e Marchesa.

"Before sunset," answered San Miniato. "And we shall dine at our usual
hour."

"At least it will not be so hot as in the hotel, and after all it has
not been very fatiguing."

"No," said the Count, "I fail to see how your exertions can have tired
you much."

Ruggiero looked down at his master and at the fine lady as she lay
listlessly extended in her cane chair, and he felt that in his heart he
hated them both as much as he loved Beatrice, which was saying much. But
he wondered how it was that less than half an hour earlier he had been
ready to upset the boat and drown every one in it indiscriminately.
Nevertheless he believed that if there had been a stiff breeze just
then, enough for his purpose, he would have stopped the boat's way, and
then put the helm hard up again, without slacking out a single sheet,
and he knew the little craft well enough to be sure of what would have
happened. Murderous intentions enough, as he thought of it all now, in
the calm water under the great cliff from which tradition says that
Tiberius shot delinquents into space from a catapult.

The men pulled hard by the lonely rocks, for the sun had almost set and
they knew how sharp the stones are at Tragara, when one must tread them
barefoot and burdened with hampers and kettles and all the paraphernalia
of a picnic.

Then the light grew rich and deep, and the sea swallows shot from the
misty heights, like arrows, into the calm purple air below, and skimmed
and wheeled, and rose again, startled by the splash of the oars and the
dull knock of them as they swung in the tholes. And the water was like a
mirror in which all manner of rare and lovely things are reflected, with
blots of liquid gold and sheen of soft-hued damask, and great handfuls
of pearls and opals strewn between, and roses and petals of many kinds
of flowers without names. And the air was full of the faint, salt odours
that haunt the lonely places of the sea, sweet and bitter at once as the
last days of a young life fading fast. Then the great needles rose
gigantic from the depths to heaven, and beyond, through the mysterious,
shadowy arch that pierces one of them, was opened the glorious vision of
a distant cloud-lit water, and a single dark sail far away stood still,
as it were, on the very edge of the world.

Beatrice leaned back and gazed at the scene, and her delicate nostrils
expanded as she breathed. There was less colour in her face than there
had bee