Page:The International - Volume 1.djvu/163

she feared it might be injured by the power of the evil eye.

"You speak sweetly," she replied dryly. "Venera has a sharper tongue. Whenever she sees me or Don Agostino, she curses like mad—as if we had it in our power to regulate the course of the law. Well, what do you want?"

"I have come to beg you to take pity upon us," replied Phenicia softly, bowing her head still lower and pressing her hand to her side. Marie smiled a hard, cruel smile, as she said:

"It seems you have a pain in your heart?"

"Yes," replied Phenicia, "sorrow has pierced my heart as deeply as the sword did the bosom of our Mater Dolorosa. Marie, be merciful!"

"What can I do for you?" exclaimed Marie exultantly.

"You know what you can do," replied Phenicia, casting a timid glance upon Don Agostino.

"Speak a word for us, Marie, for we are perishing."

"Why trouble me? There is the syndic; speak for yourself." Phenicia turned to Don Agostino: "Take pity upon us, we ask nothing but justice."

"That you have always had, and will continue to receive. The appeal has been sent to Messina to-day. In a few months you shall see . . ."

Phenicia became livid. "For the dear souls of your dead, be merciful," she whispered confusedly, no longer knowing what she said or what she had come for.

"Good day," replied the syndic impatiently, opening the door for her. Marie, with her back turned to Phenicia, was singing a gay song to her child.

Phenicia noticed the golden rays of the sun glancing upon the grape vines; she heard that gay song and also the warbling of a bird in the neighboring garden. The world seemed so happy. "And yet, God is so far away," she thought, as she slowly wended her way homeward.

"All is lost!" she murmured, as she fell on her knees before the crucifix and gazed up at the dying Christ.

Ettor and Anibal began to cry, realizing that this meant that their hunger was not to be satisfied.

Phenicia briefly related all.

"Is the syndic still there with that damned Marie?" suddenly asked Archangelo. Phenicia nodded; he left the room.

"Where are you going?" asked his mother anxiously.

"To him," he replied, his teeth clinched so tightly that one could scarcely understand him. He rushed to the house of the lame tailor.

Marie was still seated beneath the grape vines, whose leaves cast beautiful shadows upon her. Don Agostino stood before her watching the plump body of the babe she was nursing. They did not hear Archangelo's footsteps on the balcony—did not see him seize an axe lying beside the white wall. Suddenly Marie heard confused words, saw something flash against the vines like lightning, then a dash of something red discolored the body of her child, and Don Agostino lay at her feet.

Sprinkled with blood and crazy with terror, Marie rushed screaming into the street, which was soon in an uproar. But a few moments and the noise reached the fountain where the women were dipping water into their earthen and wooden buckets. "Murder! murder!" resounded from every side, the news flying in every direction till it came to the fig tree where Nunziata sat spinning, and finally to the arched gateway of the palace of Corvejo, where Carmenio, weak with hunger, was feebly beating his copper kettles. He rushed into the house. It was dark and quiet there ; the lamp before the crucifix was blinking dimly, and the fragrance of the pinks passed through the room like a sigh. Venera and Phenicia sat motionless in a stony stupor, as if lulled to sleep by the echoing roar of the ocean that to-day impatiently tore at its banks and moaned without ceasing. Carmenio fell at his sister's feet.

"O, God, how unhappy we are!" he groaned; and his teeth chattered. She had her eyes fixed upon the pale Christ