All the inhabitants of the village seemed to be present, and pressed forward in a confused mass, each one anxious to be the first one to greet the festal train, principally Galiotti the liberal host and dispenser of the best wine.
In the rear, unobserved, stood a man of about twenty-eight years, in an elegant summer suit, apparently belonging to a better class, looking sneeringly at the great excitement of the "Paesani."
His dark, sparkling eyes, encased in blue-shaded rings, had a demoniacal glitter. He was a tall, athletic man, with a constant sneer on his red lips. The fairly chiseled lineaments were blotted by dissipation, and blackened and distorted by the baleful fire of fierce passions. The bushy eyebrows, that nearly met each other, were of the kind to exercise an uncanny attraction upon trusting innocent girls by looking into their depths.
The distant strains of three gaily-clad musicians with fiddles and horns seemed to electrify the crowd. The ragged youth began to dance, the old paesani threw their shabby looking caps, in the air, while the little barefooted lazzaroni, his face black with dirt, ran ahead of the anxiously expected procession, splitting his throat with shrill cries of "Evviva," and gesticulating frantically.
Only the tall gentleman, with a constant sneer on his red lips, stood apparently unmoved in the same place, gazing at the scene enacted before his eyes with great contempt. Observing him at close range one could perceive, in his dark sinister eyes, the consuming fire of a sinful passion, a volcanic fire it seemed, like that which rose and fell on the summit of the neighboring Vesuvius, devastating in its destructiveness.
He had seen the fair Concetta at Castellamare for the first time, and since then he could not forget her lovely face; day and night it haunted him, that merry, mirthful face that spoke of pure maidenliness. The sweetness and childlike pureness of the girl's exterior attracted him. It was something new in his dissipated life, something he had to conquer.
Even at the gaming tables of Nice and Monte Carlo, and at the wild orgies carried on there by the dissipated sons of nobility, he seemed to see her standing before him, smiling sweetly, while her blue innocent-looking eyes shone at him like spotless mirrors.
After a short time he had discovered that she came twice a week to Castellamare, on Mondays in her father's fishing boat, while on Saturdays in the company of a maid carrying stone pitchers to the well, "Stabilimento," where six different healing springs gush out of the mountain side. When the flames on top of the Vesuvius burst forth vehemently illuminating Naples, Castellamare and all other little hamlets far and near the springs are overflowing with boiling water, but the moment the flame diminishes, the water grows cold and gradually disappears.
The young rogue made good use of these days; as if by chance, he always strolled along the same path to the springs. If it rained, he was promptly at hand with an umbrella; if, on the other hand, the sun shone down oppressively on the overheated Concetta, the same rescuer in need was at hand again, gallantly offering his English parasol, and always walking a little further with her. The sunny nature of the young girl shone out of her splendid blue eyes, bright and beaming as a May morning. She trusted every one, and especially this handsome gentleman, who treated her always with such exquisite courtesy, as if she had been one of the daughters of the Lords of Torre del Greco, whom she saw passing on the Corso di Santa Lucia, either on horseback or in a luxurious carriage. Who would be likely to have any evil designs against her? Old and young loved her in the village, and the poor and sick had learned to bless her for three miles round. Having grown up in her village home, and blossomed there like a wild rose, she had only known one great sorrow in her young life, that of losing her beloved mother when she was very young. Her merriment, her happy singing, brightened up the dark, lonely house of the gloomy old man.
However, since she had made the acquaintance of the gentleman with the ensnaring eyes, she had changed greatly. She was often lost in amazement—though not in his company, but when alone in her little bed-chamber, where the observing eyes of her anxious father could not watch her.