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Page 79
The password was, is, and ever will be, Napoleon. Speak that name and
the native's eye will fire and his patois will rattle forth and tingle
the ear like a snare-drum. Though he pays his tithe to France, he is
Italian; but unlike the Italian of Italy, his predilection is neither
for gardening, nor agriculture, nor horticulture. Nature gave him a
few chestnuts, and he considers that sufficient. For the most part he
subsists upon chestnut-bread, stringy mutton, sinister cheeses, and a
horrid sour wine. As a variety he will shoot small birds and in the
winter a wild pig or two; his toil extends no further, for his wife is
the day-laborer. Viewing him as he is to-day, it does not seem
possible that his ancestors came from Genoa la Superba.
Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, but the blood in his veins was Tuscan,
and his mind Florentine.
These days the world takes little or no interest in the island, save
for its wool, lumber and an inferior cork. Great ships pass it on the
north and south, on the east and west, but only cranky packets and
dismal freighters drop anchor in her ports.
The Gulf of Ajaccio lies at the southwest of the island and is
half-moon in shape, with reaches of white sands, red crags, and brush
covered dunes, and immediately back of these, an embracing range of
bald mountains.
A little before sunrise the yacht _Laura_ swam into the gulf. The
mountains, their bulks in shadowy gray, their undulating crests
threaded with yellow fire, cast their images upon the smooth tideless
silver-dulled waters. Forward a blur of white and red marked the town.
"Isn't it glorious?" said Laura, rubbing the dew from the teak rail.
"And oh! what a time we people waste in not getting up in the mornings
with the sun."
"I don't know," replied Fitzgerald. "Scenery and sleep; of the two I
prefer the latter. I have always been routed out at dawn and never
allowed to turn in till midnight. You can always find scenery, but
sleep is a coy thing."
"There's a drop of commercial blood in your veins somewhere, the blood
of the unromantic. But this morning?"
"Oh, sleep doesn't count at all this morning. The scenery is
everything."
And as he looked into her clear bright eyes he knew that before this
quest came to its end he was going to tell this enchanting girl that he
loved her "better than all the world"; and moreover, he intended to
tell it to her with the daring hope of winning her, money or no money.
Had not some poet written--some worldly wise poet who rather had the
hang of things--
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all."
Money wasn't everything; she herself had made that statement the first
night out. He had been afraid of Breitmann, but somehow that fear was
all gone now. Did she care, if ever so little?
He veered his gaze round and wondered where Breitmann was. Could the
man be asleep on a morn so vital as this? No, there he was, on the
very bowsprit itself. The crew was busy about him, some getting the
motor-boat in trim, others yanking away at pulleys, all the
preparations of landing. A sharp order rose now and then; a servant
passed, carrying Captain Flanagan's breakfast to the pilot-house. To
all this subdued turmoil Breitmann seemed apparently oblivious. What
mad dream was working in that brain? Did the poor devil believe in
himself; or did he have some ulterior purpose, unknown to any but
himself? Fitzgerald determined, once they touched land, never to let
him go beyond sight. It would not be human for him to surrender any
part of the treasure without making some kind of a fight for it,
cunning or desperate. If only the women-folk remained on board!
Breitmann gazed toward the town motionless. It was difficult for
Fitzgerald not to tell the great secret then and there; but his caution
whispered warningly. There was no knowing what effect it would have
upon the impulsive girl at his side. And besides, there might have
been a grain of selfishness in the repression. All is fair in love or
war; and it would not have been politic to make a hero out of Breitmann.
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