They left the beach and climbed the bank, Maddalena walking carefully in

the shining shoes, and holding her green skirt well away from the bushes

with both hands. Maurice hurried across the railway line without looking

at it. He wanted to forget it. He was determined to forget it, and what

it was bringing to Cattaro that afternoon. They reached the group of four

donkeys which were standing patiently in the dusty white road.

"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Gaspare, as Maddalena came full into his sight.

"Madre mia! But you are like a burgisa dressed for the wedding-day, Donna

Maddalena!"

He wagged his head at her till the big roses above his ears shook like

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flowers in a wind.

"Ora basta, ch' è tardu: jamu ad accumpagnari li Zitti!" he continued,

pronouncing the time-honored sentence which, at a rustic wedding, gives

the signal to the musicians to stop their playing, and to the assembled

company the hint that the moment has come to escort the bride to the new

home which her bridegroom has prepared for her.

Maddalena laughed and blushed all over her face, and Salvatore shouted

out a verse of a marriage song in high favor at Sicilian weddings: "E cu saluti a li Zituzzi novi!

Chi bellu 'nguaggiamentu furtunatu!

Firma la menti, custanti lu cori,

E si cci arriva a lu jornu biatu--"

Meanwhile, Maurice helped Maddalena onto her donkey, and paid and

dismissed the boy who had brought it and Salvatore's beast from

Marechiaro. Then he took out his watch.

"A quarter-past ten," he said. "Off we go! Now, Gaspare--uno! due! tre!"

They leaped simultaneously onto their donkeys, Salvatore clambered up on

his, and the little cavalcade started off on the long, white road that

ran close along the sea, Maddalena and Maurice in the van, Salvatore and

Gaspare behind. Just at first they all kept close together, but Sicilians

are very careful of their festa clothes, and soon Salvatore and Gaspare

dropped farther behind to avoid the clouds of dust stirred up by the

tripping feet of the donkeys in front. Their chattering voices died away,

and when Maurice looked back he saw them at a distance which rendered his

privacy with Maddalena more complete than anything he had dared to hope

for so early in the day. Yet now that they were thus alone he felt as if

he had nothing to say to her. He did not feel exactly constrained, but it

seemed to him that, to-day, he could not talk the familiar commonplaces

to her, or pay her obvious compliments. They might, they would please

her, but something in himself would resent them. This was to be such a

great day. He had wanted it with such ardor, he had been so afraid of

missing it, he had gained it at the cost of so much self-respect, that it

ought to be extraordinary from dawn to dark, and he and Maddalena to be

unusual, intense--something, at least, more eager, more happy, more

intimate than usual in it.




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