He spent all his time under the great wall of the Sasso Scritto, while the surf leaped up amongst the rosemary and the waves ran in between the now leafless rock-rose bushes.
Great ships passed in the offing, their canvas swelling in the wind; yawls and brigs and the tartane of the coast went to and fro in the fresh weather, dipping and showing their copper under the rolling of the seas; now and then a little felucca with her single sail stood off the shore while her men were fishing, or out from the bay of Follonica a whole lateen fleet came crowding when the news was told of a shoal of ragni or rombi seen at sunrise. He waited patiently, with the sea and its vessels before his eyes, and the big white clouds floating above the head of the bluff.
But not a soul came there.
Even his patience, which was long, began to give way under the stress of time.
He might wait for ever on this shore. He began to think that he was under the sway of Circe, and that these fables after all were not so far from truth.
Then his fears took a more prosaic path,
