Basil Bunting

THE SPOILS.

الاختيار

1.

These are the sons of Shem, after
their families, after their tongues,
in their lands, after their nations.

Man's life so little worth,
do we fear to take or lose it?
No ill companion on a journey, Death
lays his purse on the table and opens the wine.

ASSHUR:

As I sat at my counting frame to assess the people,
from a farmer a tithe, a merchant a fifth of his gain,
marking the register, listening to their lies,
a bushel of dried apricots, marking the register,
three rolls of Egyptian cloth, astute in their avarice;
with Abdoel squatting before piled pence,
counting and calling the sum,
ringing and weighing coin,
casting one out, four or five of a score,
calling the deficit;
one stood in the door
scorning our occupation,
silent: so in his greaves I saw
in polished bronze,
linked between the dead and death-to-come,
a man like me reckoning pence,
never having tasted bread
where there is ice in his flask,
storks' stilts cleaving sun-disk,

2

sun like driven sand.
Camels raise their necks from the ground,
cooks scour kettles, soldiers oil their arms,
snow lights up high over the north,
yellow spreads in the desert, driving blue westward
among the banks, surrounding patches of blue,
advancing in enemy land.
Kettles flash, bread is eaten,
scarabs are scurrying rolling dung.
Thirty gorged vultures on an asses carcass
jostle, stumble, flop aside, drunk with flesh,
too heavy to fly, wings deep with inner gloss.
Lean watches, then debauch:
after long alert, stupidity:
waking soar. If here you find me
intrusive and dangerous, seven years was I bonded
for Leah, seven toiled for Rachel;
Now in a brothel outside under the wall
have paused to bait on my journey.
Another shall pay the bill if I can evade it.

### LUD:
When Tigris floods snakes swarm in the city,
coral, jade, jet, between jet and jade, yellow,
enamelled toys. Toads
crouch on doorsteps. Jerboas
weary, unwary, may be taught to feed
from a fingertip. Dead camels, dead Kurds,
unmanageable rafts of logs
hinder the ferryman, a pull and a grunt
a stiff tow upshore against the current.
Naked boys among water-buffaloes,
daughters without smile
treading clothes by the verge,
harsh smouldering dung:
a woman taking bread from her oven
spreads dates, an onion, cheese.
Silence under the high sun. When the ewes go out
along the towpath striped with palmtrunk shadows
a herdsman pipes, a girl shrills
under her load of greens. There is no clamour
in our market, no eagerness for gain;
even whores surly, God frugal,
keeping tale of prayers.

### ARPACHSHAD:
Bound to be beasts' udders, rags no dishonour,
not by much intercourse we ennobled,
multitude of books, bought deference;
beagre flesh tingling to a mouthful of water,
apt to no servitude, commerce or special dexterity,

3

at night after prayers recite the sacred
enscrolled poems, beating with a leaping measure
like blood in a new wound:

These were the embers.... Halt, both, lament....
moon-silver on sand-pale gold,
lash against parched Arabia.
What's to dismay us?

ARAM:

By the dategroves of Babylon
there we sat down and sulked
while they were seeking to hire us
to a repugnant trade.

Are there no plows in Judah, seed or a sickle,
no ewe to the pail, press to the vineyard?

Sickly our Hebrew voices far from the Hebrew hills!

ASSHUR:

We bear witness against the merchants of Babylon
that they have planted ink and reaped figures.

LUD:

Against the princes of Babylon, that they have tithed of the best
leaving sterile ram, weakly hogg to the flock.

ARPACHSHAD:

Fullars, tailors, hairdressers, jewellers, perfumers.

ARAM:

David dancing before the Ark, they toss him pennies.
A farthing a note for songs as of the thrush.

ASSHUR:

Golden skin scoured in the sandblast
a vulture's wing, 'Soldier,

O soldier! Hard muscles, nipples like spikes.
Undo the neck-string, let my blue gown fall.'

Very much like going to bed with a bronze,

the child was cradled beside her sister silent and brown.
Thighs in the sunshaft, uncontrollable smile,

she tossed the pence aside in a brothel under the wall.

LUD:

My bride is borne behind the pipers,
kettles and featherbed,

on her forehead jet, jade, coral under the veil;
to bring ewes to the pail, bread from the oven.

5

over a forest of pillars.
At Veramin

Malekshah cut his pride in ≪ plaster
which hardens by age, the same
who found Khayyam a better reckoner
than the Author of the Qor'an.
Their passion's body was bricks and its soul algebra.

Poetry
they remembered
too much, too well.

'Lately a professor in this university'
said Khayyam of a recalcitrant ass,
'therefore would not enter, dare not face me.'

But their determination to banish fools foundered
ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

Fear of being imputed
naive impeded thought.

