to put a good face on the matter, and explained that there were more rotten planks in her than any one knew of and that only the nails below the water line were copper after all, and he predicted a short life for Number Fifty Seven, when Ruggiero renewed the old licence in the little harbour office.  Ruggiero, however, cared for none of these things, but ballasted the tub properly with bags of pebbles and demonstrated to the crowd that she was no longer easy to upset, inviting any one who pleased to stand on the gunwale and try.

“But the ballast makes her heavy to pull,” objected Black Rag, as he looked on.

“If you had arms like the Children of the King,” retorted the Cripple, “you would not trouble yourself about a couple of hundredweight more or less.  But you have not.  So you had better go and play three numbers at the lottery, the day of the month, the number of the boat and any other one that you like.  In that way you may still make a little money if you have luck.  For you have made a bad bargain with the Children of the King, and you know it.”

Black Rag was much struck by the idea and promptly went up to the town to invest his spare cash in the three numbers, taking his own age for the third.  As luck would have it the two first numbers actually turned up and he won thirty francs that week, which, as he justly observed, brought the price of the boat up to eighty.  For if he had not sold her he would never have played the numbers at all, and no one pretended that she was worth more than eighty francs, if as much.

Then, one morning, San Miniato found Ruggiero waiting outside his door when he came out.  The sailor grew leaner and more silent every day, but San Miniato seemed to grow stouter and more talkative.

“If you would like to go after crabs this evening, Excellency,” said the former, “the weather is good and they are swarming on the rocks everywhere.”

“What does one do with them?” asked San Miniato.  “Are they good to eat?”

“One knows that, Excellency.  We put them into a kettle with milk, and they drink all the milk in the night and the next day they are good to cook.”

“Can we take the ladies, Ruggiero?”

“In the sail boat, Excellency, and then, if you like, you and the Signorina can go with me in the little one with my brother, and I will pull while Bastianello and your Excellency take the crabs.”

“Very well.  Then get a small boat ready for to-night, Ruggiero.”

“I have one of my own, Excellency.”

“So much the better.  If the ladies will not go, you and I can go alone.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

San Miniato wondered why Ruggiero was so pale.

CHAPTER XI.

Again the mother and daughter were together in the cool shade of their terrace.  Outside, it was very hot, for the morning breeze did not yet stir the brown linen curtains which kept out the glare of the sea, and myriads of locusts were fiddling their eternal two notes without pause or change of pitch, in every garden from Massa to Scutari point, which latter is the great bluff from which they quarry limestone for road making, and which shuts off the amphitheatre of Sorrento from the view of Castellamare to eastward.  The air was dry, hot and full of life and sound, as it is in the far south in summer.