who
were still lazily walking backward and forward, or standing in little
knots talking. The open-air restaurant, too, was crowded, but there were
a few vacant seats, and among them the little iron chair in which he had
been lounging on that evening when Adrienne Cartuccio had passed by
among the crowd. He stopped short, and stepping lightly over the
railing, drew it to him, and sat down. The busy waiter was by his side
in a moment with coffee and liqueurs, and taking a cigar from his case
he began meditatively to smoke.

Since sundown the hot air had grown closer and more sulphurous, and away
westward over the waters the heavens seemed to be continually opening
and closing, belching out great sheets of yellow light. A few detached
masses of black clouds were slowly floating across the starlit sky. Now
one had reached the moon, and a sudden darkness fell upon the earth.
With such a lamp in the sky illuminations in the hotel gardens were a
thing unheard of, and the effect was singular. Only the red lights of
the smokers were visible, dotted here and there like glow-worms.
Conversation, too, dropped. Men lowered their voices, the women ceased
to make the air alive with the music of their laughter. It was the
southern nature. When the sky was fair, their hearts were light and
their voices gay. Now there was a momentary gloom, and every one
shivered.

The Englishman looked up at the cloud, wondered whether there would be a
storm, and calmly went on smoking. The sudden hush and darkness meant
nothing to him. In his state of mind they were rather welcome than
otherwise. But in the midst of the darkness a strange thing happened.

He was neither superstitious nor impressionable. From either weakness he
would contemptuously, and with perfect truth, have declared himself
altogether free. But suddenly the sweet, swiftly-flowing current of his
thoughts came to a full stop. He was conscious of a cold chill, which he
could not in any way explain. There had been no sound of footsteps,
nothing to warn him of it, but he fancied himself abruptly encountered
by some nameless danger. The perspiration broke out upon his forehead,
and the cigar dropped from his fingers. Was it a nightmare, the prelude
to a fever? Was he going mad? Oh! it was horrible!

By a great effort of will he contrived to raise his eyes to the cloud.
It had almost passed away from the face of the moon. The main body of it
was already floating northward, only one lon