When they arrived at the Stranger’s Tower, as the Greeks had called the building inhabited by Ada, they found that she and Marianna had already arrived there, and returned to their former quarters, according to Nina’s advice, as if nothing had happened to disturb them. She had, indeed, seen them safe lodged there before she sought her husband; and she now returned to them by his directions, to take some rest, which she much required, while he occupied the lower and still unfurnished chamber as a sort of council-hall, where he summoned Vlacco and some of his chief officers to consult what, under the present circumstances, it would be necessary for them to do.
As soon as old Vlacco and one or two others had arrived, he sent to have all the prisoners brought before him, that he might examine them respecting their object in venturing on his island, and their motive for leaving it. His visit to the Ione must be remembered, and that he there only learned that her captain had gone on a secret expedition, and he naturally concluded that he was accompanied by his own crew. His surprise was, therefore, very great, when Captain Vassilato, Bowse, and the Maltese, Pietro, were dragged rudely into his presence.
“What!” he muttered, as he saw the honest skipper. “Have my people again done their work so clumsily, that another vessel has floated to bear evidence against me? It must be he, and yet he looks so unconscious of having seen me before, that I must be deceived. There were five prisoners,” he remarked, aloud. “Where are the other two?”
“We cannot find them, chief,” was the answer. “We have looked in every direction, we have inquired of all, but no one has seen them or heard of them.”
“How is this?” exclaimed Zappa. “I left one of them, whom I knew to be no other than the captain of an English ship of war, sent here to watch the Sea Hawk, wounded and dying in old Listi’s boat, with the stranger lady and her attendant watching him, and as they, I hear, have already returned here, I suppose they would not have deserted him. Let them and the Lady Nina be summoned.”
In two minutes the two ladies and Marianna stood before him; but he neither rose nor showed them any courtesy.
“Can you inform me, signora, where Captain Fleetwood is to be found?” he exclaimed, with vehemence, addressing Miss Garden, in Italian. “Ah, you thought I was so blind as not to recognise him; you thought I did not observe the fond affection with which you bent over him as he lay wounded in the boat; indeed, you fancied that we keep so careless a watch in this island, that any strangers may come without our discovering them; but let that hope desert you for the future, and now answer me truly, madam.”
This was the first intimation that Ada had received that the disguise of Fleetwood had been seen through, and horror at what the consequences might be almost made her sink fainting on the ground; but by a strenuous effort, she recovered sufficiently to answer with apparent calmness—
“The person, whom you state to be Captain Fleetwood, was removed from the boat to the hut of a fisherman on the beach, as he was in no condition to be carried up here.”
“By whom—by whom was he removed?” asked the pirate, impatiently. “You could not have carried him.”