CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES.
"We are going to follow the track of Ulysses," said Katy, with her eyes fixed on the little travelling-map in her guide-book. "Do you realize that, Polly dear? He and his companions sailed these very seas before us, and we shall see the sights they saw,--Circe"s Cape and the Isles of the Sirens, and Polyphemus himself, perhaps, who knows?"
The "Marco Polo" had just cast off her moorings, and was slowly steaming out of the crowded port of Genoa into the heart of a still rosy sunset.
The water was perfectly smooth; no motion could be felt but the engine"s throb. The trembling foam of the long wake showed glancing points of phosph.o.r.escence here and there, while low on the eastern sky a great silver planet burned like a signal lamp.
"Polyphemus was a horrible giant. I read about him once, and I don"t want to see him," observed Amy, from her safe protected perch in her mother"s lap.
"He may not be so bad now as he was in those old times. Some missionary may have come across him and converted him. If he were good, you wouldn"t mind his being big, would you?" suggested Katy.
"N-o," replied Amy, doubtfully; "but it would take a great lot of missionaries to make _him_ good, I should think. One all alone would be afraid to speak to him. We shan"t really see him, shall we?"
"I don"t believe we shall; and if we stuff cotton in our ears and look the other way, we need not hear the sirens sing," said Katy, who was in the highest spirits.--"And oh, Polly dear, there is one delightful thing I forgot to tell you about. The captain says he shall stay in Leghorn all day to-morrow taking on freight, and we shall have plenty of time to run up to Pisa and see the Cathedral and the Leaning Tower and everything else. Now, that is something Ulysses didn"t do! I am so glad I didn"t die of measles when I was little, as Rose Red used to say." She gave her book a toss into the air as she spoke, and caught it again as it fell, very much as the Katy Carr of twelve years ago might have done.
"What a child you are!" said Mrs. Ashe, approvingly; "you never seem out of sorts or tired of things."
"Out of sorts? I should think not! And pray why should I be, Polly dear?"
Katy had taken to calling her friend "Polly dear" of late,--a trick picked up half unconsciously from Lieutenant Ned. Mrs. Ashe liked it; it was sisterly and intimate, she said, and made her feel nearer Katy"s age.
"Does the tower really lean?" questioned Amy,--"far over, I mean, so that we can see it?"
"We shall know to-morrow," replied Katy. "If it doesn"t, I shall lose all my confidence in human nature."
Katy"s confidence in human nature was not doomed to be impaired. There stood the famous tower, when they reached the Place del Duomo in Pisa, next morning, looking all aslant, exactly as it does in the pictures and the alabaster models, and seeming as if in another moment it must topple over, from its own weight, upon their heads. Mrs. Ashe declared that it was so unnatural that it made her flesh creep; and when she was coaxed up the winding staircase to the top, she turned so giddy that they were all thankful to get her safely down to firm ground again. She turned her back upon the tower, as they crossed the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce to the majestic old Cathedral, saying that if she thought about it any more, she should become a disbeliever in the attraction of gravitation, which she had always been told all respectable people _must_ believe in.
The guide showed them the lamp swinging by a long slender chain, before which Galileo is said to have sat and pondered while he worked out his theory of the pendulum. This lamp seemed a sort of own cousin to the attraction of gravitation, and they gazed upon it with respect. Then they went to the Baptistery to see Niccolo Pisano"s magnificent pulpit of creamy marble, a ma.s.s of sculpture supported on the backs of lions, and the equally lovely font, and to admire the extraordinary sound which their guide evoked from a mysterious echo, with which he seemed to be on intimate terms, for he made it say whatever he would and almost "answer back."
It was in coming out of the Baptistery that they met with an adventure which Amy could never quite forget. Pisa is the mendicant city of Italy, and her streets are infested with a band of religious beggars who call themselves the Brethren of the Order of Mercy. They wear loose black gowns, sandals laced over their bare feet, and black cambric masks with holes, through which their eyes glare awfully; and they carry tin cups for the reception of offerings, which they thrust into the faces of all strangers visiting the city, whom they look upon as their lawful prey.
As our party emerged from the Baptistery, two of these Brethren espied them, and like great human bats came swooping down upon them with long strides, their black garments flying in the wind, their eyes rolling strangely behind their masks, and brandishing their alms-cups, which had "Pour les Pauvres" lettered upon them, and gave forth a clapping sound like a watchman"s rattle. There was something terrible in their appearance and the rushing speed of their movements. Amy screamed and ran behind her mother, who visibly shrank. Katy stood her ground; but the bat-winged fiends in Dore"s ill.u.s.trations to Dante occurred to her, and her fingers trembled as she dropped some money in the cups.