Eddies both ways in time:
the builders of La Giralda
repeated

heavily, languidly,
some of their patterns in brick.

I wonder what Khayyam thought
of all the construction and organisation afoot,
foreigners, resolute Seljuks, not so bloodthirsty
as some benefactors of mankind; recalling
perhaps Abu Ali's horror of munificent patrons;

books unheard of or lost elsewhere
in the library at Bokhara,

and four hours writing a day
before the duties of Prime Minister.

For all that, the Seljuks avoided
Roman exaggeration and the leaden mind of Egypt
and withered precariously on the bough
with patience and public spirit.

O public spirit!

Prayers to band cities and brigade men
lest there be more wills than one:

but God is the dividing sword.

A hard pyramid or lasting law
against fear of death and
murder more durable than mortar.

Domination and engineers

to fudge a motive you can lay your hands on
lest a girl choose or refuse waywardly.

One cribbed in a madhouse
set about with diagnoses;
one unvisited; one uninvited;
one visited and invited too much;
one impotent, suffocated by adulation;
one unfed: flares on a foundering barque,
stars spattering still sea under iceblink.

Tinker tapping perched on a slagheap
and the man who can mend a magneto.
Flight-lieutenant Idema, half course run
that started from Grand Rapids, Michigan,
wouldnt fight for Roosevelt,
'that bastard' Roosevelt, pale
at Malta's ruins, enduring
a jeep guarded like a tyrant.
In British uniform and pay
for fun of fighting and pride,
for Churchill on foot alone,
clinging with a cigar, was lost
in best blues and his third plane that day.

Broken booty but usable
along the littoral, frittering into the south.
We marvelled, careful of craters and minefields,
noting a new-painted recognisance
on a fragment of fuselage, sand drifting into dumps,
a tank's turret twisted skyward,
here and there a lorry unharmed
out of fuel or the crew scattered;
leaguered in lines numbered for enemy units,
gulped beer of their brewing,
mocked them marching unguarded to our rear;
discerned nothing indigenous, never a dwelling,
but on the shore sponges stranded and beyond the reef
unstayed masts staggering in the swell,
till we reached readymade villages clamped on cornland,
empty, Arabs feeding vines to goats;
at last orchards aligned, girls hawked by their mothers
from tent to tent, Tripoli dark
under a cone of tracers.
Old in that war after raising many crosses
rapped on a tomb at Lepta; no one opened.

Blind Bashshar bin Burd saw,
doubted, glanced back,
guessed whence, speculated whither.
Panegyrists, blinder and deaf,
prophets, exegesists, counsellors of patience
lie in wait for blood,
every man with a net.

**Condole with me with abundance of secret pleasure.**
What we think in private
will be said in public
before the last gallon's teemed
into an unintelligible sea -
old men who toil in the bilge to open a link,
bruised by the fling of the ship and sodden
sleep at the handpump. Staithes, filthy harbour water,
a drowned Finn, a drowned Chinee;
hard-lying money wrung from protesting paymasters.

Rosyth guns sang. Sang tide through cable
for Glasgow burning: '
'Bright west,
pale east,
catfish on the sprool'.

Sun leaped up and passed,
bolted towards green creek
of quiet Chesapeake,
bright of a warp no strong tide strains. Yet
as tea's drawing, breeze backing and freshening,
who'd rather
make fast Fortune with a slippery-hitch?
Tide sang. Guns sang:

'Vigilant,
pull off fluffed woollens, strip
to buff and beyond.'

In watch below
meditative heard elsewhere
surf shout, pound shores seldom silent
from which heart naked swam
out to the dear unintelligible ocean.

# The Terrible Night

We rose from our chairs, made sure that all the doors and windows were closed, and went to the chest. Gian Carlo turned the key and then, according to the instructions of his grandfather and father, made the large nail in the lower right-hand corner jump, with a strong knife. He stuck this nail in a whole very near the key-hole. He turned the key a second time, put the nail back into its first place, turned the key again, and opened the chest.

Inside were the chess-men, letters, military decorations and the famous snuff-box of Napoleon, which Gian Carlo pressed upon me as, he said, an installment of his debt to me, saving his father's life. I accepted, with joy. I have always kept this precious memento with me, since that terrible night.

We then turned out attention to the chess set. By placing the men in their order, we soon found the first two verses, as Napoleon had done:

## APPO TORRE DE SUO STALLO

## AVRAI GIOCO SINE FALLO

The puzzle now was to build the other two verses. I turned to Gian Carlo but he did not seem well, was sleepy and chilled. I thought he was merely drunk, and after helping him to the fire, went to work on the puzzle. Suddenly, while I was thinking, I heard a sound I already knew well, the sound of heavy, velvet clad feet. I felt a chill, and looked around the hall but everything seemed normal. I was not afraid, because my young companion was there. I went to look at him, and found him huddled in his chair in a state of collapse. His face was distorted in a terrible death mask. The pulse beat very faintly. I pushed him and called but got no response. He seemed to be in a state of catalepsy.

