A fishing smack went by toward Italy, its lateen sail bellied in the breeze. Two men sat in the cockpit eating great hunks of bread. Tod promptly remembered that he was ravenously hungry—and sleepy too. His hand closed on the little roll of paper francs in his pocket. He didn't have much money. Before he spent any for breakfast he'd better get some sleep. It was early, surely not more than five-thirty; and in all probability no one would be stirring in the Villa Paradis for several hours yet.
He stepped to one side and dragged his tired legs through the long damp grass by the wall. At a point where the weeds grew thick, he pressed them down into the semblance of a nest and flung his weary body upon them full length. It was peaceful here; the only sound was a slight rustling in the grass as though snakes were gliding away in the shadows. Even that thought had no power to disturb him now; he went instantly to sleep.
The sound of approaching cart wheels wakened him. He sat up. The sun was already halfway to the zenith; it must be ten o'clock. He beheld a decrepit sorrel horse pulling a cart along the roadway, with a peasant in a smock slumbering on the seat. Realizing at once that here was his opportunity to get within the walls, he hurried to meet the old man.
His benefactor of the early morning gazed at him in astonishment. "What, mon enfant! You again!" he exclaimed. "Did you not rouse your friends in the villa?" His brows knitted in a frown as he pulled up his horse.
In a flash Tod determined to be frank. "Monsieur, let me ride into the grounds of the villa with you. I will pay you three francs, five francs. But not a word to them within. Compris?"
The peasant nodded sagely. "Well, I like not the Villa Paradis myself. What can one expect when the owner brings a dirty pair from Marseilles to care for the place! Look at it. In another year, the weeds will be growing from the chimney. Ah, those Marseillaises! Ugh! They are cut-throats." He drew his hand expressively across his throat.
Tod climbed over the large cumbrous wheel and crouched on some sacks behind the plank which, when the cart was empty, served as a seat. The sorrel gazed round curiously; then, with a look of dumb resignation, he began once more his even, funereal pace. At the villa gate, they stopped; the old man descended and jerked on a handle at one side. Immediately, the shrill jangle of a bell broke the morning stillness.
"That'll bring Jules," he said, nodding complacently as he climbed to his seat.
A man came hastening down the path from the villa. Tod watched him closely as he turned a huge key in the lock and swung back the gate. Jules was a small thickset man dressed in corduroy trousers and blue shirt; he had the grim countenance of one who is bred in dirty seaport alleys and has never looked upward at the sun. His glance swept them narrowly. Motioning them within, he flung out a greeting in a voice harsh and guttural. "And whom do you bring with you in the cart?" he added.
"Only a little friend from Cagnes," replied the old man as picked up the reins. "He rides with me— now and then."
The cart creaked; they passed the gate and jolted up the sombre avenue toward the Villa Paradis. The plane trees sighed overhead; the weeds brushed the wheels; a rabbit bounded away into a thicket. A moment later, the house rose before them, a straight, high dwelling with dark windows which stared sightlessly out at the day.
They rounded a corner to a kitchen door, from which issued the rattle of dishes. A cry from the old peasant brought a woman to the doorway. She was tall and erect as a youth, though the hair that fell in wisps about her face was gray. On her upper lip a black moustache was visible. As she crossed to them, her eyes, black and beady, favoured Tod with a brief scrutiny. He was glad when the onions and lettuce drew her attention. Jules now joined his wife at the cart, and immediately they began haggling over prices.
Tod let his keen glance run over the square stone house, once a proud villa set in luxuriant grounds, now a mockery of its former self, in decay, in disfavour, rotting away beneath the onslaught of the damp seas about it. Was Jasper Swickard sleeping somewhere in those rooms above? And Neil—was he a prisoner beneath the eaves in the attic where the sun rarely penetrated? Tod shivered. The unkempt garden, the mildewed house, the ruffian and his evil-looking wife with their churlish voices, all made him abruptly sicken. He trembled at the thought of Neil confined in the darkness of such a lair.
"To-morrow, Madame Therese?" The old peasant was pocketing his money.
"No—Saturday, you fool!"
Jules, with a gruff laugh, put out his hand. "And the other—you have brought it?" he asked in a lowered tone. "Our English vagabond could not live without it."
The peasant smiled grimly. Reaching into a pocket beneath his smock, he brought forth a tiny package. Jules's large hand closed upon it.
"He is better, perhaps?" inquired the old man.
Jules gave Tod a quick glance. "Better? No— worse!" His mouth broke into a snarl as he glanced over his shoulder. "Here Moran is now—the worthless dog!"
Moran! In the stillness of the morning the word rang loud and clear. Tod heard his pulse beating in his ears. His fascinated gaze was directed upon the tall figure of a young man in soiled overalls who came round the house. In one hand he carried a rake, in the other a shovel. Neil! Neil! But as Tod stared, his heart sank.
Instead of the Neil of laughing mouth and glowing eyes, the Neil of gay gestures and engaging manners, this was a Neil who was a stranger to him. The handsome face was pallid and drawn, the mouth drooping, the eyes lifeless as burnt-out coals. He walked with slow leaden feet that might have echoed down the corridor of a tomb.
Madame Therese uttered an evil chuckle. "Do you think he improves, monsieur?"
At his brother's approach, Tod clung to the wooden sides of the cart; his knees of a sudden had turned to water.
"I'm going to clean up the grape arbour, Jules. Is that right?"
The voice was Neil's, but the accent another's. Tod had heard him speak French many times after his return from his passages to Europe; he had insisted that his younger brother learn it too; never, though, had the soft French words sounded so dulled, so remote from reality. Over the boy ran a terrified quiver of apprehension. Neil was seemingly not a prisoner; rather did he have the appearance of a person in hiding. What did it signify? . . . Bit by bit, there crept back into his mind all those accusations that had been like sword thrusts to him—the words of Jasper Swickard in the wharf office in San Francisco, the deprecating tone of Hawkes when he told of Neil's disappearance, the thrusting keenness of Red Mitchell's attack in the forecastle, the bitter accusation of Tom Jarvis in his cabin. Was Neil immersed in the schemes of the European-Pacific Company, regretting his part perhaps too late, halfheartedly hanging on to the shreds? . . . Why did he not look his way? Didn't he intend to recognize his brother?
"Vegetables, Madame Therese?" Neil murmured, with all the old ringing notes gone. He came close to the cart; his hand, white beneath the soil that clung to it, strayed along the wheel. Glancing forlornly upward he met the widened gaze of his brother.
Something deep within the boy stirred at sight of those upturned eyes, dulled yet tortured, beseeching. They pulled at his heart like the wistful eyes of a caged beastie of the woods. It came over Tod that there were bars more subtle and strong than any forged by the hand of man, that there were darker chambers in a tortured mind than any prison cell.
And Neil—Neil was in such a room now, with the darkness about him, peering out between bars in helpless misery.