A girl was standing in this open space, alone, looking seaward, with one
arm out-stretched, one hand laid lightly, almost caressingly, upon the
gnarled trunk of a solitary old olive-tree, the other arm hanging at her
side. She was dressed in some dark, coarse stuff, with a short skirt, and
a red handkerchief tied round her head, and seemed in the pale and almost
ghastly light in which night and day were drawing near to each other to
be tall and slim of waist. Her head was thrown back, as if she were
drinking in the breeze that heralded the dawn--drinking it in like a
voluptuary.
Delarey stood and watched her. He could not see her face.
She spoke some words in dialect in a clear voice. There was no one else
visible. Evidently she was talking to herself. Presently she laughed
again, and began to sing once more: "Maju viju, e maju cògghiu,
A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vògghiu;
Ciuri di maju cògghiu a la campía,
Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"
There was an African sound in the girl's voice--a sound of mystery that
suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at
ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the
first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young
countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and,
turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to
the east and the rising sun, lift their hands full of the flowers above
their heads, and, making the sign of the cross, murmur devoutly: "Divina Pruvidenza, pruvvidìtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulàtimi;
Divina Pruvidenza è granni assai;
Cu' teni fidi a Diù, 'un pirisci mai!"
Delarey knew neither song nor custom, but his ears were fascinated by the
voice and the melody. Both sounded remote and yet familiar to him, as if
once, in some distant land--perhaps of dreams--he had heard them before.
He wished the girl to go on singing, to sing on and on into the dawn
while he listened in his hiding-place, but she suddenly turned round and
stood looking towards him, as if something had told her that she was not
alone. He kept quite still. He knew she could not see him, yet he felt as
if she was aware that he was there, and instinctively he held his breath
and leaned backward into deeper shadow. After a minute the girl took a
step forward, and, still staring in his direction, called out: "Padre?"