ent us on an errand to Porto d'Anzio last
night and we are going back."

"It is a long pull," observed the watchman. "Tell the other man to come
ashore and rest in the shade. I also have been to sea. The water is not
very good here, but what there is you shall have."

"Thank you," said the man gratefully, and giving Nino a very wide berth
as he followed Padre Francesco. "We could have got some water at the
Incastro creek, but it would have been the same as drinking the fever."

"May the Madonna never will that you drink of it," said Padre Francesco,
as they reached the shady side of the tower. "I see that you know the
Roman shore."

"It is our business," replied the man, taking off his ragged rush hat,
and rubbing his still more ragged blue cotton sleeve over his wet
forehead. "We are people of the sea, bringing wine and lemons to Civita
Vecchia and taking charcoal back. Evil befall this calm weather."

"And when it blows from the west-southwest we say, evil befall this time
of storm," said Padre Francesco, nodding wisely. "Be seated in the
shade. I will fetch water."

"And also let us drink here, so that we may take the jug away full."

"You shall also drink here." The old watchman went into the tower.

"The last time I passed this way, it was in a west-southwest gale," said
the man, addressing Ercole, who had sat down in his old place with his
dog at his feet.

"It is an evil shore," Ercole answered. "Many vessels have been lost
here."

"We were saved by a miracle that time," said the sailor, who seemed
inclined to talk. "I was with a brigantine with wine for Marseilles.
That vessel was like a rock in the sea, she would not move with less
than seven points of the wind in fair weather. We afterwards went to Rio
Janeiro, and it was two years before we got back."

"So it was two years ago that you passed?" inquired Ercole.

"Two years ago May or the beginning of June. She was so low in the water
that she would have swamped if we had tried to carry on sail, and with
the sail she could carry she could make no headway; so there we were,
hove to under lower topsail and balance-reefed mainsail and storm-jib,
with a lee shore less than a mile away. We recommended ourselves to the
saints and the souls of purgatory, and our captain said to us, 'My fine
sons, unless the wind shifts in half an hour we must run her ashore and
save the cargo!' That is what he said. But I said that I knew this Roman
shore from a boy, an