ess and almost made Hermione laugh. In it, too, she felt the
touch of the East. Arabs had been in Sicily and left their traces there,
not only in the buildings of Sicily, but in its people's songs, and in
the treatment of the women by the men.

"And are you going to choose Lucrezia?" she asked, gravely.

"Signora, I wasn't sure. But yesterday, I had a letter from Messina. They
want me there. I've got a job that'll pay me well to go to the Lipari
Islands with a cargo."

"Are you a sailor, too?"

"Signora, I can do anything."

"And will you be long away?"

"Who knows, signora? But I told Lucrezia to-day, and when she cried I
told her something else. We are 'promised.'"

"I am glad," Hermione said, holding out her hand to him.

He took it in an iron grip.

"Be very good to her when you're married, won't you?"

"Oh, she'll be all right with me," he answered, carelessly. "And I won't
give her the slap in the face on the wedding-day."

"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"

There was a shrill cry from the mountain and Maurice and Gaspare came
leaping down, scattering the stones, the revolvers still in their hands.

"Look, signora, look!" cried Gaspare, pulling a sheet of paper from his
pocket and holding it proudly up. "Do you see the holes? One, two,
three--"

He began to count.

"And I made five. Didn't I, signore?"

"You're a dead shot, Gasparino. Did you hear us, Hermione?"

"Yes," she said. "But you didn't hear me."

"You? Did you call?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Sebastiano's got a message for you," Hermione said.

She could not tell him now the absurd impulse that had made her call him.

"What's the message, Sebastiano?" asked Maurice, in his stumbling
Sicilian-Italian that was very imperfect, but that nevertheless had
already the true accent of the peasants about Marechiaro.

"Signore, there will be a moon to-night."

"Gia. Lo so."

"Are you sleepy, signorino?"

He touched his eyes with his sinewy hands and made his face look drowsy.
Maurice laughed.

"No."

"Are you afraid of being naked in the sea at night? But you need not
enter it. Are you afraid of sleeping at dawn in a cave upon the sands?"

"What is it all?" asked Maurice. "Gaspare, I understand you best."

"I know," said Gaspare, joyously. "It's the fishing. Nito has sent. I
told him to. Is it Nito, Sebastiano?"

Sebastiano nodded. Gaspare turned eagerly to Maurice.

"Oh, signore, you must come, you will come!"

"Where? In a boat?"

"No.