* * * *

He has been, at all events, 'up the Straits' as the Mediterranean
voyage is called here, and seen 'Palermy' and the Sicilians. But,
for his imagination, what seems to have struck it most was that it
was a 'fine place for Jack, for a man could get mools there for a
matter of three-halfpence a-day.'

'And was that all you got out of him?' asked Claude, sickly and
sulkily.

'Oh, you must not forget the halo of glory and excitement which in a
sailor's eyes surrounds the delights of horseback. But he gave me
besides a long glowing account of the catechism which they had there,
three-quarters of a mile long.'

'Pope Pius's catechism, I suppose?'

So thought I, at first; but it appeared that all the dead of the city
were arranged therein, dried and dressed out in their finest clothes,
'every sect and age,' as Tom said, 'by itself; as natural as life!'
We may hence opine that he means some catacombs or other.

Poor Claude could not even get up a smile: but his sorrows were
coming swiftly to an end. The rock clefts grew sharper and sharper
before us. The soft masses of the lofty bank of wooded cliff rose
higher and higher. The white houses of Clovelly, piled stair above
stair up the rocks, gleamed more and more brightly out of the green
round bosoms of the forest. As we shut in headland after headland,