“So it is, Signore, in this moral world of ours.  He who would run a fair course, in any particular trust has only to make himself dangerous to be bought up.  Your thief-takers are desperate rogues out of business; your tide-waiter has got his art by cheating the revenue; and I have been in lands where it was said, that all they who most fleeced the people began their calling as suffering patriots.  The rule is firmly enough established without the help of my poor name, and, by your leave, I will remain as I am; one that hath his pleasure in living amid risks, and who takes his revenge of the authorities by railing at them when defeated, and in laughing at them when in success.”

“Young man, thou hast in thee the materials of a better life!”

“Signore, this may be true,” answered Maso, whose countenance again grew dark; “we boast of being the lords of the creation, but the bark of poor Baptista was not less master of its movements, in the late gust, than we are masters of our fortunes.  Signor Grimaldi, I have in me the materials that make a man; but the laws, and the opinions, and the accursed strife of men, have left me what I am.  For the first fifteen years of my career, the church was to be my stepping-stone to a cardinal’s hat or a fat priory; but the briny sea-water washed out the necessary unction.”

“Thou art better born than thou seemest—­thou hast friends who should be grieved at this?”

The eye of Maso flashed, but he bent it aside, as if bearing down, by the force of an indomitable will, some sudden and fierce impulse.

“I was born of woman!” he said, with singular emphasis.

“And thy mother—­is she not pained at thy present course—­does she know of thy career?”

The haggard smile to which this question gave birth induced the Genoese to regret that he had put it.  Maso evidently struggled to subdue some feeling which harrowed his very soul, and his success was owing to such a command of himself as men rarely obtain.

“She is dead,” he answered, huskily; “she is a saint with the angels.  Had she lived, I should never have been a mariner, and—­and—­” laying his hand on his throat, as if to keep down the sense of suffocation, he smiled, and added, laughingly,—­“ay, and the good Winkelried would have been a wreck.”

“Maso, thou must come to me at Genoa.  I must see more of thee, and question thee further of thy fortunes.  A fair spirit has been perverted in thy fall, and the friendly aid of one who is not without influence may still restore its tone.”

The Signor Grimaldi spoke warmly, like one who sincerely felt regret, and his voice had all the melancholy and earnestness of such a sentiment.  The truculent nature of Maso was touched by this show of interest, and a multitude of fierce passions were at once subdued.  He approached the noble Genoese, and respectfully took his hand.