In the last act of The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare has said all that there is to say about moonlight and its effect upon young people, and if Harry Vibart was less expressive than young Lorenzo, Jasmine Grant was at least as susceptible as pretty Jessica. She had a moment's sadness in the recollection of her father's death after such a night in the Bay of Salerno; but it was no more than a transient gloom, like a thin cloud that scarcely dims the face of the moon in its swift voyage past. Indeed, the sorrowful memory actually added something to her joy of the present; for fleeting though the emotion was, it endured long enough to stir the depths of her heart and to make her more grateful to her companion for the beauty of this night.
The skipper of the Mermaid had spoken the truth: the light breeze he had promised did arrive, and presently the grunt of oars gave place to the lisp and murmur of water and to airy melodies aloft.
"Magnificent, eh what?" Vibart asked.
"Glorious," Jasmine agreed.
Pointing to a small craft half a mile away to starboard, he quoted two lines of verse:
A silver sail on a silver sea
Under a silver moon.
"That really exactly expresses it, don't you think?"
"Perfectly," she agreed.
"Funny that those lines should come so pat. I don't usually spout poetry, you know. It really is awfully good, isn't it?—
A silver sail on a silver sea
Under a silver moon!"