nymph away to caverns where the billows
plunge in tideless instability.

We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the Adriatic shore.
Then we returned to give our boatmen wine beneath the vine-clad
_pergola_. Four other men were there, drinking, and eating from a dish
of fried fish set upon the coarse white linen cloth. Two of them soon
rose and went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large, middle-aged
man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, for
these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is
equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the
muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free
sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed
these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to
its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved
with a singular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed hat was thrown back
upon his matted _zazzera_ of dark hair tipped with dusky brown. This
shock of hair, cut in flakes, and falling wilfully, reminded me of the
lagoon grass when it darkens in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and sunset
gilds its sombre edges. Fiery grey eyes beneath it gazed intensely, with
compulsive effluence of electricity. It was the wild glance of a Triton.
Short blonde moustache, dazzling teeth, skin bronzed, but showing white
and healthful through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt. The dashing
sparkle of this animate splendour, who looked to me as though the
sea-waves and the sun had made him in some hour of secret and unquiet
rapture, was somehow emphasised by a curious dint dividing his square
chin--a cleft that harmonised with smile on lip and steady flame in
eyes. I hardly know what effect it would have upon a reader to compare
eyes to opals. Yet Stefano's eyes, as they met mine, had the vitreous
intensity of opals, as though the colour of Venetian waters were
vitalised in them. This noticeable being had a rough, hoarse voice,
which, to develop the parallel with a sea-god, might have screamed in
storm or whispered raucous messages from crests of tossing billows.

I felt, as I looked, that here, for me at least, the mythopoem of the
lagoons was humanised; the spirit of the salt-water lakes had appeared
to me; the final touch of life emergent from nature had been given. I
was satisfied; for I had seen a poem.

Then we rose, and wandered th