I was about to call the nurse when the flame of the ancient light moved, although there was no wind, and finally went out. Only the little light near the chess game remained. In the darkness the dull thud of the enormous feet continued. I sank back in the angle of the chimney, despairing and resigned.

The door creaked and a great shadow moved into the room. By the little
light I saw the ancient and diabolical Lupa. The face I seemed to know. I
shot all six bullets of my American pistol at the phantasm. The noise of the
shots echoed in the great room, and then I heard the nurse calling from the
hall, asking what was happening.

I opened the door, and the Aunt flew at me when she saw Gian Carlo.
He, however, came back to life and she spologized later for her excite-
ment. She then wanted to know the particulars of our adventure. She said
that she had been sleeping soundly. If this were so, how could she have, through
her hypnotic power, aroused phantasms of such strength? Anyhow, the handprints
on the bottles and the lights that went out were not imagination, they were
concrete facts.

Suddenly I discovered that the chess men had disappeared!

Blood-Stains

Next day the mystery deepened. Under my care and with the help of the
intelligent nurse, Gian Carlo came back to his normal state. He assured us that
he hadn't felt at all sick, simply had slept deeply! Moreover, he still felt
sleepy. We let him sleep and did not tell him what had happened. I myself
lay down next to him and saw that he slept soundly, and as if tired. However,
I couldn't sleep for worry and it was not until just before dawn that I fell
into a nervous and heavy sleep.

I awake late and found Gian Carlo up and very upset. He had opened the
mysterious door and, in addition to the odor of thyme, had found blood-stains fresh
blood-stains (he had been informed by his aunt of the night's happenings). He
had searched no further. I finished dressing in a hurry and we went out
together.

- He told me that the door had been locked and barred. We went up the stairs, through the door, to the library. All along, was the trail of blood, crossing diagonally the library. Following the trail, we enter the room of ancient armors. The trail of blood stopped absolutely at a closed armoire, the best kept piece there. Inside were nothing but rats and rags of ancient clothes, as in the other armoires, half-open. Underneath the armoire were three drawers. On one of these we found the blood-stained print of a hand, thin and long, like those on the bottles in the cellar, and I smelt the odor of thyme. I pulled open the drawer and found a mantilla of silk and a cap of lace, and a long robe, all old and worn-out, the clothes certainly of the lady in the library, and as in the nightly apparitions. Under these lay a bed of thyme, quite recently withered. The long robe stained my hands with blood. I opened it on a bench and discovered a small burnt hole at the height of the stomach and all around it a spot of blood, very fresh, obviously a shot from my revolver. So, it was a human being and not a specter!

Gian Carlo was so horrified that he was all for giving up the castle then and there. Now that his father was well again, we feared lest another attack come upon him, possibly fatal this time. We came to the conclusion that to abandon the castle was the sensible thing to do. Gian Carlo (went to village) began to make arrangements and I went out with my gun, to hunt.

When I came back, feeling healthy and hungry, I found Gian Carlo very happy. He had found many people ready to buy or rent the property. We allowed the Count to think that the chest was burnt. The old man was very happy. Everything became very peaceful.

THE CLIMAX

Five days passed in a normal fashion after the terrible night. One
morning, Gian Carlo and I rose at sunrise, I to hunt and G.C. to make plans
in the village. I felt happy in the woods, in the open air. I came to the
osteria where I had stopped with Ciamp. the day I arrived. A young village
girl called to me. She said her little padrona had to speak to me right away.
La Signorina Taurella, nearby. She presented the case very urgently. I
imagined an emergency and went off with her.

We came to a monument in front of an old, disused Gothic
church. I understood immediately that this was where the other branch of the
Pieroli family lived, hated by Mastiff Pieroli. The girl led me to a house
nearby, into a large church-like room. In the room there was nobody, but I
saw the chess-men. They were arranged to make all four verses! Even the two
that Napoleon and I had been unable to decipher. Immediately started to
write them down in my notebook. I had just begun when the door opened, and I
turned around. A tall beautiful blonde, dressed in black, entered. She looked
at me coldly.

She said, "you are not polite. Now that the chess-men are back with
their rightful owners, it is not right to take others' secrets."

Stung by her cold tone, I apologized and asked what I might do for her.

She led me through a long passageway and into a little room lit by
candle. Lying on a black head, surrounded by torches, was the horrible old
lady of the appritions, dead! Suddenly I understood the truth, that I had
killed that woman, had taken the life of a human being. I wrung my hands
and fell into a chair.

