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Updated: May 8, 2025
Von Glauben looked at him, and in a moment made up his mind. He turned to the coral-fisher. "What think you truly of the night, my friend? Is it for life or death we go?" "Death! Certain death!" answered the man; "It is madness to set sail in such a storm as this!" "You are married, no doubt? And little ones eat your earnings? Ach so! Then you shall not be asked to go with us. Ronsard, I am ready!
With a sudden movement, as active as it was decided, old Ronsard went to a corner in the room and drew out a thick coil of rope with an iron hook at the end, and slinging it round his waist with the alert quickness of youth, made for the open door. "Where is your skiff?" he demanded. "Ashore down yonder;" answered the coral-fisher; "But you what are you going to do?
"They are too strong!" cried the coral-fisher; "Ronsard, believe me! There is no rain to soften or abate the wind and the sea grows greater with every breath of the rising gale!" "I care nothing!" replied Ronsard; "Let be! If you are afraid, I will go alone!" At these words, the Professor suddenly awoke to the situation. "What would you attempt, Ronsard?" he exclaimed; "You can do nothing!
"I shall return to Naples shortly, and should you seek me, you will find me there." The Sicilian doffed his cap and saluted me profoundly. "I guessed well," he remarked, smilingly, "that the Signor Conte's hands were not those of a coral-fisher. Oh, yes! I know a gentleman when I see him though we Sicilians say we are all gentlemen. It is a good boast, but alas! not always true!
"Why do you call me signor?" I inquired brusquely. "I am a coral-fisher." The little man shrugged his shoulders and bowed deferentially, yet with the smile still dancing gayly in his eyes and dimpling his olive cheeks. "Oh, certainly! As the signor pleases ma " And he ended with another expressive shrug and bow. I looked at him fixedly. "What do you mean?" I asked with some sternness.
"I have found it!" he exclaimed. "The very thing to suit you. Your are perhaps a coral-fisher? You will like a fisherman's dress. Here is one, red sash, cap and all, in beautiful condition! He that wore it was about your height it will fit you as well as it fitted him, and, look you! the plague is not in it, the sea has soaked through and through it; it smells of the sand and weed."
The lot of the coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered the old conditions of service.
And although times have changed for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps the workman’s strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade.
“Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe; immeasurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure.
"It is all storm!" cried the man, excitedly; "The billows are running mountains high! there is no chance for him!" "No chance for whom?" demanded Von Glauben, impatiently; "What would you tell us? Speak plainly!" "It was the King!" said the coral-fisher again, trying to express himself more collectedly "I saw his face lit up by the after-glow of the sky white white as the foam on the wave! Listen!
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