“They had begun that chimney, sir,” cried he, “before I got out of the house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can see on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no depth to anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in stillness. No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, I must be brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn’t been eight months there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and four persons in plain clothes landed from her, and pottered about the shore--I thought looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my house, and asked permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. I acceded, and in they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do you think he was? The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran cold when I saw him. “‘You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,’ said he to me, coolly. “‘Yes, and I might have been living there still,’ replied I, ‘if it had not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak enough to be polite.’ “He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, and I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by running out a pier here, and a breakwater there--by filling up this, and deepening that--safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while the headlands could be easily fortified, and ‘at a moderate cost,’ I quote himself, ‘of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while a fort erected on the island there would command the whole entrance.’ “‘And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?’ cried I; for, as they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. “He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, ‘Who knows? the French perhaps--perhaps your own people one of these days.’ “I’d like to have said, but I didn’t, ‘We could walk in and walk out here, with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with a mackintosh.’ “They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf and dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man--he looked exactly like an owl--said, with a little grin, ‘We’re going to disturb you again.’ “‘How so?’ cried I; ‘you can’t smelt lead here.’ “‘No, but we’re going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You’ll have to clear out before the New Year.’