According to the young girl, their branch of the Pierolis was the
legitimate one, which (she said) she could prove by documents. The old
lady wanted to get the chess men back, and the secret that was really theirs.

She accused me of assassination. I replied that this poor old lady had killed G.C.'s mother, hurt his father, she the real assassin. Greatly astonished, she asked me to explain. She had, she said, just been out of school a year where she had been since a child. She knew nothing of these terrible things, and asked for explanation.

## The Mystery is Revealed

We went into a small room and I told her everything. She was astonished and said that on this point, about the stolen wealth, her grandmother had never been reasonable. Her grandmother had revealed her impersonation to the ggirl, but had not told her the outcomes. She asked, however, for a pardon for the old lady as she, the lovely girl, pardoned me my involuntary cruelty in killing this woman. She asks if her relations will pardon the old lady and I said that they would. From this strife, she says, she hopes that peace will come among the Pierolis. The young girl decides to return the chess set as a peace offering. She says that she is so alone now that the word "cousin" gives her consolation, therefore she wanted to send the chess set back to Gian Carlo. She said she had completed the fourth verse, but she didn't want to humiliate the Pierolis by her accomplishment. I thought that this gentle irony showed her intelligence; I, on my part, for delicacy felt like insisting that she keep it but was too elated at the thought of taking the set and the verse back to Gian Carlo, and the news of the end of strife.

I then asked if she could explain the mysteries of the castello. She said that she would be glad to tell all that she knew.

I asked, "Who appeared before Napoleon? And how did your grandmother walk through closed doors?"

However, treason killed Uguoccio and he was able to give the secret only to the chess board.

My ancestress appeared to Napoleon because she knew that Mastino wanted the Ikon at any price and she had heard that a mysterious stranger was at the castle. Fearful of what might be happening, she went to the castle but Mastino returned before she could take the chess set, and Napoleon's eagle eye discovered the key to the secret.

The passage way comes up into one of the corner towers, and leads into the library. Lifting a brick in the library floor, one can see everything in the throne room. So that my ancestress had only to open a window on the court and call out, in order to get Mastino's attention.

My grandmother wanted, most of all, to get the secret in the chess set, so that the Pierolis wouldn't become powerful and rich. For her, it was a way for her granddaughter's future.

The girl and her grandmother had guessed the Dr.'s presence and his purpose because they had read of his previous successes in the newspaper. Although they didn't know his name, they guessed Gian Carlo's purpose in travelling, something that he never did. The grandmother had gone to look at him the day he arrived -- the face I had seen through the olive groves. When the grandmother realized that the Dr. had come, she knew that Gian Carlo would learn about the secret, and she tried harder than ever to get back the chess set.

However, I was now interested in the means by which the grandmother went in and out, through closed doors.

The girl explained that the father of Brunoni and Lanciotto was very sick and very jealous, and before he would permit his young wife in the castle, he had a Florentine master fit new doors, with a secret, very simple once it is known. The chains, bolts and locks are all set, not in the wall, but in a frame, surrounding the whole door which looks very solid. However, this frame, door and all, moves when one presses very hard a false nail. It is as simple as Columbus' egg.

I then asked about the door in the cellar, which I remembered distinctly, had no frame but was set right in the wall. This door, she had opened the Sun, the castle was deserted, with a key hanging in the kitchen. She had then heard the conversation between me and Gian Carlo, she in the library all the time. The bottles were left marked, by imprudence, not by design. In the wine had been placed a strong dose of morphine, accounting for the bitter taste. The morphine had been put into the wine with a hypodermic syringe through the cork. The grandmother had used this drug for her neuralgia. Then she had planned to take the chess set while I and Gian Carlo were asleep.

I then asked for an explanation about the lights. The lampshades, it seems are held up by a hollow iron rod and if one blows very strongly through the iron rod, from the library, the flames will go out.

I then wanted to know how the old lady, wounded as she was, had gotten back to Badia. She, after the shot, had gone back to the library, put away the clothes, among the thyme (for repelling rats), put her hand over the wound and, with her incredible strength of will, gotten back by herself.

The young girl realized immediately that the wound was serious and sent for the village doctor, saying that the old lady had accidentally shot herself with an old pistol. After terrible sufferings, the old lady died last night. Before dying, she confessed to the young girl and asked forgiveness. The young girl had called the doctor to know who had killed her, fearing it was one of the Pierolis. She was relieved to see that it was nobody's fault, and hoped there might be peace and forgiveness among all the Pierolis. I said that Gian Carlo was young and noble, and that matters would no doubt go as she wished. Alone as she was, she did not wish hatred from her relatives.

I said that I felt the best thing was to go to the police and clear everything up, the matters of the heredity and the death, etc. However, the young girl did not want this, saying that courts of law would not bring peace.

