It was near the base of the former of these massive blocks of stone, that one stood who seemed to gaze at the animated and striking scene, with the listlessness and indifference of satiety.  A multitude, some in masques and others careless of being known, had poured along the quay into the piazzetta, on their way to the principal square, while this individual had scarce turned a glance aside, or changed a limb in weariness.  His attitude was that of patient, practised, and obedient waiting on another’s pleasure.  With folded arms, a body poised on one leg, and a vacant though good-humored eye, he appeared to attend some beck of authority ere he quitted the spot.  A silken jacket, in whose tissue flowers of the gayest colors were interwoven, the falling collar of scarlet, the bright velvet cap with armorial bearings embroidered on its front, proclaimed him to be a gondolier in private service.

Wearied at length with the antics of a distant group of tumblers, whose pile of human bodies had for a time arrested his look, this individual turned away, and faced the light air from the water.  Recognition and pleasure shot into his countenance, and in a moment his arms were interlocked with those of a swarthy mariner, who wore the loose attire and Phrygian cap of men of his calling.  The gondolier was the first to speak, the words flowing from him in the soft accents of his native islands.

“Is it thou, Stefano?  They said thou hadst fallen into the gripe of the devils of Barbary, and that thou wast planting flowers for an infidel with thy hands, and watering them with thy tears!”

The answer was in the harsher dialect of Calabria, and it was given with the rough familiarity of a seaman.

“La Bella Sorrentina is no housekeeper of a curato!  She is not a damsel to take a siesta with a Tunisian rover prowling about in her neighborhood.  Hadst ever been beyond the Lido, thou wouldst have known the difference between chasing the felucca and catching her.”

“Kneel down and thank San Teodoro for his care.  There was much praying on thy decks that hour, caro Stefano, though none is bolder among the mountains of Calabria when thy felucca is once safely drawn up on the beach!”

The mariner cast a half-comic, half-serious glance upward at the image of the patron saint, ere he replied.

“There was more need of the wings of thy lion than of the favor of thy saint.  I never come further north for aid than San Gennaro, even when it blows a hurricane.”

“So much the worse for thee, caro, since the good bishop is better at stopping the lava than at quieting the winds.  But there was danger, then, of losing the felucca and her brave people among the Turks?”

“There was, in truth, a Tunis-man prowling about, between Stromboli and Sicily; but, Ali di San Michele! he might better have chased the cloud above the volcano than run after the felucca in a sirocco!”

“Thou wast chicken-hearted, Stefano!”