Sybert turned without a word and strode back to Gerald’s room. He stood upon the threshold, looking at the empty little crib and tossed pillows.
‘It will simply kill Uncle Howard and Aunt Katherina if anything has happened to him,’ Marcia faltered.
‘Nothing has happened to him,’ Sybert returned shortly. ‘The scoundrels wouldn’t dare steal a child. Every police spy in Italy would be after them. He must be with Bianca somewhere.’
He turned away from the room and went on down the stone passage toward the rear of the house. He paused at the head of the middle staircase, thinking the matter over with frowning brows, while Marcia anxiously studied his face. As they stood there in the dim moonlight that streamed in through the small square window over the stairs they suddenly heard the patter of bare feet in the passage below, and in another moment Gerald himself came scurrying up the winding stone stairway, looking like a little white rat in the dimness.
Marcia uttered a cry of joy, and Sybert squared his shoulders as if a weight had dropped from them. Their second glance at the child’s face, however, told them that something had happened. His little white nightgown was draggled with dew, his face was twitching nervously, and his eyes were wild with terror. He reached the top step and plunged into Marcia’s arms with a burst of sobbing.
‘Gerald, Gerald, what’s the matter? Don’t make such a noise. Hush, dear; you will frighten mamma. Marcia won’t let anything hurt you. Tell me what’s the matter.’
Gerald clung to her, crying and trembling and pouring out a torrent of unintelligible Italian. Sybert bent down, and taking him in his arms, carried him back to his own room. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. Stop crying and tell us what’s the matter,’ he said peremptorily.
Gerald caught his breath and told his story in a mixture of English and Italian and sobs. It had been so hot, and the nightingales had made such a noise, that he couldn’t go to sleep; and he had got up very softly so as not to disturb mamma, and had crept out the back way just to get some cherries. (A group of scrub trees, cherry, almond, and pomegranate, grew close to the villa walls in the rear.) While he was sitting under the tree eating cherries, some men came up and stopped in the bushes close by, and he could hear what they said, and one of them was Pietro. Here he began to cry again, and the soothing had to be done over.
‘Well, what did they say? Tell us what they said, Gerald,’ Sybert broke in, in his low, insistent tones.
‘Vey said my papa was a bad man, an’ vey was going to kill him ‘cause he had veir money in his pocket—an’ I don’t want my papa killed!’ he wailed.