I left the house, elated and charmed by my meeting with this heavenly creature.

There is revealed a second treasure

Gian Carlo was much astonished by the news I brought him. His first feeling was relief and joy, at the end of strife and mystery. He was much affected by the story of the grandmother and her forgiveness to him and his. I could not forget that I had killed a human being, and saw the dead body in all its majesty before my eyes. How different was my impression now from the one received at her apprisonment and in the olive grove.

Gian Carlo and the aunt paid honor at the funeral, with all G.C.'s contadini, each one with a leaf of cypress, according to custom. Sunday, G.C. and his aunt went personally to pay condolences to the young lady. The young girl won them both over, by her beauty and goodness.

These happenings quite changed G.C.'s plans about renting the castle. Sat. night, all gathered together with the chess board, set up as the girl had directed.

Neri

AP PO TËR RE DE SUO STAL LO

QUAT TRA SAS TI DE CA BAL LO

XXXXXXLOXEXXX

VER LO CAN TO DE LO LO

AV RAI GIO CO SI NE FAL LO

Bianchi

As one sees, four verses in common Trecento. However, the third is most important, the real key to the puzzle. We were so excited that we could do nothing more that day, to solve the problem of the missing syllable. We all felt a bit down that the young girl had so easily solved this difficult riddle. One morning I woke up very early, working at the puzzle again. The cock crowed and I struck my head. The missing syllable was gal!

I looked in the direction of the sound and saw a tower with a wind-mill, very near the little house of Ciampichella. This little tower combined with the voice of the rooster was a revelation.

I went immediately to the wake G.O. We went out into the great court and went toward the lace tower where there was an arcade surrounding a room with great vaults. At the very end was a low wall. I asked Gian Carlo what this place was in the times of Uguoccio. He replied that it had been a stable. This was it! I then asked if the old wind-mill existed in Uguoccio's time, and was it a chicken-house. G.O. replied yes. I then showed the completed verses:

APRO TORRE DE SUO STALLO

QUATTRO SALTI DE CABALLO

VER LO CANTO DE LO GALLO

AVRAI GIOCO SINE FALLO.

and means:

"You will find surely the treasure four jumps of a horse from the stable that is near the tower going toward the song of the cock," that is the tower where there is the chicken house. The distance between the stable and the chicken house is four jumps of a horse!

We gathered together some people and began hunting in the chicken house. We had no success and had to stop for dinner. After dinner G.O. wrote a poetic declaration of love to his cousin. Suddenly Ciampichella came into the room, asking what was happening, having returned from the valley to find the ground around his house dug up. He was so upset that he wanted to leave.

I said that we would put everything back and, with a sudden idea, asked him to drink. I then commissioned him to take G.O.'s letter. He became good-natured again, with the wine and promise of money, and went off.

Delicate fencing of love

Towards evening Ciampichella brought the answer. The lady asked that Ciampichella be left in peace. She also believed the treasure existed, but not xxx hidden in the chicken house. The chess set, she said, established the place very precisely, but it might not be there, for some unknown reason. She expressed herself moved to tears by the generous offer of G.O. However, she wonders if he will be satisfied with a poor, humble girl, when he is eligible for a woman of rank? She will accept, but under a condition. She will give the exact significance of the poem and the treasure will be found; however, if the treasure is not found, she will not marry him but leave him free to marry a wealthy woman.

The next morning a sunrise G.O. sent out the answer. He says that she can give him the secret only when she is his wife, because even if the treasure is not found, he will have a treasure in her.

The wedding was arranged and everybody happy, even the aunt very changed and gay. The Count was to remain at Perugia with xx me for awhile after the wedding, for recuperation. We now informed the Count about the happenings in the castle, which had been kept from him. He was overjoyed and hugged xxx me, saying that the treasure was mine as well as theirs.

After a long honeymoon, the young people came to Perugia and took the old Count home. I, at invitation, returned to the castle with them. G.O. absolutely refused to know, before marriage, the secret of the chess set.

["The Ikon with the Diamond Eyes", "March 8, 1887, in the throne room of the castle, entirely ΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧ\nrefurbished in the trecento style, ΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧ we gathered to unravel\nthe secret of the chess-board. Taurella asked for pen and ink. She explained\nthat the emblem of the Pierolis is not a grid-iron because it is ΧΧΧΧ and x shaped\njust like a chess-board with 64 squares! Uguoccio picked this emblem out be-\ncause it was the height of strategy. ΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧΧ

