The evening world. Newspaper, July 8, 1905, Page 9

iii Price 1 Cent, Including [Fiction Supplement * } The Adventure s RAFFLES. No. 9 TE ee St oceeeneee FICTION SUPPLEMENT, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 8't 1905. * (Copyright 1905, by the Prevy Publishing Company.) a a J :! } inth Adventure ) N f island of Elba, where upon his own showing, he had met with much humanity. “Deadly, my dear Bunny, is not the word for The FATE OF F AUSTINA By E. W. HORNUNG. (Copyright. 1899, by Charics Scribner's Sons ) Mar—ga—r e perzo a Salvatore! that glorified snag or for the mo‘lusks its inhabi- tants. But they started by wounding my vanity, so perhaps I am prejudiced, after all. 1 sprung myself upon them as a shipwrecked sailor—a sole survivor—stripped in the sea and landed without a stitch; yet they took no more interest in me than you do in Italian organ-grinders. They were. decent enough. 1 didn’t have to pick and steal for a square meal and a pair of trousers; it would have been more exciting if 1 had. But what a place! Napoleon couldn’t stand it, you remember, but he held on longer than I did. I put in a few weeks in their infernal mines, simply to pick up a smattering of Italian; then got across to the mainland in a little wooden timber tramp, and Mar—ga—ri, F, Ma I'ommr’ e cacciatore! ungratefully glad I was to leave Elba blazing in Mar—ga—ri. just such another sunset as the one you won't Nun ce aje corpa tu! Chello ch’ ¢ fatto, e fatto no parlammo cchiu! r= PIANO-ORGAN was pouring the metallic music through our open windows, while a voice of brass brayed the words, which I tt have since obtained, and print above for identification by such as they know their Italy better than I. They will mot thank me for reminding them of a tune lately epidemic in that land of aloes and blue skies, but at least it is unlikely to run in their heads as the ribald accompaniment to a tragedy, and it does in mine. Tt was in the early heat of August, and the hour that of the lawful and necessary siesta for such as turn night into day. 1 was therefore shutting my window in a rage and wondering whether I should do the same for Raffles, when he appeared in the silk pajamas to which the chronic solicitude of Dr. Theobald confined him from morning to night. “Don't do that, Bunny,” said he. “I rather like that thing and want to listen. What sort of fellows are they to look at, by the way?” I put my head out to see, it being a primary Tule of our quaint establishment that Raffles must never show himself at any of the windows. 1 remember now how hot the sill was to my elbows as I leaned upon it and looked down in order to Satisfy a curiosity in which I could sce no point. “Dirty-iooking beggars,” said | over my shoul- der; “dark as dark; blue china, oleaginous curls and earrings; ragged as they make them, but nothing picturesque in their rags.” “Neapolitans all over,” murmured Raffles be- hind me, “and that’s a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other grinds; they always have that out there.” “He's rather a fine chap, the singer,” said I as the song ended, “My hat, what teeth! | He’s look- ing up here and grinning all round his head. Shall I chuck them anything?” “Well, I have no reason to love the Neapoii- tans, but it takes me back—it takes me back! Yes, here you are, one each.” It was a couple of half-crowns that Raffles put into my hands, but I had thrown them into the Street for pennies before | saw what they were. Thereupon | left the Italians bowing to the mud, as well they might, and | turned to protest against such wanton waste. But Raffles was walking up and down, his head bent, his eyes troubled, and his one excuse disarmed remonstrance. “They took me back,” he repeated. “My God, how they took me back!” Suddenly he stopped in his stride, “You don't understand, Bunny, old chap, but if you like you shall. 1 always meant to tell you some day, but never felt worked up to it before, and it’s not the kind of thing one talks about for talking’s sake, It isn't a nursery story, Bunny, and there isn’t a laugh in it from start to finish, On the contrary, you have often asked me what turned my hair gray, and now you are going to hear.” This was promising, but Raffles’s manner was something more. It was unique in my memory of thé man. His fine face’ softened and set hard by turns, 1 never knew it so hard. I never knew it so soft. And the same might be said of his voice, now tender as any woman's, now flying to the other extreme of equally unwonted ferocity, But this was toward the end of his tale; the begin- ning he treated characteristically enough, though | could have wished for a less cavalier account of the a) porsaes 28 eee TS TARY ATTY eer he euscanientar santas MONTE NT pi Aad amscaba bt EATERIES MTD iA ta OYE A forget. “The tramp was bound for Naples, but first touched at Baiae, where | carefully deserted in the night. There are too many English in Naples itself, though I thought it would make a_ first happy hunting ground when I knew the language better and had altered myself a bit more. Mean- while I got a billet of several sorts on one of the loveliest spots that ever I struck in all my travels. The place was a vineyard, but it overhung the sea, and I got taken on as tame sailorman and emergency bottle-washer. The wages were the noble figure of a lira and a half, which is just over a bob, a day, but there were lashings of sound wine for one and all and better wine to bathe in. And for eight whole months, my boy, I was an absolutely honest man. The luxury of it, Bunny! 1 out- Heroded Herod, wouldn't touch a grape, and went in the most delicious danger of being knifed for my principles by the thieving crew 1 had joined. “It was the kind of place where every prospect pleases—and all the rest of it—especially all the rest. But may I see it in my dreams till | die—as it was in the heginning—before anything began to happen. It was a wedge of rock sticking out into the bay, thatched with vines, and with the rum- miest old house on the very edge of all, a devil of a height above the sea. You might have sat at the windows and dropped your Sullivan-ends plumb into blue water a hundred and fifty feet below. “From the garden behind the house—such a garden, Bunny—oleanders and mimosa, myrtles, rosemary and red tangles of firey, untamed flow- ers—in a comer of this garden was the top of a subterranean stair down to the sea; at least, there were nearly two hundred steps tunnelled through the solid rock; then an iron gate, and another eighty steps in the open air, and last of all a cave fit for pirates a-penny-plain-and-twopence-colored. This cave gave upon the sweetest little thing in coves, all deep blue water and honest rocks; and here | looked after the vineyard shipping, a pot- bellied tub with a brown sail and a sort of dingy. The tub took the wine to Naples, and the dingy was the tub’s tender. “The house above us was said to be on the identical site of burban retreat of the admirable Tiberius. There was the old sinner's private the- atre, with the tiers cut clean to this day; the well where he used to fatten his lampreys on his slaves, and a ruined temple of those ripping old Roman Bricks, shallow as dominoes and middier than the cherry. I never was much of an antiquary, but T could have become one there if I'd had nothing else to do, but 1 had tots. When I wasn’t busy with the boats 1 had to trim the vines or gather the grapes, or even help make the wine itself in a cool, dark, musty vault underneath the temple that I can see and smel! as I jaw. And can’t I hear it and feel it, too! Squish, squash, bubble; squash, squish, guggle; and your feet as though you had been wading through slaughter to a throne. Yes, Bunny, you mightn’t think it, but this good right foot, that never was on the wrong side of the crease when the ball left my hand, has also been known to crush the lees of pleasure From sanguine grapes of pain.” He made a sudden pause, as though he had stumbled on the truth in jest. His face filled with lines. He was sitting in the room that had been bare when I first saw it, There were basket-chairs and a table in it now, all meant ostensibly for me, and hence Raffles would slip to his bed with school. boy relish at every tinkle of the bell, This after- noon we felt fairly safe, for Theobald had called in the morning, and Mrs, Theobald still took up