stare con bocca aperta.’  Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation changed.  Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coast-guard has to tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march.  It is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this boy—­’il piu matto di tutta la famiglia’—­to adopt it, seems well-nigh quenched.  And still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked enthusiastically of deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to southern islands where wonders are.

A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear.  The moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the lights of Lerici, the great fanali at the entrance of the gulf, and Francesco’s upturned handsome face.  Then all again was whirled in mist and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came rain; lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent landward by the squall.  It was long past midnight now, and the storm was on us for the space of three days.

V.—­PORTO VENERE

For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height.  The hills all around were inky black and weary.

At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and lightning poured upon the waste.  I thought of the Florentine patrol.  Is he out in it, and where?

At last there came a lull.  When we rose on the fourth morning, the sky was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm—­the air as soft and tepid as boiled milk or steaming flannel.  We drove along the shore to Porto Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the face of Spezzia since Shelley knew it.  This side of the gulf is not so rich in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the winds from the Carrara mountains.  The chestnuts come down to the shore in many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side.  To make up for this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession of tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor.  There are many villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons.  A prickly bindweed (the Smilax Sarsaparilla) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.