The chamber that had been assigned to me—which I was glad to share with the good Dame Barbara—was long and narrow. There was a window at one end that gave upon the sea; and through the heavy barred grating, set strongly in the thick casement, I could look out upon the low sea-wall, and, beyond that, at the smooth bosom of the dreaming ocean, heaving softly in the quiet starlight, as though such a sorrow lay hidden in its deep heart as troubled even its sleep with sighs.
If I pressed my face close against the bars I could see, to the left of me, the ramparts of the castle, where my dear love was. The slow tears rose in my eyes as I thought that this night the same roof would not shelter us, nor would there be the same swaying deck beneath our feet.
While we had been together no very real sense of danger had oppressed me; but from the first hour of our parting my heart grew heavier with forebodings of the evil and sorrow which were yet to come.
CHAPTER VII.
At first all seemed to go well enough. The Governor's lady was fairly gracious to me; old Señor de Colis was profuse in his leering smiles and wordy compliments, none of which I could understand; I saw Mr. Rivers and Melinza from time to time, and they seemed upon good terms with each other: but I did not believe this state of affairs could last,—and I was right in my fears.
One night ('twas the twenty-second of June, and the weather was sultry and oppressive; the sea held its breath, and the round moon burned hot in the hazy sky) the evening meal was served in the little courtyard of the Governor's house, and both Mr. Rivers and Melinza were our guests.
This was not the first occasion on which we had all broken bread at the same board; but there was now an air of mockery in the civilities of Melinza,—he passed the salt to my betrothed with a glance of veiled hostility, and pledged him in a glass of wine with a smile that ill concealed the angry curl of his sullen red lip.
'Twas a strange meal; the memory of it is like a picture stamped upon my brain.