“If any trust valuable offerings to thy keeping, thou art a living miracle in thine own person!  I can foresee that thou wilt bear nought else beside aves.”

“Nay, I pretend to deal in little more.  The rich and great, they that send vessels of gold and rich dresses to Our Lady, employ their own favorite messengers; I am but the bearer of prayer and the substitute for the penitent.  The sufferings that I undergo in the flesh are passed to the credit of my employers, who get the benefit of my aches and pains.  I pretend to be no more than their go-between, as yonder manner has so lately called me.”

Pippo turned suddenly, following the direction of the other’s eye, and cast a glance at the self-styled Il Maledetto.  This individual, of all the common herd, had alone forborne to join the gaping and amused crowd near the juggler.  His forbearance, or want of curiosity, had left him in the quiet possession of the little platform that was made by the stowage of the boxes, and he now stood on the summit of the pile, conspicuous by his situation and mein, the latter being remarkable for its unmoved calmness, heightened by the understanding manner that is so peculiar to a seaman when afloat.”

“Wilt thou have the history of thy coming perils, friend mariner?” cried the mercurial mountebank:  “A journal of thy future risks and tempests to amuse you in this calm?  Such a picture of sea-monsters and of coral that grows in the ocean’s caverns, where mariners sleep, that shall give thee the night-mare for months, and cause thee to dream of wrecks and bleached bones for the rest of thy life?  Thou hast only to wish it, to have the adventures of thy next voyage laid before thee, like a map.”

“Thou would’st gain more credit with me, as one cunning in thy art, by giving the history of the last.”

“The request is reasonable, and thou shalt have it:  for I love the bold adventurer that trusts himself hardily upon the great deep;” answered the unabashed Pippo.  “My first lessons in necromancy were received on the mole of Napoli, amid burly Inglesi, straight-nosed Greeks, swarthy Sicilians, and Maltese with spirits as fine as the gold of their own chains.  This was the school in which I learned to know my art, and an apt scholar I proved in all that touches the philosophy and humanity of my craft.  Signore, thy palm?”

Maso spread his sinewy hand in the direction of the juggler, without descending from his elevation, and in a way to show that, while he would not balk the common humor, he was superior to the gaping wonder and childish credulity of most of those who watched the result.  Pippo affected to stretch out his neck, in order to study the hard and dark lines, and then he resumed his revelations, like one perfectly satisfied with what he had discovered.