nto. Do you remember Orcagna's 'Death'? I think I could draw
every line of it--it is so graven on my memory."

Miss Lydia was afraid the lieutenant was going to deliver an
enthusiastic tirade.

"It is very pretty," she said, with a yawn. "Excuse me, papa, my head
aches a little; I am going down to my cabin."

She kissed her father on the forehead, inclined her head majestically
to Orso, and disappeared. Then the two men talked about hunting and
war. They discovered that at Waterloo they had been posted opposite
each other, and had no doubt exchanged many a bullet. This knowledge
strengthened their good understanding. Turning about, they criticised
Napoleon, Wellington, and Blucher, and then they hunted buck, boar, and
mountain sheep in company. At last, when night was far advanced, and
the last bottle of claret had been emptied, the colonel wrung the
lieutenant's hand once more and wished him good-night, expressing his
hope that an acquaintance, which had begun in such ridiculous fashion,
might be continued. They parted, and each went to bed.

CHAPTER III

It was a lovely night. The moonlight was dancing on the waves, the ship
glided smoothly on before a gentle breeze. Miss Lydia was not sleepy,
and nothing but the presence of an unpoetical person had prevented her
from enjoying those emotions which every human being possessing a touch
of poetry must experience at sea by moonlight. When she felt sure the
young lieutenant must be sound asleep, like the prosaic creature he was,
she got up, took her cloak, woke her maid, and went on deck. Nobody
was to be seen except the sailor at the helm, who was singing a sort of
dirge in the Corsican dialect, to some wild and monotonous tune. In the
silence of the night this strange music had its charm. Unluckily Miss
Lydia did not understand perfectly what the sailor was singing. Amid
a good deal that was commonplace, a passionate line would occasionally
excite her liveliest curiosity. But just at the most important moment
some words of _patois_ would occur, the sense of which utterly escaped
her. Yet she did make out that the subject was connected with a murder.
Curses against the assassin, threats of vengeance, praise of the dead
were all mingled confusedly. She remembered some of the lines. I will
endeavour to translate them here.

. . . "Neither cannon nor bayonets . . . Brought pallor to his
brow. . . As serene on the battlefield . . . as a summer sky. He was the
falco