But how terrible was the yell which burst from his lips, when by the glare of a brilliant flash of lightning, he beheld Nisida cast herself over the side of the vessel!
For a single instant he fell back appalled, horror-struck; but at the next, he plunged with insensate fury after her. And the rage of the storm redoubled.
When the misty shades of morning cleared away, and the storm had passed, Nisida was seated alone upon the strand, having miraculously escaped that eternal night of death which leads to no dawn. But where was Stephano Verrina? She knew not; although she naturally conjectured, and even hoped, that he was numbered with the dead.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE ISLAND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA.
Fair and beauteous was the Mediterranean isle whereon the Lady Nisida had been thrown.
When the morning mists had dispersed, and the sunbeams tinged the ridges of the hills and the summits of the tallest trees, Nisida awoke as it were from the profound lethargic reverie in which she had been plunged for upward of an hour, since the moment when the billows had borne her safely to the shore.
The temperature of that island was warm and genial, for there eternal summer reigned, and thus, though her garments were still dripping wet, Nisida experienced no cold. She rose from the bank of sand whereon she had been seated, and cast anxious, rapid, and searching glances around her. Not a human being met her eyes; but in the woods that stretched, with emerald pride, almost down to the golden sands, the birds and insects—nature’s free commoners—sent forth the sounds of life and welcomed the advent of the morn with that music of the groves.
The scenery which now presented itself to the contemplation of Nisida was indescribably beautiful. Richly wooded hills rose towering above each other with amphitheatrical effect; and behind the verdant panorama were the blue outlines of pinnacles of naked rocks. But not a trace of the presence of human beings was to be seen—not a hamlet, nor a cottage, nor the slightest sign of agriculture! At a short distance lay a portion of the wreck of the corsair-ship. The fury of the tempest of the preceding night had thrown it so high upon the shoal whereon it had struck, and the sea was now comparatively so calm, that Nisida was enabled to approach close up to it. With little difficulty she succeeded in reaching the deck,—that deck whose elastic surface lately vibrated to the tread of many daring, desperate young men—but now desolate and broken in many parts.
The cabin which had been allotted to her, or rather to which she had been confined, was in the portion of the wreck that still remained; and there she found a change of raiment, which Stephano had provided ere the vessel left Leghorn. Carefully packing up these garments in as small and portable a compass as possible, she fastened the burden upon her shoulders by the means of a cord, and, quitting the vessel, conveyed it safe and dry to the shore.
Then she returned again to the wreck in search of provisions, considerable quantities of which she fortunately found to be uninjured by the water; and these she was enabled to transport to the strand by means of several journeys backward and forward between the shore and the wreck. The occupation was not only necessary in order to provide the wherewith to sustain life, but it also abstracted her thoughts from a too painful contemplation of her position. It was long past the hour of noon when she had completed her task; and the shore in the immediate vicinity of the wreck was piled with a miscellaneous assortment of objects—bags of provisions, weapons of defense, articles of the toilet, clothing, pieces of canvas, cordage, and carpenter’s tools. Then, wearied with her arduous toils, she laid aside her dripping garments, bathed her beauteous form in the sea, and attired herself in dry apparel.