It was evident that the two strangers represented some exalted¹ military and ecclesiastical authority. This was shown in their dress—a long-forgotten, half mediaeval costume, that to the imaginative spectator was perfectly³ in keeping with their mysterious advent⁴, and to the more practical as startling as a masquerade. The foremost figure wore a broad-brimmed hat of soft felt, with tarnished⁵ gold lace, and a dark feather tucked in its recurved flap; a short cloak of fine black cloth thrown over one shoulder left a buff leathern jacket and breeches, ornamented⁶ with large round silver buttons, exposed until they were met by high boots of untanned yellow buckskin that reached halfway⁷ up the thigh⁸. A broad baldric of green silk hung from his shoulder across his breast, and supported at his side a long sword with an enormous basket hilt, through which somewhat coquettishly peeped a white lace handkerchief. Tall and erect⁹, in spite of the grizzled hair and iron-gray moustaches and wrinkled face of a man of sixty, he suddenly halted on the deck with a military precision that made the jingling¹⁰ chains and bits of silver on his enormous spurs ring again. He was followed by an ecclesiastic² of apparently¹¹ his own age, but smoothly¹² shaven, clad in a black silk sotana and sash, and wearing the old-fashioned oblong, curl-brimmed hat sacred to "Don Basilo," of the modern opera. Behind him appeared the

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