“There is,” she continued, “a poor sick youth in the town, the child of respectable parents in New Orleans; he desires to go home, if it be only to die there: and a nurse will take care of him on the passage, if you will let him go with you?”
“Assuredly I will,” said Ethelston; “and will take as much care of him as if he were my brother.”
“Nay,” said Nina, “they tell me he is ordered to be perfectly quiet, and no one attends him but the nurse; neither will he give any trouble, as the coxswain says there is a small cabin where he can remain alone and undisturbed.”
“You may depend,” said Ethelston, “that all your orders about him shall be faithfully performed; and I will see, if I live, that he reaches his home in safety.”
“He and his nurse will be on board before you,” said Nina; “and as soon as you reach the vessel, you have nothing to do but to escape as quick as you can. Now I must bid you farewell! I may not have spirits to see you again!” She held out her hand to him; it was cold as ice; her face was still half–averted, and her whole frame trembled violently.
Ethelston took the offered hand, and pressed it to his lips, saying, “A thousand, thousand thanks for all your kindness! If I reach home alive I will make your honoured father ample amends for the theft of his schooner; and if ever you have an opportunity to let me know that you are well and happy, do not forget that such news will always gladden my heart.” He turned to look at her as he went; he doubted whether the cold rigid apathy of her form and countenance was that of despair or of indifference; but he dared not trust himself longer in her presence; and as he left the room she sunk on the chair against which she had been leaning for support.
When Ethelston found himself alone, he collected his thoughts, and endeavoured in vain to account for the strange deportment of Nina in bidding him farewell. The coldness of her manner, the abrupt brevity of her parting address, had surprised him; and yet the tremor, the emotion, amounting almost to fainting, the forced tone of voice in which she had spoken, all forbad him to hope that she had overcome her unhappy passion; he was grieved that he had scarcely parted from her in kindness; and the pity with which he regarded her was, for the moment, almost akin to love.
Shaking off this temporary weakness, he employed himself forthwith in the preparations for his departure: among the first of which was a letter, which he wrote to Captain L’Estrange, and left upon his table. On the following day he never once saw Nina; but he heard from one of the slaves that she was confined to her room by severe headache.
The wind blew with unabated force, the evening was dark and lowering, as, at the appointed hour, Ethelston, accompanied by his faithful Cupid, left the house with noiseless step. They reached the boat without obstruction; pushed off, and in ten minutes were safe on deck: the coxswain whispered that all was ready; the boat was hoisted up, the anchor weighed, and the schooner was soon dashing the foam from her bows on the open sea.