"Jove! What a peaceful, pastoral place you have here! I arrive to be met by an armed guard, I hear talk of Mafiosi, men ride out at night with rifles, and old women predict unspeakable evil. What is all the mystery?"
"Nonsense! There is no mystery. Do you think I would drag you, my best friend, into danger?" Savigno's lips were smiling, but he awaited an answer with some restraint. "That would not be quite the—quite a nice thing to do, would it?"
"So, that's it! Now I know you have something on your mind. And it must be of considerable importance or you would have told me before this."
"You are right," the Count suddenly declared, "although I hoped you would not discover it. I might have known. But I suppose it is better to make a clean breast of it now. I have enemies, my friend, and I assure you I do not cherish them."
"The Countess Margherita is a famous beauty, eh? Well! It is not remarkable that you should have rivals."
"No, no. This has nothing to do with her, unless our approaching marriage has roused them to make a demonstration. Have you ever heard of—Belisario Cardi?"
"Not until this morning. Who is he?"
"I would give much to know. If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said he is an imaginary character, used to frighten people—a modern Fra Diavolo, a mere name with which to inspire terror—for nobody has ever seen him. Now, however, he seems real enough, and I learn that the carabinieri believe in his existence." Martel pushed back the breakfast dishes and, leaning his elbows upon the table, continued, after a pause: "To you Sicily is all beauty and peace and fragrance; she is old and therefore civilized, so you think. Everything you have seen so far is reasonably modern, eh?" He showed his white teeth as Blake assured him:
"It's the most peaceful, restful spot I ever saw."
"You see nothing but the surface. Sicily is much what she was in my grandfather's time. You have inquired about La Mafia. Well, there is such a thing. It killed my father. It forced me to give up my home and be an exile." At Norvin's exclamation of astonishment, he nodded. "There's a long story behind it which you could not appreciate without knowing my father and the character of our Sicilian people, for, after all, Sicilian character constitutes La Mafia. It is no sect, no cult, no secret body of assassins, highwaymen, and robbers, as you foreigners imagine; it is a national hatred of authority, an individual expression of superiority to the law."