["Gian Carlo and I went to the spot, which we found kept as a place\nfor wood. Little light came in through an iron-baked window. We searched\nand found that the walls were solid, but that someone had been at the stones\nof the floor before them. We continued, the two of us, digging that day and\nthe next. After we got down two handsbreadths, we found the natural, firm\npacked earth, and only one spot that seemed at allyielding.", "Gian Carlo was digging and was at the bottom of a hole four metres deep, when he suddenly shouted that the walls were caving in on him. I heard a boom, felt the earth shaking and them silence. I called G.C. but there was no answer. I went down into the hole and found that one side of the hole went into a small room in which was G.C., surprised and still frightened from the shock of the discovery. And in a niche was the icon with the diamond eyes. We were overcome by the icon, as if with a poisonous atmosphere. Before we should go at each other's throats we ran out.", "## EPILOGUE", "After the moment of madness passed, we took the Icon out and presented\nit to Taurella and the aunt. The whole thing was begotten and most valuable.", "We feared lest the government would take the icon, an archeological\ntreasure, and took it to America to sell. I undertook the commission, and sold\nthe icon for 3 million lire, 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here. You will probably escape notice at Tuorlo, there are always very few
travellers there. Something that has happened recently seems to me rather
encouraging, that is why I am writing to beg you not to delay your arrival if you
can possibly come now. I await your arrival with impatience. Please burn this.
Yours etc..Gian Carlo Pieroli.

Mystery and romance always attract adventurous youth hungry for fresh
adventure, so not only did I burn the letter as requested but I gave my relations
and friends to understand that I was leaving for Florence. I then took the train
for Tuorlo. I arrived there on the Friday, a few minutes late. Before getting
out of the train I put on a dustcoat and a pair of smoked glasses so as to
disguise my appearance a little as I knew some people who lived in the neighborhood.
The tiny station was deserted. The long shining double track skirted the lake,
which shimmered with gold red lights in the sun. The only noise to disturb the
quiet was the buzzing of the telegraph posts. The calm beauty of the scene filled
me with a sense of joy and peace. On the other side of the level crossing I could
see a four wheeled covered cab with a grey horse waiting, a very old fashioned
looking conveyance.

"Here is where the adventure begins," I said to myself jokingly, as the driver of the vehicle, himself also an antique came towards me. He was a little old man all skin and bone dried up by the north wind of his native hills. He was rather bent and had a wrinkled peevish face. He hardly responded to my greeting but as he folded the carriage rug carefully around my legs I saw that his small eyes, sharp as needles were roving suspiciously over me and that I was being examined, weighed and summed up. At last he climbed up slowly to his seat and we drove off.
The road at first ran by the side of the lake, and I noticed that the reflections made in the water by its three green islands seemed like inverted pyramids.
However I was more interested in getting some information about the place and especially about the family I was going to visit from the driver, if I could, than in the scenery as I already knew that part of the country well.

In fact it was very necessary that I should get some facts about these people from someone who was not a member of the family and who would not be so influenced by its atmosphere of mystery, as I could see was the case with the young count. Besides it was highly probable that the circumstances of his mother's sudden death and of his father's paralysis might have been kept from their son but other members of the household and the country people round might be aware of them. So I commenced to feel my way, as one might say, but my companion blinking at me shortsightedly with his restless suspicious eyes answered my questions briefly and not too politely. Here is a sample of our conversation.

"Fine weather today my good man."

"Bad weather, the grapes need rain! And my name is Ciampichella if you want to address me."

"How is the count?"

"He will tell you that himself." And then with a suspicious glance he added, "And who are you? Are you a friend of the count's, or have you come on business?"

"By Jove," I said to myself, "here am I trying to pump him, and he is trying to cross examine me!" And it became my turn to be hard of hearing. So Ciampichella and I only succeeded in putting each other's backs up and we didn't find another word to say between us. When we reached the place where the road commenced to ascend Ciampichella got down and then I noticed for the first time that he limped. He seemed to trip up at every step he took and the sight of the funny old figure with his curious gate hobbling along beside the horse was so quaint that I could not help smiling. We could see more and more of the lake the higher we got, and the water was so very clear that the surrounding trees and hills and even the tiny clouds were mirroured clearly in it and looked like a bit of sky carpeting the earth. Every moment of the ascent the hills seemed to be more and more thickly wooded, there was a stillness and solemnity over everything that was striking. I was absorbed by the beauty of the scene and I hardly noticed that we had been twisting and turning for over an hour until we reached the top. We drew up in front

of a long low house with a slate roof such as they have in the north. Ciampichella nodded to a painted sign hanging outside and said pointedly, "This is the Inn, there is good wine to be had here."

I saw at once that here at least was a magnetic fluid that would cure his dumbness at least, and so I answered with enthusiasm, "Good! Let's have a drink," and jumping out of the carriage I followed him into the house. Besides a bottle of wine I ordered some bread and sausage which was home made and very good. Ciampichella's small eyes sparkled with greed. You should have seen the way he guzzled and the queer faces he made eating! When his nearly toothless jaws had been working steadily for a quarter of an hour, he pocketed the remains of the bread and sausage, and drank up the very last drops of the wine, which was quickly going to his head.

