It was not dusk when the boat was alongside of the low jagged rocks which lie between the landward needle and the cliffs, making a sort of rough platform in which there are here and there smooth flat places worn by the waves and often full of dry salt for a day or two after a storm. There, to the Marchesa's inexpressible relief, the numberless objects inscribed in the catalogue of her comforts were already arranged, and she suffered herself to be lifted from the boat and carried ashore by Ruggiero and his brother, without once murmuring or complaining of fatigue--a truly wonderful triumph for San Miniato's generalship.
There was the table, the screen, and the lamp, the chairs and the carpet--all the necessary furniture for the Marchesa's dining-room. And there at her place stood an immaculate individual in an evening coat and a white tie, ready and anxious to do her bidding. She surveyed the preparations with more satisfaction than she generally showed at anything. Then all at once her face fell.
"Good heavens, San Miniato carissimo," she cried, "you have forgotten the red pepper! It is all over! I shall eat nothing! I shall die in this place!"
"Pardon me, dearest Marchesa, I know your tastes. There is red pepper and also Tabasco on the table. Observe--here and here."
"Forgive me, dear friend," she said. "I am so dependent on these little things! You are an angel, a general and a man of heart."
"The man of your heart, I hope you mean to say," answered San Miniato, looking at Beatrice.
"Of course--anything you like--you are delightful. But I am dropping with fatigue. Let me sit down."
"You have forgotten nothing--not even the moon you promised me," said Beatrice, gazing with clasped hands at the great yellow shield as it slowly rose above the far south-eastern hills.
"I will never forget anything you ask me, Donna Beatrice," replied San Miniato in a low voice. Something told him that in the face of all nature's beauty, he must speak very simply, and he was right.
There is but one moment in the revolution of day and night which is more beautiful than the rising of the full moon at sunset, and that is the dawn on the water when the full moon is going down. To see the gathering dusk drink down the purple wine that dyes the air, the sea and the light clouds, until it is almost dark, and then to feel the darkness growing light again with the warm, yellow moon--to watch the jewels gathering on the velvet sea, and the sharp black cliffs turning to chiselled silver above you--to know that the whole night is to be but a softer day--to see how the love of the sun for the earth is one, and the love of the moon another--that is a moment for which one may give much and not be disappointed.