It was pleasant, a few minutes later, to lie in the cool clear water and look up at the blue sky above and listen to the many sounds that came across from the little harbour.  Beatrice felt a sense of rest for the first time in several days.  She loved the sea and all that belonged to it, for she had been born within sight of it and had known it since she had been a child, and she always came back to it as to an element that understood her and which she understood.  She swam well and loved the easy, fluent motion she felt in the exercise, and she loved to lie on her back with arms extended and upturned face, drinking in the light breeze and the sunshine and the deep blue freshness of sky and water.

While she was bathing Bastianello and Teresina sat together behind the bathing-house, but Ruggiero retired respectfully to a distance and busied himself with giving his little boat a final washing, mopping out the water with an old sponge, which he passed again and again over each spot, as though never satisfied with the result.  He would have thought it bad manners indeed to be too near the bathing-place when Beatrice was in swimming.  But he kept an eye on Teresina, whom he could see talking with his brother, and when she went into the cabin, he knew that Beatrice had finished her bath, and he found little more to do in cleaning the old tub, which indeed, to a landsman’s eye, presented a decidedly smart appearance in her new coat of white paint, with a scarlet stripe.  When he had finished, he sauntered up to the wooden bridge that led to the bathing cabins and sat down on the upper rail, hooking one foot behind the lower one.  Bastianello, momentarily separated from Teresina, came and stood beside him.

“A couple of fenders would save the new paint on her, if we are going for crabs,” he observed, thoughtfully.

Ruggiero made that peculiar side motion of the head which means assent and approval in the south.

“And we will bring our own kettle for the crabs, and get the milk from the hotel,” continued the younger brother, who anticipated an extremely pleasant evening in the society of Teresina.  “And I have told Saint Peter to bring the torches, because he knows where to get them good,” added Bastianello who did not expect Ruggiero to say anything.  “What time do we go?”

“Towards an hour and a half of the night,” said Ruggiero, meaning two hours after sunset.  “Then the padroni will have eaten and the rocks will be covered with crabs, and the moon will not be yet risen.  It will be dark under Scutari till past midnight, and the crabs will sit still under the torch, and we can take them with our hands as we always do.”

“Of course,” answered Bastianello, who was familiar with the sport, “one knows that.”

“And I will tell you another thing,” continued Ruggiero, who seemed to warm with the subject.  “You shall pull stroke and I will pull bow.  In that way you will be near to Teresina and she will amuse herself the better, for you and she can take the crabs while I hold the torch.”