hands of the passing hour.

He drew out his cigar-case and offered it to Salvatore.

"One day I want to come fishing with you if you'll take me," he said.

Salvatore looked eager. A prospect of money floated before him:

"I can show you fine sport, signore," he answered, taking one of the long
Havanas and examining it with almost voluptuous interest as he turned it
round and round in his salty, brown fingers. "But you should come out at
dawn, and it is far from the mountain to the sea."

"Couldn't I sleep here, so as to be ready?"

He stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking at her feet, and twisting
the front of her short dress, but her lips were twitching with a smile
which she tried to repress.

"Couldn't I sleep here to-night?" he added, boldly.

Salvatore looked more eager. He loved money almost as an Arab loves it,
with anxious greed. Doubtless Arab blood ran in his veins. It was easy to
see from whom Maddalena had inherited her Eastern appearance. She
reproduced, on a diminished scale, her father's outline of face, but that
which was gentle, mysterious, and alluring in her, in him was informed
with a rugged wildness. There was something bird-like and predatory in
his boldly curving nose with its narrow nostrils, in his hard-lipped
mouth, full of splendid teeth, in his sharp and pushing chin. His whole
body, wide-shouldered and deep-chested, as befitted a man of the sea,
looked savage and fierce, but full of an intensity of manhood that was
striking, and his gestures and movements, the glance of his penetrating
eyes, the turn of his well-poised head, revealed a primitive and
passionate nature, a nature with something of the dagger in it, steely,
sharp, and deadly.

"But, signore, our home is very poor. Look, signore!"

A turkey strutted out through the doorway, elongating its neck and
looking nervously intent.

"Ps--sh--sh--sh!"

He shooed it away, furiously waving his arms.

"And what could you eat? There is only bread and wine."

"And the yellow cheese!" said Maurice.

"The--?" Salvatore looked sharply interrogative.

"I mean, there is always cheese, isn't there, in Sicily, cheese and
macaroni? But if there isn't, it's all right. Anything will do for me,
and I'll buy all the fish we take from you, and Maddalena here shall cook
it for us when we come back from the sea. Will you, Maddalena?"

"Si, signore."

The answer came in a very small voice.

"The signore is too good."

Salvatore