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“My august master—” he began.

“Rules augustly in Rome,” I again interrupted. “This is France.”

Martinelli shrugged his shoulders meekly and patiently.

“My august master has some concern with the doings of France,” he said quietly. “The lady is not for you. My master has other plans…” He moistened his thin lips with his tongue. “Other plans for the lady… and for you.”

Of course, he spoke about the great Duchess Philippa, widow of Geoffrey, last Duke of Aquitaine[39]. But great duchess, widow, and all, Philippa was a woman, and young, and gay, and beautiful, and, by my faith, fashioned for me.

“What are his plans?” I demanded bluntly.

“They are deep and wide, Count Sainte-Maure—too deep and wide to know or discuss with you or any man.”

Martinelli arose to leave, and I arose with him.

“The time for thinking is past,” he said. “It is decision I came for.”

“I will think the matter over,” I repeated, then added: “If the lady’s plans do not accord with mine, then the plans of your master may fruit as he desires. Remember, priest, he is no master of mine.”

“You do not know my master,” he said solemnly.

“Nor do I wish to know him,” I retorted.

The little intriguing priest went down the creaking stairs.

When I rode out in Paris that day it was the Paris of the past. The narrow streets were an unsanitary scandal of filth and slime. But I must skip. Only of the end of my adventure will I write, which begins with where I stood jesting with Philippa herself—ah, dear God, she was wondrous beautiful! Philippa was small, slender, in brief, she was the one woman in the world for me.

And the Italian, Fortini[40], leaned to my shoulder and whispered:

“One who desires to speak.”

“One who must wait my pleasure,” I answered shortly.

“I wait no man’s pleasure,” was his equally short reply.

And, while my blood boiled, I remembered the priest, Martinelli. The thing was clear. Fortini smiled lazily.

This was the work of the priest. This was the Fortini, the best sword[41] from Italy.

“I am busy,” I said. “Begone.”

“No,” was his reply.

Our voices had slightly risen, so that Philippa heard.

“Begone, you Italian hound,” I said. “Take your howling from my door. I shall attend to you presently[42].”

“The moon is up,” he said. “The grass is dry and excellent. There is no dew. Beyond the fish-pond, there is an open space, quiet and private.”

“Presently,” I said. “Presently I shall attend to you.”

Then spoke Philippa.

“Satisfy the gentleman’s desire, Sainte-Maure. Attend to him now. And good fortune go with you.”

She paused.

“Good fortune go with you,” she repeated, and then leaned to me so that she could whisper: “And my heart goes with you, Sainte-Maure. Do not be long. I shall await you in the big hall.”

I was in the seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first sign of her love. I knew I could kill a hundred of Fortinis.

When two friends of mine and I arrived in the open space beyond the fish-pond, Fortini and two friends were already waiting us. We saluted properly. It was nothing new to any of us.

I knew that Fortini was a better swordsman. But I carried my lady’s heart with me this night, and that this night, because of me, there would be one Italian less in the world.

In a minute, my blade was inside of him, and through him, from right side of him to left side of him and outside of him beyond. Not at once did Fortini fall. Not at once did I withdraw the blade. For a full second we stood in pause. Then Fortini gasped and coughed slightly. The rigidity of his pose slackened.

We saluted his friends and were about to depart, when Felix Pasquini[43], a friend of Fortini detained me.

“Pardon me,” I said. “Let it be tomorrow.”

“We have but to move a step aside,” he urged, “where the grass is still dry.”

I shook my head.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “You will name time and place, and I shall be there.”

“The grass is excellent,” Pasquini teased, “the place is excellent, and I am sure that Fortini will have you for company this night.”

“It would be better if he met a friend,” I answered. “And now your pardon, for I must go.”

But he blocked my path.

“Whoever it be,” he said, “let it be now.”

And he spat in the grass at my feet. Then my anger seized me and was beyond me. I forgot that Philippa waited for me in the great hall. Here Pasquini standing in my way and spitting in the grass!

“Very well, Pasquini,” I said. “Fortini waits your companionship.”

And then I saluted Pasquini, and we began. Oh, I was devilish this night: quick and brilliant! My rapier entered Pasquini’s side on the right, but it did not emerge, on the left, for, well-nigh through him, it met a rib. And I cleared my weapon of him with jerk and wrench.

“A pleasant journey, Pasquini,” I told him. “Now, de Villehardouin[44]”.

De Villehardouin was ridiculous. He was clownish. “Short work and simple” was my judgment.

Alas! When I had played with him and laughed at him, he whistled his rapier through the air and rapped it down on my crown. I was in amaze. The next I knew was the pang of the entering steel. As I fell I could see the glut of satisfaction in the face of de Villehardouin.

I was falling, but I never reached the grass. Came a blurr of flashing lights, a thunder in my ears, a darkness, a glimmering of dim light, and then I heard the voice of one who said:

“I can’t feel anything.”

I knew the voice. It was Warden Atherton’s. And I knew myself for Darrell Standing, just returned across the centuries to the jacket hell of San Quentin. And I knew the touch of finger-tips on my neck was Warden Atherton’s. And it was Doctor Jackson’s voice that said:

“You don’t know how to take a man’s pulse from the neck. There—right there—put your fingers where mine are. Heart weak, but steady as a chronometer.”

“It’s only twenty-four hours,” Captain Jamie said, “and he was never in like condition before.”

“What do you think, Doc?” Warden Atherton asked.

