Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Fiction; War stories
"Yes," said Cosmo, very low and as if unconscious of what he was saying.
"I have seen your faces very close together."
The other made a slight movement away from Cosmo and then bent towards
him. "You have seen," he said slowly and stopped short. He was thinking
of something that had happened only two hours before. "Oh well," he said
with composure, "you know everything, you see everything that happens.
Do you know what will happen to us two?"
"It's very likely that when we part we will never see each other again,"
Cosmo said, resting his elbows on his knees and taking his head between
his hands. He did not look like a man preparing to go ashore.
There were no material difficulties absolutely to prevent him from
landing. The foot of the tower with the narrow strip of ground which a
boat could approach was not sixty yards off, and all this was in the
shadow of its own reflection, the high side of the breakwater, the bulk
of the tower, making the glassy water dark in that corner of the shore.
And besides, the water in which the boat floated was so shallow that
Cosmo could have got to land by wading from where the boat lay without
wetting himself much above the knees, should Attilio refuse to come out
from under the shelter of the rock. But probably Attilio would not have
objected. The difficulty was not there.
Attilio must have been thinking on the same subject, as became evident
when he asked Cosmo whether those _sbirri_ knew where he lived. After
some reflection Cosmo said that he was quite certain they knew nothing
about it. The _sbirri_ had put no questions to him. They had not, he
said, displayed any particular curiosity about what he was. "But why do
you ask?"
"Don't you know?" said Attilio, with only half-affected surprise. "There
might have been a dozen of them waiting for you in the neighbourhood on
the chance of your returning, and you have no other place to go to."
"No, I haven't," said Cosmo in a tone as though he regretted that
circumstance. He thought, however, that there might have been some of
them out between the port and the town, and he knew only one way and
that not very well, he added.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account