Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Silence reigned over the schooner. The pirates had retired to their hammocks, and all, except the men of the watch, were wrapped in sleep.
In his cabin, in the centre of the vessel, Lorenzo sat alone and pensive. The hour when he ought to have betaken himself to his berth had already long passed, but he still sat in his chair at the head of the table that stood in the middle of his cabin. He was still dressed in his uniform, nor were his arms even removed from the sash that bore them.
He sat gazing silently on the lamp which burnt suspended from the deck. One would have imagined he was in deep contemplation of that vessel, if the vagueness observable in the fixed gaze of his eye, did not too plainly tell that the subject of his thoughts, the object of his contemplation was not the thing which was at that moment before him, but some other which was in his mind.
The flying hours passed: Lorenzo was still sitting in his chair in the same absorbed contemplation. Now a placid smile would play over his features, now they would be locked in the fiercest sternness. There seemed to be in him at that moment a conflict of emotions deep and violent.
At last, as if he had taken a final resolution, “I shall do it!” he exclaimed. He then drew from a desk materials for writing and penned a letter.
When this was done, he took off his boots, put on his slippers, and enveloped himself in his thick boat cloak.
He then cautiously opened the door of his cabin, in which the light was carefully extinguished, and went out.
He proceeded down the long passage which led to the captain’s quarters, and in which opened a door that led to the cabins occupied by the priest and his beautiful ward.
Stealthily and quietly Lorenzo moved down the passage; a lamp faintly burnt at some distance from the entrance to the captain’s cabin, and by its dim light might be seen the dark outlines of the men who, at intermediate distances, guarded the corridor.