“I tell you the heart action is splendid,” was the answer. “Of course it is weak. The man is feigning.”

I opened my eye and gazed up at the group bending over me.

“What did I tell you?” was Doctor Jackson’s cry of triumph.

And then I summoned all my will and smiled.

They held water to my lips, and I drank greedily. It must be remembered that all this while I lay helpless on my back, my arms were inside the jacket. When they offered me food—dry prison bread—I shook my head. The pain of my resuscitation was unbearable. I could feel my body coming to life. And in my brain the memory was strong that Philippa waited me in the big hall.

I strove to eliminate the live portion of my body from my consciousness. But Warden Atherton’s voice held me back.

“Is there anything you want to complain about?” he asked.

“You might make the jacket a little tighter,” I whispered. “It’s too loose. I get lost in it. Hutchins is stupid. He is also a fool. He doesn’t know about lacing the jacket. Now get out, all of you.”

“Standing, you are a wonder,” the Warden said. “You’ve got an iron will, but I’ll break it.”

“And you’ve the heart of a rabbit,” I retorted. “And you have long rabbit ears.”

Warden did have unusual ears.

“Anything more?” Warden demanded.

“Begone, you prison hound,” I said. “Take your yapping from my door.”

My voice had strengthened, and I began to sing, “Sing cucu, sing cucu, sing cucu.”

Chapter XII

I had learned the trick. And I knew that the way would be easier. Every succeeding journey will find less resistance. And so, as you will see, my journeys from San Quentin life into other lives were achieved almost automatically as time went by[45].

After Warden Atherton and his crew had left me it was a matter of minutes to let my body be back into the little death. It was death in life, but it was only the little death, similar to the temporary death produced by an anaesthetic.

Came the duration of darkness, and the slow-growing awareness of other things and of another self. First of all, in this awareness, was dust. It was in my nostrils, dry and acrid. It was on my lips. It coated my face, my hands, and especially the finger-tips. Next I was aware of ceaseless movement. I heard clash of iron tyres against rock and sand.

I opened my eyes. On the coarse blankets on which I lay the dust was half an inch thick. I was a child, a boy of eight or nine, and I was weary, as was the woman, who sat up beside me and soothed a crying babe in her arms. She was my mother; that I knew, just as I knew, that the shoulders of the man on the driver’s seat were the shoulders of my father.

When I started to crawl my mother said in a tired and querulous voice, “Can’t you ever be still a minute, Jesse?”

That was my name, Jesse. I did not know my surname, though I heard my mother call my father John. The other men addressed my father as Captain. I knew that he was the leader of this company.

I crawled out and sat down beside my father. My father had horses to his wagon. To right and left of us rode a dozen or fifteen men and youths on horses. Across their pommels were rifles. Our way was like a funeral march. Nobody laughed or smiled. Never did I hear a happy tone of voice. The faces of the men and youths were grim and hopeless. But I will not say that my father’s face was hopeless. It was grim and anxious, most anxious.

Suddenly our horses raised their weary heads and scented the air. The horses quickened their pace.

“What is it?” my mother asked from within the wagon.

“Water,” was my father’s reply. “It must be Nephi[46].”

And my mother: “Thank God! And perhaps they will sell us food.”

And into Nephi our great wagons rolled. The landscape was much the same as that through which we had passed. There were no trees, but there was water.

“That must be Bill Black’s mill they told us about,” my father said, pointing out a building to my mother.

An old man with sunburnt hair rode to our wagon and talked with father. The signal was given. Many women, all tired-faced and dusty like my mother, emerged from the wagons. Also poured forth many children. There must have been at least fifty children, and it seemed I knew them all of long time. The women began to cook supper.

While some of the men chopped sage-brush[47] and we children carried it to the fires that were kindling, other men unyoked the oxen and let them stampede for water.

My father with several men, including the old man with the sunburnt hair, went away on foot in the direction of the mill. I remember that all of us, men, women, and even the children, paused to watch them depart.

While they were away other men, strangers, inhabitants of desert Nephi, came into camp. They were white men, like us, but they seemed angry with all our company. Bad feeling was in the air.

One of the strangers came to our fire, where my mother was alone, cooking. I had just come up with an armful of sage-brush, and I stopped to listen and to stare at the intruder, whom I hated, because it was in the air to hate, because I knew that every last person in our company hated these strangers.

This stranger at our fire had blue eyes. Mother did not greet him, nor did he greet her. He stood and glowered at her for some time, then he cleared his throat and said with a sneer:

“I bet you want to be back in Missouri[48] right now.”

Mother answered:

“We are from Arkansas[49].”

“I guess you got good reasons to deny where you come from,” he said, “you that drove the Lord’s people from Missouri.”

Mother made no reply.

“And now,” he went on, after the pause, “you’re now coming and begging bread from us.”

“You lie!” I cried. “We aren’t Missourians. And we are not beggars. We’ve got the money to buy.”

“Shut up, Jesse!” my mother cried. And then, to the stranger, “Go away and let the boy alone.”

“I’ll shoot you, you damned Mormon[50]!” I screamed and sobbed at him.

As for the man himself, my conduct had not disturbed him. At last he spoke, and he spoke solemnly.

Like fathers like sons[51],” he said. “The young generation is as bad as the elder. The whole breed is unregenerate and damned. There is no atonement. Not even the blood of Christ can wipe out the iniquities.”



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