Book II

Clement and Beatrice had often planned,
If circumstance should ever set them free,
That they would seek a dwelling in the south
Where childish years of each had danced away,
Two drops that sparkle waxing side by side,
Unwitting they shall tremble into one.
And now the very nook that they had found.
Seeking sweet solitude wherein to nurse
Their new-born joy in crescent honeymoon.
They seek again, a vain experiment
Too oft — for either we ourselves have changed.
Ourselves most mutable of mortal things,
Or memory's cherished home looks alien.
But Beatrice and Clement loved as then,
And that fair nook seemed waiting their return.

Whitely it gleamed as in a verdure-nest,
Their villa, with its vases aloe-crowned
And shutters green to keep it cool within,
'Mid oranges and lemon-trees that crowd
Here by the margin of the dark blue sea,
A gem within a bloomy fold of hills
Where they with silver fringe the azure wave.
So Clement saw it from the castled rock
Where homeward faring reined he in the steed
For eyes athirst in peace to drink the view ;
For here the little villa first appears
To one who journeys westward by the coast.
Even as did Clement, called into the north
To England now three moons and more ago,
While circumstance forbade that Beatrice
Should follow him but forced her to remain.
He having suffered in the interval
Much pain and much perplexity in mind
Full wearily returned, desiring her
Whose presence on his troubled heart should fall
As fanning air upon a burning brow.

No path, I think, in all fair Italy
Is lovelier than the path that led him iiere,
Meandering through olives old and huge
Oaklike in girth, of gnarlM cavern-bole
And hoary leaves, varied with ilexes,
CarCib of glossy leaf, and iris flower
That seems to fleck with colour from the sea
These mountain-groves — how often cUmbing high
Up yon grey rock beneath an olive's shade
By some clear rivulet those lovers lay.
And peered for hours into the flickering blue
That starlike winked among the leaves ; or leaning
Upon their elbows, vague athwart the sea
(Soft salvia-blue immersed in hazy light)
Dream-gazing, lay upon the mountain-thyme
And rosemary and mint that scent soft airs
Around them, soothed with humming of the bee,
Sipping cool oranges luxurious.
With all their past spread indistinct behind,
The sad and happy in the lives of each.
The rough ways and the smooth ways in their lives.
Like some far landscape from a pleasant height.
All lovely in the summer light of love !
Or else he read to her the glowing strain
Of Petrarch : they were rapt into the heavens,
Whirled panting in the awful seraph flight
Of Dante to the feet of Beatrice,
Or solemn thrilled at his lament for her —
But oft some kindred feeling in the tale
Disturbed the eyes of each, fusing their beams
In one another's fervid labyrinths,
Then like to those whose love that poet sings
How tenderly 1 "that day they read no more. "

On this runs Clement's thought in riding slow
Through those old olives winding low anon
Where cornflag flushes all the vivid grass
With purple-pink, and oranges like lamps
Light all the groves, while through slim almond leaves
And figs and planes the ripple of the sea
Soft lightens momently at every plash
Of dozing undulations as they wake.
Then down upon a little open bight
Of shining shingle fringing a ravine,
Lit by a mountain streamlet mantled o'er
Of maidenhair and limber leaves and flowers,
Wends devious the path, and circles now
An open headland whence the rock appears,
Beyond the bay, of castled Monaco.
A peasant here the happy rider met
Driving his donkey with a cask of wine
Slung either side, a dull red stain about
Its mouth and cork : the sunburnt stalwart man
With raven hair, dark eyes, and olive skin,
One of the ancient race Ligurian,
Was wont to greet him very cheerily ;
For he was one of those the lovers twain
In evenings cool before their frugal meal
Would visit often in the humble homes,
Finding true Iriends among these peasantfolk,
While ministering to them in their need.
But Clement fancied, after pleased surprise
The man had manifested as they met,
His face had strangely clouded, and a ruth
Made soft his eyes and saddened in his voice.
He wondered for a while, yet liitle heeding
Skirted the bay and, singing to himself
When none were nigh, he pictured the beloved
So near him now, the dress that she may wear,
Most like of muslin blue and white — this hour
She may be in the garden with her book
Or at her evening meal on rustic table
Beneath cool umbrage of two limber planes,
As far from the blue sea as in a wood
A startled bird may fiit from twig to twig.
" Here may she gaze athwart the infinite
To where blue sky and ocean marrying blend,
As I have seen, with eyes more infinite
Mysterious than they, while shadowy hands
Glide from the foliage over her to stroke
Her grace of soft brown hair how daintily,
And her soft shoulders gleaming through the gauze,
Or envious invade the basking glow
On gentle undulation of a breast
Tender as petals of an opening rose.
But yet I think she listens anxiously
For a far tramp of horse ; my letter told
That many days ago I should be here :
Maybe she fears mishap and pines for me,
My own soul's life— a minute only, love.
And you lie folded to my beating heart !
And then what bliss our parched eyes shall draw
And draw and draw from one another's wells,
Until we leave them for the dewy mouth
And suck it thence and never speak the while,
Unless with utterance broken rare and low !"

