“It is too true, then,” exclaimed the first, after they had examined the apartment, looking as if he could scarcely restrain his grief. “This is evidently a lady’s chamber, and furnished, too, with all the luxury and treasure the pirate would lavish on his wife. Yet it cannot be hers. I know her too well—gentle and affectionate as she is, she would die rather than submit to such degradation. But what is this?” he took up a book, which lay on the table.
It was one he had often seen in the hands of Ada Garden, and her name was on the title-page. Charles Fleetwood, for he it was who had come to rescue her he loved, as he discovered this fatal confirmation of his worst fears, covered his face with his hands, and groaned. But he quickly recovered himself.
“No, no—I will not believe it. The thought is too horrible—too dreadful. I wrong her to entertain it for an instant. Yet, who can be this lady the old pirate spoke of? He said she would soon be here. Would to heaven she were come?”
The whole party had just collected together in the lower story, when they heard the gate open, and, a female figure appeared at the entrance.
Captain Fleetwood’s heart beat audibly, for, during the first moment, he could not tell whether it might not be Ada Garden; but the next, a gleam of light, and to him it was one of sunshine, exhibited a graceful and beautiful person; but a stranger. In his satisfaction, he was very nearly forgetting himself, and rushing forward to inquire for Ada. She stopped to address the old pirate, who had opened the gate.
“You have treated these poor men with scant hospitality, thrusting them down here, wet and hungry,” she observed to him, in an angry tone. “Conduct them up to my room, and I will inquire whence they come, and how they happened to be cast on the shore. Send, also, for Signor Paolo, for some of them seem hurt, and may require his aid; and, good Vlacco, see that food be supplied to them, of the best the island affords, and let a chamber be prepared for them in the house, near to the room where my brother sleeps. We will, at least, endeavour to be hospitable to the few strangers who are ever likely to visit our shores.”
Nina ascended to her chamber, into which Vlacco directly afterwards ushered the Maltese seamen. She inclined her head in acknowledgment to the reverence they made her, and then ordered Vlacco to retire, and to fulfil her directions.
“Do any of you speak Italian?” she asked in that language.
“Si, signora, I do,” said Fleetwood, stepping forward. “I am also eager, in the name of my comrades, to thank you for your interference in our favour; nor are we at all assured, that without it, our lives would have been safe, had we fallen into the hands of some of those islanders.”
“As to that,” returned Nina, “I cannot say. They are rude men, and are little accustomed to encounter strangers. But I am glad to be of service to you, and will be of more, if you can point out the way.”