CHAPTER III.


Ten years have passed since the ever-memorable day on which the Children
of the King hurt their fists so badly in battering Don Pietro Casale's
sharp nose. They are big, bony men, now, with strongly marked features,
short yellow hair and fair beards. So far they are alike, and at first
sight might be taken for twin brothers. But there is a marked difference
between them in character, which shows itself in their faces. Ruggiero's
eye is of a colder blue, is less mobile and of harder expression than
Sebastiano's. His firm lips are generally tightly closed, and his square
chin is bolder than his brother's. He is stronger, too, though not by
very much, and though he is more silent and usually more equable, he has
by far the worse temper of the two. At sea there is little to choose
between them. Perhaps, on the whole, Sebastiano has always been the
favourite amongst his companions, while Ruggiero has been thought the
more responsible and possibly the more dangerous in a quarrel. Both,
however, have acquired an extraordinarily good reputation as seamen, and
also as boatmen on the pleasure craft of all sizes which sail the gulf
of Naples during the summer season.

They have made several long voyages, too. They have been to New York and
to Buenos Ayres and have seen many ports of Europe and America, and much
weather of all sorts north and south of the Line. They have known what
it is to be short of victuals five hundred miles from land with contrary
winds; they have experienced the delights of a summer at New Orleans,
waiting for a cargo and being eaten alive by mosquitoes; they have
looked up, in January, at the ice-sheeted rigging, when boiling water