But as he nears the house, he notices
With wonder tnat the shutters green are closed
Both in the upper and the lower rooms,
Though 'tis near sunset, and in afternoons
This eastern-facing side is shadowy cool :
And Beatrice neglects not homely care
For ordering details of daily life
Which smooth and make it pleasant unaware.
But coming to the garden-wall he thinks
She may have heard his horse and meet him there ;
Yet is there no one — riding through the gate i lis eye explores dim spaces 'mid the trees.
And peering to the spot between the planes.
As he had visioned her, it seems that she
Is sitting there indeed with look intent
Upon the sunset flush in sea and sky.
His heart leaps up, he calls her name aloud ;
Then rising slow she turns to him, her face
Looks wan when he discerns it nearing her,
For all the evening flush, and wistful eyes
Suffused and sorrowful are hers, with arms
Stretched eager open to him, while her lips
Move while and tremulous with ne'er a sound.
Until a fig-tree baulks him of the sight.
He with a sudden faintness at his heart
Bounds past the trees and flings him to the ground,
But finds her not, and leaving loose the horse liunges among thick fig-leaves seeking her.;
In vain — he finds no traces of her nigh ;
So he emerges calling anxiously
And peering everywhere ; no Beatrice !
Then stands bewildered ; she was here but now ;
It could be no illusion of the sense !
Some ghastly dread has whispered in his ear,
And pale mechanical he draws the steed
(So quiet cropping dim delicious grass)
Toward the house, till with alacrity
A groom appears, and bowing to his lord,
That selfsame look of pity on his face,
The peasant wore, arrests the eager words
On Clement's questioning lips and keeps him mute.
With mute interrogation in his eyes
A moment, straight he hurries to the house,
And fumbles at the door as he were blind,
Enters the room where she is wont to sit
To find it empty, rapid mounts the stair
To their own chamber — yet she may be nigh,
Strolling this evening not expecting him !
The little things that ever speak of her
Unto his heart are there; the needlework,
The thimble and the workbox are below,
A tiny stocking knitted by her hand
For some poor neighbour's babe, the needle in it.
Half-finished on the table, and her book
Open at yon window flutters in the air.
While yet he strove to reason foreboding down
Too vainly stole her favourite maiden nigh,
And she was weeping, weeping bitterly.
Then Clement sickened, faltering " Where is she ? "
ISut she wept on, till hoarsely " Tell me quick ! "
He whispered ; so she glanced at him and sobbed,
As she beheld his ghastly waning face,
" She is not dead : oh no, she is alive ! "
At this the blood congesting at his heart
Flowed free again — " he carried her away."
"Who? what? who carried her away? explain ! "
But choked with tears and he so vehement
She could not utter more.

And now a touch.
Such a soft touch, upon his shoulder grows.
He turns and with displeased a.stonishment
Beholds a dame he knows alas ! too well.
Some sorrow looks from her fair countenance,
And some affection, tenderness for him.
Yet Clement at the sight of her and touch
Felt as might feel a wild-bird darting glad
Unto his home, and peering through the dusk
Of brushwood for the downy streaked head
Of his soft mate upon the lichened edge
Of their hidden nest and watching on their eggs,
As such a bird might feel beholding there
A smooth gorged serpent coiling in her stead.
" Do }'ou know, madam, anything of this?"
He questioned ; she " Believe my sympathy
How deep for you ; be only calm, and I
Will tell you all I know of what has chanced."
She motioned him into a chamber near,
He following like some automaton.
" You wonder I am here — not long ago
I came alone, and she invited me
As friend of yours to spend much pleasant time
Here in her company, and often I
Returned her courtesy and asked her home.
It chanced a traveller whom I had known
In former days, was passing in a yacht.
And came ashore ; we met him in our walks —
Ah ! had I known the man's true character—
A fascinating man the women think,
Noble and wealthy ; often afterward
He went to her — I never thought of fear :
She often said she longed for your return.
And wondered at your silence every day.
How full she relished her converse with him
I well could see, yet never till by chance
(Now you must nerve yourself to hear the whole)
I came one day she did not look for me
Did I suspect the terrible fatal truth ;
But then I saw them sitting siile by side.
And in his toying hand hers passive lying."
With this the lady's radiant lissome hand
Slid into his and pressed it as for ruh.
And her wild hungry eye stole seeking his;
But he, as if the contact blistered him
Like vitriol, snatched violent his hand,
And rising suddenly confronted her
Black as a storm with loathing and with scorn.
And hissed the syllables "You know you lie !"
She cowering, collapsing in dismay,
Died all the languid longing in her eyes
That filled with italeful greenish livid light
As cats' in darkness, and the pleasant lines
Of her faint-smiling mouth set rigidly
About the close thin lips, while fingers clutched
Clawlike her seat, until she seemed a lynx
That draws itself together for a spring.
" Maybe you'll ask your servants if I lie,"
After a pause half-audibly she breathed.
" My servants ! ask my servants if the sun
Did tumble in my absence from the sky !
Lady, I know you — and I know my wife.
You may have loved me as 'tis given to such
As you to love : I knew you not of yore.
You loved ; yet not like young romantic girls,
Yourself confessed, but with sobriety
You poised your love against i' the other scale
A higher title, ampler wealth and power,
Carriage and footmen, richer jewellery,
As 'tis the wont of women in the world,
And even though weighted with my rank and blood,
Your ])Oi>r light love flew upward with a jerk !
Inevitably such a flimsy thing
Must waver here and there with every gust
And every letid vapour of the sense.
But she - 1 pray you mark the difference ! —
She was, you know, 'a young romantic girl,'
Her love was love, no flimsy counterfeit,
Base spawn of wanton fancy, vanity.
But love — the power you creatures of the world
Are doomed to mock and never comprehend.
With her, the wealth of continents and seas,
The social pinnacle, a monarch's throne.
Were but an airy cobweb in the scale
To wrench the almighty magnet-hold of love !
It cannot be : I know my Beatrice."
So then the lady, livid wiih her rage.
Sidled from near him rising to her feet,
And spakewith choking accentslowan ' ''.iv,K:
"A most sublime tirade, I thank you for it
And for your good opinion ; as for her,
I only know this model saint of yours.
This poet's ideal of love and constancy,
This faithful though insipid peasant-girl.
Has left you — left you — for a vicious duke.
I saw them — saw them — row away myself.
And your sweet paragon was in his arms ! "
With that she broke into hysteric cries.
Half choking sobs and half hyena laugh,
For bitter jealousy, and vanity
And lacerated love turned into gall ;
But at the last word when she mentioned Aim,
The man who stole his Beatrice away,
The pitiless sneer that Clement wore for her
In her unlovely disappointed mood
Passed into a concentrate look of hate
Slow-fed with blackness like a thundercloud.
And though he glowered into her very eyes.
No more his vision pictured facing him
The woman fair with passion hideous.
Anon he muttered talking with himself,
" When in the life-blood of his quivering heart
These hands have revelled, I shall die content."
Whether the lady fainted on the floor.
Or at her leisure smoothed her ruffled plumes,
He never knew, for turning on his heel,
Abrupt he left her, striding through the hall
Into the garden, up the rock, away.

