forgotten. He took his fowling-piece, and began to hunt over the island
with the air of a man who is fulfilling a duty, rather than enjoying a
pleasure; and at the end of a quarter of an hour he had killed a goat
and two kids. These animals, though wild and agile as chamois, were too
much like domestic goats, and Franz could not consider them as game.
Moreover, other ideas, much more enthralling, occupied his mind. Since,
the evening before, he had really been the hero of one of the tales of
the "Thousand and One Nights," and he was irresistibly attracted towards
the grotto. Then, in spite of the failure of his first search, he began
a second, after having told Gaetano to roast one of the two kids. The
second visit was a long one, and when he returned the kid was roasted
and the repast ready. Franz was sitting on the spot where he was on the
previous evening when his mysterious host had invited him to supper; and
he saw the little yacht, now like a sea-gull on the wave, continuing her
flight towards Corsica. "Why," he remarked to Gaetano, "you told me that
Signor Sinbad was going to Malaga, while it seems he is in the direction
of Porto-Vecchio."
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