"P-PLEASE DON'T KILL YOURSELF, DEAR? I COULDN'T HELP IT"




I

THE TRAIN FROM PALERMO



The train from Palermo was late. Already long, shadowy fingers were
reaching down the valleys across which the railroad track meandered.
Far to the left, out of an opalescent sea, rose the fairy-like Lipari
Islands, and in the farthest distance Stromboli lifted its smoking
cone above the horizon. On the landward side of the train, as it
reeled and squealed along its tortuous course, were gray and gold
Sicilian villages perched high against the hills or drowsing among
fields of artichoke and sumac and prickly pear.

To one familiar with modern Sicilian railway trains the journey
eastward from Palermo promises no considerable discomfort, but
twenty-five years ago it was not to be lightly undertaken--not to be
undertaken at all, in fact, without an unusual equipment of patience
and a resignation entirely lacking in the average Anglo-Saxon. It was
not surprising, therefore, that Norvin Blake, as the hours dragged
along, should remark less and less upon the beauties of the island and
more and more upon the medieval condition of the rickety railroad
coach in which he was shaken and buffeted about. He shifted himself to
an easier position upon the seat and lighted a cheroot; for although