Onward he strode and chose the steepest parts
Of the abrupt grey rock, as driven aloft
By the fierce tumult of his boiling llood.
He ever chose the giddiest mountain-tracks,
Haunt of shy marmot and ol ibex wild,
That he with soul unquailing might surprise
The secret of soliloquies sublime.
Nature, the ancient mother, murmurs far
From human presences in craggy haunt
Of cormoiant and eagle, by lone springs
(Jf mighty rivers bubbling into light.
Now the tumultuous anguish of his soul
Urged him instinctively to drown its roar
Hy conjuring a counter-tempest forth,
Born of unwonted effort physical.

In part his purpose was to find a friend
Who dwelt upon the rock, a peasant he.
Intelligent and cultured ; not a man
Born in the country, but a mountaineer
From Corsica, who left his native hills
Craving adventurous to see the world.
Embarked a sailor lad from Genoa,
And after many years the crew discharged,
Wandered along the coast to Monaco ;
And here, for all proud sniffing of the air
Of independence, he was brought to bay
By large dark eyes, and clearest olive skin,
By a neat cotton print tied round the chin.
Blue woollen stocking covering ankles trim.
The father of the girl, an only child,
Owned a small cottage and a strip of rock
Which his forefathers with their strong right arms
Had scooped and terraced, digging spacious tanks
For irrigation through the summer drought,
Then planted with the delicate lemon-tree.
Aloft they lived, but he would do at times
Some sardine fishing in the breezy dawn
With his own boat, for oft he wistful eyed
His old well-loved free perilous salt sea.
Now a full year his darling child lay ill,
The stay of his old age, a maiden sweet,
Whose mother he had buried many years,
And when nor Beatrice nor Clement came
Their way, the father would himself descend
To carry wine and strengthening food for her
The maiden sick ; till he and Clement grew
Fast friends, and roamed the hills in company
Searching for plants and holding high converse.
To this old man (whose name was Paoli)
Instinctive Clement turned, for since he went
(As Beatrice related when she wrote)
Down daily to the villa, he would know
Something of this dark horror that had chanced.
And then he craved some sterling sympathy ;
And yet the track he chose led far away
From the old man's home into the solitudes,
For solitude he needed most of all.
At length exhausted prone he flung himself
Upon a ledge above a precipice,
Sinking among sweet thyme and rosemary,
And ling half russet girt with myrtle bushes
And lentisk, while the overhung grey rock
That seemed to swoon and fall through azure air
Was festooned with a succulent-leaved plant
That bore bright crimson cactus-like wee flowers.
This and the spurgewort, and the velvet bees
Backing from out the bulging foxglove bells
And shaggy goat that clung with sharp-cleft hoof
Of close-set nervous legs to naked crag.
All this he saw and noted in his mind.
When his breath came and when the tide of blood
Less violently thumped within his head —
Saw too the wine-empurpled promontories
Dim set in ocean hued like flower petals
Where azure melts to purple unaware,
And grape-bloomed gorges of the folding hills ;
While nor near cricket nor the croaking frog
From distant tank could vex the stilly eve.
Yet though he saw, yea, noted in his mind,
The formless ghastly trouble writhed within,
And rustled in dusk corners of his heart ;
Anon awakened, and emerging slow
With hideous lineaments confronted him.
Stunned, sickened for a moment, wildered thoughts
Came trooping to their banner at his call —
To find her — rescue — that immediately.
This very night, without a thought of rest.
And to inflict a righteous punishment
On him who dared insult the sacred shrine
Where his soul worships and his life keeps guard —
Light deepens round that purpose prominent.

