look for him. To my horror and amazement, I saw nothing between
me and the beach but two little white arms which struggled for an
instant above the surface of the water, and then disappeared from
view. When I dived for him, the poor little man was lying quietly
coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of shingle, looking by many
degrees smaller than I had ever seen him look before. During the
few minutes that elapsed while I was taking him in, the air
revived him, and he ascended the steps of the machine with my
assistance. With the partial recovery of his animation came the
return of his wonderful delusion on the subject of swimming. As
soon as his chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled
vacantly, and said he thought it must have been the Cramp.

When he had thoroughly recovered himself, and had joined me on the
beach, his warm Southern nature broke through all artificial
English restraints in a moment. He overwhelmed me with the
wildest expressions of affection--exclaimed passionately, in his
exaggerated Italian way, that he would hold his life henceforth at
my disposal--and declared that he should never be happy again
until he had found an opportunity of proving his gratitude by
rendering me some service which I might remember, on my side, to
the end of my days.

I did my best to stop the torrent of his tears and protestations
by persisting in treating the whole adventure as a good subject
for a joke; and succeeded at last, as I imagined, in lessening
Pesca's overwhelming sense of obligation to me. Little did I
think then--little did I think afterwards when our pleasant
holiday had drawn to an end--that the opportunity of serving me
for which my grateful companion so ardently longed was soon to