Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/258

Rh lustrous eyes as they were turned on him with a low heartbroken moan.

He stood and thought some moments, then rapidly, and keeping ever under the deep shelter of the leaves, he made his way by winding paths to the hut of the sailor whose life he had saved long before on San Constanza’s-day. It stood near the beach, hid under a great ledge of rock, like a seagull’s nest. As it chanced, the fisherman sat without in the sun, singing and mending his nets; he was only just back from a long sail to Calabria. Erceldoune went up to him and held out his hand.

“Nicolò, do you remember the night under Tiberio?”

The nets fell on the sand in a heap, all sea-stained and clogged with weed. The marinaro, with tears of delight in his bright black eyes, and a thousand cries to the Madonna dell’ Mare, thanked him and blessed him and worshipped him, and would have knelt down at his feet had he been allowed. Life surely was no great matter there in the Piccolo Marina, getting scant bread from the depths of the waters, spreading the nets on the low flat shingle-hut roof to dry, and going out in peril of storms for sake of a piece of dry fish for hungry mouths to eat; yet it must have had its pleasures