"Well, wait--there upon the island; there you shall----"
A renewed and passionate 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 shore 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.
At one glance he saw their fearful position.
They could not be saved.
A plank in the bottom of the slightly-made boat had sprung; the water rushed rapidly through the leak. The boat sank deeper and deeper every moment.
He could not hope, with Camilla, to gain the nearest island or the shore by swimming. On the narrow point of the rock scarcely the feet of a sea-eagle could have found a moment's resting-place, and Rusticiana's gondola had only just pushed off from the land.