or more, and I purposed taking my departure that very day.  Before leaving the vault I glanced at the coffin I myself had occupied.  Should I mend that and nail it up as though my body were still inside?  No—­better leave it as it was—­roughly broken open—­it would serve my purpose better so.  As soon as I had finished all I had to do, I clambered through the private passage, closing it after me with extra care and caution, and then I betook myself directly to the Molo.  On making inquiries among the sailors who were gathered there, I heard that a small coasting brig was on the point of leaving for Palermo.  Palermo would suit me as well as any other place; I sought out the captain of the vessel.  He was a brown-faced, merry-eyed mariner—­he showed his glittering white teeth in the most amiable of smiles when I expressed my desire to take passage with him, and consented to the arrangement at once for a sum which I thought extremely moderate, but which I afterward discovered to be about treble his rightful due.  But the handsome rogue cheated me with such grace and exquisite courtesy, that I would scarcely have had him act otherwise than he did.  I hear a good deal of the “plain blunt honesty” of the English.  I dare say there is some truth in it, but for my own part I would rather be cheated by a friendly fellow who gives you a cheery word and a bright look than receive exact value for my money from the “plain blunt” boor who seldom has the common politeness to wish you a good-day.

We got under way at about nine o’clock—­the morning was bright, and the air, for Naples, was almost cool.  The water rippling against the sides of our little vessel had a gurgling, chatty murmur, as though it were talking vivaciously of all the pleasant things it experienced between the rising and the setting of the sun; of the corals and trailing sea-weed that grew in its blue depths, of the lithe glittering fish that darted hither and thither between its little waves, of the delicate shells in which dwelt still more delicate inhabitants, fantastic small creatures as fine as filmy lace, that peeped from the white and pink doors of their transparent habitations, and looked as enjoyingly on the shimmering blue-green of their ever-moving element as we look on the vast dome of our sky, bespangled thickly with stars.  Of all these things, and many more as strange and sweet, the gossiping water babbled unceasingly; it had even something to say to me concerning woman and woman’s love.  It told me gleefully how many fair female bodies it had seen sunk in the cold embrace of the conquering sea, bodies, dainty and soft as the sylphs of a poet’s dream, yet which, despite their exquisite beauty, had been flung to and fro in cruel sport by the raging billows, and tossed among pebbles for the monsters of the deep to feed upon.