[CHAPTER XIV.]
The stars were crowding fast into the clear sky, and the moon was shedding forth her pale rays, when Mr. Earnscliffe reached the boat. Such a scene must be witnessed to be understood. To those who have seen the Bay of Naples on such a night memory will hold up her mirror, and they will see again the dim outline of the gracefully-curving shore, Vesuvia's dark and awe-inspiring shadow, and the deep blue waters upon which the moonbeams glance like silvery darts; and to those who have not seen it imagination will paint a no less vivid picture—but to them is unknown the balmy air, the charm, the beauty of an Italian night, and nowhere, perhaps, as well as in Naples and Venice, is it so completely seen and felt in all its unrivalled beauty. It is lovely, too, in its inland scenes: how lovely those can truly say who have known what it is to stand upon a balcony at "the witching hour," and look down upon a woody dell with myriads of busy fire-flies gleaming through the dark foliage, every branch, every twig covered with those brilliant and living lamps,—'tis nature's illumination, and in what does she not excel?
O Italy! thy beauty, thy poetry, thy loving memories are surely more than adequate to counterbalance the many great but material disadvantages which one meets with in thee....
But we have drifted away from the subject of our chapter, and deserted Mr. Earnscliffe, to whom we must now return.
He got into the boat—the sails were filling, for with the fall of day the wind had veered round, and promised them a quiet and favourable passage—threw himself upon the cushions, and took off his hat, as if he felt that he could more thoroughly enjoy the lovely night when there was nothing between him and the starry world above. Paolo saw that he looked strangely pale, and asked the same question which his little daughter had done in the morning, "Is sua eccellenza ill?"
"Grazie, amico, sto benissimo," told a different tale from the listless abstracted one with which he replied to Anina. That smile, and a certain softness in the tone of Mr. Earnscliffe's voice, made Paolo feel that sua eccellenza came back a happier man than when he set out for Naples. And so he was, although pain and pleasure were closely mingled in his sensations; but, at least, the future was no longer quite a blank to him; there was something to hope for—something, as Mary Elton had said to him, worth struggling for. He did not consider himself in love with Flora Adair, but he felt that she did occupy his thoughts almost exclusively, that everything connected with her interested him deeply, and he could not help smiling as he remembered all the ingenious arguments which he made use of to account to himself for that interest. Then, too, came the remembrance of the delight which he felt when he heard that she had refused Mr. Lyne, and he murmured to himself, "Yes, I will go to Venice, try to meet the Adairs, and if——" Ah! what visions rose after that if?... They were like mental lullabies, and under their soft influence he fell asleep and dreamed.
He dreamed of winning Flora's love, of the happy life which was to begin for him with her at his side; ... but suddenly a change came over the picture—Mary Elton seemed to stand between him and Flora, with a countenance full of passionate anger and yet of triumph, as she cried out, "I warned you!"... He made a movement to clasp Flora, but she seemed to shrink away from him and fall. This startled and awoke him, but so real was the impression which the dream left upon his mind that he exclaimed in Italian, "Catch her, Paolo—she will be drowned!"
"What does sua eccellenza mean? There is nobody drowning."
"Thank God!" he muttered, with a long-drawn breath of relief as he reseated himself. Then he said to Paolo, "You see I have been dreaming, amico."