Even mendicant friars are human. Katy ceased to tremble as she observed that one of them, as he retreated, walked backward for some distance in order to gaze longer at Mrs. Ashe, whose cheeks were flushed with bright pink and who was looking particularly handsome. She began to laugh instead, and Mrs. Ashe laughed too; but Amy could not get over the impression of having been attacked by demons, and often afterward recurred with a shudder to the time when those awful black _things_ flew at her and she hid behind mamma. The ghastly pictures of the Triumph of Death, which were presently exhibited to them on the walls of the Campo Santo, did not tend to rea.s.sure her, and it was with quite a pale, scared little face that she walked toward the hotel where they were to lunch, and she held fast to Katy"s hand.
Their way led them through a narrow street inhabited by the poorer cla.s.ses,--a dusty street with high shabby buildings on either side and wide doorways giving glimpses of interior courtyards, where empty hogsheads and barrels and rusty caldrons lay, and great wooden trays of macaroni were spread out in the sun to dry. Some of the macaroni was gray, some white, some yellow; none of it looked at all desirable to eat, as it lay exposed to the dust, with long lines of ill-washed clothes flapping above on wires stretched from one house to another. As is usual in poor streets, there were swarms of children; and the appearance of little Amy with her long bright hair falling over her shoulders and Mabel clasped in her arms created a great sensation. The children in the street shouted and exclaimed, and other children within the houses heard the sounds and came trooping out, while mothers and older sisters peeped from the doorways. The very air seemed full of eager faces and little brown and curly heads bobbing up and down with excitement, and black eyes all fixed upon big beautiful Mabel, who with her thick wig of flaxen hair, her blue velvet dress and jacket, feathered hat, and little m.u.f.f, seemed to them like some strange small marvel from another world. They could not decide whether she was a living child or a make-believe one, and they dared not come near enough to find out; so they cl.u.s.tered at a little distance, pointed with their fingers, and whispered and giggled, while Amy, much pleased with the admiration shown for her darling, lifted Mabel up to view.
At last one droll little girl with a white cap on her round head seemed to make up _her_ mind, and darting indoors returned with her doll,--a poor little image of wood, its only garment a coa.r.s.e shirt of red cotton. This she held out for Amy to see. Amy smiled for the first time since her encounter with the bat-like friars; and Katy, taking Mabel from her, made signs that the two dolls should kiss each other. But though the little Italian screamed with laughter at the idea of a _bacio_ between two dolls, she would by no means allow it, and hid her treasure behind her back, blushing and giggling, and saying something very fast which none of them understood, while she waved two fingers at them with a curious gesture.
"I do believe she is afraid Mabel will cast the evil eye on her doll,"
said Katy at last, with a sudden understanding as to what this pantomime meant.
"Why, you silly thing!" cried the outraged Amy; "do you suppose for one moment that my child could hurt your dirty old dolly? You ought to be glad to have her noticed at all by anybody that"s clean."
The sound of the foreign tongue completed the discomfiture of the little Italian. With a shriek she fled, and all the other children after her; pausing at a distance to look back at the alarming creatures who didn"t speak the familiar language. Katy, wishing to leave a pleasant impression, made Mabel kiss her waxen fingers toward them.
This sent the children off into another fit of laughter and chatter, and they followed our friends for quite a distance as they proceeded on their way to the hotel.
All that night, over a sea as smooth as gla.s.s, the "Marco Polo" slipped along the coasts past which the ships of Ulysses sailed in those old legendary days which wear so charmed a light to our modern eyes. Katy roused at three in the morning, and looking from her cabin window had a glimpse of an island, which her map showed her must be Elba, where that war-eagle Napoleon was chained for a while. Then she fell asleep again, and when she roused in full daylight the steamer was off the coast of Ostia and nearing the mouth of the Tiber. Dreamy mountain-shapes rose beyond the far-away Campagna, and every curve and indentation of the coast bore a name which recalled some interesting thing.
About eleven a dim-drawn bubble appeared on the horizon, which the captain a.s.sured them was the dome of St. Peter"s, nearly thirty miles distant. This was one of the "moments" which Clover had been fond of speculating about; and Katy, contrasting the real with the imaginary moment, could not help smiling. Neither she nor Clover had ever supposed that her first glimpse of the great dome was to be so little impressive.
On and on they went till the air-hung bubble disappeared; and Amy, grown very tired of scenery with which she had no a.s.sociations, and grown-up raptures which she did not comprehend, squeezed herself into the end of the long wooden settee on which Katy sat, and began to beg for another story concerning Violet and Emma.
"Just a little tiny chapter, you know, Miss Katy, about what they did on New Year"s Day or something. It"s so dull to keep sailing and sailing all day and have nothing to do, and it"s ever so long since you told me anything about them, really and truly it is!"
