When I returned to this world of misery, I found myself many leagues away at sea, chained to the deck of the renegade's ship, the Crescent; which stood towards the African coast, and, favoured by the land-breeze, was then leaving the Sicilian shores behind. Through an open port, I saw the last headland fading in the distance. The deck was strewn with the plunder of my villa: but I thanked Heaven that my friends had been left, and that I alone had been carried into slavery. Laura!—had she escaped, or was she too in the hands of barbarians—a slave, exposed to every indignity and horror? I trembled—my heart sickened: I gnashed my teeth, and sank upon the deck in a stupor, caused by rage and disappointment, mingled with love and fear for Laura.
From this state I was roused by being dragged along the deck by the villainous Carora, who flung me, while heavily ironed and unable to resist, down the companion-ladder with such force that I lay stunned and motionless. Oh, misery of miseries! in the cabin of the pirate was Laura Molina—the girl whom but yesterday I had so joyously and solemnly espoused at the altar of St. Sabina—whom I had sworn to love for ever,—struggling in the strong grasp of Petronio.
She yet wore her bridal dress: but her bloom, her jewels, and wreath were gone. A stranger could not have recognised the blushing bride of yesterday, in the pale but beautiful phantom of to-day! I would have rushed to embrace her, but Carora held my fetters.
"Paolo!—my husband!—save me! save me!" she cried wildly, stretching her arms towards me.
"Laura, to God alone——"
"Peace!" exclaimed Petronio, grasping a pistol. "Laura Molina, accept of my love, or I will blow the brains of your cavalier against the bulkhead!"
"Thy love!—O, horror!" she raised her eyes to Heaven.
"Woman! I am not in a humour for trifling. On the wide ocean, far from aid, you are completely in my power, and must address your supplications to me; for I tell you, not even heaven above, nor hell below the waters, can save you from me now! Decide—your Paolo, or me? A word may save him, or a word destroy!"
Levelling a pistol, he seemed more like a fiend than a human being: passion rendered his accents hoarse, and his visage black; his bulky frame seemed to dilate, and his breast to pant, while his eyes glared beneath their shaggy brows; and the knotted locks that fringed his shaven scalp twisted like the vipers of Lugano. His right hand was on the pistol-lock,—his left grasped the shrinking form of Laura.
"Signora!" he exclaimed, in a fierce, fond whisper, "think of the bright fortune I can offer thee in the sunny land of the Algerine!"