caused Peppin's eyes to shine.

And Amaldi, too, could not withhold his admiration. So superb was this
huge, stripped man--so perfectly proportioned--so admirably free from
the least ounce of unnecessary fat.

"_Accidenti! Che Marc Antoni!_" (Lord! What a Mark Antony of a man!)
breathed Peppin, as the sunlit body flashed off into the water.

But its very splendour as of the supremacy of flesh sickened Amaldi.
Were they primitive men--men of the Stone Age--and should they grapple,
man to man, what chance would he, Amaldi, have against those mighty
thews and sinews?

Chesney swam a few strokes, his white body greenish under the clear
water, like the silver belly of a fish; then dived beneath the yacht,
came up the other side, swam on his side, his back, dived again; then
swung himself aboard, gleaming with wet like a great mother-o'-pearl
image. He took the towel that Peppin handed him with a "Ha!" of gusto.

"I feel like Jupiter!" he called, rubbing his sides, and back, standing
on one foot to dry the other, his glossy skin all rosed in patches from
his vigorous rubbing.

Getting quickly into his shirt and trousers, he announced that he was
"hungry as ten hunters."

Peppin opened the luncheon hamper. There were sandwiches of salami and
anchovies, purple and white figs, a fiasco of red wine from Solcio.

"By God! this is living! Eh? What?" asked Chesney, his lips fresh and
ruddy with wine. He grinned with the sheer lust of life, splitting a
fig, and laying its seedy pulp against his tongue as Peppin had shown
him how to eat them without getting the rough bite of the skin. "When
you find rye-bread and fish and raw fruit better than pressed ducklings
at Voisin's--you're jolly thoroughly alive, I take it. What are you
peering at? Wind coming?"

"Yes," said Amaldi.

Chesney leaped up, still munching the other half of his fig. All about
them the water lay in long, smooth fluctuations as of molten glass; but
here and there a dark-blue patch spread widening like a stain on some
shining fabric. The sails filled, though near by the water still shone
clear and smooth as glass. Far out, beyond the point of the Fortino,
there was a band of indigo, stretched right across the lake.

"The Inverna," said Amaldi, pointing. "Won't you take the tiller?" he
added.

Chesney grasped it willingly. All his blood was beating in little
pleasant hammer-strokes of exultant health and strength. Yet as the
first chill breaths of the com