The Call of the Blood

"What, Lucrezia?"

She looked into his twinkling eyes and reddened slightly, sticking out

her under lip.

"I'm not going to tell you."

"You have no business to know."

"And how can I help--they're coming!"

Sebastiano's dog had barked again on the terrace. Sebastiano lifted the

ceramalla quickly from the window-sill and turned round, while Lucrezia

darted out through the door, across the sitting-room, and out onto the

terrace.

"Are they there, Sebastiano? Are they there?"

He stood by the terrace wall, shading his eyes with his hand.

"Ecco!" he said, pointing across the ravine.

Far off, winding up from the sea slowly among the rocks and the

olive-trees, was a procession of donkeys, faintly relieved in the

brilliant sunshine against the mountain-side.

"One," counted Sebastiano, "two, three, four--there are four. The signore

is walking, the signora is riding. Whose donkeys have they got? Gaspare's

father's, of course. I told Gaspare to take Ciccio's, and--it is too far

to see, but I'll soon make them hear me. The signora loves the

'Pastorale.' She says there is all Sicily in it. She loves it more than

the tarantella, for she is good, Lucrezia--don't forget that--though she

is not a Catholic, and perhaps it makes her think of the coming of the

Bambino and of the Madonna. Ah! She will smile now and clap her hands

when she hears."

He put the pipe to his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and began to play the

"Pastorale" with all his might, while Lucrezia listened, staring across

the ravine at the creeping donkey, which was bearing Hermione upward to

her garden of paradise near the sky.