n knots of two or three, silent or
conversing in low tone, comrades of the commissioned list or of the
ranks, unwilling to seek their berths so long as so gorgeous a panorama
lasted. These were ranged along the starboard side, where best they
could study that superb sweep of shore line, of light and shadow, of
slope and mountain, of curving strand--white, flashing in the moonbeams,
of twinkling villages low-lying, of distant, rock-ribbed isles, but
among these worshipers there was no Ray.

It was over on the other--the dark, the port--side, and all alone,
sprawled in a steamer chair he had lugged to the upper deck and the
shadow of the big boat, that Foster came upon the lad. His field glasses
were in his hand; his eyes fixed dreamily upon the dwindling,
diminishing night lights of the westward suburbs, and Foster hailed
brusquely. It was time to jar the boy out of his mooning:

"Hello, Sandy! Where on earth have you been all night?"

"Nowhere," was the short reply.

"Where on sea then, if you will be captious?"

"Oh, admiring scenery," and Sandy yawned suggestively.

"Scenery is all on t'other side, man! Nothing here but ships and shore
lights."

"Well--that's what I'm--looking at."

Foster turned sulkily. He disliked being "stood off" by anybody,
especially a youngster. Dimly in the soft moonlight the sleeping city
lay outspread before him. Standing on the rail, grasping a stanchion, he
could see, save where the charthouse and huge funnel interposed, the
entire sweep from Posilipo at the west around almost to Sorrento. Ray,
seated under the shadow of the long boat, could see only from Posilipo
to a low-lying cluster of lights almost at the water's edge. That then
was the Piazza Umberto, and those few twinkling, starlike sparkles to
the left, dancing so merrily on the intervening wave--those were from
some still open casements at the Grand. Then Foster saw what Sandy Ray
was looking for, and turned and left him.

At dawn they were weighing anchor, but the big ship had not yet swung
her nose to the west when Foster again appeared on the dripping deck and
again found Ray almost at the same spot. Some of the same lights, a very
few, were still faintly to be seen to the west of the Piazza, and Ray's
signal glasses were lifted to his eyes. Aloft the sentinel stars were
paling, their night watch ended. Ashore, along the quays and basin and
about the Dogana, the lantern lights told of the stir of coming day and
dep