Now, Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the bane of Katy"s existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of moisture had been squeezed. Amy was insatiable. Her interest in the tale never flagged; and when her exhausted friend explained that she really could not think of another word to say on the subject, she would turn the tables by asking, "Then, Miss Katy, mayn"t I tell _you_ a chapter?"
whereupon she would proceed somewhat in this fashion:--
"It was the day before Christmas--no, we won"t have it the day before Christmas; it shall be three days before Thanksgiving. Violet and Emma got up in the morning, and--well, they didn"t do anything in particular that day. They just had their breakfasts and dinners, and played and studied a little, and went to bed early, you know, and the next morning --well, there didn"t much happen that day, either; they just had their breakfasts and dinners, and played."
Listening to Amy"s stories was so much worse than telling them to her, that Katy in self-defence was driven to recommence her narrations, but she had grown to hate Violet and Emma with a deadly hatred. So when Amy made this appeal on the steamer"s deck, a sudden resolution took possession of her, and she decided to put an end to these dreadful children once for all.
"Yes, Amy," she said, "I will tell you one more story about Violet and Emma; but this is positively the last."
So Amy cuddled close to her friend, and listened with rapt attention as Katy told how on a certain day just before the New Year, Violet and Emma started by themselves in a little sleigh drawn by a pony, to carry to a poor woman who lived in a lonely house high up on a mountain slope a basket containing a turkey, a mould of cranberry jelly, a bunch of celery, and a mince-pie.
"They were so pleased at having all these nice things to take to poor widow Simpson and in thinking how glad she would be to see them,"
proceeded the naughty Katy, "that they never noticed how black the sky was getting to be, or how the wind howled through the bare boughs of the trees. They had to go slowly, for the road was up hill all the way, and it was hard work for the poor pony. But he was a stout little fellow, and tugged away up the slippery track, and Violet and Emma talked and laughed, and never thought what was going to happen. Just half-way up the mountain there was a rocky cliff which overhung the road, and on this cliff grew an enormous hemlock tree. The branches were loaded with snow, which made them much heavier than usual. Just as the sleigh pa.s.sed slowly underneath the cliff, a violent blast of wind blew up from the ravine, struck the hemlock and tore it out of the ground, roots and all.
It fell directly across the sleigh, and Violet and Emma and the pony and the basket with the turkey and the other things in it were all crushed as flat as pancakes!"
"Well," said Amy, as Katy stopped, "go on! what happened then?"
"Nothing happened then," replied Katy, in a tone of awful solemnity; "nothing could happen! Violet and Emma were dead, the pony was dead, the things in the basket were broken all to little bits, and a great snowstorm began and covered them up, and no one knew where they were or what had become of them till the snow melted in the spring."
With a loud shriek Amy jumped up from the bench.
"No! no! no!" she cried; "they aren"t dead! I won"t let them be dead!"
Then she burst into tears, ran down the stairs, locked herself into her mother"s stateroom, and did not appear again for several hours.
Katy laughed heartily at first over this outburst, but presently she began to repent and to think that she had treated her pet unkindly. She went down and knocked at the stateroom door; but Amy would not answer.
She called her softly through the key-hole, and coaxed and pleaded, but it was all in vain. Amy remained invisible till late in the afternoon; and when she finally crept up again to the deck, her eyes were red with crying, and her little face as pale and miserable as if she had been attending the funeral of her dearest friend.
Katy"s heart smote her.
"Come here, my darling," she said, holding out her hand; "come and sit in my lap and forgive me. Violet and Emma shall not be dead. They shall go on living, since you care so much for them, and I will tell stories about them to the end of the chapter."
"No," said Amy, shaking her head mournfully; "you can"t. They"re dead, and they won"t come to life again ever. It"s all over, and I"m so so-o-rry."
All Katy"s apologies and efforts to resuscitate the story were useless.
Violet and Emma were dead to Amy"s imagination, and she could not make herself believe in them any more.
She was too woe-begone to care for the fables of Circe and her swine which Katy told as they rounded the magnificent Cape Circello, and the isles where the sirens used to sing appealed to her in vain. The sun set, the stars came out; and under the beams of their countless lamps and the beckonings of a slender new moon, the "Marco Polo" sailed into the Bay of Naples, past Vesuvius, whose dusky curl of smoke could be seen outlined against the luminous sky, and brought her pa.s.sengers to their landing-place.
They woke next morning to a summer atmosphere full of yellow sunshine and true July warmth. Flower-vendors stood on every corner, and pursued each newcomer with their fragrant wares. Katy could not stop exclaiming over the cheapness of the flowers, which were thrust in at the carriage windows as they drove slowly up and down the streets. They were tied into flat nosegays, whose centre was a white camellia, encircled with concentric rows of pink tea rosebuds, ring after ring, till the whole was the size of an ordinary milk-pan; all to be had for the sum of ten cents! But after they had bought two or three of these enormous bouquets, and had discovered that not a single rose boasted an inch of stem, and that all were pierced with long wires through their very hearts, she ceased to care for them.