Now as he nears the cottage of his friend,
The old man sitting on a low stuccoed wall,
Whence rise white pillars trellised at the top
And roofed with vine-leaf, at his cottage door
Espies him coming ; to the vine-walk's end
Straight walks to meet him, and approaching nigh
Puts out two hands, and Clement's hand in his
Clasps tight with such a look upon his face.
Clement beholding need not ask "'Youknow?"
With wan lips nervous twitching, for he sees
The kind old man knows all ; mechanical
He speaks the words to set emotion free
"Whose flood in silence overwhelmingly
Boils up and strains the flood-gates of the heart.
"Yes, I know all," deep tremulous tones reply,
As if the old sailor were the father himself
Clement had alienated by his love.
Firm-lined and clean-cut are the features grand
Of that old man, with venerable grey hair
Beneath the pouch red woollen that he wears
Like other peasants ; but he looks a rock
Of granite lofty and majestic reared,
That fronts through all the years with countenance
Calm equable irradiation deep
Of zenith-blue intense full-saturate
With undulated sunlight smiles of God ;
Anon the smother of his thundercloud,
Scathe of his lightning, lashing of his rain,
Hounded of that wild huntsman the shrill wind,
Blister of frost and rasping of keen ice :
A countenance calm, equable, yet scarred
And weather-stained with rough experience.
But kindliness, a mellow charity,
Beamed from the window of his clear grey eye :
Life had not petrified or curdled sour
The sweet and gracious juices of his breast.
Unturned the fine edge of his inner sense,
Widening experience of human spirits.
And of his own, responsive to the play
Of varied circumstance, his views of men
Rendered elastic, large, and pitiful.
The ennobling humanising influences
Of that sublime creed he wa nurtured in
His soul assimilated, little harmed
Of elements that puff" rank bigotry.
"Mayhap," he spake, "'twill be more pleasant here
Sitting without than in my darksome hut.
Are you fresh come, or know you all that passed ? "
But Clement, about whose heart the casing ice
Was thawing in the rays of sympathy,
Could scarcely utter — covering his face
He strove to choke down not unmanly tears.
The old man's eyes were swimming too with mist,
But the youth faltered how but now arrived
He knew the bare fact only, seeking here
For detail deeming that his friend might know.
This foreign duke cast anchor, Paoli told,
With a large yacht about a month ago
Early one placid morning near the shore :
The lady fine new-settled in a villa
And he appeared inseparable friends.
" He was a scoundrel with a narrow brain
Who held himself quite irresistible ;
Among the women whom he herded with
Mayhap had proved it so ; in higher types
Of woman disbelieved, but he had spoken
(Her maid, a faithful creature, told me this)
Had looked and spoken as ill became a man
With a pure child who scarce believed in wrong.
From then her mistress vaguely dreaded him ;
Yet when he asked both ladies to the yacht,
She, nothing doubting since her feigning friend
Would go with her, consented freely, glad
To see a ship all praised as beautiful.
But when next morning the duke came ashore,
The woman came not — never meant to come —
To meet her as was settled on the strand.
The traitor urged her waiting 'neath the shade
Of the boat's awning, for the sun was fierce ;
And in a moment at a sign from him
(So a mate told me) they had shoved the boat
Off from the shingle, and he heard her call
Loud but in vain for them to wait her friend ;
None answering, the villain took his seat
Close at her side and strove to seize her hand,
She edging off and crying to return.
The yacht weighed anchor, and a stiff nor'- wester
Scarce felt in here, but fresh away from land,
Sped her that evening far toward Corsica." —

" In Corsica ? is that where I must go ? "
Clement broke in with husky tone abrupt,
Clutching the word as lying in ambush for it.
— " In Corsica," old Paoli resumed,
"This man — a Frenchman — owns a castle vast.
There from the gossip of his crew I gather
He must have taken her — this only chanced
Four days ago — I deem the woman far
More guilty than the man in this affair.
The friend professed — I know not if I err.
But for her motive, that I cannot guess."
" Him I can deal with," Clement answered slow,
" How with a woman ? she preferred the gold
To me, but deemed that she could have me
On her own terms and when the fancy came.
She thought me weak and plastic in her hands,
Docile to take the shape her lust might crave.
No more rebellious to her fingers lithe
Than would be ductile clay that she might mould.
So she had found men, so appraised me
From superficial signs ambiguous,
Nor guessed the human clay she paddled in
Yielded because itself found yielding sweet ;
But let her twist the tame lump otherwise.
As if a blade lurked hidden in the mass,
'Twould cut her wanton fingers to the bone.
I deemed sweet daily suns and tender showers
And many dewy moons of intercourse
Had mellowed juiciest friendship-fruits in her,
But lo ! on peering through the lavish leaves
The fruit showed green and acrid as at first !
She told me her deliberate thought of me.
And it was shallow and ungenerous.
But she inspired, I deem, her precious friend
With her own erring estimate of me —
The worse for his facile credulity !
She could not fancy I could ever love
Any but her — once looking in her face—
'Twas pique that drove me to another's arms I
Let her appear and beckon me away,
Let her but hint the other unworthy me,
And I should drop at her least finger-brush.
Drop eager in her lap, how cheaply won !
What punishment could I devise for her,
A woman ? I could never hurt a woman
Weak in her flesh — not even if my love
Were false to me — she must be left alone
With her own meaner choice and with her shame.
This one I leave to her own scorpion tail
Of vanity turned inward on herself.
Cramped in her own small soul for evermore—
That's punishment enough, methinks, for her —
But not for him, a man can deal with man."

