e dark recess came the occasional grunt of the pig, attending in
solitude to the business of getting fat before October. Now and then the
watchman's wife moved a chair in the lower room of the tower, or made a
little clatter with some kitchen utensils, and the sounds came out to
the solitude sharply and distinctly.

There had been a flat calm for several days. Forty yards below the tower
the sea lay along the sandy beach like a strip of glistening white
glass, beyond which was a broader band of greenish blue that did not
glitter; and beyond that, the oily water stretched out to westward in an
unending expanse of neutral tints, arabesqued with current streaks and
struck right across by the dazzling dirty-white blaze of the August sun.

Swarms of flies chased each other where the two men sat, settled on
their backs and dusty black hats, tried to settle on their faces and
were brushed away, crawled on the ground, on the walls, even on the
chickens, and on the rough coat of Nino, the dog. He followed the
motions of those he saw before him with one bloodshot eye; the other
seemed to be fast asleep.

From time to time the men exchanged a few words. Ercole had apparently
come over to enjoy the novelty of seeing a human being, and Padre
Francesco, the watchman, was glad to talk with some one besides his
wife. He enjoyed the title of "Padre," because he had once been master
of a small martingane that traded between Civita Vecchia and the south.
In still earlier days he had been in deep water and had been boatswain
of a square-rigger, yet there was nothing about his appearance now to
show that he had been a sailor man. It was ten years since he had left
the sea, and he had turned into a peasant.

Ercole had told Padre Francesco that the second hay crop had been half
spoilt by thunderstorms; also that the price of wine in Ardea had gone
up, while the price of polenta had remained the same; also that a wild
boar had broken out of the king's preserves near Nettuno and was
supposed to be wandering in the brush not far away; also that if Ercole
and Nino found him they would kill him, and that there would be a feast.
Padre Francesco observed that his wife understood the cooking of wild
boar with vinegar, sugar, pine-nuts, and sweet herbs, and that he
himself knew how to salt the hams; he had also salted the flesh of
porpoises at sea, more than once, and had eaten pickled dog-fish, which
he considered to be nothing but young sharks,