Old Calabria | Page 5

Innocent, looked in deadly embrace; and the
whole congress of figures enlivened and interpenetrated as by some
electric fluid--the personality of John of Procida. That the element of
farce might not be lacking, Fate contrived that exquisite royal duel at
Bordeaux where the two mighty potentates, calling each other by a
variety of unkingly epithets, enacted a prodigiously fine piece of
foolery for the delectation of Europe.
From this terrace one can overlook both Foggia and Castel
Fiorentino--the beginning and end of the drama; and one follows the
march of this magnificent retribution without a shred of compassion for
the gloomy papal hireling. Disaster follows disaster with mathematical
precision, till at last he perishes miserably, consumed by rage and
despair. Then our satisfaction is complete.
No; not quite complete. For in one point the stupendous plot seems to
have been imperfectly achieved. Why did Roger de Lauria not profit by

his victory to insist upon the restitution of the young brothers of Beatrix,
of those unhappy princes who had been confined as infants in 1266,
and whose very existence seems to have faded from the memory of
historians? Or why did Costanza, who might have dealt with her
enemy's son even as Conradin had been dealt with, not round her
magnanimity by claiming her own flesh and blood, the last scions of a
great house? Why were they not released during the subsequent peace,
or at least in 1302? The reason is as plain as it is unlovely; nobody
knew what to do with them. Political reasons counselled their
effacement, their non-existence. Horrible thought, that the sunny world
should be too small for three orphan children! In their Apulian fastness
they remained--in chains. A royal rescript of 1295 orders that they be
freed from their fetters. Thirty years in fetters! Their fate is unknown;
the night of medievalism closes in upon them once more. . . .
Further musings were interrupted by the appearance of a shape which
approached from round the corner of one of the towers. It cams nearer
stealthily, pausing every now and then. Had I evoked, willy-nilly, some
phantom of the buried past?
It was only the custodian, leading his dog Musolino. After a shower of
compliments and apologies, he gave me to understand that it was his
duty, among other things, to see that no one should endeavour to raise
the treasure which was hidden under these ruins; several people, he
explained, had already made the attempt by night. For the rest, I was
quite at liberty to take my pleisure about the castle at all hours. But as
to touching the buried hoard, it was proibito--forbidden!
I was glad of the incident, which conjured up for me the Oriental mood
with its genii and subterranean wealth. Straightway this incongruous
and irresponsible old buffoon was invested with a new dignity;
transformed into a threatening Ifrit, the guardian of the gold, or--who
knows?--Iblis incarnate. The gods take wondrous shapes, sometimes.

II

MANFRED'S TOWN
As the train moved from Lucera to Foggia and thence onwards, I had
enjoyed myself rationally, gazing at the emerald plain of Apulia, soon
to be scorched to ashes, but now richly dight with the yellow flowers of
the giant fennel, with patches of ruby-red poppy and asphodels pale and
shadowy, past their prime. I had thought upon the history of this
immense tract of country--upon all the floods of legislation and
theorizings to which its immemorial customs of pasturage have given
birth. . . .
Then, suddenly, the aspect of life seemed to change. I felt unwell, and
so swift was the transition from health that I had wantonly thrown out
of the window, beyond recall, a burning cigar ere realizing that it was
only a little more than half smoked. We were crossing the Calendaro, a
sluggish stream which carefully collects all the waters of this region
only to lose them again in a swamp not far distant; and it was positively
as if some impish sprite had leapt out of those noisome waves, boarded
the train, and flung himself into me, after the fashion of the "Horla" in
the immortal tale.
Doses of quinine such as would make an English doctor raise his
eyebrows have hitherto only succeeded in provoking the Calendaro
microbe to more virulent activity. Nevertheless, on s'y fait. I am
studying him and, despite his protean manifestations, have discovered
three principal ingredients: malaria, bronchitis and hay-fever--not your
ordinary hay-fever, oh, no! but such as a mammoth might conceivably
catch, if thrust back from his germless, frozen tundras into the damply
blossoming Miocene.
The landlady of this establishment has a more commonplace name for
the distemper. She calls it "scirocco." And certainly this pest of the
south blows incessantly; the mountain-line of Gargano is veiled, the
sea's horizon veiled,