Nana, now that she knew that Beppi was not going to die, started scolding him for not looking where he was going, but Lucia sent her downstairs.

“He is too tired to listen to-night, Nana, and anyway he will be careful.  Do go away and rest a little, you must be tired.”

When Nana had left, Lucia returned to the bed and sat down.  She did not have any idea what time it was, and she knew that it would be impossible to leave Beppi until he was quiet.  She hardly touched the tempting tray that Amelie brought her, and her voice trembled as she asked what time it was.

“Ten minutes after seven,” Amelie told her after she had carefully consulted the big hall clock.

“Oh!” Lucia was surprised and relieved.  She thought she must have slept for hours, but now she realized that in reality she had only dozed for a few minutes.

She took Beppi’s hand and set about putting him to sleep.  It was a difficult task.  She told him story after story, but at the end of each his eyes were bright and his demand for another one as insistent as ever.

Lucia kept time by the chimes of the clock, and at ten she turned out the light.

“I am coming to bed beside you,” she explained as Beppi protested, “I think the light will hurt your head.”  She took off her dress and slipped on her nightgown.  Beppi snuggled contentedly into her arm, and she went on with her stories.

“Sing to me,” he asked at last, sleepily, “your song,” and Lucia began very softly to sing.

  “O’er sea the silver star brightly is glowing,
  Rocked now the billows are. 
  Soft winds are blowing,
  Come to my bark with me. 
  Come sail across the sea. 
  Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia.”

Beppi’s even breathing rewarded her efforts.  She slipped her arm from under his head and stole softly out of the room just as the clock chimed eleven.  She put on her dress hurriedly.

The house was very still as she crept downstairs and out into the garden.  The stars were out and it was an easy matter to find her way.  She ran until she reached the path that led to the shore, then she moved very cautiously.  She hoped to reach the guard, tell him what she had heard, and then go home, but when she reached the beach she realized that she was too late.

There was no guard in sight, but her ears detected the splash of oars, and she knew that the boatman was coming.  She crouched down beside the wall and waited.  She watched him pull his boat up on shore and then walk swiftly off in the opposite direction from her.

She did not know what to do, and she was frightened—­badly frightened.  The broad shining water on one side and the hill on the other seemed to hem her in, and she felt lost.  It was not like the mountains of Cellino, where she knew every path.

She crouched down by the wall and waited.  Another figure joined the boatman, and they stood still, a little farther up the beach.  Lucia knew it was the man she had seen that afternoon, and she knew too that in a very few seconds they would turn around and come back to the boat.