are went into the sea, wading carefully through the silver waters,
and Maurice, from the shore, watched his slowly moving form, taking a
lesson which would be useful to him later. The coast-line looked
enchanted in the glory of the moon, in the warm silence of the night, but
the little group of men upon the shore scarcely thought of its
enchantment. They felt it, perhaps, sometimes faintly in their gayety,
but they did not savor its wonder and its mystery as Hermione would have
savored them had she been there.

The naked form of Gaspare, as he waded far out in the shallow sea, was
like the form of a dream creature rising out of waves of a dream. When he
called to them across the silver surely something of the magic of the
night was caught and echoed in his voice. When he lifted the net, and its
black and dripping meshes slipped down from his ghostly hands into the
ghostly movement that was flickering about him, and the circles tipped
with light widened towards sea and shore, there was a miracle of delicate
and fantastic beauty delivered up tenderly like a marvellous gift to the
wanderers of the dark hours. But Sicily scarcely wonders at Sicily.
Gaspare was intent only on the catching of fish, and his companions smote
the night with their jokes and their merry, almost riotous laughter.

The night wore on. Presently they left Isola Bella, crossed a stony spit
of land, and came into a second and narrower bay, divided by a turmoil
of jagged rocks and a bold promontory covered with stunted olive-trees,
cactus, and seed-sown earth plots, from the wide sweep of coast that
melted into the dimness towards Messina. Gathered together on the little
stones of the beach, in the shadow of some drawn-up fishing-boats, they
took stock of the fish that lay shining in the basket, and broke their
fast on bread and cheese and more draughts from the generous wine-bottle.

Gaspare was dripping, and his thin body shook as he gulped down the wine.

"Basta Gaspare!" Maurice said to him. "You mustn't go in any more."

"No, no, signore, non basta! I can fish all night. Once the wine has
warmed me, I can--"

"But I want to try it."

"Oh, signore, what would the signora say? You are a stranger. You will
take cold, and then the signora will blame me and say I did not take
proper care of my padrone."

But Delarey was determined. He stripped off his clothes, put on his
bathing drawers, took up the net, and, carefully directed by the admiring
th