As he thus thought, he saw, or thought he saw, a dark object at some short distance off on the sea. He strained his eyes, and, though long in doubt, at last assured himself it was a boat that had drifted from her moorings, for the rope that had fastened her still hung over the stern, and trailed in the sea. By the slightly moving flow of the tide towards shore she came gradually nearer, till at last he was able to reach her with the crook of his riding-whip, and draw her up to the steps. Her light paddle-like oars were on board; and M'Caskey stepped in, determined to make a patient and careful study of the place on its sea-front, and see, if he could, whether it were more of chateau or jail.
With noiseless motion he stole smoothly along, till he passed a little ruined bastion on a rocky point, and saw himself at the entrance of a small bay, at the extremity of which a blaze of light poured forth, and illuminated the sea for some distance. As he got nearer, he saw that the light came from three large windows that opened on a terrace, thickly studded with orange-trees, under the cover of which he could steal on unseen, and take an observation of all within; for that the room was inhabited was plain enough, one figure continuing to cross and recross the windows as M'Caskey drew nigh.
Stilly and softly, without a ripple behind him, he glided on till the light skiff stole under the overhanging boughs of a large acacia, over a branch of which he passed his rope to steady the boat, and then standing up he looked into the room, now so close as almost to startle him.
CHAPTER XLI. EAVESDROPPING
If M'Caskey was actually startled by the vicinity in which he suddenly found himself to the persons within the room, he was even more struck by the tone of the voice which now met his ear. It was Norman Maitland who spoke, and he recognized him at once. Pacing the large room in its length, he passed before the windows quite close to where M'Caskey stood,—so close, indeed, that he could mark the agitation on his features, and note the convulsive twitchings that shook his cheek.
The other occupant of the room was a lady; but M'Caskey could only see the heavy folds of her dark velvet dress as she sat apart, and so distant that he could not hear her voice.
“So, then, it comes to this!” said Maitland, stopping in his walk and facing where she sat: “I have made this wearisome journey for nothing! Would it not have been as easy to say he would not see me? It was no pleasure to me to travel some hundred miles and be told at the end of it I had come for nothing.”
She murmured something inaudible to M'Caskey, but to which Maitland quickly answered: “I know all that; but why not let me hear this from his own lips, and let him hear what I can reply to it? He will tell me of the vast sums I have squandered and the heavy debts I have contracted; and I would tell him that in following his rash counsels I have dissipated years that would have won me distinction in any land of Europe.”
Again she spoke; but before she uttered many words he broke suddenly in with, “No, no, no! ten thousand times no! I knew the monarchy was rotten—rotten to the very core; but I said, Better to die in the street à cheval than behind the arras on one's knees. Have it out with the scoundrels, and let the best man win,—that was the advice I gave. Ask Caraffa, ask Filangieri, ask Acton, if I did not always say, 'If the king is not ready to do as much for his crown as the humblest peasant would for his cabin, let him abdicate at once.'”