attempt to give
pleasure deserved, perhaps, more credit than it received.

"It is charming, dearest friend!" was all the Marchesa vouchsafed to
say, when the performers paused.

Beatrice sat stony and unmoved, and spoke no word. She said to herself
that San Miniato was again attempting to prepare the scenery for a
comedy, and she could have laughed to think that he should still delude
himself so completely. Teresina would have clapped her hands in applause
had she dared, but she did not, and contented herself with trying to see
into Bastianello's eyes. She was very near him as she sat furthest
forward in the stern-sheets and he pulled the starboard stroke oar,
leaning forward upon the loom, as the gust filled the sails and the boat
needed no pulling.

"You do not care for the mandolin, Donna Beatrice?" said San Miniato,
with a sort of disappointed interrogation in his voice.

"Have I said that I do not care for it?" asked the young girl
indifferently. "You take too much for granted."

Grim and silent on the stern sat Ruggiero, the tiller in his hand, his
eye on the dark water to landward constantly on the look-out for the
gusts that came down so quickly and which could deal treacherously with
a light craft like the one he was steering. But he had no desire to
upset her to-night, nor even to bring the tiller down on his master's
head. There was to be no bungling about the business he had in hand, no
mistakes and no wasting of lives.

The mandolin tinkled and the guitar strummed vigorously as they neared
Scutari point, vast, black and forbidding in the starlight. But a gloom
had settled upon the party which nothing could dispel. It was as though
the shadow of coming evil had overtaken them and were sweeping along
with them across the dark and silent water. There was something awful in
the stillness under the enormous bluff, as Ruggiero gave the order to
stop pulling and furl the sails, and he himself brought the skiff
alongside by the painter, got in and kept her steady, laying his hand
upon the gunwale of the larger boat. Bastianello stood up to help
Beatrice and Teresina.

"Will you come, Donna Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, wishing with all his
heart that he had never proposed the excursion.

It seemed absurd to refuse after coming so far and the young girl got
into the skiff, taking Ruggiero's hand to steady herself. It did not
tremble to-night as it had trembled a few days ago. Beatrice was glad,
for she fa