regrets beneath the dangling noose, was suddenly hauled up high and there danced the air to the delighted screams of the audience till at last, exhausted, he subsided with a few dying jerks and hung, turning gently in the breeze, his head lolling sideways in a parody of death. A second victim was selected and a third and a fourth. Any tedium of repetition was relieved by the variety and vigour of the rope-end dances, the actors being accorded prizes dependent on the public acclamation their efforts received. Had Major Bull been consulted, all would have been equally rewarded: his applause was deafening. “Really, Dick!” said Miss Cockrill, divided between disgust and laughter. Winsome Foley turned away her head and thought upon the life to come.

The last but one of the malefactors danced himself to death and hung with his fellows, his head lolling on his shoulder, softly turning from side to side in unison with them. The band ceased abruptly to play; a hush fell on the multitude standing staring up at the rock where, in the sudden silence, the masked guard closed in upon the one remaining figure, standing solitary, waiting. Blinded, half-deafened by the enveloping hood, he was thrust into a wooden coffin and the lid closed. In an absolute soundlessness, the coffin was lifted to the shoulders of the guards; beneath the swinging figures of the dead, the living dead was paraded at funeral pace. A violin played a single note, piercing and terrible, wailing forth into the sunlit air, and the note was taken up by a thousand voices in a keening hum of lamentation. In the midst of life, we are in death: in the midst of jubilation, a host of people in a mounting of mass hysteria no less acute for its annual repetition, were suddenly made aware that what they knew quite well to be untrue, was true; that what they knew to be a farce, was terrible reality; that what they knew to be a live man playing a game of cat and mouse with life, was a dead man whose only hope lay in resurrection, … In one great, forward, downward surge of movement, with a left-to-right, up-and-down fluttering of hands, they crossed themselves and fell upon their knees.

The guards placed the coffin. Tipped up on end, it stood in the centre of the gallows beneath the one empty noose: to each side of it, hung four dead or dying men. The crowd held its breath. In one moment, El Gerente de Politio, cloaked, sabred and masked, would step forward, throw upon the coffin and tear the hood aside, so that all might see who it was that had escaped from the very embraces of death.

El Gerente stepped forward. The coffin lid was flung open, the robed and hooded figure was visible, propped up, leaning back against the floor of the coffin. El Gerente put out his hand to strip away the hood: and into the absolute silence, a voice said, almost in a whisper and yet carrying to the furthermost corner of the arena: “Wait!”

The secretary, Tabaqui, moved quietly forward; with soft, unhurried gestures of his grey hands, he pushed aside the startled guards and made a lane for his master. El Exaltida strode up to the coffin, his head brushing the feet of the hanging men. With one great hand, he caught the robed figure by the front of its gown, half lifted it out of the coffin and dropped it to its knees at his feet. The secretary intoned in his soft, carrying voice: “The message of El Exaltida, Juan Lorenzo, Hereditary Grand Duke of San Juan el Pirata to the people of this island—’Next time there will be no resurrection!’ ” The Grand Duke, as though at a given signal, tore aside the hood: and, grey-white, half fainting, hideously scarred, the piteous, ruined old face of El Arcivescovo stared out across the heads of the people. The Grand Duke jerked him to his feet again and said in a voice of thunder and lightning, “Very well. Dance!”

Down in the heart of the arena, surrounded by all the gay holiday-makers in their bright clothes, stricken silent, staring up with horrified eyes—Mr Cecil stood appalled. A drop scene! A Cecil B. de Mille epic in Glorious Tech., the ring of oleander under the blue sky, broken only by the marble minarets of the little pavilion; the barren bowl of the arena packed full with supers at so many dollars a day, all ready to raise stained brown arms and cry, Rhubarb! Rhubarb! at a sign from the cheer-leader outside camera-range. And, centre stage, the built-up platform of cardboard rock with its formal pattern of swinging dummies on opposed octagonals of post and cross-beams, black against blue, blue sky: the dark hump of the coffin centring an arrangement in black and grey, the black of the Grand Duke’s costume, brightly embroidered, the grey of the grey secretary, the black-and-grey of the tottering old man, black robed and ashen faced. But—it was not a drop-scene. It was real. A real sun smiled down upon real flowers, ringing in real people with real hearts, real tears of pity: and on the rock, a real man, old and dying, tottered and trembled and a real man stood and cried, ‘Dance!’ with uplifted hand. “Goodness,” said Mr Cecil’s high voice, piping across the heads of the people, standing all white-faced, silently looking on. “Not quite Winchester, would one say?”

