There are few portions of the sea in which a single ship or boat is an object of so little notice as the Bay of Naples. This is true of all times and seasons; the magnificent scale on which nature has created her panorama rendering ordinary objects of comparative insignificance; while the constant movement, the fruit of a million of souls thronging around its teeming shores, covers it in all directions with boats, almost as the streets of a town are crowded with pedestrians. The present occasion, too, was one likely to set everything in motion; and Raoul judged rightly when he thought himself less likely to be observed in such a scene than on a smaller and less frequented water. As a matter of course, while near the mole, or the common anchorage, it was necessary to pass amid a floating throng; but, once beyond the limits of this crowd, the size of the bay rendered it quite easy to avoid unpleasant collisions without any apparent effort; while the passage of a boat in any direction was an occurrence too common to awaken distrust. One would think no more of questioning a craft that was encountered, even in the centre of that spacious bay, than he would think of inquiring about the stranger met in the market-place. All this both Raoul and Ithuel knew and felt; and once in motion, in their yawl, they experienced a sense of security that for the four or five previous hours had not always existed.
By this time the sun was low, though it was possible, as Raoul perceived, to detect the speck that was still swinging at the Minerva's fore-yard-arm; a circumstance to which the young man, with considerate feeling, refrained from adverting. The Proserpine had been some time in motion, standing out of the fleet under a cloud of canvas, but with an air so light as to permit the yawl to gain on her, though the heads of both were turned in the same direction. In this manner mile after mile was passed, until darkness came. Then the moon arose, rendering the bay less distinct, it is true, but scarcely more mysterious or more lovely, than in the hours of stronger light. The gulf, indeed, forms an exception in this particular to the general rule, by the extent of its shores, the elevation of its mountains, the beauty of its water--which has the deep tint of the ocean off soundings--and the softness of the atmosphere; lending to it by day all the mellowed and dreamy charms that other scenes borrow from the illusions of night and the milder brilliance of the secondary planets. Raoul did not exert himself at the oar; and, as he sat aft, his companion was obliged to take the stroke from his movement. It was so pleasant to have Ghita with him, on his own element, that he never hurried himself while in the enjoyment of her society. The conversation, it will readily be imagined, was not lively; but the saddened melancholy of Ghita's voice, as she occasionally hazarded a remark of her own, or answered one of his questions, sounded sweeter in his ears than the music of the ship's bands that was now wafted to them across the water.