Volume I Part 20 (1/2)

She blushed and looked aside into the water.

”Oh, speak! Be frank in this happy hour.”

”I was thinking,” she said, her pretty head still averted, ”how delightful it must be to be steered through the heaving flood of life by a faithful and beloved hand, to whose guidance one could implicitly trust.”

”Oh, Camilla, even a barbarian may be trusted--”

”You are no barbarian! Whoever feels so tenderly, thinks so n.o.bly, so generously controls himself, and rewards great ingrat.i.tude with kindness, is no barbarian! He is as n.o.ble a man as ever Scipio was.”

The King ceased to row in his delight; the boat remained motionless.

”Camilla, am I dreaming? Did _you_ say that? and to me V 9

”More still, Athalaric! I beseech you to forgive that I have repulsed you so cruelly. Ah! it was from shame and fear.”

”Camilla, pearl of my soul----”

Camilla, who had her face turned towards the sh.o.r.e, suddenly cried out:

”What is that? They follow us. The court! the women! my mother!”

It was so. Rusticiana, aroused by the Prefect's terrible warning, had sought for her daughter in the garden. She could not find her. She hurried to the Temple of Venus. In vain. Looking around, she suddenly caught sight of the two--her child, alone with Athalaric--in the boat, far out upon the sea.

Greatly angered, she rushed to the marble table, where the slaves were just preparing the King's evening draught, sent them down the steps to unloose the gondola, won in this way an un.o.bserved moment near the table, and directly afterwards descended the steps with Daphnidion--whom her angry cry had awakened--to the boat.

At this moment the Prefect and his friends, whose walk had also led them to this place, approached from a thick taxus-path. Cethegus followed Rusticiana down the steps and gave her his hand to help her into the gondola.

”It is done!” she whispered to him, and the boat pushed off.

It was just then that the young pair became aware of the movement upon the beach. Camilla stood up; perhaps she suspected that the King would turn the boat, but he cried:

”No; they shall not rob me of this hour, the happiest of my life! I must sip still more of these sweet words. Oh, Camilla, you must tell me more; you must tell me all! Come, we will land upon that island, they may reach us there.”

And rowing rapidly, he pressed with all his might upon the oar, so that the boat flew forward as if winged.

”Will you not speak again?”

”Oh! my friend, my King--do not press me.”

He only looked into her lovely face, into her beaming eyes; he paid no more attention to his goal.

”Well, wait--there upon the island; there you shall----”

A renewed and pa.s.sionate effort, when all at once a dull crash was heard; the boat had struck, and drove, shaking violently, backwards.

”Oh, Heaven!” cried Camilla, springing up and looking towards the bow of the boat. A whole volume of water came foaming towards her. ”The boat has burst! we sink!” she cried, turning pale.

”Come here to me; let me see!” cried Athalaric, starting up. ”Ah! it is the 'Needles of the Amphitrites!' We are lost!”

The ”Needles of the Amphitrites”--we know that they could scarcely be seen from the terrace of the temple--were two narrow, sharp-pointed rocks, lying between the sh.o.r.e and the nearest lagoon island. They scarcely rose above the level of the water; with the slightest wind, the waves washed quite over them.

Athalaric knew the danger of the place, and had always easily avoided it; but this time he had only looked into Camilla's eyes.