" What can you do ? what would you do ? "
replied
Paoli gravely, ' ' think of saving her ;
And you may save her, win her back to you
Ere thrice again yon sinking sun had set
To lie upon your heart, and I can help ! " —
" Yes, tell me, now at once I start to snatch
My all from him and stretch him 'neath her feet,
His place — his own — whence he has dared to stir
With heart profane, for I was out of sight,
The coward ; since he would not stoop for awe
Justice cries out that he must grovel dead ! " —
"Nay, calm yourself, beloved friend of mine,"
Answered the old man, " leave him lo our God
The sole avenger — for what gain were yours
In this man's death ? What more should you desire
Than her salvation ? She awaits you now
And longs for her deliverer : what gain
To her or you the slaying of the man ?
So you would only with infatuate hand
Stretch dead for ever your reviving joy
Even at the wondrous moment it emerged
Scarce hoped-for from the shadow of the tomb.
Blood would be on your consciences if law
Hunted you not nor ran you down at last :
If you must punish there are courts of law ;
Cite there the man as public enemy."

" Prate not of law, my friend," replied the youth,
To me on fire with my most righteous hate,
Who nothing am if not one parching thirst
For one heart's blood — not injury to vie.
But her whom God committed unto me,
His dearest, tenderest, loveliest child among
The children likest, nearest to Himself,
Her wrong in thunder-tones God bids avenge ;
And if I shrink, how clear myself to Him ?
It is her cause, not mine, it is the cause
Of God her Father : in your holy books
Where do you read 'tis sinful to avenge
A lamb that Heaven has laid upon your breast,
Lent you awhile and trusted to your care ?
Nay, doth not Christ affirm who toucheth these
Toucheth the very apple of God's eye ?
Avengers are the ministers of God !
Let them but merge their puny selves and wrongs
In that vocation awful and sublime.
Strong will their stroke be, calm and terrible.
Prate not of law to me — it is an age
I know of reason and expediency.
When dearest friends respectable and smooth
Mine, countermine, beneath each other's feet.
And sell their souls for shameful homage men
Paid once to virtue, now to liveries ;
Age when a man is fool to trust his brother
Yet dares not swindled clutch him by the throat.
When if one should behold before his eyes
A mother strangled or a wife abused,
With judgment cool far-seeing he would
Inquiring where to find a magistrate !
Unfearing now you may insult a man,
Unfearing too you may insult his friend —
The barbarous dark age of honour dead.
How should men start and shudder now to hear
Such names as liar, knave, applied to them.
When they have nigh forgotten that knavery
And lies are base and very loathsome things,
How prudent and respectable soe'er
And orthodox in creeds a man may be
To keep well with society and God ?
Ah ! dare we babbling foul the holy name
Of Christ, the wise, the world - embracing heart,
And his forgiveness of his enemies ?
Dare we invest our native squalor with
The fair word-raiment which of old He wore.
And mimicking his accents and his gait
Turn that divinest faith beneath the sun
Into the byword of all honest men ! "

And then he argued, as concerning fact,
That since the wrong was done in Italy
And Corsica was French, the traitor there
Was sheltered from the clutches of the law.
For his own safety, what was that to him ?
Yet must he leave her in the world alone,
Nor taste again some hallowed life with her?
Two years were theirs, two years of paradise.
Envied of angels in the fadeless bowers.
And they are thankful for them and rejoice —
Yet who may sip the nectar-cup of gods,
Nor passionately long to sip again ?
" Therefore my safety if I rescue her
Is something to me — otherwise 'tis nought.
Less, less than nought ! "

"Vengeance belongs to God,
He will repay, " the other solemnly ;
" But I will freely tell you what I know
About your hope of safety where you go.
Among my countrymen there yet prevails
Alas ! a sentiment much like to yours,
The which has borne a monstrous crimson fruit,
Blood-feud (as such a seed must ever bear)
Through ages, curse of my fair island home.
That is a fire which smoulders even yet :
Our rulers could not stamp the embers out.
Your mission known the natives would assist
And shield you to the utmost of their skill,
Yet for success you need to know the sp' it
And people of the place, and who can help.
You take the steamer with the other folk
In travelling thither ; but my brother owns
A tight felucca, and will lend it me
If weather smile for our secret return.
His home is in the town upon the coast
Nearest the castle on the rock above.
A year ago moreover in the house,
Full trusted by the owner of it, lived
My distant kinsman but my nearest friend.
His incorruptible true-ringing heart
Will in such enterprise be all our own
If yet he dwell there ; he can help within."
"Then I may count on you," Clement exclaimed.
Seizing the old man's hand impulsively.
" On one condition," was the grave reply,
" Forego your wild scheme of revenge and think
Only of saving her " —

