and cries of fruit-vendors who exposed their wares of brightest hues on the pavement.  Country women, in picturesque cinnamon-coloured skirts, moved gravely among the citizens.  The houses, when not whitewashed, showed their building stone of red volcanic tufa; windows were aflame with cacti and carnations; slumberous oranges glowed in courtyards; the roadways underfoot were of lava—­pitch-black.  It was a brilliant medley, overhung by a deep blue sky.  The canvas was indeed overcharged, as Denis had said.

“There are no half-tones in this landscape,” the bishop remarked to Mr. Keith.  “No compromise!”

“And yet perfect harmony.  They are all true colours.  I hate compromise.  It is one of the curses of life.  That is why I cannot endure England for long.  The country is full of half-tones, not only in nature.  Because a thing seems good, there must be some bad in it.  It seems bad to us—­therefore it must be good for us.  Bedlamites!  I like clean values.  They make for clean thinking.  This is the only day in the year,” he went on, “when you will see the population abroad at this hour.  The streets are generally quite empty.  It is the only day when I would forgo my afternoon nap on Nepenthe.”

“Nearly three o’clock,” said the bishop, consulting his watch.  “What a queer time for theatricals!”

“That Duke again.  You can ask Eames about him, he must have been a man worth knowing.  He always slept in the afternoons.  It annoyed him to think that his people slept too.  He might suddenly want them for something, he said.  He commanded that they should stay awake, and decapitated several hundred who were found napping.  When he saw that the habit was ingrained in their natures and that nothing would avail save a total extermination of the populace, he gave way, gracefully.  Then hi instituted these popular theatricals in honour of the Patron Saint, and fixed them irrevocably for the hour of three o’clock.  He meant to keep his faithful subjects awake on one afternoon of the year, at all events.  He took it for granted that they could never resist a performance of this kind.  He was right.  He knew his people!  That was ages ago.  We shall find the place crammed this afternoon.”

There was barely standing room, in spite of the sirocco heat.  Mr. Keith, by means of some mysterious formula, soon procured two seats in the front row, the occupants of which smilingly took their places among the crowd at the back.

The bishop found himself sitting between his host and a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman who turned out to be Count Caloveglia.  He was dressed in black.  There was something alert and military in that upright carriage, those keen eyes, bushy black brows and snowy mustache.  He uttered a few pleasant remarks on making Mr. Heard’s acquaintance, but soon relapsed into silence.  Absorbed in the spectacle, he sat motionless, his chin resting in the hollow of his right hand.