"Come sir," he said, "its getting late, the sun is nearly gone, I'll ride from now on as it is all down hill." And he climbed up to his seat beside me. He had now become extremely cheerful and started to chatter at once without waiting for me to speak.

"It's a great event, sir, to have visitors at the castle. No one ever comes now, you know."

I answered with an exclamation of surprise at the grandly impressive scene we had suddenly come upon. The road up till here had been bordered on both sides, but now the view was clear and uninterrupted by the trees and we looked down on the valley of Pierle stretched out far below between mountains covered with dark trees which must have been hundreds of years old. The twilight threw purple shadows over everything. A cold damp moist was rising from the bottom of the valley, the heights took on fantastic shapes in the evening light. At the commencement of the valley, was a mountain higher and wilder than the others and nearly bare of any vegetation. Here on a rocky platform dominating the abyss was a turreted fantastic looking castle. The whole scene was in such complete contrast to the quiet beauty of that by the lake where we had started that for the moment I was overcome with amazement.

them in rows, then he would take them to the light and examine them carefully. He seemed to be thinking hard over something and then he would write. After a while I fell asleep. Something woke me up suddenly, it must have been about midnight, there was moonlight on the floor. I heard the door creak, then open slowly, and saw something enter. It was the ghost of an old woman, very tall she was, and wore a cap and an old looking dress. I thought at first that I was dreaming, that it couldn't be true, but she came nearer and nearer till she got to the chest where the count kept his little wooden box. I was in a cold sweat with fear and I put my head under the blankets and kept it there until I heard the cock crow and my master start to move. I was taken ill after that and they had to send me home. I never said anything about what I had seen, I was afraid they would say I was mad, but I never would go back to sleep in that room. Only a few days after the poor count was found there in the state he is in now, a living statue! I know it was the sight of the ghost that petrified him with fright, the same one that killed the countess."

Ciampichella's tale did not greatly surprise me, his restless glance dented an unbalanced fanciful nature and the atmosphere of the solitary gloomy old castle must have got on all of its inmates nerves from the young count down. They probably all still believed old grandfathers' tales that they had been told when they were children, and which still scared them to death.

## Chapter VII

We reached the castle by six o'clock. A light wooden bridge had been put where once the drawbridge and portcullis used to be. The enormous walls were dominated by the square watch tower. Bats were darting round it shrieking in their sinister manner. The carriage drove in through the outer wall and stopped in front of the castle proper, a dark colossal geometric shape sharply silhouetted against the purple of the evening sky. This monstrous piece of architecture seemed a likely home for some terrible mystery and one could readily understand ignore

"Tomorrow I will let you see my father," said Gian Carlo, "now he is dozing. There has been a favourable change in his condition as I wrote you, that is why I was so anxious for you to come. Up to now we have considered it always such a hopeless case that we have done very little more for him than just the necessary nursing, but after I had heard of the wonderful cures you had made, I felt encouraged to make a new effort and have tried several new things for him, tonics, massage that we had not thought of up till now. I've been with him myself most of the time and it seems to me that there is a slight difference. There seems to be some slight pressure of response in his fingers, and his eyes seem to have some life in them, he looks at me with an expression of recognition, whereas he seems completely indifferent or even hostile to other people. You may think it strange that up till now my father has had no proper treatment, but as my aunt can tell you when he first had his stroke I was a small child, and for eleven years I was away most of the time. Our doctor had said that there was nothing to be done, that it was a case of paralysis affecting the brain, and quite uncurable. Isn't that what he said aunt?"

The Signorina Adalasia turned to me but she kept her eyes lowered while she spoke.

"Yes doctor, that is the way things have been. I am several years younger than my unfortunate brother. In the early days when he was living here, so happily with his wife, I was in the Salesian convent at Cortona....where I too was happy. After my sister-in-law's sudden death my brother sent for me to come here and look after the house for him. Then four years after that my brother fell into the state he is in now. What could I do? Inexperienced as I was, knowing really nothing of life, I trusted entirely to whay our old village doctor told us. Gian Carlo was sent to boarding school when he was ten years old. I did everything I could do for my brother, everything the doctor said, and that our parish priest suggested. In those days we did not know of men of science such as there are today, or we might have tried something...But what could I do on my own initiative? Gian Carlo gives me great hope that you will......"

the throne room where I had left Napoleon, I saw the tall shadow of a fantastic figure in a cap and cloak, it was someone quite unknown to me. Who could it possibly be? And what was the general doing? I rushed upstairs at breakneck speed, my heart beating furiously, and flinging open the door of the throne room noisily, looked quickly all round the room. The General was sitting in the same place as he had been when I had left him...and there was no one else in the room!

