“Are my words frightful, that you pale at their sound?”
“I hope they were used rather in accident, than with their dreaded meaning. I would not have it said—no! ’tis but a chance that springs from some resemblance in your callings. One, like you, can never be the man whose name has grown into a proverb!”
“One like me, beautiful Alida, is much as fortune wills. Of what man, or of what name wouldst speak?”
“’Tis nothing,” returned la belle Barbérie, gazing unconsciously at the polished and graceful features of the stranger, longer than was wont in maiden. “Proceed with your explanation;—these are rich velvets!”
“They come of Venice, too; but commerce is like the favor which attends the rich, and the Queen of the Adriatic is already far on the decline. That which causes the increase of the husbandman, occasions the downfall of a city. The lagunes are filling with fat soil, and the keel of the trader is less frequent there than of old. Ages hence, the plow may trace furrows where the Bucentaur has floated! The outer India passage has changed the current of prosperity, which ever rushes in the widest and newest track. Nations might learn a moral, by studying the sleepy canals and instructive magnificence of that fallen town; but pride fattens on its own lazy recollections, to the last!—As I was saying, we rovers deal little in musty maxims, that are made by the great and prosperous at home, and are trumpeted abroad, in order that the weak and unhappy should be the more closely riveted in their fetters.”
“Methinks you push the principle further than is necessary, for one whose greatest offence against established usage is a little hazardous commerce. These are opinions, that might unsettle the world.”
“Rather settle it, by referring all to the rule of right. When governments shall lay their foundations in natural justice, when their object shall be to remove the temptations to err, instead of creating them, and when bodies of men shall feel and acknowledge the responsibilities of individuals—why, then the Water-Witch, herself, might become a revenue-cutter, and her owner an officer of the customs!”
The velvet fell from the hands of la belle Barbérie, and she arose from her seat with precipitation.
“Speak plainly,” said Alida with all her natural firmness. “With whom am I about to traffic?”
“An outcast of society—a man condemned in the opinions of the world—the outlaw—the flagrant wanderer of the ocean—the lawless ‘Skimmer of the Seas!’” cried a voice, at the open window.