t curious fellow I ever met. You scoffed at me when I said I
should like to go up Mount Etna, and now here you are, dragging me
along this cliff, just to look at some rocks of no possible interest to
any one."

"That is the point to be inquired into, Matteo. I think it's possible
they may prove very interesting."

Matteo shrugged his shoulders, as he often did when he felt too lazy to
combat the eccentric ideas of his English friend.

"There we are," Francis said at last, standing on the edge of the cliff
and looking down. "Nothing could be better."

"I am glad you think so, Francisco," Matteo said, seating himself on
the grass. "I hope you intend to stay some little time to admire them,
for I own that I should like a rest before I go back."

Francis stood looking at the rocks. The bay was a shallow one, and was
but five or six hundred yards from point to point, the rocks rising
nearly in a line between the points, and showing for about two hundred
yards above water, and at about the same distance from the cliffs
behind them.

"What height do you think those rocks are above the water, Giuseppi?"

"It is difficult to judge, signor, we are so high above them; but I
should think in the middle they must be ten or twelve feet."

"I should think it likely they were more than double that, Giuseppi;
but we shall see better when we get down to the bottom. I daresay we
shall find a place where we can clamber down somewhere."

"My dear Francisco," Matteo said earnestly, "is anything the matter
with you? I begin to have doubts of your sanity. What on earth do these
rocks matter to you, one way or the other? or what can you care whether
they are thirty inches or thirty feet above the water?

"They do not differ from other rocks, as far as I can see. They are
very rugged and very rough, and would be very awkward if they lay out
at sea instead of in this little bay, where they are in nobody's way.
Is it not enough that you have tramped two miles to have a look at
them, which means four miles, as we have got to return somehow? And now
you talk about climbing down that break-neck cliff to have a look at
them close!"

But Francis paid no attention to Matteo's words. He was gazing down
into the clear smooth water, which was so transparent that every stone
and pebble at the bottom could be seen.

"The water looks extremely shallow, Giuseppi. What do you think?"

"It seems to me, signor, that there is not a foot of water betw