"Where have you been," he said lazily.

"In the court, somebody called me but when I got down there wasn't a soul there...I don't know what it can mean!"

"Perhaps it was the lady who was here just now."

"A lady," I cried, "what lady...and where did she come from and where is she now?"

"She came in by one door and went out the other," he answered pointing to the doors he meant.

"But General you must be mistaken, that door is bolted!"

"I tell you," he answered coldly, "that I heard that door creak and I turned round to see a very imposing old lady come in, some elderly relation, grandmother or aunt I suppose, her black silk cap and gown were certainly things of the last century. She probably wanted to have the pleasure of meeting your mysterious guest. A fine old lady in spite of her years!"

"General," I said, "this is a serious matter. I saw the shadow of what might have been an old woman on the window when I was outside, but I assure you that except for my mother, who is a slight little thing as you saw, there is no other woman in the house except a young servant girl, neither aunts nor grandmothers. That door you say she came in by gives on to the stairway leading to the upper floor, where we rarely go, the door is always kept locked, the key is hanging over the mantlepiece now.¹ As I spoke I took down the big key from its nail and unlocked the door. Napoleon was much surprised when he saw me turn the key twice in the lock before it opened, and the difficulty which I had turning the heavy old thing at all. The door being bolted it could not have been opened from the other side in any case.

"Strange"...he exclaimed, "and yet I could swear that she came in this way. I heard footsteps in the room above, then they came down the stairs so I was expecting to see some one come in when I heard the door hinges creak...I must say it's the first time I have had the honour of meeting a supernatural being...I am sorry she was anything but young and beautiful! But where did you say those stairs led to?"

"To the old library."

"Let's go up and see if there is anything there."

"Certainly," I answered glad that he had offered his company.

The library was directly above the throne room, we found the doors of all the other rooms on that floor which all gave onto it, securely locked. One of the big windows though was wide open and let in a draught of icy cold air.

"Brrrrr," Napoleon shivered.

"Yes, brrrrr!" said I, adding, "but who can have opened the window? It has been closed for years."

"The ghost!" said the General laughing.

I had put the lantern on the big central table while I fastned the window again. A cry of surprise made me turn round. The General had taken the light and was holding it up in front of the portrait of the famous "seeker" Lupa Pieroli.

"But here she is!" he cried, "the old woman I saw...the same eyes...the same rather crooked nose, the same cap and dress."

"Well she certainly has no right to be wandering about after all these hundreds of years," I answered.

The cold in the library was so intense that after having looked round carefully and wasted some time in useless conjectures we were very glad to get back to the throne room and settle down in front of the enormous hearth where a great log fire was crackling. We also warmed ourselves inside with two enormous goblets of our famous vin santo wine.

I was a little disturbed at what had happened but my illustrious guest laughed and joked about it.

"I never dreamt that I should ever make the acquaintance of an apparition,"

"I said, "Im so sorry, I laughed involuntarily."

Gian Carlo, "Quite all right. She had it coming."

After remaining silent for some time, until we felt that the Aunt had gone to bed, we turned our eyes to the chest, near the monumental fireplace.

"Well, let's get to work and open our bottles," I said.

We started for the cellar. Gian Carlo opened the door to the cellar with a key, explaining that a door from the court also opened into the cellar, for convenience. Through passages, filled with barrels, bottles, fiascos, of wine we came to a door with a grilled window which, Gian Carlo, explained used to be a prison. From this window, came a strong odor of thyme. We went through the door, through more passages, and came to a room with bottles of wine on a table, their labels illegible because of dust and humidity. We sought for the carafes of ancient wine, dark brown bottles. Gian Carlo suddenly screamed and jumped back. "Look!" There, on the shoulder of the bottles of ancient wine were the prints of a hand, a long bony hand. At first I thought Aunt A. to blame, then realized that her hand was small and well-shaped.

However, I tried to reason Gian Carlo out of his fear, telling him that I too had experienced some remarkable things, but by interpreting them in a reasonable way, remained the sensible sane person I was. Gian Carlo became somewhat more at ease and tried to laugh it off. Each of us took a bottle and we turned to leave. We returned to the throne room. We felt better with a cheerful fireplace. However, I felt some perturbation. I opened a bottle and poured. The wine, over a hundred years old, ran out clear like water, and had a fine odor, almost not real. It satisfied the fantasy more than the throat. "When wine is a bit bitter, you should keep it very dear," said Gian Carlo. "Yes, bitter," I said, placing the glass almost full on the table. Gian Carlo repeated the proverb again. The cloak struck midnight. Gian Carlo drank four glasses very quickly.