And where were the missing pair?
Vera had lingered about, fancying she was helping to pack the photographic apparatus, while the others dispersed. Presently, seeing no one near, Hubert Delrio said, in a gentle diffident voice, “It would be a great pleasure to me if I might ask you to listen to the verses on St. Cyriac and his mother that the design brought with it.”
“I should love it better than anything,” said Vera, highly flattered.
“If you would come down this way, there is a charming secluded cove, where we should be free from interruption.”
“How deliciously romantic! Quite stunning!” cried Vera, as her cavalier conducted her down a steep path along the side of the cliff to the stony beach, where a few red rocks had been manipulated into a tiny harbour, with a boathouse for the little skiff in which Captain Henderson was wont to go round to the marble works on the other side of the headland. The boat looked very inviting as it lay swinging gently in the sluggish waves in the advancing shade of the tall cliff; and Vera exclaimed with delight as she was assisted into it, and placed herself comfortably on the cushion, with one hand dabbling in the cool translucent wave. Hubert Delrio opened his manuscript and began to read his ballad, if so it was to be called, being the history of the little boy of four years old, who, being taken with his mother before the tribunal at Tarsus, was lifted on the proprætor’s knee, but struggled, crying out, “I am a Christian!” till the proprætor, in a rage, hurled him down. His skull was fractured on the marble pavement, and his mother gave thanks for his soul’s safety, when she too was sentenced to be beheaded. Great pains had been taken with the noble-minded tale; and the verses had considerable merit, more, perhaps, than Vera could appreciate. But to read such a production of his own, in such surroundings, to the auditor whom youthful fancy most preferred, was such luxury to both that it was no wonder that under the broad shady hat with the lily wreath she was nodding in the gentle breeze, the lapping of the waves, and the soft cadence of the poetry, till at an effective passage on the mother’s death, the poet looked up, expecting to receive a responsive glance from those blue eyes.
Not only were they hidden, but the cliff was farther off. The mooring rope and the stake were dragging behind in the water. The tide had turned, and the boat was already out of reach of the rock where it had been drawn up. His exclamation of dismay awoke Vera, who would have started up with a little shriek, but for his, “Don’t! Don’t! I’ll row back.”
But he was a landsman, whose only knowledge of the water was in an occasional bathe, or in a river steamer; and his first attempt at placing the oars in the rowlocks resulted in one falling overboard, while he helplessly grasped the other; and Vera screamed again.
“Don’t be frightened, my dear! Dearest, don’t! We must be seen. Some one will come out and help us.”
“Can’t you get on with one oar? They do in pictures.”
“Punting? Yes, but there must be a bottom. No, don’t move, whatever you do. There can’t be any danger. Fishermen must be about. Or we shall be seen from the cliffs.”