A Spirit in Prison | Page 9

oars he slowly paddled a little way out to a deep clear pool
of the sea.
"I'll go in here, Signorina."
He stood up straight, with his feet planted on each side of the boat's
prow, and glanced at the water intimately, as might a fish. Then he shot
one more glance at Vere and at the cigarettes, made the sign of the
cross, lifted his brown arms above his head, uttered a cry, and dived
cleanly below the water, going down obliquely till he was quite dim in
the water.
Vere watched him with deep attention. This feat of the boy fascinated
her. The water between them made him look remote, delicate and
unearthly--neither boy nor fish. His head, she could see, was almost
touching the bottom. She fancied that he was actually touching bottom
with his hands. Yes, he was. Bending low over the water she saw his
brown fingers, stretched out and well divided, promenading over the
basin of the sea as lightly and springily as the claws of a crab tip-
toeing to some hiding-place. Presently he let himself down a little more,
pressed his flat palms against the ground, and with the impetus thus
gained made his body shoot back towards the surface feet foremost.

Then bringing his body up till it was in a straight line with his feet, he
swam slowly under water, curving first in this direction then in that,
with a lithe ease that was enchantingly graceful. Finally, he turned over
on his back and sank slowly down until he looked like a corpse lying at
the bottom of the sea.
Then Vere felt a sickness of fear steal over her, and leaning over the sea
till her face almost touched the water, she cried out fiercely:
"Come up! Come up! Presto! Presto!"
As the boy had seemed to obey her when she cried out to him from the
summit of the cliff, so he seemed to obey her now.
When her voice died down into the sea-depths he rose from those
depths, and she saw his eyes laughing, his lips laughing at her, freed
from the strange veil of the water, which had cast upon him a spectral
aspect, the likeness of a thing deserted by its soul.
"Did you hear me that time?" Vere said, rather eagerly.
The boy lifted his dark head from the water to shake it, drew a long
breath, trod water, then threw up his chin with the touch of tongue
against teeth which is the Neapolitan negative.
"You didn't! Then why did you come up?"
He swam to the boat.
"It pleased me to come."
She looked doubtful.
"I believe you are birbante," she said, slowly. "I am nearly sure you
are."
The boy was just getting out, pulling himself up slowly to the boat by
his arms, with his wet hands grasping the gunwale firmly. He looked at
Vere, with the salt drops running down his sunburnt face, and dripping

from his thick, matted hair to his strong neck and shoulders. Again his
whole face laughed, as, nimbly, he brought his legs from the water and
stood beside her.
"Birbante, Signorina?"
"Yes. Are you from Naples?"
"I come from Mergellina, Signorina."
Vere looked at him half-doubtfully, but still with innocent admiration.
There was something perfectly fearless and capable about him that
attracted her.
He rowed in to shore.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Sixteen years old, Signorina."
"I am sixteen, too."
They reached the islet, and Vere got out. The boy followed her,
fastened the boat, and moved away a few steps. She wondered why, till
she saw him stop in a sun-patch and let the beams fall full upon him.
"You aren't afraid of catching cold?" she asked.
He threw up his chin. His eyes went to the cigarettes.
"Yes," said Vere, in answer to the look, "you shall have one. Here!"
She held out the packet. Very carefully and neatly the boy, after
holding his right hand for a moment to the sun to get dry, drew out a
cigarette.
"Oh, you want a match!"
He sprang away and ran lightly to the boat. Without waking his

companions he found a matchbox and lit the cigarette. Then he came
back, on the way stopping to get into his jersey.
Vere sat down on a narrow seat let into the rock close to the sun- patch.
She was nursing the dolce on her knee.
"You won't have it?" she asked.
He gave her his usual negative, again stepping full into the sun.
"Well, then, I shall eat it. You say a dolce is for women!"
"Si, Signorina," he answered, quite seriously.
She began to devour it slowly, while the boy drew the cigarette smoke
into his lungs voluptuously.
"And you are only sixteen?" she