the surrounding
villages, and carry off wealthy inhabitants, and put them to ransom. No
one in his senses would think of ascending that mountain, unless he had
something like an army with him."

"I should like to try it, all the same," Matteo asserted. "If there are
woods all over it, it is not likely one would happen to meet with any
of these people. I should like, above all things, to get to the top of
that hill."

"It would be harder work than you think, young sir," the captain said.
"You have no idea from this distance what the height is, or what a long
journey it is to ascend to the top. I have been told that it is a
hundred and twenty miles round its foot."

"I don't think you would like it, Matteo, if you were to try it,"
Francis said laughing. "You know you are as lazy as you can be, and
hate exerting yourself. I am sure that, before you got a quarter the
distance up that mountain, you would have only one wish, and that would
be to be at the bottom again."

"I don't know," Matteo said. "I hate exerting myself uselessly--wasting
my strength, as you do, in rowing at an oar, or anything of that sort;
but to do anything great, I would not mind exertion, and would go on
until I dropped."

"That is all very well, Matteo; but to do anything great, you have got
to do small things first. You could never wield a sword for five
minutes unless you had practised with it; and you will never succeed in
accomplishing any feats requiring great strength and endurance, if you
do not practise your muscles on every occasion. You used to grumble at
the height when you came up to my room in the old house, and I suppose
Etna is something like two hundred times as high."

"That does sound a serious undertaking," Matteo said, laughing; "and I
am afraid that I shall never see the view from the top of Etna.
Certainly I shall not, if it will be necessary beforehand to be always
exercising my muscles by running up the stairs of high houses."

The next day they were off Girgenti, the port at which they hoped to
obtain a cargo. They steered in until they encountered a fishing boat,
and learned from those on board that there was no Genoese vessel in
port, nor, as far as the men knew, any state galleys anywhere in the
neighbourhood. Obtaining this news, they sailed boldly into the port
and dropped anchor.

Francis, who had received before starting a list of houses with whom
Signor Polani was in the habit of doing business, at once rowe