“The fact that you are yet safe,” Brandon would reply, “is enough for me. As long as I see you sitting there I can work.”
“But can I do nothing? It is hard for me to sit idle while you wear out your life.”
“You can sing,” said Brandon.
“What?”
“Langhetti’s song,” he said, and turned his face away.
She sang at once. Her tones rose in marvelous modulations; the words were not much, but the music with which she clothed them seemed again to utter forth that longing which Brandon had heard before.
Now, as they passed over the seas, Beatrice sang, and Brandon did not wish that this life should end. Through the days, as they sailed on, her voice arose expressive of every changeful feeling, now speaking of grief, now swelling in sweet strains of hope.
Day thus succeeded to day until the fourth night came, when the wind died out and a calm spread over the waters.
Brandon, who waked at about two in the morning so as to let Cato sleep, saw that the wind had ceased, and that another one of those treacherous calms had come. He at once put out the oars, and, directing Cato to sleep till he waked him, began to pull.
Beatrice remonstrated. “Do not,” said she, in an imploring tone. “You have already done too much. Why should you kill yourself?”