"There are plenty of fearless people in the world, but luck is even better than courage. The brig sailed away unscathed. Yes, luck is even better than courage. Surer than wisdom and stronger than justice. Luck is a great thing. It is the only thing worth having on one's side. And you people have always had it. Yes, signore, you belong to a lucky nation or else you would not be standing here on this platform looking across the water in the direction of that crumb of land that is the last refuge of your greatest enemy." Cosmo leaned over the stone parapet near the embrasure of the gun on the other side of which the man with the short pipe in his hand made a vaguely emphatic gesture: "I wonder what thoughts pass through your head," he went on in a quiet detached tone. "Or perhaps you are too young yet to have many thoughts in your head. Excuse my liberty, but I have always heard that one may be frank in speech with an Englishman; and by your speech there can be no doubt of you being of that nation." "I can assure you I have no thoughts of hatred. . . . Look, the Elban ship is getting farther away. Or is it only the darkness that makes her seem so?" "The night air is heavy. There is more wind on the water than up here, where we stand; but I don't think she has moved away. You are interested in that Elban ship, signore." "There is a fascination now about everything connected with that island," confessed the ingenuous traveller. "You have just said that I was too young to think. You don't seem so very much older than myself. I wonder what thoughts you may have." "The thoughts of a common man, thoughts that could be of no interest to an English milord," answered the other, in a grimly deprecatory tone. "Do you think that all Englishmen are lords?" asked Cosmo, with a laugh. "I didn't think. I went by your appearance. I remember hearing an old man once say that you were a lordly nation." "Really!" exclaimed the young man and laughed again in a low, pleasant note. "I remember hearing of an old man who called us a nation of traders." "_Nazione di mercante_," repeated the man slowly. "Well, that may be true too. Different men, different wisdoms." "This didn't occur to me," said Cosmo, seating himself with a little spring on the stone parapet of the tower. He rested one foot on the massive gun-carriage and fixed his clear eyes on the dark red streak on the western sky left by the retreating sun like a long gash inflicted on the suffering body of the universe. . . . "Different men, different wisdoms," he repeated, musingly. "I suppose it must be. People's lives are so very different. . . . And of what kind was the wisdom of your old man?"