m and ethereal, under the dying moon.

"Is that Calabria?" he asked.

"Si, signore. And there is the caffe. The caves are beyond it. You cannot
see them from here. But you are not looking, signorino!"

The boy's quick eyes had noticed that Delarey was glancing towards the
tangle of trees, among which was visible a small section of the gray wall
of the house of the sirens.

"How calm the sea is there!" Delarey said, swiftly.

"Si, signore. That is where you can see the light in the window from our
terrace."

"There's no light now."

"How should there be? They are asleep. Andiamo?"

They followed the others, who were now out of sight. When they reached
the caves, Nito and the boys had already flung themselves down upon the
sand and were sleeping. Gaspare scooped out a hollow for Delarey, rolled
up his jacket as a pillow for his padrone's head, murmured a "Buon
riposo!" lay down near him, buried his face in his arms, and almost
directly began to breathe with a regularity that told its tale of
youthful, happy slumber.

It was dark in the cave and quite warm. The sand made a comfortable bed,
and Delarey was luxuriously tired after the long walk and the wading in
the sea. When he lay down he thought that he, too, would be asleep in a
moment, but sleep did not come to him, though he closed his eyes in
anticipation of it. His mind was busy in his weary body, and that little
cry of a woman still rang in his ears. He heard it like a song sung by a
mysterious voice in a place of mystery by the sea. Soon he opened his
eyes. Turning a little in the sand, away from his companions, he looked
out from the cave, across the sloping beach and the foam of the waves,
to the darkness of trees on the island. (So he called the place of the
siren's house to himself now, and always hereafter.) From the cave he
could not see the house, but only the trees, a formless, dim mass that
grew about it. The monotonous sound of wave after wave did not still the
cry in his ears, but mingled with it, as must have mingled with the song
of the sirens to Ulysses the murmur of breaking seas ever so long ago.
And he thought of a siren in the night stealing to a hidden place in the
rocks to watch him as he drew the net, breast high in the water. There
was romance in his mind to-night, new-born and strange. Sicily had put it
there with the wild sense of youth and freedom that still possessed him.
Something seemed to call him away from this cave of sleep,