their guitars, their mandolins, their squeaky fiddles, and their hot
and tremulous voices. The "Valse Bleu," "Santa Lucia," "Addio, mia
bella Napoli," "La Frangese," "Sole Mio," "Marechiaro," "Carolina,"
"La Ciociara"; with the chain of lights the chain of songs was woven
round the bay; from the Eldorado, past the Hotel de Vesuve, the Hotel
Royal, the Victoria, to the tree-shaded alleys of the Villa Nazionale,
to the Mergellina, where the naked urchins of the fisherfolk took
their evening bath among the resting boats, to the "Scoglio di
Frisio," and upwards to the Ristorante della Stella, and downwards
again to the Ristorante del Mare, and so away to the point, to the
Antico Giuseppone.

Long and brilliant was the chain of lamps, and long and ardent was the
chain of melodies melting one into the other, and stretching to the
wide darkness of the night and to the great stillness of the sea. The
night was alive with music, with the voices that beat like hearts
over-charged with sentimental longings.

But at the point where stood the Antico Giuseppone the lights and the
songs died out. And beyond there was the mystery, the stillness of the
sea.

And there, beyond the chain of lights, the chain of melodies, the
islet lay in its delicate isolation; nevertheless, it, too, was surely
not unaware of the coming of summer. For even here, Nature ran up her
flag to honor her new festival. High up above the rock on the mainland
opposite there was a golden glory of ginestra, the broom plant, an
expanse of gold so brilliant, so daring in these bare surroundings,
that Vere said, when she saw it: