It was a lovely night. The moonlight was dancing on the waves, the ship
glided smoothly on before a gentle breeze. Miss Lydia was not sleepy,
and nothing but the presence of an unpoetical person had prevented her
from enjoying those emotions which every human being possessing a touch
of poetry must experience at sea by moonlight. When she felt sure the
young lieutenant must be sound asleep, like the prosaic creature he was,
she got up, took her cloak, woke her maid, and went on deck. Nobody
was to be seen except the sailor at the helm, who was singing a sort of
dirge in the Corsican dialect, to some wild and monotonous tune. In the
silence of the night this strange music had its charm. Unluckily Miss
Lydia did not understand perfectly what the sailor was singing. Amid
a good deal that was commonplace, a passionate line would occasionally
excite her liveliest curiosity. But just at the most important moment
some words of _patois_ would occur, the sense of which utterly escaped
her. Yet she did make out that the subject was connected with a murder.
Curses against the assassin, threats of vengeance, praise of the dead
were all mingled confusedly. She remembered some of the lines. I will
endeavour to translate them here.

. . . "Neither cannon nor bayonets . . . Brought pallor to his
brow. . . As serene on the battlefield . . . as a summer sky. He was the
falcon--the eagle's friend . . . Honey of the sand to his friends . . .
To his enemies, a tempestuous sea. . . . . . . Prouder than the sun
. . . gentler than the moon . . . He for whom the enemies of France
. . . never waited . . . Murderers in his own land . . . struck him from
behind . . . As Vittolo slew Sampiero Corso . . . Never would they have
dared to look him in The face . . . Set up on the wall Before my bed
. . . my well-earned cross of honour . . . red is its ribbon . . . redder
is my shirt! . . . For my son, my son in a far country . . . keep my cross