Her immediate thought was to repeat the whole story to Giovanna, but finding her, for the first time in two weeks, bathed, and tranquilly engaged in combing out her long hair, which fell down in heavy, tumbled masses, she was afraid to say a word.
[CHAPTER VI]
Time passed by; the autumn came, and then the winter. Costantino's appeal had, of course, been rejected, as appeals always are. One night he was fastened by a chain to another convict, whom he had never seen, and the two took their places in a long file of others, all dressed in linen, all silent; like a drove of wild beasts controlled by some invisible power. They were going—where? They did not know. They were silent—why? They could not say. Presently they were all marched down to the water's edge, put on board a long, black steamer, and shut into a cage—still like wild beasts. All about them lay the crystal sea, across whose dark, green waters the ruby and emerald reflections from the ship's lights danced and sparkled like strings of glittering jewels; while above, engirdling the great ring of water, hung the deep blue sky, like an immense, silent vale dotted over with yellow, starry flowers. At first Costantino's sensations were not altogether unhappy. True, he was going into the unknown to fulfil a cruel destiny, but down in the bottom of his heart he firmly believed that before very long he would be liberated, and he never lost hope.
The bustle on deck, the rattle of the chains, and the first motion of the ship as it got under way, filled him with childish curiosity. He had never been to sea, but, as a boy, he had often stood scanning the horizon, and gazing at the grey stretch of the Mediterranean, sometimes dotted over with the white wings of sailing vessels. At such times, as he stood among the wild shrubs and undergrowth of his native mountains, he would dream of some day crossing that far-away sea to distant, unknown lands, and to the golden cities of the Continent. He could read and write, and had a book in which St. Peter's at Rome was depicted; and in the chapter on sacred history there was an engraving of ancient Jerusalem. Ah! Jerusalem. According to his ideas, Jerusalem must be the finest and largest city in the world; and, as he stood there dreaming among the bushes on Mount Bellu, and gazing off at the grey Mediterranean, it was to Jerusalem that he longed to go. And now, here he was crossing the sea; but how different from his dreams! Yet, so splendid was his conception of Jerusalem that if it had been thither that he was bound, even a chained and condemned prisoner on his way to expiate a crime, he would, nevertheless, have been content to go.
The pitching and rolling of the ship was accompanied by the ceaseless rush of the water from the bows. Some of the convicts chattered among themselves, laughing and cracking jokes. Costantino fell asleep and dreamed, as he always did, that he was at home again. He had been set free almost immediately,—he dreamed,—and had gone home without letting Giovanna know a word about it so as to give her the unutterable joy of the surprise. She kept saying: "But this is a dream, this is a dream——" The expenses of the trial had stripped the little house bare of everything, even the bed was gone; but nothing made any difference. All the riches in the world could not compare with the bliss of being free and of living with Giovanna and Malthineddu. But he was terribly tired, so he curled himself up in the baby's cradle; the cradle rocked, harder and harder all the time. Giovanna laughed and called out: "Be careful not to fall out, Costantino, my dear, my lamb!" And the cradle rocked more than ever. At first he laughed as well, but all at once he found he was suffering, then he fell head foremost on the ground, and woke up.
There was a heavy sea on, and Costantino was sick. The ship struggled up to mountain-heights and then plunged swiftly into bottomless gulfs of water, the waves breaking even over the third deck.
All the convicts were ill; some still attempted to joke, while others swore, and one, with a yellow, cunning face,—he was Costantino's companion—moaned and lamented like a child.