taly; and some while we
passed in great cordiality, so ripe on his part that I ventured the
other business.

"'By-the-by, Signor Vezzia, that's a marvellous battleship you have in
your second dock; I have never seen anything like her before.'

"I spoke the words, and read him as one reads a barometer. He shrank
visibly into his bulb, and the tone of his conversation marked a storm.
I heard him mutter 'Diavolo!' under his breath, and then the mercury of
his conversation mounted quickly.

"'Yes, yes; a curious vessel, quite a special thing, for a South
American Republic, an idea of theirs--but you will extend me the favour
of your pardon, I am busy'--and in his excitement he put his spectacles
off and on, and called 'Giovanni, Giovanni!' to his head clerk, who
made business to be rid of me. Clearly, as a piece in the game I was
playing, Signor Vezzia had made his solitary move. He was no more upon
my board, miserably void as it was, and in despair I mounted to my
hill-top again; and spent the morning where the vines grew, looking
down upon the golden ship which was built for a 'South American
Republic.' That tale I never believed, for the man's face marked it as
a lie as he gave it to me; but the mere telling of it added piquancy to
the dish I had tasted of, and I resolved in that hour to devote myself
heart and soul to the work of unravelling the slender threads, even if
I lost my common employment in the business. The reverie held me long.
I was roused from it by the sight of a dull vapour mounting from the
funnel of the nameless ship. She was going to sail then--at the next
tide she might leave Spezia, and there would be no more hope. I threw a
word at my dreaming, and hurried from the vines to my hotel in the town
below.

"Now you may form opinion that my prospects in this abstruse and
perplexing chase were not at that time much to vaunt. My theories and
my acts had led me into a mental _cul-de-sac_, a blind alley, where, in
lack of exit, I took hold of every straw that the wind of thought set
flying. Here was the problem at this stage as it then appeared to
me:--Item (1): A ship built of some metal I had no knowledge of. Item
(2): A ship that shone like a rich sunset on a garden lake. Item (3): A
ship that was armed to the full, as a casual glance told me, with every
kind of quick-firing guns, and with two ten-inch guns in her turret.
Item (4): A ruffianly blackguard, to whom the cutting of a throat
seemed meat