CHAPTER III
I must say that for the next three months I threw myself into my
unlawful trade with a sort of desperation, dogged and hopeless,
like a fairly decent fellow who takes deliberately to drink. The
business was getting dangerous. The bands in the South were not
very well organized, worked with no very definite plan, and now
were beginning to be pretty closely hunted. The arrangements for
the transport of supplies were going to pieces; our friends ashore
were getting scared; and it was no joke to find after a day of
skilful dodging that there was no one at the landing place and have
to go out again with our compromising cargo, to slink and lurk
about the coast for another week or so, unable to trust anybody and
looking at every vessel we met with suspicion. Once we were
ambushed by a lot of "rascally Carabineers," as Dominic called
them, who hid themselves among the rocks after disposing a train of
mules well in view on the seashore. Luckily, on evidence which I
could never understand, Dominic detected something suspicious.
Perhaps it was by virtue of some sixth sense that men born for
unlawful occupations may be gifted with. "There is a smell of
treachery about this," he remarked suddenly, turning at his oar.
(He and I were pulling alone in a little boat to reconnoitre.) I
couldn't detect any smell and I regard to this day our escape on
that occasion as, properly speaking, miraculous. Surely some
supernatural power must have struck upwards the barrels of the
Carabineers' rifles, for they missed us by yards. And as the
Carabineers have the reputation of shooting straight, Dominic,
after swearing most horribly, ascribed our escape to the particular
guardian angel that looks after crazy young gentlemen. Dominic
believed in angels in a conventional way, but laid no claim to
having one of his own. Soon afterwards, while sailing quietly at
night, we found ourselves suddenly near a small coasting vessel,
also without lights, which all at once treated us to a volley of
rifle fire. Dominic's mighty and inspired yell: "A plat ventre!"
and also an unexpected roll to windward saved all our lives.
Nobody got a scratch. We were past in a moment and in a breeze
then blowing we had the heels of anything likely to give us chase.
But an hour afterwards, as we stood side by side peering into the
darkness, Dominic was heard to mutter through his teeth: "Le
metier se gate." I, too, had the feeling that the trade, if not
altogether spoiled, had seen its best days. But I did not care.
In fact, for my purpose it was rather better, a more potent
influence; like the stronger intoxication of raw spirit. A volley
in the dark after all was not such a bad thing. Only a moment
before we had received it, there, in that calm night of the sea
full of freshness and soft whispers, I had been looking at an
enchanting turn of a head in a faint light of its own, the tawny
hair with snared red sparks brushed up from the nape of a white
neck and held up on high by an arrow of gold feathered with
brilliants and with ruby gleams all along its shaft. That jewelled
ornament, which I remember often telling Rita was of a very
Philistinish conception (it was in some way connected with a
tortoiseshell comb) occupied an undue place in my memory, tried to
come into some sort of significance even in my sleep. Often I
dreamed of her with white limbs shimmering in the gloom like a
nymph haunting a riot of foliage, and raising a perfect round arm
to take an arrow of gold out of her hair to throw it at me by hand,
like a dart. It came on, a whizzing trail of light, but I always
woke up before it struck. Always. Invariably. It never had a
chance. A volley of small arms was much more likely to do the
business some day--or night.
|