"Good-bye: God bless you, old man!" I replied, as the boat was pushed off and moved shoreward.
The dark grave has long closed over the faithful Catanach and his illustrious master; but memory yet recalls the old man's visage: I can see it as I saw it then; clouded by honest sorrow, and its hard wrinkled features tinged by the light of the moon.
An hour afterwards we were ploughing the waters of the gulf, with the broad latteen sail of the Echino bellying taut before the breeze as she cleft the billows with her sharp-beaked prow. Zamori grasped the tiller with important confidence; the crew, his two athletic and black-browed sons, remained forward, and I seated myself beside the signora, who permitting her hood to fall back, the moon shone on her beautiful features and glossy hair. So dangerous an attraction near old Zamori disturbed his steering, and the Echino yawed till her sail flapped to the mast.
"A sweet face!" he muttered, as the boat careened over; "but it will work mischief, like the mermaids."
"O, signor, I am happy, so very happy!" said Francesca: the richness of her tone, and the artlessness of her manner moved me. "Shall we soon see Calabria?"
"That is Capo Trionto," said I, pointing ahead.
"Dear Calabria!" she exclaimed, kissing her hand to the distant coast; "there was a time when I thought never to behold thee more! Beautiful star!" continued the enthusiastic girl, pointing to a twinkling orb: "Signor, is it not lovely? alas! 't is gone: perhaps it is a world!" she added, clasping her hands, as it shot from its place and vanished. The increasing roughness of the sea, as we sailed along the high Calabrian coast, soon made Francesca uneasy: her prattle died away; she became very sick, and lay in the stern-sheets of the boat, covered up with Zamori's warm storm jacket, and a spare jib: both rather coarse coverings for a beautiful and delicate female. At length she slept; and I was left for a time to my own reflections.
About midnight, I was roused from a sound nap by Zamori.
"Look around you, excellency," said he, in a whisper; "saw you ever aught so splendid—so terrible?"
Like a vast globe of gold the shining moon was resting on the summit of Cape Trionto; which, rising black as ebony from the ocean, heaved its strongly-marked outline against the illuminated sky: its ridge was marked by a streak of fiery yellow. The water was phosphorescent; the waves seemed to be burning around us, and we sped through an ocean of light! The spray flying past our bows seemed like sparks of living fire; the ropes trailing over the gunnel, and the myriads of animalcules which animate every drop of the mighty deep, were all shining with magic splendour. An exclamation of rapture escaped me: at that moment the moon sank down behind Trionto; in an instant the sea became dark, and not a trace of all that glorious and magnificent illumination remained behind.