“I had hoped to have lived for you, Enrico,” replied Isabel, her head resting on her lover’s shoulder. “I can, at least, die with you.”
Dom Maxara entered the cabin, seating himself beside his daughter. Placing her hand in his, she repeated—
“We can at least die together.”
“There is still a little hope,” said the anxious father; “the breeze is freshening, and with it the sea is getting up, disturbing the schooner’s aim. The wind may yet save us. Should it fail us, there is one thing remaining.”
“And what is that, father?”
“As you said, to die together, Isabel, sooner than that a daughter of the Guzmans of Castillo should become the cast-off slave of a Malay pirate.”
The tears had been standing in Isabel’s eyes, and as she now turned them on her lover, there was a look of ineffable tenderness in the large black orbs.
“A strange meeting ours has been, Enrico; a strange life we have led together, living years in weeks; but you were quite as near death, my promised husband, when first we met, and yet you stand here by my side.”
“There is still hope, Isabel; every moment it increases with the rising sea,” replied Hughes.
“Hope or not,” continued the excited Isabel, speaking hysterically, “they shall see that the daughter of sunny Portugal knows how to die. We shall never tread our dear land again.”