We go down to the shore, to Isola Bella. We take food, wine, red
wine, and a net. Between twenty-two and twenty-three o'clock is the time
to begin. And the sea must be calm. Is the sea calm to-day, Sebastiano?"

"Like that."

Sebastiano moved his hand to and fro in the air, keeping it absolutely
level. Gaspare continued to explain with gathering excitement and
persuasiveness, talking to his master as much by gesture as by the words
that Maurice could only partially understand.

"The sea is calm. Nito has the net, but he will not go into the sea. Per
Dio, he is birbante. He will say he has the rheumatism, I know, and walk
like that." (Gaspare hobbled to and fro before them, making a face of
acute suffering.) "He has asked for me. Hasn't Nito asked for me,
Sebastiano?"

Here Gaspare made a grimace at Sebastiano, who answered, calmly:

"Yes, he has asked for you to come with the padrone."

"I knew it. Then I shall undress. I shall take one end of the net while
Nito holds the other, and I shall go out into the sea. I shall go up to
here." (He put his hands up to his chin, stretching his neck like one
avoiding a rising wave.) "And I shall wade, you'll see!--and if I come to
a hole I shall swim. I can swim for hours, all day if I choose."

"And all night too?" said Hermione, smiling at his excitement.

"Davvero! But at night I must drink wine to keep out the cold. I come out
like this." (He shivered violently, making his teeth chatter.) "Then I
drink a glass and I am warm, and when they have taken the fish I go in
again. We fish all along the shore from Isola Bella round by the point
there, where there's the Casa delle Sirene, and to the caves beyond the
Caffe Berardi. And when we've got enough--many fish--at dawn we sleep on
the sand. And when the sun is up Carmela will take the fish and make a
frittura, and we all eat it and drink more wine, and then--"

"And then--you're ready for the Campo Santo?" said Hermione.

"No, signora. Then we will dance the tarantella, and come home up the
mountain singing, 'O sole mio!' and 'A mezzanotte a punto,' and the song
of the Mafioso, and--"

Hermione began to laugh unrestrainedly. Gaspare, by his voice, his face,
his gestures, had made them assist at a veritable orgie of labor,
feasting, sleep, and mirth, all mingled together and chasing one another
like performers in a revel. Even his suggestion of slumber on the sands
was violent, as if they were to sleep with a kind of fu