through the raging sea that broke upon the bar was nothing compared with
Aurora's inward conviction that the little vessel had borne away the
secret of his disappearance. And she had not been wrecked: Aurora knew
that, for a wreck anywhere on the Roman shore would have been spoken of
at once. They are unfortunately common enough, and since her childhood
Aurora had more than once seen a schooner's masts sticking up out of
the treacherous water a cable's length from the shore. The brigantine
had got away, for the gale had moderated very suddenly, as spring gales
do in the Mediterranean, just when the captain was making up his mind to
let go both anchors and make a desperate attempt to save his vessel by
riding out the storm--a forlorn hope with such ground tackle as he had
in his chain lockers. And then he had stood out, and had sailed away,
one danger more behind him in his hard life, and one less ahead. He had
sailed away--whither? No one could tell. Those little vessels, built in
the south of Italy, often enough take salt to South America, and are
sold there, cargo and all; and some of the crew stay there, and some get
other ships, but almost all are dispersed. The keeper of the San Lorenzo
tower, who had been a deep-water man, had told Aurora about it. He
himself had once gone out in a Sicilian brigantine from Trapani, and had
stayed away three years, knocking about the world in all sorts of craft.

Yet this one might have been on a coastwise trip to Genoa and
Marseilles. That was quite possible. If one could only find out her
name. And yet, if she had put into a near port Marcello would have come
back; for Aurora was quite sure that he had got on board her somehow. It
was all a mystery, all but the certainty she felt that he was still
alive, and which nothing could shake, even when every one else had given
him up. Aurora begged her mother to speak to Corbario about it. With his
experience and knowledge of things he would know what to do; he could
find some way of tracing the vessel, wherever she might be.