"No, don't come with me. I'm going up now, straight up by the Castello."
"In all this heat? But it's steep there, signore, and the path is all covered with stones. You'll never—"
"That doesn't matter. I like the sun. Addio!"
"And this evening, signorino? You are coming to bathe this evening?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Don't wait for me. Go to sea if you want to!"
"Birbanti!" muttered the fisherman, as he watched Maurice stride away across the Piazza, and strike up the mountain-side by the tiny path that led to the Castello. "You want to get me out of the way, do you? Birbanti! Ah, you fine strangers from England! You think to come here and find men that are babies, do you? men that—"
He went off noiselessly on his bare feet, muttering to himself with the half-smoked cigarette in his lean, brown hand.
Meanwhile, Maurice climbed rapidly up the steep track over the stones in the eye of the sun. He had not lied to Salvatore. While the fisherman had been speaking to him he had come to a decision. A disgraceful decision he knew it to be, but he would keep to it. Nothing should prevent him from keeping to it. He would be at Isola Bella on the day of the fair. He would go to San Felice. He would stay there till the last rocket burst in the sky over Etna, till the last song had been sung, the last toast shouted, the last tarantella danced, the last—kiss given—the last, the very last. He would ignore this message from Africa. He would pretend he had never received it. He would lie about it. Yes, he would lie—but he would have his pleasure. He was determined upon that, and nothing should shake him, no qualms of conscience, no voices within him, no memories of past days, no promptings of duty.
He hurried up the stony path. He did not feel the sun upon him. The sweat poured down over his face, his body. He did not know it. His heart was set hard, and he felt villanous, but he felt quite sure what he was going to do, quite sure that he was going to the fair despite that letter.
When he reached the priest's house he felt exhausted. Without knowing it he had come up the mountain at a racing pace. But he was not tired merely because of that. He sank down in a chair in the sitting-room. Lucrezia came and peeped at him.