twinkle of his eye. The truth was, that every sort of a thing that would
sail, and every wretch of a fisherman that could sail her, had been, as
he knew, and as I knew, sent off that very morning to rendezvous at
Carrara, for the contingent which we were hoping had slipped through
Cavour's pretended neutrality. And here was an order for him to furnish
me "transportation" in exactly the opposite direction.

"Do you know of anything, yourself, Fred?" said he.

"Not a coffin," said I.

"Did the chief suggest anything?"

"Not a nutshell," said I.

"Could not you go by telegraph?" said Frank, pointing up to the dumb old
semaphore in whose tower he had established himself. "Or has not the
chief got a wishing carpet? Or can't you ride to Gallipoli? Here are
some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom
Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation
for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead,
junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, _polenta_, or _olla podrida_, or
other of the stores of war?"

No; there was nothing to bring back except myself. Lucky enough if I
came back to tell my own story. And so we walked up on the tower deck to
take a look.

Blessed St. Lazarus, chief of Naples and of beggars! a little felucca
was just rounding the Horse Head and coming into the bay, wing-wing. The
fishermen in her had no thought that they were ever going to get into
the Atlantic. May be they had never heard of the Ocean or of the
Monthly. Can that be possible? Frank nodded, and I. He filled up with
more Tunisian, beckoned to an orderly, and we walked down to the
landing-jetty to meet them.

_"Viva Italia!"_ shouted Frank, as they drew near enough to hear.

_"Viva Garibaldi!"_ cried the skipper, as he let his sheet fly and
rounded to the well-worn stones. A good voyage had they made of it, he
and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue,
yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped
their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to
lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with
them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the
boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on
shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly fellows out to
them.

A very small craft it was to double all those capes in, run the straits,
and stret