Part 54 (2/2)

These encouraging words had their due effect; the crew, already beginning to weary, aroused themselves afresh, the raft glided on, her head turned off from the rocks; yet still she neared them, and the side almost touched the outer ones, when the voice of the chief was again heard.

”Hoist the sail, my men,” he exclaimed. ”Be quick about it, and we are safe.”

The sail was hoisted, and bulging out with the first breath of the wind aided to keep the raft from the threatened danger. Again the wind fell, and they once more glided towards the rock; but a stronger puff came, and they rapidly increased their distance, till Zappa was able to steer on a parallel line with the reef, and they shortly had the satisfaction of seeing the dangerous point far astern. In this manner the greater part of the voyage was accomplished, and the day drew on; but still they were at some distance from the land.

The breeze, however, continued, and there was now little or no prospect of their pa.s.sing the island, and drifting out to sea. They were about four miles off the nearest island, and were going at the rate of perhaps two knots an hour through the water, when, as Nina was watching the ever-changing countenance of the pirate, as troubled thoughts pa.s.sed through his mind, she saw him start, and shading his eyes with his hand, cast an anxious glance towards the west. Long he looked, and as he, at length, turned his face once more towards her, she observed a fierceness in his eye and a stern frown on his brow, which at once aroused all her fears.

”I see that something is again amiss,” she said, looking timidly up at him. ”Oh, tell me what it is has agitated you?”

”Look there,” he said. ”A cause sufficient to make many a bold man, circ.u.mstanced as I am, tremble,” he replied, in a slow, determined tone, pointing, as he spoke, towards the north-west. ”Do you see yonder stranger, which has just hove in sight?”

”I see the sails of a s.h.i.+p above the horizon. But what harm can she do to us?” said Nina. ”If she sees us, and takes us on board, she will carry us to some land, whence we may proceed to Italy.”

”You forget that, to the hunted pirate, all men are enemies,” answered Zappa, bitterly. ”I could not venture on board a merchant-vessel, without the risk of being recognised, and, if my eyes deceive me not, yonder craft is no peaceful trader, but rather a British s.h.i.+p of war.”

”Heaven forbid it,” exclaimed Nina. ”But should she be, still the raft is so low in the water, that, at the distance we are off from her, we surely shall scarcely be recognised.”

”I wish that I could think so,” said Zappa; ”but on board that craft there are numerous sharp eyes on the look out, and our sail may long since have been seen from her mast-heads. She is also, I well know, one of the very s.h.i.+ps sent in chase of the _Sea Hawk_, and will not allow us to pa.s.s unquestioned.”

”Even should she be an enemy, are we not so near the sh.o.r.e that you may easily escape thither?” asked Nina, who was unwilling to acknowledge, even to herself, the danger to which Zappa was exposed.

”She is standing this way, and, by the manner in which her sails rise from the water, she is making rapid progress towards us,” murmured the pirate, speaking to himself rather than answering Nina's question. ”Ah!

I know her now; and long ere we can reach the sh.o.r.e she will be upon us. Well, we will strive to the last. Fate may, for this once, favour us. The wind may fail, or, by chance, we may not be seen; and if, when I have done all that I can to escape, rather than be captured, to hang alongside those wretches I saw not long ago on the fortifications of Malta, I have but the brave man's last resource to fly to, and the wave on which I have so long loved to float shall be my grave.”

Ada Garden had heard the previous part of the conversation with feelings between hope and fear. She trusted that the s.h.i.+p in sight was a friend; and yet she could not tell what effect it might have on the pirates when they discovered that such was the case. She deeply regretted, also, the fate which she feared might await Zappa, were he captured, notwithstanding the efforts she purposed to make to preserve his life, more certainly for Nina's sake than for his own; yet she was grateful to him for the forbearance he had shown towards her.

It was an anxious time for her--indeed, the joy and satisfaction she would otherwise have felt at the thoughts of her own deliverance was much alloyed by grief for poor Nina, who, at the moment of realising her fondest hopes of reclaiming her husband, found them rudely torn from her.

The crew had not yet observed the stranger, as they were occupied at the oars, or tending the sail, and Zappa was unwilling to alarm them before it was necessary; for he knew their caitiff nature, and though ferocious enough when they were sure of victory, he could not now depend on their courage, and he thought that they were very likely, when they saw that all chance of escape was gone, to quit their oars, and refuse to exert themselves further.

On came the stranger till her hull rose out of the water, and the report of one of her guns was the first intimation the crew had of her vicinity. They all looked round with astonishment, not unmixed with terror; but the calm bearing of their chief rea.s.sured them.

”Bow on, my comrades,” he said. ”That s.h.i.+p will not fire at us, and in another short hour we may be among our friends on sh.o.r.e.”

The stranger was, as she drew near, seen to be a brig of war, and the ensign which blew out from her peak showed her to be British.

”I know her,” he muttered in Romaic. ”She is no other than the accursed _Ione_, which has already wrought me so much injury. To escape from her is hopeless, and naught remains for me but to execute my last resolve.

Paolo, come here.” He now spoke in Italian. ”You know well how to steer, so take the helm and keep the raft for yonder headland.”

Paolo came aft and took the pirate's place at the helm, who, putting his hand on his arm, continued in a whisper, ”Now show your manhood, for to you I commit the charge of those men. Save their lives, if you can; and you yourself, with the testimony your sister and yon fair girl can give, will run no hazard. Say that Zappa refused to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, and bravely met the fate he had awarded to so many.

Farewell.”

Whether the act of giving up the helm to Paolo, or the expression of the pirate's countenance, made Nina suspect his intentions, she herself could scarcely tell, but her eye was upon him, while her limbs shook with dread, and, just as he was about to take the fatal leap from the raft, she sprung up, and grasped him convulsively by the arm, while her brother seized him on the other side, so that, without running the risk of upsetting the raft, or dragging them both into the water, he could not execute his dreadful purpose.

”You shall not--you shall not!” exclaimed Nina, trembling in an agony of fear, and scarcely able to utter the words she wished to speak. ”Commit not so dire a crime, or fill the cup to the brim, and drag me with you.

In destroying yourself, you slay me likewise.”

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