" Impossible !
I cannot do it — anything but this —
Remember you are old and I am young.
The traitor moved no hand against your love
But against mine — if you were in my place !
A boor with human nature if his king
Have fouled it wanton, spat i' the face of it,
His loyalty engrained like hair aflame
Shrivels to thin air suddenly, and he
Yields his left cheek most meekly, his mere life,
Up unto him who smote him on the right.
The cheek of honour, trod on her he loves,
Meek yields his all — if only— mark the if!
The chance be granted him to plunge and twist
To agitate the blade in that false heart
And lap its warm blood oozing to the haft.
And I am not a boor — my blood more rich
And ancient than yon duke's for all his gold,
Got foully as I think, and puff-ball title
His sire crawled all his life about the dust
Of a king's ante-room between the legs
Of courtiers, a live footstool for the king,
To wheedle from him, a mere fellowman !
The blood of monarchs and of nobles mine
Who led the advancing vanguard of their time,
A noble myself, nor without hope to grave
My old ancestral name upon the age
With thought of rarer temper than the wont.
But since my peers are fallen with other folk
Upon their face before the golden god
Set with acclaim of nations and with clash
Of all fair music in the world's high place —
Set up for worship by the prince of it —
And I alas ! have scant rich offerings
To offer like my equals to the god,
Not even a daughter's heart, most dainty gift
A parent can lay quivering at his feet,
I walk apart in deep obscurity
Confronting not the jeer of jingling fools.
And me — for I am poor nor much frequent
Their fashionable fuolings, gatherings —
This duke from them invades — for who am I?
Not less by birth, yet weighed and wanting found r the loaded scales of his society !
What if he swoop upon a pauper's wife
This gaudy jay — the woman should rejoice.
Nor could the man complain ; or doth the mate
Of yon meek finch the ravenous kite hath mauled
Complain, or will the gorging tyrant hear?
And so he pounced upon my one ewe-lamb !
She was my all. and I have nothing now ;
Nothing \iut my revenge ; and yet you bid,
Yet you bid me fling my revenge away !
Is that your meaning ? I would touch it firm ;
Can that indeed be what you ask of me ? "

Then the old man : " Now hear my final word.
Promise at least, that if you find she lives
You will not seek to kill the enemy.
If he have left her life, you may not take
His life away — or go you must alone."
Clement reluctant promised, and his friend
Spake a few soothing solemn words to him
About the Sufferer of sufferers
That night He fell among the shadowy trees
Upon His face in bitter agony
Breathing " Not My will, but Thine own be done ! "

Then they embraced, and under a pale moon
The youth bent leaden steps towards his home.
And when he enters the familiar rooms
Almost he deems it but a hideous dream,
And that she quiet waits him in the house
Somewhere ; he knows not where, but to and fro
Strays through each empty room, as looking for her
And listening for the gentle call he loves
From somewhere nigh, yet feeling it is vain.
Through dim moon-spaces like to one halfstunned
Groping his way, the servants hearing steps
Unbidden bring him light and needed food,
And he shakes loose the stupor to arrange
The morrow's journey, and to order all
For his dependents as befits the case.
Last worn and weary flings him on a couch,
Yet cannot cease to picture his shy bird
Tiny and timorous, cowering in the glare
Of that foul serpent's hungry glittering eyes,
Wistfully craving him, but in despair
Sinking and waning deeming him afar.
And fearing he can never find her prison.
Then schemes of vengeance boil within his heart.
Fierce, incoherent, seething like a scum.
Yet chilled anon with some vague consciousness
That he, weak-healthed, a man of inner life
(Not this alone, yet student in the main).
Shrank secretly through all his ravaged frame
From striking that strong outward blow his soul
Roared to him as from myriad throats to strike.
Yet well he knows that he shall triumph hero.
Once wanned with goad of some insulting word,
Or any opposition from the man.
His proud strong will shall guide the aspen hand
To deal as strong a blow as any clod.
But then the temperament too sensitive
Seeks, finds, ally in contemplative doubt.
So drift in sight again the arguments
Of the old peasant and his own replies.
Till over-strained into a fevered doze
He falls, the spirit racked and battling still,
A chamber full of loud discordant cries.

They go as planned, and landing at the port
Of Bastia, they take a mountain path
Known well to Paoli along the coast,
That leads them to a village near the shore
Below the castle eyrie which they seek.
Blue as the bluest lapis-lazuli
The sea they skirt, plashing as musical
As yesterday along the Italian shore.
Listless alternating soft silence*
With softer sound, as yonder bee anon
Muffles low hum in some campanula
Of nectared amethyst, and hums again.
The hawk swims high in supple shining air.
And swallows twittering dart about the cliffs.
From the Marina with its little pier
Where loll the swarthy fishers gossiping
About the windlasses, or in the shade
Of stranded boats upon the furrowed beach
Mending their nets and munching chestnut cakes —
Opens a valley fair, and high therein
Perches the village on a shelf of rock.
Nested in olives ; but the glen below
(A deep rich silt, plunder of flooding streams
From wealth of mountains in the winter, dammed
Their channel mouths unscoured of ebbing tides
By storm-waves piling sea-weed, shingle, sand)
Glows now with beaded mace-heads of the maize,
And simmers with a paler bearded wheat.
It is the summer calm when yesterday,
To-day, or any days we pair together,
Are fair twin-sisters men distinguish not.
But yesterday the bosom of the youth
Mirrored serenely the serenity,
To-day it seems a hollow mask to him.

