"These marsh people are a poor sort," said Rafaello contemptuously. "Not that I would take a wife from them, God forbid! Here they have great tracts, with buffalo and wild pig--yes, I have seen them myself, rooting through the wild oak--but have they the brains to invite the foreign _signori_ to hunt there and earn fortunes by it? No. Have they even strength to cut their own timber? Again, no. They lie and shiver with malaria. Not that they are not a little better now," he admitted, shifting the sail so that we looked toward the headlands of Sardinia, a cloud of lateens drifting like gnats between, "now they are ploughing on the plains, the boats are out, the bullocks are busy, and the wind is putting a little strength into the poor creatures. I swear the best man among them is an old woman I took across in my _felucca_ to pleasure my girl's brother--she tended him once when he chopped through his foot near her hut just on the edge of the hills. Seventy years, or nearly, and tough and wiry yet, and can help neatly with a boat. And money laid by, too, but is she idle? Never. She spins her hemp and weaves osiers into baskets and changes them for goats' hams. That with _polenta_ keeps her all winter--and well, too. She is very close. The money, no one knows where it came from." [Illustration: SHE SPINS HER HEMP AND WEAVES OSIERS INTO BASKETS AND CHANGES THEM FOR GOATS' HAMS] Thus Rafaello babbled on, steering cleverly and suddenly into one of the vast, unhealthy lagoons that shelter so many of the winged winter visitors of Italy--visitors unrecorded in the hotels, unnoted by the guides, but of greater interest than many tourists. I, listening idly to him, caught my breath at the flight of flaming, rosy flamingoes that lighted inland, just beyond us, miracles of flower-like beauty. "From Egypt, _excellenz'_: They are not due till November, but the winter will be cold and they started early. In March they will start back. Why? How should I know? Who sends the wild duck, for that matter? I have seen a half-mile of them at one flight bound for this place. It may be the good God warns them and they go." "It may be, Rafaello." "But then, _excellenz'_, does he send the brown water-hens, too, and if so, why not tell them of the young nobleman whom I brought here to shoot only last week? Is it likely God did not know I would bring him? Of course not." "Perhaps they know, but must go, nevertheless," I ventured, and we were silent and thoughtful. Did they? Did they fly, helpless, to their death, bound by some fatal certainty? Was Alif right, and is it written for us all?