"That is as thou wilt."
"But the eye of a young woman may be won—her heart may be touched—so that it shall be easy for fate to accomplish her designs. I am young; am indifferently well fashioned in person, and have but little reason to be ashamed of the face which God has given me. Beside, I have much skill in music, and can sing to the guitar as fairly as most of the young men of Venice. What if I were to find my way to the damsel—what if I play and sing beneath her father's palace? I have disguises, and am wont to practice in various garments; I can—"
The woman interrupted him.
"Thou mayest do as thou wilt. It is doubtless as indifferent to the fates what thou doest, as it will be to me. Thou hast seen what I have shown—I can no more. I am not permitted to counsel thee. I am but a voice; thou hast all that I can give thee."
The stranger lingered still, but the woman ceased to speak, and betrayed by her manner that she desired his departure. Thus seeing, he took a purse from his bosom and laid it before her. She did not seem to notice the action, nor did she again look up until he was gone. With the sound of his retreating footsteps, she put aside the brazen volume of strange characters which seemed her favorite study, and her lips slowly parted in soliloquy,
"Ay! thou exultest, fierce ruffian that thou art, in the assurance that fate yields herself to thy will! Thou shall, indeed, have the maiden in thy arms, but it shall profit thee nothing; and that single triumph shall exact from thee the last penalties which are sure to follow on the footsteps of a trade like thine. Thou thinkest that I know thee not, as if thy shallow masking could baffle eyes and art like mine; but I had not shown thee thus much, were I not in possession of yet further knowledge—did I not see that this lure was essential to embolden thee to thy own final overthrow. Alas! that in serving the cause of innocence, in saving the innocent from harm, we cannot make it safe in happiness. Poor Francesca, beloved of three, yet blest with neither! Thou shalt be wedded, yet be no bride; shall gain all that thy fond young heart craveth, yet gain nothing! Be spared the embraces of him thou loathest, yet rest in his arms whom thou hast most need to fear, and shalt be denied, even when most assured, the only embrace which might bring thee blessings! Happy at least that thy sorrows shall not last thee long—their very keenness and intensity being thy security from the misery which holds through years like mine!"
Let us leave the woman of mystery—let us once more change the scene. Now pass we to the pirate's domain at Istria, a region over which, at the period of our narrative, the control of Venice was feeble, exceedingly capricious, and subject to frequent vicissitudes. At this particular time, it was maintained by the fiercest band of pirates that ever swept the Mediterranean with their bloody prows.
CHAPTER IV.
It was midnight when the galley of the chief glided into the harbor of Istria. The challenge of the sentinel was answered from the vessel, and she took her place beside the shore, where two other galleys were at anchor. Suddenly her sails descended with a rattle; a voice hailed throughout the ship, was answered from stem to stern, and a deep silence followed. The fierce chief of the pirates, Pietro Barbaro, the fiercest, strongest, wisest, yet youngest of seven brothers, all devoted to the same fearful employment, strode in silence to his cabin. Here, throwing himself upon a couch, he prepared rather to rest his limbs than to sleep. He had thoughts to keep him wakeful. Wild hopes, and tenderer joys than his usual occupations offered, were gleaming before his fancy. The light burned dimly in his floating chamber, but the shapes of his imagination rose up before his mind's eye not the less vividly because of the obscurity in which he lay. Thus musing over expectations of most agreeable and exciting aspect, he finally lapsed away in sleep.
He was suddenly aroused from slumber by a rude hand that lay heavily on his shoulder.