The Grand Duke paused, for a long, long moment his hand still held in the air. Nor did he lower it. He clicked his fingers as though he had raised his hand for no other reason, and, without change of expression, said to El Gerente: “Take him aside,” and to the secretary, “Read.” He folded his arms beneath the black cloak and stood looking out over the people’s heads, as Tabaqui read.

“El Exaltida, Juan Lorenzo, Hereditary Grand Duke of San Juan el Pirata—to be read in sight and hearing of the people of San Juan el Pirata: to His Serenity, the Most Reverend, Most Venerable, Most Excellent, Most Noble, the Archbishop of San Juan.… Whereas it pleased His Serenity to preach this day a sermon, in sight and hearing of the people of San Juan el Pirata, publicly questioning the decisions and actions of the Grand Duke himself: the Grand Duke decrees as follows—His Serenity the Archbishop demands first an heir to the Dukedom of San Juan, and secondly that application be made to Rome for beatification and canonisation of Juanita di Perli, called El Margherita; declaring that Juanita di Perli lived the life of a saint and in life and after death has shown miraculous powers. Let El Margherita, then, show her powers now; and let His Serenity the Archbishop rest his faith in this alone. On the feast of San Juan, in three days’ time from now, El Exaltida will go publicly to the cathedral and there with the Grand Duchess, pray for an heir. At that hour, let El Margherita give some sign, let her give some miraculous sign that the gift will be granted. Let her do this and the Grand Duke will apply forthwith to Rome for recognition of her sanctity. Let her fail and, for his presumption and as a warning to each and every person here who dares even in his heart to question the Grand Duke’s authority—the Archbishop dies. Within one hour of the Grand Duke’s leaving the Duomo, if Juanita fails to uphold the Archbishop’s faith in her, his body will be shown to the people, coffined as it has been shown just now: and the Grand Duke repeats that this time there will be no resurrection.” The secretary took a step backward, folded the paper neatly between nimble fingers and waited with bowed head. The Grand Duke stood in absolute silence for a moment; and then strode back to the pavilion and disappeared. The Archbishop presumably taking this as permission to give way to demands of nature only less pressing than those of the Grand Duke’s dignity, duly gave way and tumbled in a dead faint on the ground. Miss Cockrill, looking on from the safe circle of the touristi, thought of the old, grey wolf, Akela, on the council rock and of Shere Khan, the tiger; and watched where one jackal slunk off after its master—and another crept up to the fallen leader whose leadership was done. Tomaso di Goya, thrusting aside other offers of assistance, knelt down and gathered the old man into his merciless arms.

To do Tomaso justice, it had never till this moment occurred to him to murder the Grand Duke Lorenzo. That his powers should be curbed—yes: some share in the lesser authority falling, naturally, in his, Tomaso’s, way. That his wealth should be broken up and distributed—yes: some of this also accruing to the distributor. But by political revolution, peaceful or otherwise, and by this alone; that Juan Lorenzo should die, let alone that Tomaso should reign in his place—in this Innocenta’s imagination had far outstripped Tomaso’s ambition. Now, however … Lorenna had hastily imparted her secret, before the ceremonies began, and for the first time a personal hate for the tyrant sprang up where only hatred for tyranny had been. His affection for Lorenna, always quite genuine, took on new attributes of tenderness, of jealousy, of a physical possessiveness: the fact that, though fearful of his reactions, she could not conceal an inward elation at promise of her coming promotion, did nothing to endear the Grand Duke to her lover’s heart. And now—now, through a coincidence almost miraculous in itself, at the very moment when his political hatred took on a personal tone, an instrument of vengeance was thrust into his hand. The Grand Duke demanded a sign from heaven; and he, Tomaso, had, locked away in the secrecy of his brain alone, a blueprint of a ‘sign from heaven,’ and planned for the selfsame day. A swinging thurible, a tiny trapdoor cunningly concealed—a cloud of rosy incense rising, sweet-scented, up to the glittering shadows of mosaic domes.… He could have laughed aloud at the innocence of that pretty conception that an hour ago had seemed daring in the extreme. It should be no perfumed pellet that lay concealed beneath the gold trapdoor. The Grand Duke had asked Juanita for a sign: Juanita should send him a sign indeed.

Belly to the ground, the jackal crept up to the council rock; and gathered the fallen old wolf into the toils of a plan so new and so terrible that his own mind rocked at the thought of it.