The boat of which they went in pursuit was far away over near the other shore, taking long tacks across the bay. Buttons headed his boat so as to meet the other on its return tack.
It was a magnificent scene. After exhausting every shore view of Naples, there is nothing like taking to the water. Every thing then appears in a new light. The far, winding cities that surround the shore, the white villages, the purple Apennines, the rocky isles, the frowning volcano.
This is what makes Naples supreme in beauty. The peculiar combinations of scenery that are found there make rivalry impossible. For if you find elsewhere an equally beautiful bay, you will not have so liquid an atmosphere; if you have a shore with equal beauty of outline, and equal grace in its long sweep of towering headland and retreating slope, you will not have so deep a purple on the distant hills. Above all, nowhere else on earth has Nature placed in the very centre of so divine a scene the contrasted terrors of the black volcano.
Watching a chase is exciting; but taking part in it is much more so. Buttons had made the most scientific arrangements. He had calculated that at a certain point on the opposite shore the other boat would turn on a new tack, and that if he steered to his boat to a point about half-way over, he would meet them, without appearing to be in pursuit. He accordingly felt so elated at the idea that he burst forth into song.
The other boat at length had passed well over under the shadow of the land. It did not turn. Further and further over, and still it did not change its course. Buttons still kept the course which he had first chosen; but finding that he was getting far out of the way of the other boat, he was forced to turn the head of his boat closer to the wind, and sail slowly, watching the others.
There was an island immediately ahead of the other boat. What was his dismay at seeing it gracefully pass beyond the outer edge of the island, turn behind it, and vanish. He struck the taffrail furiously with his clenched hand. However, there was no help for it; so, changing his course, he steered in a straight line after the other, to where it had disappeared.
Now that the boat was out of sight Dick did not feel himself called on to watch. So he went forward into the bow, and made himself a snug berth, where he laid down; and lighting his pipe, looked dreamily out through a cloud of smoke upon the charming scene. The tossing of the boat and the lazy flapping of the sails had a soothing influence. His nerves owned the lulling power. His eyelids grew heavy and gently descended.
The wind and waves and islands and sea and sky, all mingled together in a confused mass, came before his mind. He was sailing on clouds, and chasing Spanish ladies through the sky. The drifting currents of the air bore them resistlessly along in wide and never-ending curves upward in spiral movements towards the zenith; and then off in ever-increasing speed, with ever-widening gyrations, toward the sunset, where the clouds grew red, and lazaroni grinned from behind--
A sudden bang of the huge sail struck by the wind, a wild creaking of the boom, and a smart dash of spray over the bows and into his face waked him from his slumber. He started up, half blinded, to look around. Buttons sat gazing over the waters with an expression of bitter vexation. They had passed the outer point of the island, and had caught a swift current, a chopping sea, and a brisk breeze. The other boat was nowhere to be seen. Buttons had already headed back again.
"I don't see the other boat," said Dick. Buttons without a word pointed to the left. There she was. She had gone quietly around the island, and had taken the channel between it and the shore. All the time that she had been hidden she was steadily increasing the distance between them.