After what seemed an eternity, but was, likely, less than a minute, he found a fragment that satisfied him, and we made our way out, where I may swear that my spirits rose more speedily than his, for my shower of ashes was only rain of the cataract kind which comes down in the tropics, mingled with hail, to which our battle of the Nile seemed child's play; and it was no eruption at all, but that splitting, not very loud thunder, which will accompany a storm of lightning right overhead, almost without intermission, and which is even more terrifying than the loudest disconnected claps. But he saw that which was to a Sicilian of a more disturbing nature than bullet-stones of hail--his sister under one of the spans of covered walk alone with Will. It was true that they were in full view of us; but no Sicilian woman is ever allowed to stand out of earshot with a man who is not her brother or father, and in this instance there was the aggravating circumstance of that mock wooing. But it was as much as one's life was worth to venture out into that hail, even across so small a matter as a Pompejan garden court; and in the Queen's circle at Naples the freer English habits had crept in much, owing to the familiarity of the Queen with the English who came there, and notably Sir William and My Lady. And therefore, with an Italian's humour, he made a jest of necessity. He had on a fine court dress, orange and purple silk. "It is my holiday suit," he said, "and beggars cannot be wastrels." The Prince needed all the comforts of philosophy, for the thunder and lightning were awful. You expected the mountain itself to have been swallowed up as well as its disgorged city of Pompeji; and each time that the storm was at its worst, Donna Rusidda would clutch hold of Will and cling to him convulsively. I looked on my neighbour's face for a fury to which the storm would be as nothing; but he said: "'Tis her way--I would I were by her. She needs to be held; I have fears for her mind in a storm like this." I think most officers in our fleet would have held her in Will's place, brother or no brother; but Will would do no more than take her hands in his and endeavour by strong pressure to inspire her with some of his own invincible composure, which presently she began to feel. Her brother, with Italian quickness of perception, grasped the significance of Will's action. I, looking at the two of them, imagined that the girl, with her lovely eloquent face blanched with fear, and showing a whole range of feelings from terror to gratitude, with her figure now shrinking, now clinging to that splendid image of intrepid youth, must be silently pouring out her heart to him; while all I could gather from Will's attitude was that he was striving to do his duty under circumstances the most difficult and delicate, and that he was for changing places with either of us.