earnings, just as I now put them in the bank."

"God be blessed!" exclaimed Bastianello, touching his cap, and staring
at the same vessel that had attracted Ruggiero's attention.

"She carries royal studding-sails," observed Ruggiero. "You do not often
see that in our part of the world."

"That is true," said Bastianello. "But I was not thinking of her, when I
looked. And I thank you for what you say, Ruggiero, and with my heart.
And that is enough, because it seems that we know each other."

"We have been in the same crew once or twice," said Ruggiero.

"It seems to me that we have," answered his brother.

Neither of the two smiled, for they meant a good deal by the simple
jest.

"Tell me, Ruggiero," said Bastianello after a pause, "since you never
loved Teresina, who is it?"

"No, Bastianello. That is what I cannot tell any one, not even you."

"Then I will not ask. But I think I know, now."

Going over the events of the past weeks in his mind, it had suddenly
flashed upon Bastianello that his brother loved Beatrice. Then
everything explained itself in an instant. Ruggiero was such a
gentleman--in Bastianello's eyes, of course--it was like him to break
his heart for a real lady.

"Perhaps you do know," answered Ruggiero gravely, "but if you do, then
do not tell me. It is a business better not spoken of. But what one
thinks, one thinks. And that is enough."

A crowd of brown-skinned boys were in the water swimming and playing, as
they do all day long in summer, and dashing spray at each other. They
had a shabby-looking old skiff with which they amused themselves,
upsetting and righting it again in the shallow water by the beach beyond
the bathing houses.

"What a boat!" laughed Bastianello. "A baby can upset her and it takes a
dozen boys to right her again!"

"Whose is she?" enquired Ruggiero idly, as he filled his pipe.

"She? She belonged to Black Rag's brother, the one who was drowned last
Christmas Eve, when the Leone was cut in two by the steamer in the Mouth
of Procida. I suppose she belongs to Black Rag himself now. She is a
crazy old craft, but if he were clever he could patch her up and paint
her and take foreigners to the Cape in her on fine days."

"That is true. Tell him so. There he is. Ohe! Black Rag!"

Black Rag came down the pier to the two brothers, a middle-aged,
bow-legged, leathery fellow with a ragged grey beard and a
weather-beaten face.

"What do you want?" he asked, stoppin