"What then do we wait for?" said the king. "Let us open this vessel instantly, and see the mystery, but if this should disgorge anything living, a miracle I shall consider it to be." Great was the haste they made to open the hull, and great the anxiety of all present to see the bringing forth. At last a pretty wide opening was made,--many bodies, seemingly dead, lay within; but one man laid his hands on the body of a woman whose heart still beat, and showed symptoms of life; others did the same, and each man brought out a body, some dead, some living. All the fishermen were not equally lucky. Those who yet breathed when brought into the air and light, and their faces washed and restoratives given, began to move their limbs and gaze around them, as if awakened from a deep sleep. Auristella found herself in the arms of Arnoldo, Transila in those of Clodio; Ricla and Constance were carried out by Rutilio and the elder Antonio. As for Antonio, the son, nobody carried him, for he walked out by himself, and Maurice did the like. Arnoldo was more full of surprise and wonder than even the newly-restored ones, and almost as senseless as the dead corpses. Auristella looked at him, but without recognition. The first words she uttered were, (and she it was who first broke the universal silence,) "Is the beautiful Sinforosa here by chance among these persons, O my brother?" "Great Heavens! what is this I hear?" said Arnoldo to himself; "what means this strange inquiry after Sinforosa, at a moment when she ought only to be thinking of returning thanks to Heaven for her wonderful preservation?" Nevertheless he answered that she was there present, and asked how she knew anything about her, for of course he was ignorant of all that Auristella had learned from the captain of the vessel touching Periander and his success at the games; and he could not divine the reason of Auristella inquiring for Sinforosa. Had he divined it, such is the force of jealousy, that it would have pierced into the inmost recesses of his enamoured heart like a knife, and would almost have separated soul and body.