" asked the younger boy.

"Who knows? But if we do as he tells us he will give us more bread
to-morrow."

"He is very good to us."

"Because we beat Don Pietro Casale. Don Pietro cheated him last year. I
saw the cottonseed oil he mixed with the good, in that load we brought
down."

"Perhaps the fishing is not for fish," suggested little Sebastiano,
curling himself up and laying his head on the end of the chock.

They did not know what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them
with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight
that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope in his hands.

"As I launch her, take the chocks from behind and put them in front," he
said in a low voice.

Then he laid the oars softly in the bows and dropped the rope into the
bottom, and began to push the boat slowly down to the sea. The boys did
as he had told them to do, and in a few minutes the bows were in the
rippling water. The old sailor took off his shoes and stockings and put
them on board, and rolled up his trousers. Then with a strong push he
sent her down over the pebbles and got upon the bows as she floated out.
To look at his heavy form you would not have thought that he could move
so lightly and quickly when he pleased. In a moment he was standing over
the oars and backing to the beach again for the boys to get in. They
stood above their knees in the warm water and handed him the chocks
before they got on board. He nodded as though satisfied, but said
nothing as he pulled away towards the rocky point. The lads sat silently
in the stern, wondering whither he was taking them. He certainly had
brought no fishing tackle with him. There was not even a torch and
harpoon aboard for spearing the fish. He pulled rapidly and steadily as
though he were going on an errand and were in a hurry, keeping close
under the high rocks as soon as he was clear of the reefs at the cape.
At last, nearly an hour after starting, the boys made out a great
deserted tower just ahead. Then Antonino stopped pulling, unshipped his
oars one after the other and muffled them just where the strap works on
the thole-pin, by binding bits of sailcloth round them. He produced the
canvas and the rope-yarn from his pockets, and the boys watched his
quick, workmanlike movements without understanding what he was doing.
When he began to pull again the oars made no noise against the tholes,
and he dipped the blades gently into the water, as he