I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by falling at full length as the squall struck us.
"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the _barca_ now?"
Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be seen--not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had gone the way of Antonio's argosies--another whet to the all-devouring appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small.
It was almost calm again when we landed the rescued men at Salerno; we were glad to get rid of them, for their gratitude was overpowering, especially as all the salt water that had soaked them could not disguise the savor of their favorite herb.
You may break, you may ruin the clay if you will, but the scent of the garlic will cling to it still.
Guy gave them enough to buy two such boats as they had lost--about as much as one wins or loses in an evening's whist, with fair luck and half-crown points.
This incident showed the change that was coming over my companion. His principle had always been that a man who could not help himself was not worth helping. He never asked for aid himself, and never gave it to his own sex, as a rule. I believe his rescuing me at B---- was a solitary case, and I took it as a great compliment. You will say this one was only an act of common humanity. If you had known the man, you would have thought, as I did, that the words of her, who was an angel then, were bearing fruit already.
Nothing happened of the slightest interest as we ran down through the Straits of Messina, and up the eastern coast of Calabria. We did not stay to see Sicily then, for we had settled to be in Venice by a certain day, to meet the Forresters.
If I were to be seduced into "word-painting," the Queen of the Adriatic would tempt me. I know no other scene so provocative of enthusiasm as the square acre round St. Mark's. All things considered, the author of the "Stones of Venice" seems very sufficiently rational and cold-blooded.