nough to live by. Or perhaps they thought of
it as an enemy, against which they lived in perpetual war, from which
they wrung, as it were at the sword's point, a poor and precarious
booty.

As she sat thinking about this Vere began to change in her desire, to
wish there were some fishermen out to-night about the islet, and that
she could have speech of them. She would like to find out from one of
them how they regarded the sea.

She smiled as she imagined a conversation between herself and some
strong, brown, wild Neapolitan, she questioning and he replying. How
he would misunderstand her! He would probably think her mad. And yet
sometimes the men of the sea in their roughness are imaginative. They
are superstitious. But a man--no, she could not question a man. Her mind
went to the boy diver, Ruffo. She had often thought about Ruffo during
the last three days. She had expected to see him again. He had said
nothing about returning to the islet, but she had felt sure he would
return, if only in the hope of being given some more cigarettes. Boys
in his position, she knew well, do not get a present of Khali Targa
cigarettes every day of the week. How happy he had looked when he was
smoking them! She remembered exactly the expression of his brown face
now, as she sat watching the empty, moonlit sea. It was not greedy. It
was voluptuous. She remembered seeing somewhere a picture of some Sultan
of the East reclining on a divan and smoking a chibouk. She thought
Ruffo had looked rather like the Sultan, serenely secure of all earthly
enjoyment. At that moment the Pool of San Francesco had stood to the boy
for the Paradise of Mahomet.

But Ruffo had not come again.

Each morning Vere had listened for his voice, had looked down upon the
sea for his boat, but all in vain. On the third day she had felt almost
angry with him unreasonably. But then she remembered that he was not his
own master, not the owner of the boat. Of course, he could not do what
he liked. If he could--well, then he would have come back. She was
positive of that.

If he ever did come back, she said to herself now, she would question
him about the sea. She would get at his thoughts about the sea, at his
feelings. She wondered if they could possibly be at all like hers. It
was unlikely, she supposed. They two were so very different. And yet--!

She smiled to herself again, imagining question and answer with Ruffo.
He would not think her mad, even if she puz