Even Patsy was dumb, moved beyond words by that glimpse.
“Their Excellencies saw the castle?” chirruped the friendly guard. “The earthquake didn’t hurt it, more than to crack the outer wall a trifle. They knew how to build in those days!”
“The castle is a trumpery medieval affair,” remarked Patsy, “though it was standing when Robert Guiscard came in 1060, but the rock! In the Odyssey it’s described as the home of a roaring sea monster, with six terrific heads, twelve deformed feet, and three rows of teeth. Look over there—the lighthouse! That marks the whirlpool! ‘Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdis!’”
Across the narrow strait lay the jewel of the south, Sicily! The old name, Trinacria, was given to the island on account of its shape, an irregular triangle with three great points or promontories. It was once a part of the Apennine range, but in some volcanic upheaval it was broken off—as a monarch breaks a link from his gold chain and tosses it to some henchman—and thrown into the Mediterranean, where it shines a brilliant in a sapphire setting, the most coveted, the most disputed of earth’s gems.
Patsy had not spoken for twenty minutes. His dancing eyes had grown grave and steady; the imp, the sprite, the creature of impulse, was gone; in his place was a stranger with grave eyes.
“Villa San Giovanni,” cried the guard. “Il ferryboat per Messina.”
“Ferryboat! Sounds familiar,” said Patsy. “Tumble out, we’re here!”
As Patsy made me comfortable on one of the wooden benches, I saw a familiar face that puzzled me in the crowd of passengers. Where had I met that pale girl with the mouth like a scarlet trumpet-creeper, the thin curved eyebrows like a crescent moon, the deep eyes that looked violet in the distance and were blue?
“I know her,” I said.
“She doesn’t appear to know you,” Patsy murmured. I was so sure I knew her that I began to burrow in my memory, searched pigeonhole after pigeonhole to find just where in a lifetime of impressions that arch face was tucked away.