Paoli inquiring finds his sailor brother,
From whom he learns the foreigner indeed
Brought his sweet prize four suns and moons ago.
He promises a cheerful aid to them
Whate'er betide, relating that the friend
Staunch and leal-hearted Paoli had hoped
To find within the castle there in sooth
Yet dwells ; the fisherman expects him here
Anon from Bastia, but yesterday
Thither despatched upon affairs the duke
Would trust to none beside reluctantly,
Since if the gossips be but well informed
The duke to him commits the special charge
Of his sweet captive, closest prisoner.
A charge assumed by Giudice that so
He might secure her safety in the den
Of the fell robber, choking down for her
The indignation of his faithful heart.
The master, who has squandered far in France
His graceless youth, trusts the integrity
Of that stern man his father trusted well,
Yet with the son integrity but means
A dog's devotion to the master's whim.
Till now his few behests indifferent
Giudice strictly taciturn fulfils.
" But he and I and all of us around
Are Corsican, pure Corsican, and we
Abhor such deeds : we love your countrymen,
For they are freemen and have reached a hand
To help us in our need ; moreover he
That dukeling yonder — (here he sunk his tone)
Giudice was away then as I think —
Seduced a girl, sister to one of us,
To go with him to France and ruined her.
So if you punish not your wrong, my lord.
There are those here who wait to punish theirs.
So many sluggish and cold-blooded years
Of foreign rule have crawled not over us.
Thank God Almighty, chilling our hot blood.
But our faint pulse as at a clarion call
Leaps yet remembering Fior di Spina — she.
Our splendid maiden with the eyes of fire,
Who in the public market-place of Corte
With hand unfaltering flashed the fatal shot
That brought her faithless lover to her feet,
Tumbled him humbled to a lump of clay !
O'er whom our poets trolled voceros brave,
Whom mightiest most illustrious warriors.
crowned
Their queen in chestnut-forests of our isle ! "

So voluble and vehement outspoke
The Corsican with fiery face and eye.
And Clement knew that he could trust the man.
Scarce had he ended ere stern Giudice
Was in their midst and they the brothers twain
Apart conferring with him. He abrupt
A minute after turned to Clement saying
" I will assist you now immediately.
The lady ails, do you but follow me."
Well had he known remonstrating appeal
The libertine would but exasperate
To violence and maiming of the hand
That could alone assist the victim there,
And he was of the few, the very few,
Who if a breath would loosen an avalanche
On his own head, yet save another life,
Would palter not but breathe that breath and die.

No words are spoken winding through the grain
Or by the bleached stones of the torrent bed.
Then through the tuaquis, brushwood of arbute,
Lentisk and myrtle, cytisus, rock-roses
Cropped of rough goats or silken horned sheep.
Through olives and umbrageous chestnutgroves
Up the rock path, till near the castle loomed,
Portentous pile, squat like a monster toad
Irregular and huge upon its crest,
With rugged stones all blackened from the smoke
Of siege-fires in the turbulent past years,
And chipped of bullets with abortive aim
To silence shots from loopholes narrowing.
And Clement dare not ask the meaning full
Of that brief phrase "she ails"; he only knows
She lives, or he would not be guided here.
But the guide pausing sharp addresses him,
" This morning with a party of his friends
The duke goes shooting, has already gone.
Now I will go before you to prepare
The execution of our project, brief
The time I need, and yet it will be best
You should not burst too suddenly upon her.
Therefore I take this track that leads direct.
While leisurely you follow me by that
Which makes a circuit ; but observe the tower
You must approach ; she lies imprisoned there.
A private staircase and a private door
Lead from it facing seaward ; I dismiss
The Frenchman guarding it and I resume
The key entrusted to my special care :
A rock-hewn staircase drops abruptly down.
No window from the castle overlooks."
Clement replied by wringing the strong hand
And by a look, then took the devious path
'Mong chestnut-trees and by a water-runnel.
Making a circuit, facing the stronghold
Anew when mounted on its proper ridge
A half-mile to the rear of it ; and here
A precipice fell sheer one side the path
With tumbled boulders at the base of it
O'ergrown of bramble and snapdragon flowers,
While a thin burn meandered under these.
Sparkling among the twinkling birch, anon
Quenched in the solemn shadow of the pines.

