But this May morning, blown by a light wind that set the blue sea
dancing and would soon make them very ill, astir with the thronging of
ships in the harbour, and the hooting of voyages begun, was full of
unquenchable hopes and unvanquished youth and gay beginnings.

Some one on the launch was playing 'Addio, bella Napoli' on a mandolin;
the Crevequers called again 'Good-bye,' and leaned over the rail and
watched the sea-face of the city, crowned by Castel St. Elmo on the
hill, growing smaller in the distance. So much of life lay there....

They left it there, gold and dross, in that crucible which had so
transmuted it. Gold or dross, it seemed to matter little; it had melted
from them, burning their hands.

They looked at it once more, saw it dwindle far away, then turned
together to the wide, blue newness of the sea.

* * * * *

Betty had to make both the boats, because Tommy could not yet use his
right hand. She made them out of the pieces of red bark which flaked off
the pine-trunks and lay in heaps by the edge of the pool. Each boat was
about six inches long and two inches wide, square about the stern and
pointed in the bows, with a pine-needle mast and an envelope sail. To
prevent bitterness and evil speaking, Tommy had his choice of them when
they were finished. Then they were launched, and the Crevequers lay and
watched them, knowing that not for a long time need they go across to
the other side to welcome them to port. They made a slow voyage in the
windless afternoon. There was never much wind up here, though it was up
among the hills, because the pines stood close and thick about the
water, shutting it in to a deep green gloom.

The Crevequers lay by the water, upon the slippery brown needles, and
drank in the warm resinous fragrance. It was always pleasant to step
from the winding stone path, where the afternoon sun lay hot, where
mule-carts climbed up and jingled their bells lazily, into this deep
green shadowed place, where in the water the images of the pines nearly
met from side to side, leaving a little circle of blue between. It had
always been a favourite place; the Crevequers had spent much of their
youth here, sailing pine-bark boats from side to side, hanging head
downwards over the water with jars to catch water-beetles, bathing, or
dangling an ineffectual line for fish.

They had spent the morning paddling about the seashore and among the
rocks in the white canoe