“You will have the police in the house,” was her last word.
CHAPTER XXI
THE FEAST OF SPRINGTIDE
Instead of the arrogant negative that he had returned to Bertino’s anxious inquiry day after day, the postmaster of Jamaica this morning threw out a yellow-enveloped letter.
“Your uncle died to-day.”
He did not stay to read further, but thrust the paper into his pocket, fearful that some one might be looking over his shoulder. The blind terror of the hunted murderer was full upon him. At first he moved away almost on a run, but checked himself suddenly to a dawdling swing, and put on a comic air of unconcern. Not until he was far beyond the town, crossing the brushwood solitude, did he take out the writing and read Juno’s wily admonition: “Fly from America. The man-hunters are after you!”
With sharper stride he pressed on, unmindful whither his course lay if only he widened the distance between him and the city. He had walked to the post office twice a day for a week, and from habit now he took the wagon track that zigzagged toward the iron villa. The green bower forming the roof of that matchless dwelling rose to view as he turned into the road by the railway track. A few yards onward the penetrating whistle of a quail startled him, and a flash of his affrighted fancy revealed police rising from ambush on every side and closing in. For the first time since leaving the town he turned about, and beheld what he had not dared look behind for dread of seeing—men coming after him. There were six or seven of them, all in a group, and gliding along so strangely. Gran Dio! his wife’s warning had come too late. Why had she waited until the hounds were fairly sniffing at his heels? What giants his pursuers were! He could see their heads and shoulders above the quivering foliage. Now the ears of two horses showed, and the rumble of wheels reached him. Ah! thus it was these men could glide after him without moving their bodies. Courage! Maybe they were not man-hunters at all. He would see if they kept on in his track, or turned the opposite way at the corner. Yes; they had struck into the road by the railway and were galloping after him. Idiot that he was to stand so long! But he would elude them. He knew the trails and secret hollows in the bush that would cover his flight and shelter him until they should give up the search. What a fool he had been to run! Now they must know he was the murderer! On he sped past the iron villa, not even glancing to see if Bridget and the children were there. He reached the point on the edge of the thicket where he intended to plunge into its shielding labyrinth, but a look behind told him that this was needless, for the two-horse truck had come to a halt at the villa, and the men were moving about the pipes, some kneeling and looking in. The wind bore to him their shouts of laughter and inarticulate talk. Screened by the dwarf oaks he crept nearer, until the confusion of human voices became the dialect of Sicily.
That the men were all Italians did not drive away his fear of them. His racial faith in the sanctity of the vendetta was not blind enough to make the Genovese trust himself to the Siciliani, although the knowledge that they were no emissaries of the Questura of Police was somewhat of relief.
The gang stripped both pipes of their green mantle, and tore out the bedding and soap-box furniture of the dormitory tube. Full of wonder, Bertino looked on. He did not know that the letters “D. P. W.” painted boldly on the truck stood for Department of Public Works, and that New York was merely gathering up its half-forgotten property. In his wrath at this desecration of the Tomato domicile he would have sprung from his concealment and protested, but the thought that he was a murderer held him back. He lurked at such close range now that he recognised two of the men as residents of Mulberry. One, the foreman of the gang, he knew for a distinguished political captain of a Sicilian election district, and a prominent figure in the social life of that quarter. So Bertino dared not show himself even when they dragged forth the box containing the Last Lady.
“Beautiful!” said the foreman.
“Beautiful!” was the united echo.