eighteen or nineteen, and brimful of lusty life.

After a minute of silence Delarey's memory recalled some words of
Gaspare's, till then forgotten.

"You are Maddalena!" he said, in Italian.

The girl nodded.

"Si, signore."

She uttered the words softly, then fell into silence again, staring at
him with her lustrous eyes, that were like black jewels.

"You live here with Salvatore?"

She nodded once more and began to smile, as if with pleasure at his
knowledge of her.

Delarey smiled too, and made with his arms the motion of swimming. At
that she laughed outright and broke into quick speech. She spoke
vivaciously, moving her hands and her whole body. Delarey could not
understand much of what she said, but he caught the words mare and
pescatore, and by her gestures knew that she was telling him she had been
on the rocks and had seen his mishap. Suddenly in the midst of her talk
she uttered the little cry of surprise or alarm which he had heard as he
came up above water, pointed to her lips to indicate that she had given
vent to it, and laughed again with all her heart. Delarey laughed too. He
felt happy and at ease with his siren, and was secretly amused at his
thought in the sea of the magical being full of enchantment who sang to
lure men to their destruction. This girl was simply a pretty, but not
specially uncommon, type of the Sicilian contadina--young, gay, quite
free from timidity, though gentle, full of the joy of life and of the
nascent passion of womanhood, blossoming out carelessly in the sunshine
of the season of flowers. She could sing, this island siren, but probably
she could not read or write. She could dance, could perhaps innocently
give and receive love. But there was in her face, in her manner, nothing
deliberately provocative. Indeed, she looked warmly pure, like a bright,
eager young animal of the woods, full of a blithe readiness to enjoy,
full of hope and of unself-conscious animation.

Delarey wondered why she was not sleeping, and strove to ask her,
speaking carefully his best Sicilian, and using eloquent gestures, which
set her smiling, then laughing again. In reply to him she pointed towards
the sea, then towards the house, then towards the sea once more. He
guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that
she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed.

"Niente piu sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes.

"Niente! Niente!"

He f