The man brushed his hand across his eyes.
"Povera signora! Povera signora!" murmured the doctor.
"And she comforted Gaspare, too!" Giuseppe added. "She put her arm round
him and told him to be brave, and help her. She made him walk by her and
put his hand under the padrone's shoulder. Madonna!"
They turned away from the village into a narrow path that led into the
hills.
"And I came to fetch you, Signor Dottore. Perhaps the povero signore is
not really dead. Perhaps you can save him, Signor Dottore!"
"Chi lo sa?" replied the doctor.
He had let his cigar go out and did not know it.
"Chi lo sa?" he repeated, mechanically.
Then they went on in silence--till they reached the shoulder of the
mountain under Castel Vecchio. From here they could see across the ravine
to the steep slope of Monte Amato. Upon it, high up, a light shone, and
presently a second light detached itself from the first, moved a little
way, and then was stationary.
Giuseppe pointed.
"Ecco, Signor Dottore! They have carried the poor signore up."
The second light moved waveringly back towards the first.
"They are carrying him into the house, Signor Dottore. Madonna! And all
this to happen in the night!"
The doctor nodded without speaking. He was watching the lights up there
in that lonely place. He was not a man of strong imagination, and was
accustomed to look on misery, the misery of the poor. But to-night he
felt a certain solemnity descend upon him as he rode by these dark
by-paths up into the bosom of the hills. Perhaps part of this feeling
came from the fact that his mission had to do with strangers, with rich
people from a distant country who had come to his island for pleasure,
and who were now suddenly involved in tragedy in the midst of their
amusement. But also he had a certain sense of personal sympathy. He had
known Hermione on her former visit to Sicily and had liked her; and
though this time he had seen scarcely anything of her he had seen enough
to be aware that she was very happy with her young husband. Maurice, too,
he had seen, full of the joy of youth and of bounding health. And now all
that was put out, if Giuseppe's account were true. It was a pity, a sad
pity.
The donkey crossed the mouth of the ravine, and picked its way upward
carefully amid the loose stones. In the ravine a little owl hooted twice.