ing, if only a little, for humanity. That I did
not follow this impulse, which grew upon me from day to day, is to be
laid to the charge of one of those very walks upon the hillside about
which I have been telling you. It was an evening late in the year, and
the sun was just setting. I watched the changing hues of the peaks as
the light spread from point to point; watched it reddening the sea, and
leaving it black in the shadows; watched it upon the church spires of
Spezia, upon the castle roof, upon the steel hulls of great ships. And
then I saw a strange thing, for amongst all the vessels which were so
burnished by the invisible hand of Heaven, I saw one that stood out
beyond them all, a great globe, not of silver, but of golden fire.
There was no doubt about it at all; I rubbed my eyes, I used the glass
I always carried with me; I viewed the hull I saw lying there from
half-a-dozen heights, and I was sure that what I saw was no effect of
evening light or strange refraction. The ship I looked on was built
either of brass, or of some alloy of brass, as it seemed to me, for the
notion that she could be plated with gold was preposterous; and yet the
more I examined her, the more clearly did I make out that her hull was
constructed of a metal infinitely gold-like, and of so beautiful a
colour in the reddened stream which shone upon it that the whole ship
had the aspect of a mirror of the purest gold I had ever seen.

"The sudden fading of the light behind the hills shut the vision--I
could not call it less--from my eyes. The dark fell, and the vines
rustled with the cold coming of night. I returned to the town quickly,
and neglecting any thought of dinner, I went straight to the sea-front
and began, if I could, to find where the water lay wherein this
extraordinary steamer was docked. I had taken the bearings of it from
the hills, and I was very quickly at that spot where I thought to have
seen the strange vessel. There, truly enough, was a dock in which two
small coasting steamers were moored, but of a sign of that which I
sought there was none. I should have had the matter out there and then,
searching the place to its extremity; but I had not been at my work ten
minutes when I knew that I was watched. A man, dressed as a rough
sailor, and remarkable for the hideousness of his face and a curious
malformation of one tooth, lurked behind the heaps of sea lumber, and
followed me from point to point. I did not care to have a