Well, it was five in the afternoon,--near sundown at that season. I went to dear old Frank Chaney,--the jolliest of jolly Englishmen, who was acting quartermaster-general,--and told him I must have transportation. I can see him and hear him now,--as he sat on his barrel head, smoked his vile Tunisian tobacco in his beloved short meerschaum, which was left to him ever since he was at Bonn, as he pretended, a student with Prince Albert. He did not swear,--I don't think he ever did. But he looked perplexed enough to swear. And very droll was the twinkle of his eye. The truth was, that every sort of a thing that would sail, and every wretch of a fisherman that could sail her, had been, as he knew, and as I knew, sent off that very morning to rendezvous at Carrara, for the contingent which we were hoping had slipped through Cavour's pretended neutrality. And here was an order for him to furnish me "transportation" in exactly the opposite direction. "Do you know of anything, yourself, Fred?" said he. "Not a coffin," said I. "Did the chief suggest anything?" "Not a nutshell," said I. "Could not you go by telegraph?" said Frank, pointing up to the dumb old semaphore in whose tower he had established himself. "Or has not the chief got a wishing carpet? Or can't you ride to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, _polenta_, or _olla podrida_, or other of the stores of war?" No; there was nothing to bring back except myself. Lucky enough if I came back to tell my own story. And so we walked up on the tower deck to take a look. Blessed St. Lazarus, chief of Naples and of beggars! a little felucca was just rounding the Horse Head and coming into the bay, wing-wing. The fishermen in her had no thought that they were ever going to get into the Atlantic. May be they had never heard of the Ocean or of the Monthly. Can that be possible? Frank nodded, and I. He filled up with more Tunisian, beckoned to an orderly, and we walked down to the landing-jetty to meet them. _"Viva Italia!"_ shouted Frank, as they drew near enough to hear. _"Viva Garibaldi!"_ cried the skipper, as he let his sheet fly and rounded to the well-worn stones. A good voyage had they made of it, he and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly fellows out to them.