ul
risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their
shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked
myself how would a Greek sculptor have personified the elemental deity
of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the AEgean
or Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of their spirit? The
Tritons of these shallows must be of other form and lineage than the
fierce-eyed youth who blows his conch upon the curled crest of a wave,
crying aloud to his comrades, as he bears the nymph away to caverns
where the billows plunge in tideless instability.

We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the Adriatic
shore. Then we returned to give our boatmen wine beneath the vine-clad
_pergola_. Four other men were there, drinking, and eating from a
dish of fried fish set upon the coarse white linen cloth. Two of
them soon rose and went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large,
middle-aged man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy,
but slender, for these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength.
Each limb is equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright,
bending all the muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically
supple, with free sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the
ankle. Stefano showed these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type
in him was refined to its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was
rarely in repose, but moved with a singular brusque grace. A black
broad-brimmed hat was thrown back upon his matted _zazzera_ of
dark hair tipped with dusky brown. This shock of hair, cut in flakes,
and falling wilfully, reminded me of the lagoon grass when it darkens
in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and sunset gilds its sombre edges.
Fiery grey eyes beneath it gazed intensely, with compulsive effluence
of electricity. It was the wild glance of a Triton. Short blonde
moustache, dazzling teeth, skin bronzed, but showing white and
healthful through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt. The dashing
sparkle of this animate splendour, who looked to me as though the
sea-waves and the sun had made him in some hour of secret and unquiet
rapture, was somehow emphasised by a curious dint dividing his square
chin--a cleft that harmonised with smile on lip and steady flame in
eyes. I hardly know what effect it would have upon a reader to compare
eyes to opals. Yet Stefano's eyes, as they met mine, had the vitreous
intensity of opals,