After Paolo had sipped the rosolio which Harry contemplated with such a mingling of alarm and disgust, they got up and continued their walk. By-and-bye, in the full moonlight, they strolled towards the port, and walked about on the quays, among the shipping, which threw up its black lines of masts, and dark lace of cordage against the silvery light of which the sky was full. Harry was interested about all this, much more than about churches or pictures. And he threaded his way among the ropes, and piles of barrels and cases with which the quays were encumbered, with a stir of curiosity and hope. Should he find his life and work within the circle which surrounded these instruments of wealth? He paid but little attention to the talk of his companion as they went along. He seemed to see once more the new career before him which he had been doubting an hour or two before. It was not a very magnificent prospect: yet work that suited him might surely be found when there were goods to be exported, and counting houses to look after these goods. He did not know what might become of him in this strange place, but whatever his fortune might be it was all he could look forward to, and his mind seemed to take a new start from the appearance before him of a possibility, a strain of existence which he understood. He forgot, as he listened to Paolo’s chatter going on by his side--which filled him with a vague, superficial sense of superiority--all about the new language to be learned, and the difficulties which had almost overwhelmed him in the afternoon. Thus he went on, allowing his companion to talk, and thinking his own thoughts, till they emerged from the immediate regions of the basins and docks and came back to the streets. They were crossing one which was very dimly lighted, and which Paolo informed him led into the better quarter of the town, when they came in sight, or, rather in hearing, of a party of sailors in a noisy state of exhilaration. What could they have been drinking, Harry wondered, thinking of the sour wine and the rosolio, to make them so convivial? They were singing rude choruses, and making night hideous with jokes and loud laughter, bearing a wonderful family resemblance to noises of the same kind which Harry had heard near the port of Liverpool--when there suddenly crossed the moonlit-road, between the revellers and the two orderly passengers, a couple of female figures moving rapidly, figures very easily identified as those of an elder and younger woman--a sedate and ample personage, with a girl clinging to her. Two of the sailors, with a holloa of satisfaction, started forward in pursuit. They overtook the women when they were close to Harry and his companion, and one of them seized the girl by the arm. She gave a frightened cry, and the other woman, throwing her arm round her, pushed the men away, pouring forth a volley of rapid Italian, of which Harry of course did not understand a word. He made a stride forward to the fray.