And now he heard a sound as of men's voices
Approaching, often breaking to a laugh.
Instinctively he drew into a hollow
Behind a lentisk thicket 'neath a rock
Jutting above the pathway where it curved.
Whence he beheld three men with rifles equipped
For shooting — they were Frenchmen by their dress
And by their talk ; then Clement very pale.
Even quivering but with a dangerous
Gleam in his large dark eye, stepped forth and blocked
The way, and hoarsely spake, " I want the duke."
They started, but the midmost man replied
"I am the duke; your business, sir, with me?"
"A word in private if these gentlemen
Will give me leave." The Frenchman lifting cap
Requests his friends to saunter on before ;
They passing turn the angle of the rock ;
So lost to sight ; the Frenchman visibly
Sallows through all his bloated sallow face,
A man with hard coarse mouth but half revealed
Through black mustachios tapering either end,
A parvenu whose fashionable hauteur
Is next of kin to vulgar insolence.
"Well, sir, I would be going, will you speak ? "
" I think," said Clement, " there is little need.
You know me and you know why I am here."
The Frenchman sneered, " I fear the man is mad.
How should I know you?" "Then, sir, I am he
Whose humble abode you lately stooped to visit
To rob me like a common skulking thief
As it appears, for when my hack was turned
You stole my jewel — skulking off with it
To this remote wild-beast lair. Where is she ?
What have you done with her? no paltering."
"Be calm," the man with livid lips replied,
Ill-feigning swagger of indifference.
" Remember whom you speak to — as for you.
Who may you be ? " " Fellow, my ancestors
Were kings and earls when yours were keeping swine,
Swinish like their own swine, and base like you ! "
At those fierce words of Clement's with a cry
Of wrath the duke raised suddenly the rifle
Level with his shoulder ; Clement folding arms
Confronted him : " Night-thieves and murderers
Are terms convertible, I am unarmed."
Whereon the other lowering the rifle
Thrust it upon the bank. " Well, name your time
And place. I'll give you satisfaction full."
' You call it satisfaction ? I have heard.
So stands it — me, a thinker, man of peace.
Albeit noble, a bully like to you
All unprovoked invades, insults my wife,
Tramples my honour underneath his boot,
Draggles it for the dregs of men to hoot,
And when I call him to account invites
Me to stand facing him for him to shoot.
Large satisfaction to me for the wrong !
Sir, you add insult to your injury ! "
" If you're afraid," the Frenchman sneered,
" I've done
All in my power making you the offer."
And then he added with malignant look,
More insolent since Clement had refused
The duel with him, " Now I think of it,
The woman there whom you have come to seek —
Surely my lady friend of Monaco
Must have informed you that you do me wrong ;
I never forced her to come here with me ;
She freely came, needed no pressing, sir,
Nay rather pressed herself upon me ; so
I think that even if you found her out
(But this you shall not) at the castle there
She would request you travel back again."
So, foolish and unskilled in reading men,
Babbled the upstart brutal arrogant,
Misreading Clement like a traveller
Who though he see yet little heeds the cloud
Of massy indigo slow bellying
Half swallow-blue and half ash-wan until
A big drop startles and sharp lightning blinds
Him, leaping from its muflie unaware ;
So the man failed to note or comprehend
The hate full filling that face of his foe
Confronting him while he insulted her.
Until outleapt like lightning forked the words
"You lie : defend yourself: prepare for hell !"
And rapid as the thunder on the heels
Of a flash near us crashes afi:er it,
Followed the scathing syllables a blow
Clement dealt suddenly with all his force
On the man's chest, who reeled ; but staggering
A pine-trunk saved him : then upon the brink
Of that abyss the two men grappled for life,
Swinging there to and fro both maniac
And blind with fury, their eyes lit from hell.
Jamming and knotting tense and burning limbs
Into one monstrous body like wild beasts
Whose demon maw torn free from one raw spot
But snaps again upon the nearest flesh
To burrow there with slakeless lust of death.

Both men were young and nearly matched for strength,
Though Clement was the slenderer : the duke
(Clement had forced him next the precipice)
Presently backward slipt — a treacherous tuft
That he had dinted with convulsive heel
Suddenly loosened from the very edge —
And both were toppling over, for the duke
Clutched Clement's arm and gripped it like a vice ;
But Clement, throwing one arm about the trunk
Hard by, with one fierce effort flung the man
(Dangling, his forehead clammy with despair)
Free from him sliddering, who dug his nails
Into the rubble, a moment holding there :
Yet Clement demon-hearted wrenched a stone
Huge from its bedding, heaving it upon him ;
Then shrilled a curse, alive with agony
Death's horror and the hatred of the damned
Writhing and sinking fangs in Clement's heart,
As the poor wretch let go and tumbled back
Over the crag inshelving with the stone,
Bounding from point to point until he thumped
A hideous quivering pulp upon the rock
In the ravine, crushing the meek wild flowers,
Clement watched, listened, breathing short and loud,
Kneeling with his two hands upon the brink,
With a fiend's relish sucking sight and sound,
Following in spirit, ruthless thrusting him
From shelf to shelf, and dancing on him dead !

Sparkles yon burn set in the dusk ravine
With drowsy hum, the frail birch twinkle there,
The near pine sighs in gentle-washing air,
Oozing with odorous gum in wrinkled bark ;
Butterflies flutter out on holiday,
Animate blue sky through the sunny blue ;
Pink-pinks the chafiinch from soft-flickering leaves,
Green lizards glance among the sunbaked stones,
Or rest at gaze with shoulder on the stone
And half their shadow, whirrs the cockchafer.
Leaps the red cricket, flits the fiirry mouse
To his smooth-patted hole in yon lush bank ;
The jetty beetle sprawls upon his back
Beading the lit speargrass with drops like blood :
Nature serenely takes the death-struggle
Of two mere men, serenely as she lakes
Impaling of a sparrow by a shrike
On yon bronze thorn, gulp of gay dragon-fly
By darting swallow : nothing witnesses
In her suave aspect to the agony
Of her two human sons ; except a blade
Here and there mangled on the very spot.
Club-moss elastic from their dinting freed
Upjerking now wee spore-capt stalks again,
Cyclamen soiled, half jammed into the ground
By the fierce feet that stamped and shuffled here —
This, and the corse that stains the snapdragon
Far yonder in the gloom of the ravine.
And he who silent glares upon it nigh
Kneeling, and leans upon two murdering hands.