The Call of the Blood

He fought with the trees and conquered them. His trampling feet sent the

stones leaping downward to be drowned in the sea. His swift eyes found

the likely places for a foothold. His sinewy hands forced his enemies to

assist him in the enterprise they hated. He came out on to the plateau at

the summit of the island and stood still, panting, beside the house that

hid there.

Its blind, gray wall confronted him coldly in the dimness, one shuttered

window, like a shut eye, concealing the interior, the soul of the house

that lay inside its body. In this window must have been set the light he

had seen from the terrace. He wished there were a light burning now. Had

he swum across the inlet and fought his way up through the wood only to

see a gray wall, a shuttered window? That cry had come from the rocks,

yet he had been driven by something within him to this house,

connecting--he knew not why--the cry with it and with the far-off light

that had been like a star caught in the sea. Now he said to himself that

he should have gone back to the rocks and sought the siren there. Should

he go now? He hesitated for a moment, leaning against the wall of the

house.

"Maju torna, maju veni

Cu li belli soi ciureri;

Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;

Maju torna, maju è ccà!

"Maju torna, maju vinni,

Duna isca a li disinni;

Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,

Maju viva! Maju è ccà!"

He heard a girl's voice singing near him, whether inside the house or

among the trees he could not at first tell. It sang softly yet gayly, as

if the sun were up and the world were awake, and when it died away

Delarey felt as if the singer must be in the dawn, though he stood still

in the night. He put his ear to the shuttered window and listened.

"L'haju; nun l'haju?"

The voice was speaking now with a sort of whimsical and half-pathetic

merriment, as if inclined to break into laughter at its own childish

wistfulness.

"M'ama; nun m'ama?"

It broke off. He heard a little laugh. Then the song began again: "Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,

Bona sorti di Diù vògghiu;

Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,

Diù, pinzàticci vu a la sorti mia!"

The voice was not in the house. Delarey was sure of that now. He was

almost sure, too, that it was the same voice which had cried out to him

from the rocks. Moving with precaution, he stole round the house to the

farther side, which looked out upon the open sea, keeping among the

trees, which grew thickly about the house on three sides, but which left

it unprotected to the sea-winds on the fourth.