"Catch him, Trinder," said the Admiral, and I made up my mind to have him if I had to tumble into the water for it (it was good weather for dipping in); but the boatman, seeing what I was going to do, knocked the stalk away with his oar, jabbering like a monkey, and my lizard was gone. The Governor spoke to him sharply in Sicilian, and turning to Will, made a long apology in Italian for him to translate to the Admiral, which was to the effect that this lizard had the evil eye, or something of the sort, and it was most unlucky to anger it. The Admiral gave one of his hearty laughs, and the incident passed off; but presently, as we were passing right through a thick tuft, Will said to me, "There is another: you catch him. I'll stop the boatman." The long _barca_ glided swishing under the overhanging papyrus to where the great lizard lay shamming sleep against the stalk. The boatman saw us looking, and raised his oar again. Quick as lightning, Will caught it, and was ready to strike the man or seize him by the throat as occasion was; but another person had seen it, and a stern voice came from the dais--"Mr. Hardres!" Will looked back, still holding the oar. The Admiral did not use this name in ordinary. "We don't want to carry any ill fortune with us while we are trying to fight the French." Will dropped the oar and saluted; and the Admiral, smiling again, said we might not be able to get enough wind even to frighten the Governor, with the chaplain's chameleon on board. But Donna Rusidda arched her eyebrows and said to Will,-- "We of the Favara have lasted six centuries, and we have always defied Fate." To which Will replied, "Don Comyn there, our _padre_, as you would call him, says he believes the Admiral is like the Roman Sylla--that there is no name by which he would so gladly be called as Faustus, the favourite of the Gods." We were not over long in the river Anapo, I believe, because the Governor would have us see the fountain of Cyané, from which the river named after it, the Cyano, derives its clear, plentiful water. The tributary was decidedly deeper than the river, and here and there the overarching clumps--I might almost speak of them as an avenue, for they sometimes met above our heads--broke off for a while, and the banks would be bordered with sedges of the leaves of the yellow iris, which blossoms here in great abundance in the spring. So Donna Rusidda informed Will. We quite missed the rustle of the papyrus against our canopy when we came to these open spots, though I daresay the boatmen were glad enough, for they must have impeded the way of the boat very much.