ster.

"I forgot to give the signore his mail at breakfast. The boat-mail has
just been distributed." He then went forward.

Merrihew was greatly pleased with his packet. There were humorous
letters and cheery telegrams, containing all sorts of advice in case of
seasickness, how to slip cigars through the customs, where to get the
best post-cards, and also the worst.

Hillard found among his a bulky envelope post-marked Naples. After he
opened it he lay back in his chair and contemplated the ruffled horizon.
Naples! He sat up. It had been addressed to the house and the address
typewritten.

"Dan?"

"What is it?"

"Look at this!"

"Good Lord!" Dan gasped, his feet coming down to the deck.

For Hillard was holding up for his inspection a crumpled black silk
mask.

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT MERRIHEW FOUND

The great ship had passed the Isle of Ischia, and now the Bay of Naples
unfolded all its variant beauties. Hillard had seen them many times
before, yet they are a joy eternal, a changing joy of which neither the
eye nor the mind ever grows weary. Both he and Merrihew were foremost in
the press against the forward rail. To the latter's impressionable mind
it was like a dream. In fancy he could see the Roman galleys, the
fighting triremes, the canopied pleasure-craft, just as they were two
thousand years ago. Yonder, the temples and baths of Nero of the Golden
House; thither, the palaces of the grim Tiberius; beyond, Pompeii, with
Glaucus, lone, and Nydia, the blind girl. The dream-picture faded and
the reality was no less fascinating: the white sails of the fishermen
winging across the sapphire waters, leaving ribboned pathways behind
that crossed and recrossed like a chart of the stars; proud white
pleasure-yachts, great vessels from all ports in the world; and an
occasional battle-ship, drab and stealthy. And the hundred pink and
white villages, the jade and amethyst of the near and far islands, the
smiling terraces above the city, the ruined temples, the grim giant
ash-heap of Vesuvius!

"That is it," said Merrihew, whose flights of rhetoric were most
simplified.

"_Vedi Napoli e poi mori!_" replied Hillard.

"Hold on," exclaimed Merrihew. "Pass it out slowly. What's that mean?"

"See Naples and die."

"I prefer to see it and live. But I am kind of disappointed in Vesuvius.
It's not the terrible old Moloch of my geographies that gobbled up
cities and peoples. And nobody seems to be afraid of it,