whine that was almost feminine. "I
go into the sea with my rheumatism!"

Abruptly one of his legs gave way, and he stood before them in a crooked
attitude.

"Signore," he said to Maurice. "I would go into the sea, I would stay
there all night, for I love it, but Dr. Marini has forbidden me to enter
it. See how I walk!"

And he began to hobble up and down exactly as Gaspare had on the terrace,
looking over his shoulder at Maurice all the time to see whether his
deception was working well. Gaspare, seeing that Nito's attention was for
the moment concentrated, slipped away behind a boat that was drawn up on
the beach; and Maurice, guessing what he was doing, endeavored to make
Nito understand his sympathy.

"Molto forte--molto dolore?" he said.

"Si, signore!"

And Nito burst forth into a vehement account of his sufferings,
accompanied by pantomime.

"It takes me in the night, signore! Madonna, it is like rats gnawing at
my legs, and nothing will stop it. Pancrazia--she is my wife,
signore--Pancrazia, she gets out of bed and she heats oil to rub it on,
but she might as well put it on the top of Etna for all the good it does
me. And there I lie like a--"

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

A wild shriek rent the air, and Gaspare, clad in a pair of bathing
drawers, bounded out from behind the boat, gave Nito a cuff on the cheek,
executed some steps of the tarantella, whirled round, snatched up one end
of the net, and cried:

"Al mare, al mare!"

Nito's rheumatism was no more. His bent leg straightened itself as if by
magic, and he returned Gaspare's cuff by an affectionate slap on his bare
shoulder, exclaiming to Maurice:

"Isn't he terribile, signore? Isn't he terribile?"

Nito lifted up the other end of the net and they all went down to the
shore.

That night it seemed to Delarey as if Sicily drew him closer to her
breast. He did not know why he had now for the first time the sensation
that at last he was really in his natural place, was really one with the
soil from which an ancestor of his had sprung, and with the people who
had been her people. That Hermione's absence had anything to do with his
almost wild sense of freedom did not occur to him. All he knew was this,
that alone among these Sicilian fishermen in the night, not understanding
much of what they said, guessing at their jokes, and sharing in their
laughter, without always knowing what had provoked it, he was perfectly
at home, perfectly happy.

Gasp