The master criminal

by G. Sidney Paternoster

Hora had smiled and had left him alone for a few minutes. He had smiled still more when he had returned. Guy remembered seeing the man who had beaten him later that same day with a bruised face and an arm hanging helpless in a sling from his neck.

But that was not his most vivid memory of Hora's return. Chiefly it was a conversation that took place when Hora had taken the boy's hand and led him up into the mountains. Often the boy had recalled the words which had been spoken to him. He could never see a pine tree without their being fresh spoken to his ear, for they had been uttered beneath the pine woods, on the edge of a translucent mountain lake, which mirrored the snowy peaks above it so perfectly that it seemed strange that the pebbles at the bottom could not be counted.

Hora had taken the boy's tears as his text.

"Women weep when they are hurt," he said. "Men strike back. Remember that, Guy; remember too that if you cannot strike with the arm, there are other ways of driving the blow home."

Though Guy had understood the meaning of Hora's words but dimly then, he had remembered them, and later he understood. Hora had often given him practical illustration of his precepts. He never forgot an injury or a slight, and Guy was often allowed to see how Hora avenged either. Memory has no chronological exactitude, and as Guy allowed his thoughts to drift, an instance occurred to him which had happened some years later. They had been travelling in France together and had been hurrying on to Italy. The one other traveller in the same compartment had been a blusterous Englishman of the most unpleasantly self-assertive type. Hora had attempted to engage him in conversation and had met with a surly repulse. When the frontier was reached, the assertive person was asleep. Hora had dexterously possessed himself of the man's watch and when the custom's official made his appearance had transferred, with equal dexterity, the watch to his pocket, leaving a portion of the chain visible. When awakened, the Englishman discovered his loss almost immediately. The official was before him asking him in a language he did not comprehend, whether he had any dutiable articles to declare. The visible piece of chain caught the eye of the excited passenger. He made a grab at the presumed thief. The official, thinking he was being attacked by a madman, made a wild dive for the door and reached the platform. The Englishman followed in pursuit and captured his man. There was a wild melée, from which the victim did not emerge victorious. When the train moved on, Hora was gratified by seeing their late companion ineffectually struggling in the grasp of half-a-dozen stalwart carabinieri.

Guy was fifteen years old when this event had happened, and long before then he had imbibed from his father ideas of morality which were directly at variance with those generally accepted. Guy could never remember a time when Hora had bade him restrain any desire. How well he recalled a day, he could not have been more than six, when they had passed a shop wherein a basket of golden oranges were displayed. "Buy me one," he had cried. Hora had stopped. There was no one in the shop. "I'll teach you a new game," he said. "Go and fetch a couple, Guy. Mind you choose the best," he said.

Guy had obeyed and Hora had praised him. As Guy ate the oranges he thought the game the best he had ever heard of. Next day they had passed the shop and Guy was about to repeat the foray, but Hora had restrained him.

"Look, Guy," he said. "There is somebody there now; when you want oranges or anything else without paying you must be quite sure there is no one about, or you will lose the game."

Guy remembered the precept and acted upon it. It was a delightful new game for anyone to play, if you were only clever enough to play it properly. He used to beg Hora to take him out for a day's stealing, and sometimes, as a reward for perseverance in his studies, Hora would accede to the boy's request. He had no notion that he was doing anything wrong, though he had been taught that there were things he must not do. He knew that he must not tell his father a lie; he knew too that he was to be silent when bidden.

Of course a time had eventually arrived when he had become conscious that there was some lack of harmony between the life he and his father led and the lives of those upon whom they preyed. Hora had taken the boy to see a big penal establishment and his curiosity had been stirred as to the reason of this gathering of men in mud-coloured garb, marked all over with broad arrows. "Why are they all dressed alike? Why do their masters carry guns?" he asked.