The Call of the Blood

When he was out of hearing of the card-players Maurice stood still. He

felt the breath of the sea on his face. He heard the murmur of the sea

everywhere around him, a murmur that in its level monotony excited him,

thrilled him, as the level monotony of desert music excites the African

in the still places of the sand. His pulses were beating, and there was

an almost savage light in his eyes. Something in the atmosphere of the

sea-bound retreat made him feel emancipated, as if he had stepped out of

the prison of civilized life into a larger, more thoughtless existence,

an existence for which his inner nature fitted him, for which he had

surely been meant all these years that he had lived, unconscious of what

he really was and of what he really needed.

"How happy I could have been as a Sicilian fisherman!" he thought. "How

happy I could be now!"

"St! St!"

He looked round quickly.

"St! St!"

It must be Maddalena, but where was she? He moved forward till he was at

the edge of the land where the tiny path wound steeply downward to the

sea. There she was standing with her face turned in his direction, and

her lips opened to repeat the little summoning sound.

"How did you know I was there?" he said, whispering, as he joined her.

"Did you hear me come?"

"No, signore."

"Then--"

"Signorino, I felt that you were there."

He smiled. It pleased him to think that he threw out something, some

invisible thread, perhaps, that reached her and told her of his nearness.

Such communication made sympathy. He did not say it to himself, but his

sensation to-night was that everything was in sympathy with him, the

night with its stars, the sea with its airs and voices, Maddalena with

her long eyes and her brown hands, and her knowledge of his presence when

she did not see or hear him.

"Let us go down to the sea," he said.

He longed to be nearer to that low and level sound that moved and excited

him in the night.

"Father's boat is there," she said. "It is so calm to-night that he did

not bring it round into the bay."

"If we go out in it for a minute, will he mind?"

A sly look came into her face.

"He will not know," she said. "With all that money Gaspare and he will

play till dawn. Per Dio, signore, you are birbante!"